His mind had not been in the right place recently. How could he be sure this was really Verimae in the middle of his apartment? The thought process refused to end, even after several minutes of continuous observation. There was something uncanny about seeing the faerie out of her domain.

  She was in a sun dress, white with flowery patterns. Verimae busied herself in the kitchen when he did not respond to her greetings. It was the first time he had seen her hold a kitchen utensil; he could tell from the way she turned it in her hand. She tiptoed to reach the highest shelf, taking a pack of noodles. She sat on a stool, read the instructions on the back, and got to work. All the while, he stood motionless, waiting for the vision to end. She would steal glances from time to time and giggle at a joke he was too far away to hear.

  She set a bowl on the dinner table, which was so spotless it caught his attention. It wasn’t just his kitchen— the entire apartment had been cleaned. All the fragments of the bottles he’d smashed, the party decorations, the ruined cake, gone.

  When he sat down to eat, she perched on the stool next to him, hands hidden away, waiting for him to take the first bite. She had none in front of her. Knowing the real Verimae had no need to eat convinced him that his current experience was close to reality. He tasted her noodles. They were delicious. She did nothing substandard. She really was here.

  “How?” he asked.

  “No map can prepare you for how big this city is,” she said. “I got lost so many times today.”

  “You came here on your own?”

  “Yes.”

  Jay frowned and checked behind the window near the door. “Did anyone see you leave?” he asked. “Did anyone see you come here?”

  “Yes,” she said happily. “Lots of people were watching me. I didn’t like it when they yelled at me, though. ‘Get off the road.’ ‘Watch where you’re going.’ It was… interesting.”

  A clueless foreign girl wandering the streets without shoes. Of course, people saw her.

  “Why did you come here?” he asked, returning to his dinner.

  The glow around her dimmed. “You speak like you don’t want me here.”

  “I do,” he said. “I came to look for you, but you weren’t there. A lot has been happening that I don’t understand. It’s not that I don’t want you here. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

  She reached over the table and placed a hand on his. He had been trembling until she calmed him.

  “Eat,” she said.

  He ate in silence.

  After he was done, she declared, “I will be taking my shower now. It shall be my first in ten years.” She showed her teeth, as if there were a joke somewhere. “It will be a long one.”

  He sat there, wondering why she was still standing with her teeth out.

  “I don’t understand how your shower works, Jay,” she said. “Please teach me.”

  Jay sat still on the edge of his bed while she showered. Life had been so much simpler just a week ago. Schemel had described Verimae as a threat to the Living World, a highly dangerous creature that must never be out in public. She only lived under the laws of the Faerie Protection Act. As far as he was concerned, she was not dangerous.

  To distract himself, he texted Ursel, asking about her father and what Tenrad was thinking.

  “It’s my first night at home. I should be the only person you talk to,” Verimae said, emerging from the bathroom. She had his towel around her, hair wet and dripping onto the carpet. If it had been anyone else, he would have lost his temper by now.

  She did something considerably worse a moment later. Verimae sat on the bed next to him, her hair dripping onto the sheets. He closed his eyes and let it slide.

  “You don’t have any other clothes with you,” said Jay. “I should go out and do some shopping.” He stood, padded his pockets, searching for his keys.

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  “Where would I keep my clothes?” she asked.

  “Where else? In my closet.”

  “I want my own closet.”

  That came out of nowhere. She had been acting a bit odd since her arrival, and he still couldn’t put a finger on what was wrong.

  “Fine,” he said cautiously. “We’ll make room for one.”

  “I want my own dressing mirror too,” she said, gliding over to the spot. Her fingers touched everything, setting things in disorder. She picked up his brush and ran it through her hair. All the broken follicles, knots, and loose strands tangled themselves in the bristles. He crushed his lips with his teeth. It didn’t matter. He would buy a new brush.

  She stopped brushing and began picking out strands from the bristles.

  “Your room is awfully small,” she said. “We should move to a bigger place. I want enough room for the three of us.”

  Three? Oh. Okay — she was pregnant. He wanted to sleep. Jay lay back in bed. It wasn’t long before the lights dimmed and she joined him. His bed had enough space for the two of them. She was greedy for him.

  Jac always told him never to sleep with a woman he could not imagine waking up to every day. Verimae wasn’t bad. No — what the hell was wrong with him? She was his dream girl.

  “I thought you’d be happy,” she whispered sometime in the night.

  “I lost my powers,” he said.

  “I’m glad. The life of a Gaverian is too dangerous. I don’t want our son to grow up never knowing who his father was.”

  A son. He was having a son.

  “If I die as a Gaverian, he would grow up proud of who I was. If I live as a nobody, he would never respect me.”

  “Is that how you feel?”

  “It’s what I believe.”

  “You can still be somebody,” she said. “A coach for an athlete, a fitness trainer, a movie star, a dentist. You don’t have to trade your life for glory.”

  None of those things would satisfy him as much as magic did. Never in a million years had he imagined this is how it would go — trapped by a woman and without a whole soul. He pushed her hair from his face; it was everywhere now, a blanket he could not peel off.

  Jay did not want children. He was far too young to raise one. This was his youth, the dawn of his prime. No one would steal it from him. When she slept, he crept out of bed, took his phone and car keys, and slipped into the night.

  A few calls later, he was at Flight Zone Four. Dust hid everything, blurring his already weakened vision. Tenrad was gearing up in a tent when Jay found him. The old man wore a Gaverian shirt with a violet shoulder pad on his left arm. The last person Jay had seen in that uniform was Votress — and he had died a horrible death in the UCL.

  “This is my mission,” Jay said. “Go home.”

  The older man ignored him, adjusting the buttons on his coat. He flexed his fingers, slung his ransack over his shoulder, and nodded to a standing officer. He brushed past Jay and followed the officer out of the tent.

  “Did you not hear me?” asked Jay, trailing after him.

  “You can come along if you want to,” said Tenrad. “I have no time to pacify children.”

  They sat side by side in the aircraft, both ready for combat. In no time at all, they had crossed the levithium wall on the eastern border, flying over the Ossen Sea and heading south.

  “What’s your plan?” asked Jay.

  “You came all this way without one?” snorted Tenrad.

  “I hadn’t gotten to that yet,” he grumbled. “You threw me off.”

  “Captain Sonata of the Third Alangre is an old friend of mine. I called in some favours, and he obliged. He set up a small naval blockade on the Marian Gulf.”

  The Third Alangre was still active. “Have you heard from the other captains?” Jay asked. “Do you know where they are?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  The firefly slowed, and the doors opened to reveal the dark sea below. The aircraft landed on the deck of a war vessel, thick and wide enough to accommodate two more fireflies. Soldiers on board wore raincoats, shielded from the light drizzle falling around them. Jay could barely focus on the voices saluting him, the men shaking his hand, and the officers’ commands nearby.

  The wind carried heat that twisted his stomach. The sea was restless. How did Tenrad look so calm and sturdy? Was he always like this before Frennie’s curse?

  Once Jay regained his composure, he joined the Captain and Tenrad at the edge of the deck, where they appeared to be holding a meeting with other senior officers. Their eyes were fixed on the coastline. Jay made his own observation: far out on the rowdy sea, he could make out vessels bobbing on the surface.

  From what the captain was saying, they had been observing the ships at Donna Maria for some time but had not yet figured out which belonged to Genevie. They doubted the sorceress would show herself.

  “She’s already here,” said Tenrad. “Her magic stains the air. Not to worry — she can sense mine as well. She knows her time has run out and will make a move, if not immediately, then within the hour.”

  “You would need my help,” said Jay. It felt as if the Gaverian, the captain, and the officers had all forgotten about him.

  “Respectfully, Master Arson, we have been preparing for this far longer than you can imagine,” Captain Sonata replied. “Genevie has been a bane to Henrikian pride for far longer than you have been alive. You do not have the capacity to handle her. This is Ren Gallant’s fight and his alone.”

  “Not to worry,” Tenrad said, placing a hand on the captain’s shoulder. “Jay won’t be much of a distraction. He lost his powers and is here to observe.”

  There was an initial shock, then relief as they realised he was useless. When the news spread across the six or seven vessels on the horizon, everyone talked about him. He may not be able to smell the stench of Genevie’s magic, but there was something fouler in the air: the odour of pity.

  Jay stood alone at the edge of the vessel, the stretch of ocean between him and the target. He crushed his fists and set his teeth, reeling in the salty wind. “I’ll kill her,” he mumbled. “I’ll kill the child. Give me back my powers.”