Evie
Kieran and I step outside Circe’s palace, and while a few of the animals linger near the garden walls, most have melted back into the forest. The night air is cooler out here, and he’s standing close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, burning hot like a furnace.
He’d hate knowing how much his body betrays him to me.
People fear Kieran because they see the steel, the violence, and the cold mask he wears like armor.
But my heat sensing always knows the truth.
A cold-blooded killer would run cold. Kieran burns hotter than anyone I’ve ever met, and I’ve never been scared of him because I know that beneath that steel is a man who feels everything far too much.
“We need a search plan,” Kieran says, bringing me back into focus.
“In a moment.” I take a deep breath, trying to center myself and stop cataloging his heat signature like research data. “First, what was your read on Circe when I asked about Oliver and Thad?”
Kieran considers the question with the same careful intensity he applies to weapon maintenance. “She was calm and unconcerned.”
“Exactly.” I nod. “She was unbothered. She didn’t deflect. If Oliver or Thad were here and she didn’t want us to find them, she would have been more evasive. Don’t you think?”
“You think she was telling the truth.”
I bite my lip, turning the evidence over in my mind. “I think that according to every text I’ve read about Circe, she’s protective of witches. If Oliver and Thad were here and needed help, she’d do everything she could to give them what they need, and she definitely wouldn’t keep him from me.”
Kieran’s eyes hold mine a beat longer than the question requires. “So you don’t think they’re on this island.”
“No.” My throat tightens. “I don’t.”
“Then there’s no need to search.”
“There is. Because if I don’t, I’ll never forgive myself, and the alternative—accepting that he vanished into thin air during that storm—is unthinkable.”
Kieran traces the hilt of his dagger with his thumb, like he always does when he’s thinking.
“That makes sense,” he finally says, and the lump in my throat shrinks.
“I’m going to try tracking his heat signature.” I center myself and close my eyes, reaching for my magic. “Aeaea is tied to the winds that guide souls. If Oliver passed through here, there might be residual heat in the air currents.”
Extending my awareness outward, I search for the familiar warmth of my brother’s fire. I scan everything—the wind rustling through the leaves, the trees standing sentinel around us, and all the spaces in between where a person could hide.
Nothing.
“What are you getting?” Kieran asks, surprisingly gentle.
I shake my head, refusing to open my eyes, because then he’ll see the tears threatening to form. “Nothing yet. But there’s another possibility.”
“Which is?”
I take a deep breath, open my eyes, and wipe off a single tear that escaped. If he notices, he says nothing.
“What if Circe transformed them into animals?” The words tumble out in a rush.
“According to Ovid’s accounts, witches have inherent magical resistance to her transformation magic.
But if I can get close enough to the animals, maybe I’ll be able to sense Oliver’s heat signature, regardless of his physical form. ”
Kieran reaches for my elbow, then pulls away before touching me. “Tell me where to start.”
We spend the next hour approaching every animal we can find.
The wolves allow me to get within a few feet before padding away. A family of foxes watches us from beneath a flowering bush. We track down a flock of songbirds, a pair of hawks, and an owl that watches us with too-knowing eyes.
There’s nothing.
Kieran’s hand closes around my wrist, his skin hot against mine. “It’s time to stop.”
“No.” I pull free, scanning the tree line for more animals. “There has to be something I’m missing.”
“You’ve checked every animal we’ve come across. You’ve searched the wind patterns. They’re not here.”
But I don’t stop. Instead, I push harder, reaching and searching, desperate for any trace of Oliver’s warmth.
“He’s not here.” The words come out broken. “He was never here.”
I lower myself to the ground and press my palms flat against the cool earth, as if the soil holds answers my magic can’t find and being closer to the island itself will reveal what I’m missing.
Kieran settles beside me, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him. He’s not touching me, but he’s there the way a sheathed blade is there—present, ready, and waiting for the moment it’s needed.
“When I was twelve,” I hear myself say, “Oliver taught me how to ride a bike.”
Kieran shifts slightly, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“It was summer. Eleanor was studying to get ahead before starting at Blaze, and Eric was preparing for his first Council presentation.” I dig my fingers into the dirt, as if it can keep me grounded.
“Oliver woke me up early and dragged me to the garage to give me a shiny new bike, and he spent the entire day running beside me until I figured it out.”
I pause, thinking. Why am I telling this story to Kieran Cross? He doesn’t care about when I learned to ride a bike. He probably mastered riding one at age five and equipped it with multiple ways to carry and conceal weapons before turning six.
But I can’t seem to stop.
“He skinned his knees worse than I did because he kept tripping over his feet trying to catch me when I wobbled.” A bitter laugh escapes my throat. “When I finally managed to ride all the way around the block by myself, he cheered so loud the neighbors complained.”
“He was a good brother,” Kieran says softly, as if he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing and upset me further.
“He was the best.”
Was. Past tense.
I didn’t mean to use past tense.
Kieran’s hand moves, settling on my back between my shoulder blades. The touch is light and barely there, but his heat calms me, just like it did the morning I woke up on his bed with his arms wrapped around me.
“You’re not in this alone,” he says, and the air between us is charged, like it was in the Fury Loop when he pinned me to the ground and counted to five.
One, two, three—
I look away first.
He withdraws his hand, the night air rushing into the space where his palm was, and I scrub at my face with my sleeve.
“I don’t know why I’m on the ground, as if the dirt might have answers to my problems.” I sniff, pretty sure my attempts at scrubbing off the dirt are making it worse.
And while the dirt isn’t helping anything… what grows from it here might. So, I grab onto that thought with both hands, because practical Evie is so much easier to be than the version sitting in the dirt telling Kieran Cross about her brother’s skinned knees.
“We should go to Circe’s herb garden,” I say, sitting straighter now that I have a concrete goal. “Her botanical specimens have properties that don’t exist anywhere else in the known magical world. If we’re sailing through monster-infested waters, those herbs could be invaluable.”
I push myself to my feet, brushing dirt from my clothes as I latch onto the practical task like a lifeline.
Kieran stands and walks by my side as we head back to the palace, his hand on the hilt of his dagger, ready to defend us if necessary.
As we walk, I keep talking.
“Just because Oliver’s not here doesn’t mean he’s not somewhere else in the Lost Islands.
There are dozens of documented locations in this region.
Calypso’s island of Ogygia. Aeolus’s floating isle.
The land of the Lotus Eaters. According to Strabo’s geographical surveys, the Lost Islands span an area roughly equivalent to—”
“Evie.”
“I know what you’re going to say.” I keep my eyes fixed on the path ahead. “The odds of Oliver washing up on another island are astronomical, and the currents in these waters are unpredictable at best.”
Kieran doesn’t confirm or deny. He just continues beside me, his footsteps silent on the packed earth.
I take that as permission to continue my theorizing.
“Astronomical odds aren’t zero odds.” I’m counting on my fingers now, a habit I’ve never been able to break.
“Factor one: Oliver’s a third-year with above-average magical capabilities.
Factor two: the storm that hit on Halloween night had unusual properties that may have created transportive currents. Factor three—”
“I’m not going to argue with you.”
I stop walking. “You’re not?”
“No.” His eyes meet mine. “Believing your brother’s out there keeps you moving forward. But don’t let it blind you to evidence that suggests otherwise.”
The heat signatures on the Crown. Two distinct patterns. No exit trails.
“I know what the evidence suggests.” My fingers curl into fists, since obviously I’m aware of the data I’ve collected. “But I won’t stop until I find proof I can’t argue with.”
His heat signature spikes, and he studies me the way he does a blade before deciding if it’s been sharpened enough.
“Your resolve is stronger than steel,” he finally says, continuing to watch me intensely, like he did when he shared a similar sentiment after I held my heat shield while we passed the sirens.
I can barely breathe as I try to process his words.
Because I just unraveled in front of this man.
I sat in the dirt and told him about bikes, skinned knees, and the brother I’m terrified I’ll never see again, and he didn’t try to fix me or rush me or look away.
Now he’s calling my stubbornness strength for the second time, and my eyes are burning again, because I spent eighteen years in a family of overachievers who didn’t let me feel what I was feeling without turning it into a lesson or a goal.
“I don’t feel like steel right now,” I admit, quieter than I meant to.
His hand lifts, the space between his palm and my shoulder humming with warmth. Then his fingers curl back, and he gives me a single nod.
“You’re closer to it than you think.”
We walk the rest of the way without speaking, but the silence feels lighter than before, as if I left some of the weight back in the dirt where I was sitting and he picked up part of it without telling me.
The garden comes into view a few minutes later, sprawling along the eastern wall of Circe’s palace.
Leaves in shades of silver and deep purple catch the moonlight, glowing from within.
Flowers I’ve never seen in any botanical text pulse with bioluminescent warmth that my scanning reads as alive, each bloom radiating its own tiny heat signature.
The vines twist along the walls in patterns too deliberate to be natural, curling into spirals and knots that look more like equations than overgrowth.
“Fascinating,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
Kieran’s lips twitch into what could almost be a smile. “Research mode activated?”
“More than activated. It’s in overdrive.” I crouch beside a row of violet flowers with four leaves and a bright pink center. “This garden contains botanical varieties that have been extinct in the mortal realm for centuries or longer. A researcher could spend years here cataloging and studying.”
Kieran motions to my bag. “Take that off, and I’ll gather what you need.”
My cheeks flush. Kieran Cross just looked at me and told me to take an item off my body. Albeit, it was just a bag, but my pulse doesn’t know the difference.
Taking a deep breath to get ahold of myself, I place the bag on the ground, unzip it, and we work our way through the garden systematically.
I identify plants based on their physical characteristics, and Kieran does the collecting.
He cuts each stem at the exact angle I specify, handles the more delicate specimens with a gentleness that looks foreign on his fingers, and wraps the cuttings in cloth without me having to ask.
“It’s full.” He does a final check of the bag’s interior and straightens. “Anything else to add?”
I take one last look at Circe’s garden, committing as much as I can to memory.
“I think we’re done here,” I finally say. “Let’s head back to the ship.”