Jade
About an hour later, the Lotus Eaters shuffle out of the trees. Their arms are full of water bladders and flasks, their empty eyes fixed on us like we’re the most fascinating things they’ve seen in centuries.
Which, honestly, fair.
“That’s a lot of water,” I say, because apparently my brain has decided to state the obvious instead of processing the unsettling image of forty-two zombie-witches following Logan’s orders.
“It should be enough for two weeks,” Evie says. “Possibly more if we ration properly.”
My chest tightens, and I can barely look at her.
Because she doesn’t remember almost questioning Logan.
She doesn’t know I watched him make her, Kieran, and Callie forget that he was able to compel the Lotus Eaters.
She doesn’t know that I told Logan to lie about Oliver being on the boat, or that I was there when her brother died.
But Logan’s already wading to the beach, and I follow so I don’t have to look at Evie anymore.
The woman who spoke earlier holds out a water bladder. Up close, I can see that her eyes aren’t just empty. They’re peaceful, content in a way that makes my skin crawl.
“Stay,” she murmurs as I take the bladder from her hands. “You could be happy here. You could forget.”
For a split second, I want to. The memory of that golden haze, that warmth, that peace...
No. Stop it. I have people counting on me. A boyfriend who loves me and deserves more than the drugged out, lotus version of me. A goddess who thinks I’m worth something.
“Thanks for the water.” I back away, clutching the bladder to my chest. “But hard pass on the whole eternal bliss thing.”
The five of us form a chain to load the supplies. Me and Logan stay in the shallows, passing containers to Kieran on the boat, who stacks them against the hull. Evie and Callie help where they can, although Callie looks like a strong breeze might knock her over.
The Lotus Eaters watch the entire time, standing in the darkness and smiling those empty smiles.
Don’t look at them. Focus on the water. Don’t think about how close you came to being one of them.
“That’s the last of it.” Logan hands me the final flask, his fingers brushing mine. The touch grounds me, reminding me that I’m still here, still myself.
“Time to fish.” Kieran unsheathes one of his swords, his eyes flashing with excitement about stabbing things.
“We need light.” Logan raises his free hand, and orange flames bloom in his palm, casting a warm glow. The water turns from black to a greenish-blue, and I can see the sandy bottom now, along with tiny shadows darting beneath the surface.
Evie moves to the edge of the boat, her brow furrowed. “I can feel the fish,” she says. “Their signatures are cooler than the water around them, but they’re distinct.”
Thank the gods for Evie and her magical thermal vision, always three steps ahead of the rest of us.
“There.” She points at a spot about ten feet from the boat. “Maybe twenty fish, all clustered together.”
Kieran’s in the water before I can blink, his blade flashing in one hand, his fire glowing in the other. Within seconds, he’s showing off a twitching fish on the point of his sword.
“That’s disgusting,” I say.
“That’s dinner.” He tosses it onto the deck and goes back for more.
At the sight of his sword, I remember him calling his daggers back into his hands when we fought Scylla.
Part of me wants to call him out on it right now in front of everyone.
The other part knows how stressful it is to have magic you’re keeping secret. And after everything I went through with hiding my electricity from the entire academy, putting Kieran’s ability on blast before I have a chance to privately talk with him about it feels wrong.
Besides, I saw his face when those daggers flew back to him. He looked as shocked as I felt.
That said, I’ll still be ready to fry him if he tries anything against us.
Decision made, I grab my own dagger and wade in after him, keeping my fire hovering above my shoulder while I grip the blade with my free hand. The water’s cold, and I have no idea what I’m doing, but at least I can see now.
Just stab the fish, Jade. How hard can it be?
Very hard, it turns out. The fish are fast, and after five minutes of splashing around like an idiot, I’ve caught exactly nothing.
“Three feet to your left,” Evie calls out from the deck. “Aim lower than you think you need to.”
I adjust, stab, and meet resistance.
Holy shit. I got one.
The fish wiggles on my blade, triumph and guilt warring in my chest as I toss it onto the growing pile on the deck.
“You’re a natural.” Logan appears beside me, holding a few fish of his own, his fire casting dancing shadows across his face.
“I’m really not,” I say, but I’m grinning anyway, because apparently murder-stabbing sea creatures is the adrenaline rush I needed after almost losing my mind to magic fruit.
We fish for what feels like forever. Evie calls out locations, we stab, rinse, and repeat.
The pile on the deck grows. Our combined firelight turns the shallows into a glowing pool of orange and gold, and the Lotus Eaters silently observe, as if we’re an episode of a television show that they’re enjoying.
“We could try to save them.” The words come out before I can think them through. “We could... I don’t know, force them into the water? Drag them onto the boat? If the sea breaks the lotus effect...”
Kieran pauses mid-stab. “You want to rescue forty-two drugged witches.”
“They were like us once.” I gesture at the figures on the beach, still smiling and watching. “And now they’re just... trapped here forever.”
“The logistics are impossible,” he says. “We barely have enough food and water for five people. If we add forty-two more, we’ll starve before reaching the Pillars.”
“So we leave them?” My lungs tighten. “We sail away and pretend we didn’t see them?”
“We survive and complete our mission.” He aims his sword at where he was going for earlier, and when he brings it back up, the fish is stabbed straight through. “Trying to save them will kill us all.”
I want to insist there’s another way, but then I look at the pile of fish on our deck, barely enough for a few days.
I look at Callie, pale and shaky from hunger and dehydration.
I look at Evie, running on grief and determination.
And then I look at Logan, who needs all the food and water he can get to operate at peak time traveler capacity.
“Fine.” The word scrapes my throat. “But I hate it.”
We finish fishing in silence. When we’re done, the deck is covered in silvery bodies, some still twitching. Evie’s also directed us to shellfish clinging to the rocks near the shore. It’s not exactly the five-star seafood I’m used to from back home, but it’ll keep us alive.
“That’s enough,” Callie eventually says. “We need to go while the wind’s favorable.”
Logan nods and lets his fire die, plunging us back into moonlight and shadow.
I take one last look at the beach.
The woman who spoke to us first raises her hand in a slow wave, her pleasant smile never wavering.
“Goodbye,” she calls across the water. “Come back anytime. You’re always welcome.”
I turn away and help with the sails, because if I keep looking at these people, I’m going to dive back into the water and try to drag them all to freedom.
The boat catches the wind, we start to move, and the golden glow of the island shrinks behind us until it’s a distant shimmer on the dark horizon.
Evie stands up suddenly from where she’s been staring up at the stars, and we all look to her.
“I’m going below deck.” Her eyes are fixed on a point past all of us, focusing on a distance no one else can see. “I need to lie down.”
She turns and disappears through the hatch without saying another word, and the absence she leaves behind feels heavier than her presence.
Kieran grabs two water bladders and some of the fish Callie already cleaned and scaled. “I’ll make sure she eats,” he says, although he doesn’t look at any of us, as if admitting he cares about Evie Thorne’s wellbeing is a vulnerability he’s only willing to show in profile.
Then he follows Evie below deck, and I try very hard not to wonder what’s going on between the two of them. I don’t exactly have time to sit down with Evie for an evening of girl talk, and even if I did, I don’t think I could do it without drowning in guilt.
Callie leans against the mast, using it to stay vertical. “I should rest too.”
“Go.” I’m surprised by how gentle the word comes out. “You look like death.”
Her laugh is bitter. “Feel like it, too.”
She staggers over to the hatch, and for a second, I think she’s going to fall. But she catches herself on the railing, takes a breath, and disappears below.
Which leaves me and Logan on a boat surrounded by dark water, moving stars, and the promise of mythological nightmares.
The awareness of being alone with him settles over my skin like static.
“So.” I turn to face him, my arms crossed over my chest because I don’t know what else to do with them. “It’s just us now.”
“Just us.” His eyes meet mine, silver in the moonlight. “Are you okay?”
The question almost makes me laugh. But my throat’s too tight, my eyes are burning, and the only thing keeping me upright is the railing pressing into my lower back.
“We just escaped an island of zombie-witches after I nearly became one of them. My best friend is below deck crying over a brother she doesn’t know is dead.
We’re sailing toward a three-headed monster who guards the Pillars of Hercules, and he’ll probably try to kill us.
” I take a breath. “So, no. I’m not okay. I’m very much not okay.”
Logan comes over and takes me in his arms, his chest solid against my cheek. His heartbeat is steady and slow, and I focus on that instead of the spiral threatening to drag me under.
“I feel like a monster,” I say, softer now. “I told you to use Oliver to manipulate her, and you did, and now she’s down there thinking there’s hope when there isn’t.”
“The lie was necessary.” He pulls back just enough to look at me. “The world isn’t kind to people like us. We have to protect ourselves and our secrets, even when it feels wrong.”
I want to believe him. I want to let his certainty wash away the guilt that’s eating me alive.
“Is there a line you wouldn’t cross?” I ask instead.
One of his hands finds the chain around his neck, his fingers wrapping around the intertwined rings that hang there.
“No,” he says, simple and final. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe.”
I should be reassured. I should feel protected, loved, and cherished.
Instead, ice traces a line down my spine. Because his eyes have gone darker than devotion, and hungrier than love.
It’s the look of someone who wouldn’t just kill for me.
He’d enjoy it.
It should scare me. But my body doesn’t get the memo, because he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in the universe that matters, and my heart is pounding, and my skin is tingling, and—
He kisses me.
It’s fierce, desperate, and consuming, like he’s trying to burn the doubt out of me.
My electricity sparks, crackling across my skin, dancing between us in silver arcs. He shudders and drags me closer, his hands sliding into my hair, his tongue sweeping into my mouth with a possessiveness that makes my knees go weak.
This is insane. We’re on a boat. Everyone’s below deck. Anyone could come up at any moment.
But I don’t care.
My fingers curl into the front of his shirt, pulling him closer, needing more. He groans against my mouth, buries his face in my neck, and then—
He stops.
“We need to eat,” he says, as if he didn’t just pull away in the middle of a make out session that was definitely on its way to becoming more than just a make out session.
I stare at him, my lips swollen, my body screaming in protest. Every nerve ending I have is firing at full voltage, my skin’s buzzing where his hands were ten seconds ago, and my brain is trying to reroute from his tongue was just in my mouth to we’re discussing dinner.
“Are you serious right now?”
“We need to keep our strength up.”
“I can think of other ways to keep our strength up.” The words come out before I can stop them, and his jaw clenches, the muscle jumping in his cheek.
“Food first.” He moves to the pile of fish Callie cleaned, grabbing two of the smaller ones and a couple of shellfish. When he returns, he hands me a fish, holds up a free hand, and orange flames burst to life in his palm.
I take a step back. “What are you doing?”
“Cooking the fish. Unless you prefer it raw.”
He’s so serious that I can’t help but laugh.
“Hard pass on the sashimi.” I summon my own fire, the flames weaker than his but hot enough to do the job. “I’m adventurous, but not that adventurous.”
We sit a few feet away from each other, which feels ridiculous given that a few minutes ago we were all over each other, but apparently we’re pretending that didn’t happen.
The fish sizzles as I hold it over my flames, the smell of cooking meat replacing the salty ocean air, and we eat in the type of silence that makes my skin feel too tight and my blood run too hot.
Every time I glance at him, he’s already looking at me.
His gaze drops to my mouth, then away, like he’s annoyed at himself for looking.
The firelight catches the hollows of his cheekbones, the column of his throat, and the place where his pulse beats hard and visible beneath his jaw.
I watch him tear into the fish with his teeth, and my stomach drops in a way that has nothing to do with hunger.
When I’m done, I stretch my legs out in front of me, doing my absolute best to look casual.
“You said food first,” I remind him. “Then we’d see.”
His fire flickers. “I did say that.”
“We’ve eaten.”
“We have.”
“So...” I let the word hang between us. “What, exactly, are we seeing?”
He moves so he’s right in front of me, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to look at him.
“Someone could come up,” he says, low and strained, like he’s reminding himself as much as me.
“They won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Maybe I don’t.” I lean in, our faces only inches away from each other’s, my gaze locked on his. “But I don’t care.”