Page 134 of The Worst of Them

He locked the armoire. Locked it, like he didn’t trust her.

Was it because she’d killed the serpent? She’d acted on impulse, but that was no reason to take her knives—that was no reason to think she would be unsafe toward him or anyone else.

“Jack, I didn’t… I’m sorry for jumping.” She wasn’t sorry, but maybe it was what he wanted to hear. She had never particularly cared to indulge him in such ways, but with her spinning thoughts, suddenly she’d tell him anything. But that had never been their relationship, and she didn’t want it to be, so she buried the impulse and wrapped her arms around herself, pushing against the feeling of powerlessness. “I didn’t kiss that creature. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Darling.” Jack was before her again, his hands chaffing her arms. “What happened with the mermaid⁠—”

“I didn’t mean to,” she said, shocked as her voice came as a wail. She pressed her hands over her face as serpents and scales danced through her thoughts. She could simply take her knives, but reason and logic chased one another in circles, splashing uproariously through visions of sunlight over sparkling water.

“I’m so confused,” she whimpered. “My head is swimming.”

His sigh sounded so defeated that she looked up. “You’re getting sick,” he told her gently. “Siren sickness—it happens after a person kisses a mermaid. Victims fall under a sort of…spell, I suppose, and are driven to become one of them. It’s the nature of those creatures. They’re like vampires, unable to create more of themselves unless they turn humans.”

Her voice came as a scared sort of squeak. “Am I turning into a mermaid?”

“Not right now. But as the sickness comes, you’ll be hellbent to throw yourself into the sea. If you do, only then would it happen.” He rubbed her arm, stroked her cheek, ran his hand over her hair, trying to calm her. “I only took your knives to make it easier for myself to keep you here. I’ll give them back when you’re better, I swear.”

She shivered. “For how long?”

“I…” He pursed his lips, his hands still grazing over her sleeves. “I don’t know. I’ve only seen it once.”

“What happened?”

He frowned. “The man was gone the next morning.” With a fervent shake of his head, he assured her, “But that won’t happen to you, so long as you give me a fighting chance.”

She tried to smile, though now that he said it, all she could think was how elegant and soft and lovely it might be to twirl through cool, quiet waters. Biting her lip, she shook the thought loose.

No, she didn’t want the water.

Jack took her hand and pulled her toward the door. “We’ll go back outside. Light and warmth will help.”

She let him tug her toward the open air and the beautiful sea. But despite the sunlight on her skin, her confusion didn’t dissipate through the afternoon, as though bits of her awareness were slipping behind a locked gate, and she couldn’t follow.

The way the captain watched her made her all the more aware of it.

Jack kept her out of the shadows and shade, and he never left her side. No one else seemed aware of her sickness, and she hoped this was the worst it would get.

She could handle this.

But her thoughts kept slipping. She caught herself watching the sea, entranced by the way the light played over the ripples and waves, and each time she did, she’d force herself to turn away and tell herself she could fight it. And she could, because she’d handled worse. No mermaid or sickness would make her change her mind. She was stronger than most, and she’d be stronger than this too.

She would not fling herself in the water. No matter how much she wanted to, even if the ocean was vast and free and lovely. It wasn’t so hard to tamper those impulses, and it didn’t matter if the water was cool and welcoming.

It wasn’t tempting that she might swim where she wanted or make a home in the deep where she’d never be found, and nothing appealed to her about living in a vast, beautiful ocean rife with possibilities and creatures and places to explore, where nails and teeth could be her weapons. She’d find nothing in it to entice her, not even as the sun began to sink toward the sea.

Copson had once warned her that her desires would change, but she wouldn’t budge here. She’d show him that she was so staunch in her convictions and her choices that even a sickness of the mind wouldn’t sway her.

“Cecily, no.”

She blinked, only a few paces from the rail. The open ocean stretched toward the night crawling up the horizon, her body anchored in place only by Jack’s hand around her wrist. She peered back at him, the fading light turning him orange and red, like he was on fire—so bright that he was uncomfortable to look at.

“No,” he said again.

Her awareness flickered. In one second, she was looking at Jack. In the next, she was overcome by how lovely the ocean was, how nice it would be to have fins and to breathe.

The thought was so intoxicating it nearly brought her to her knees. She’d never feel suffocated again if she could sink beneath the water and breathe fully and freely. She thought of the merman who’d gifted her his breath when she was about to die, and how beautiful and wondrous it had been to fill her lungs when she’d nearly drowned.

She’d never have to drown again.