Then they brought another.

And another.

One by one, Athos and Astrid paraded the remains of Vor’s life before Holland, instructing him again and again to cut their throats. Every time, he tried to fight the order. Every time, he failed. Every time, he had to look them in their eyes and see the hatred, the betrayal, the anguished confusion before he cut them down.

The bodies piled. Athos watched. Astrid grinned.

Holland’s hand moved on its puppet string.

And his mind screamed until it finally lost its voice.

IV

Lila couldn’t sleep.

The fight kept spinning through her head, dark alleys and sharp knives, her heart racing until she was sure the sound would wake Kell. Halfway through the night she shoved up from the cot, crossed the tiny cabin in two short strides, and sank against the opposite wall, one blade resting on her knee, a small but familiar comfort.

It was late, or early, that dense dark time before the first shreds of day, and cold in the cabin—she pulled her coat down from its hook and shrugged it on, shoving her free hand in her pocket for warmth. Her fingers brushed stone, silver, silver, and she thought of Alucard’s words.

You’ll need a token to enter. Something valuable.

She searched her meager possessions for something precious enough to buy her entrance. There was the knife she’d taken from Fletcher, with its serrated blade and knuckled hilt, and then the one she’d won from Lenos, with its hidden catch that split one blade into two. There was the bloodstained shard of white marble that had once been part of Astrid Dane’s face. And last, a warm and constant weight in the bottom of her pocket, there was Barron’s timepiece. Her only tether to the world she’d left. The life she’d left. Lila knew, with bone-deep certainty, that the knives wouldn’t be enough. That left her key to White London, and her key to Grey. She closed her eyes, clutching the two tokens until it hurt, knowing which was useless, and which would buy her passage.

Behind her eyes, she saw Barron’s face the night she returned to the Stone’s Throw, the smoke from the burning ship still rising at her back. Heard her own voice offering the stolen watch up as payment. She felt the heavy warmth of his hand as he closed her fingers over the timepiece, told her to keep it. She’d left it behind, though, the night she followed Kell, more a token of gratitude than anything, the only good-bye she could manage. But the watch had come back to her at Holland’s hands, stained with Barron’s blood.

It was a part of her past now.

And holding on to it wouldn’t bring him back.

Lila returned the tokens to her coat and let her head fall back against the cabin wall.

On the cot, Kell shifted in his sleep.

Overhead, the muffled sound of someone walking on the deck.

The gentle slosh of the sea. The rock of the ship.

Her eyes were just drifting shut when she heard a short, pained gasp. She jerked forward, alert, but Kell was still asleep. It came again and she was on her feet, knife at the ready as she followed the sound across the narrow corridor to the cabin where they were keeping Holland.

He was on his back on the cot, not chained, not even guarded, and dreaming—badly, it seemed. His teeth were clenched, his chest rising and falling in a staccato way. His whole body shuddered, fingers digging into the thin blanket beneath him. His mouth opened and a breath hitched in his throat. The nightmare wracked him like a chill, but he never made a sound.

Lying there, trapped within his dreams, Holland looked … exposed.

Lila stood, watching. And then she felt herself step into the room.

The boards beneath her creaked, and Holland tensed in his sleep. Lila held her breath, hovering for an instant before she crossed the narrow space and reached out and—

Holland shot forward, his fingers vising around her wrist. Pain shot up Lila’s arm. There was no electricity, no magic, only skin on skin and the grind of bones.

His eyes were feverish as they found hers in the dark.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The words hissed out like wind through a crack.

Lila pulled free. “You were having a bad dream,” she snapped, rubbing her wrist. “I was going to wake you up.”

His eyes flicked to the knife in her other hand. She’d forgotten it was there. She forced herself to sheath it.

Now that he was awake, Holland’s face was a mask of calm, his stress betrayed only by the rivulet of sweat that slid down his temple, tracing a slow line along cheek and jaw. But his eyes followed her as she retreated to the doorway.

“What?” she said, crossing her arms. “Afraid I’ll kill you in your sleep?”

“No.”

Lila watched him. “I haven’t forgotten what you did.”

At that, Holland closed his eyes. “Neither have I.”

She hovered, unsure what to say, what to do, tethered by the inability to do either. She had a feeling Holland wasn’t trying to sleep, wasn’t trying to dismiss her, either. He was giving her a chance to attack him, testing her resolve not to do it.

It was tempting—and yet somehow it wasn’t, and that angered her more than anything. Lila huffed and turned to go.

“I did save your life,” he said softly.

She hesitated, turned back. “It was one time.”

The slight arching of one brow, the only movement in his face. “Tell me, Delilah, how many times will it take?”

She shook her head in disgust. “The man in the Stone’s Throw,” she said. “The one with the watch. The one whose throat you cut, he didn’t deserve to die.”