Chapter Forty-Eight
ELARA
Elara woke with a start to the unnerving feeling of someone watching her.
She sat up in bed, reaching for her dagger, then realized with a sinking sensation that it was gone.
‘Adrian has it,’ she cursed to herself with the understanding that he had never given it back. In her franticness to be healed in Altalune, it had slipped her mind.
Movement caught her eye just then, right by the porthole in her room, the gauze curtain fluttering, though the window couldn’t be opened.
As she sat up, a figure emerged in the doorway. Elara went to scream—until she recognized it as the strange girl who Adrian had claimed not to know.
Elara surreptitiously tried to reach for the pitcher of water next to her as she asked, ‘What the fuck are you doing in my bedroom?!’
‘I’m sorry,’ the girl whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. It’s just, you asked me my name the other day. And I couldn’t remember.’
‘Couldn’t remember?’ Elara asked, hand wrapping around the handle of the nearby water jug. Without Enzo close, she was feeling especially defensive.
‘Yes,’ the girl said quietly. ‘But today, I remembered who I was. My name is Annabel.’
Elara stilled. ‘What did you just say?’
‘I’m Annabel. I’m Adrian’s sister.’
Elara frowned, still gripping the water jug tightly. ‘But Adrian has just gone to save you. Unless—’
Oh gods. Her mind began to race. Adrian had led Enzo away.
Had lied to her. Had conjured this entire story about his sister to separate her and Enzo.
Was he after the reward? He was a pirate, after all.
It must have all been a lie: the illness, the quest to Altalune.
She stumbled up, pulling a robe around her.
Annabel frowned. ‘Why would he save me? I—’ She coughed and, to Elara’s horror, black water, exactly as Adrian had described, began dripping down her gown like blood.