Magnus offers me a hand as I climb up the gangplank and onto the ship. It's eerily empty, at least compared to the last time I saw it. I glance around at the other ships rocking in the shallow waters. None of them have people abroad. They must've gone into the city for the night.

By now, it's a gray dusk. The sun has disappeared behind the horizon, and his sleepy light illuminates the water and sand. Gulls flying overhead are slivers of black against a pale blue and pink sky peppered with white puffs of clouds. Eero's ship smells like salt, woodstain, sand, and oil. I take a slow, deep breath and look around for the prince.

I find him leaning against the mainmast, gazing out at the infinite sea. His arms are crossed over his chest, and he has his head propped back against the wood. My footsteps must give me away because he turns his head slightly to look at me.

"Did you get everything you needed?" he asks, pushing off his prop.

I wish he hadn't seen me yet. Eero's fun to observe when he doesn't know you're watching. The faces he makes, like when he furrows his brows in concentration during training or when his tongue sticks out slightly as he sharpens a sword, are better entertainment than the books in my grotto.

I like looking at him; that much has always been true. Even when I despised him, thought him nothing more than a monstrous human, his attractiveness couldn't be denied.

But now, I also like seeing him, and that's the scariest revelation.

"I did," I say with a nod. "And I got us some food. Since we're missing supper."

Eero returns my nod with one of his own and smiles softly. The expression doesn't quite reach his eyes, though. Without asking permission, I set his bag down and roll two short barrels over to him. Eero fetches one of the larger ones to serve as a table, and I lay the food out for us.

"You didn't have to spend your money on me," Eero says tiredly. "I would have eaten when we got back."

"And annoy Madam Amaia when you called for a late supper?" I tease. "No, thank you."

I expected him to laugh at that. To smile. Something. Anything, really. But he just nods and puts one of the fish filets into his mouth. I watch him chew, watch how he never looks at me, how he keeps his eyes on the water. He's not even looking at that, though. His mind is somewhere else as he disassociates, blankly staring.

His worry is contagious. I eat a few of the strawberries, but my stomach turns inside out with concern. Is he going to confront me? Blame me for the fish shortage? For Papa's obvious attacks?

Am I really to blame?

I don't know.

Maybe I should have told Papa the plan. Maybe I should have left a note. Maybe I shouldn't have gone to Zula in the first place.

Maybe, maybe, maybe...

So many unknowns and open-ended situations.

I'm here, and I've obviously created an issue. This one can be solved, though. It's not a blood contract with a warlock. I came here to save my people. Now Eero's are intertwined with mine, two threads weaved together. I can unravel this mess. I have to.

"Who are you?" Eero suddenly asks, shattering the silence with his sharp question.

I glance up from my food. "What—what do you mean?"

His hands fall into his lap. "I know what you are, Ari. I've known that from the first time I saw you in the palace, at the bottom of that staircase. Did you honestly think I wouldn't recognize you?"

Panic swells in my chest. Here comes the ax, straight towards my throat.

"There's no way in the All Hells I could have forgotten those eyes," he continues. "They remind me of—"

I cut him off. "The Valley of Hillde."

His face softens slightly. "So you read the book." He pauses, face tightening again before he continues. "My mother used to take me there when I was little. We'd roll down the hills, pretend we were explorers and..." His voice trails off, thick with tears.

Please don't cry on me. I can't handle that.

Eero clears his throat and says, "I know you're a mermaid. That's obvious. But who exactly are you?"

I open and close my mouth, trying to find the right way to phrase it. Lying to him isn't an option at this point. I can't keep it up. Don't know why I thought I could in the first place. I was never a good liar.

"Arielle," I finally admit. "My full name is Arielle. I'm the Crown princess of Vandya, daughter of King Triton."

Eero sighs and slams a fist on the barrel. The sound of its impact echoes across the empty ship. "Forbandet!" He runs a hand through his hair before asking, calmly, "Did you tell your father you were coming here?"

My shoulders sag. "No," I whisper.

Eero's hands tighten into fists. "Well, that was stupid," he hisses.

Like someone's hit a flint, the fire inside me roars back to life.

"Excuse me? Did you just call me stupid?"

"No," Eero says. "I called what you did stupid. Not you."

"It's the same thing!" I snap, slamming my hand against the barrel. "I did what I had to do, and you of all people should understand that."

"But look where you've gotten us! My people are going to starve because of you. My father's going to start a war—because of you!"

I scoff. "Because of me? I'm not keeping the fish from you, Eero. This isn't my doing." Even as the words leave my mouth, I know they're not true. That is my fault. I'll never admit it, though. "And I came to stop the war, not start it! This isn't my fault."

He stands up suddenly, towering over me with rage. His frame's so large that it blocks out most of the sky. "Yes, it is," he says in a voice darker than I've ever heard from him. I refuse to fold under him, though. "If you didn't come to instigate something, why did you come to Anjord?"

"That's my business," I snap. A childish response, I know, but I can't just admit that I came here to kill him.

"No, it's our business."

I roll my eyes. "I'm allowed to keep secrets, your majesty."

He winces at my use of his title. "Not around me, you aren't. You work for me now. Like it or not, you're here and the ocean's there. This—" He draws a giant circle between us. "This isn't your territory. It's mine. So, if I say no secrets, it means no secrets."

I launch myself to my feet and glare up at him, quivering from the rage coursing through my body.

The audacity of him.

The nerve.

"Don't you dare treat me like some hired servant," I growl.

He seems to weigh the words before he says them, contemplating if they're worth letting out. Finally, his eyes narrow and he hisses, "Isn't that what you are now, princess?"

Before I even realize what I'm doing, I pull a fist back and punch him square in the nose. His head snaps back with a sickening crunch, and the barrel between us falls over. Food scatters everywhere.

Eero recovers quickly, intercepting my hand as I go for another hit. His hands are wet with blood, though, so I'm able to slip out easily. As I rain punches over his chest and arms, he tries to block, backing me across the deck.

"How—" Punch. "Dare—" Punch. "You! I am a princess! Not a servant!"

Eero grabs one of my fists and fists it over my shoulder. The tension on my tricep causes me to cry out, but he doesn't relent.

"Stop," he growls as I start to kick at him.

"No!"

"Ari, stop!"

"I said, no!"

He lifts his other hand and captures my free one in his palm. Blinded with anger, I throw my body at him instead, trying to knock him off balance. It doesn't work, of course; he's too big. So, I push a bit of magic into my movements. Even then, he doesn't budge.

His mouth is moving, but I can't hear words. His audacity must be blocking my ears.

Desperate, I pull forward every bit of magic I have in me and yank the ocean towards us. The water behind us responds instantly. A spout emerges from the shallows and slams into Eero. It knocks him across the deck, and he hits the opposite railing.

As Eero sinks onto his knees, gasping for breath, the water falls flat between us. I lean forward and prop my hands on my knees. My entire body trembles from the effort, the emotion, and the sudden onslaught of magic. Every inch of me burns fire-hot. Golden tendrils of divination hang in the air around me.

But Eero never takes his eyes off me. Even as he pushes himself back onto his feet and walks over to me, one hand extended defensively. His eyes shine with a mixture of amazement and disbelief.

I won't be able to use any more magic. Not like this. So I slide my dagger out of its holster and aim it directly at him. Eero freezes.

"Listen to me, Ari," he says softly, calmly. "I didn't mean that."

My voice shakes as I whisper, "I'm not your servant."

"I know." He takes another careful step forward. "I was angry. I wasn't thinking straight."

I lower the blade just a little.

"Come on, rød fisk. You know that's not what I think about you."

But the truth is, I don't know what he thinks of me. He's nice one second, mean the next. Strict one second, laughing the next. We're joking around, and then he's lost in his own brooding. Are we friends? Is he just the son of my enemy? I have no idea if there's even a difference between those two!

I meet his eyes, and a bit of the rage slips away. The magic in my chest flares weakly to life.

Absolutely not, Divine. I can't do this.

Can't have feelings for him.

Can't complicate things.

I'm supposed to save my people and go home.

I refuse to be some girl in a tragic song for future merfolk to romanticize.

Eero takes a few more steps forward, closing the distance between us. His massive hands come down to frame my face, and the dagger in my hand falls limply to my side.

"Du betyder for meget for mig," he whispers, resting his forehead against mine. His skin is grainy from the sand, but he smells like the palace—like Amaia's lye soap and the heady smoke of a wood-fueled fireplace. The calluses on his hands grind against my cheeks. The way the Anjordian slips off his tongue like water off a stone, natural and easy, shaves away what's left of my anger. His words pool up in my stomach and wake up the jellyfish.

"Say whatever you want. I'm still mad at you," I whisper, trying to pull away from him.

But he won't budge. His eyes are closed as he holds our heads together. Warm breath falls against my face. Soft inhales steal my own, and they mix in the heavy air between us. I count the individual lashes that rest against his cheeks, watch a droplet of water as it runs down the side of his red nose. There's a smear of blood across his cheek, a small cut in his lip, grains of sand in his eyebrows. Water drips from his curls, landing on my lips. I lick them off and sigh.

"Be mad at me," he finally says. His voice is so tiny that I'd think it wasn't his if I wasn't watching his lips move. "I deserve it."

As I watch the emotion shift in his face—the anger, the regret, the worry—I wrestle with my own thoughts. I want to push away. To put distance between us. He's too close; I'm too hot. The magic is too strong, and I'm so, so weak.

How did we even get here?

I stare at his lips, at the small flecks of dried salt between the cracks, at the moisture line where his tongue once sat. They look soft, welcoming... My body, my magic, my mind—it all feels like it's being drawn into his gravity, into his arms, into him. I press forward a bit, closing the distance between us so that I can taste the tart strawberry on his breath.

His hands run down my face, over my shoulders, come to rest on the small of my back, and he pulls me in. My chest is flush against his, muscle against my softness. For the second time today, his pectorals press against me through his shirt.

I want to push away.

I swear, I do.

But he stares down at me, an ocean in each eye, and I can't do it.

I can't stop it.

One of his hands reaches up and tangles in my hair, right at the base of my head. He tilts my face towards him, angles his mouth into mine. His lips graze mine; the breath rushes out of me in tense anticipation.

This can't happen. I cannot let this happen. But how am I supposed to stop a Divine force?

"I came here to kill you," I whisper suddenly, panicking. The words fall sharply between us as my lips brush his.

Eero stutters for a moment. His grip on me loosens, and I sink back down onto the deck. For a moment, it feels like I'm falling from a great height. My stomach bottoms out, and all I want to do is reach up and latch onto him again.

With one hand still on my neck and the other on my back, Eero opens his eyes and says, "What did you just say?"

I swallow. "You asked me why I came to Anjord. I came to kill you."