“Talk to Ashur,” Jonas said. “Seek his guidance. Rekindle your friendship.”
“You mean you want me to spy on him for you.”
“Yes, exactly.”
Nic let out a long, shaky sigh.
Jonas frowned. “Unless there’s some reason why you’d rather keep avoiding him. Is there something I need to know?”
“No, no,” Nic said, perhaps a bit too quickly, Jonas thought. “I’ll go now, see what he’s up to. You can depend on me, Jonas. Whatever I have to do to ensure Cleo’s safety, I’ll do it.”
Jonas nodded. “Glad to hear it.”
He watched as Nic nodded and left, his steps tentative at first but growing more purposeful as he disappeared around a corner.
“Something’s up with those two,” said Felix, sidling up behind Jonas. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ll figure it out.”
The sour scent of seasickness hit Jonas like a slap, and instinctively he covered his nose with his sleeve and glared at his friend.
“You stink,” he said.
Felix shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Do you mean you’ll figure out what’s going on between Nic and Ashur?”
“Yeah.”
“Friendships can be confusing—especially when they involve royals.”
“Wouldn’t know. Never been friendly with a royal before.”
“What about Amara?” Jonas regretted his question the moment it left his lips. A stony look crept over Felix’s face, obliterating anything soft or lighthearted. “Apologies. Forget that I mentioned her.”
“Wish I could forget her.” A muscle in Felix’s right cheek twitched. He stroked his eye patch as his good eye glazed over with deep thoughtfulness.
It was that same unsettling, blank look again, one Jonas had seen several times on his friend’s face. It was the look Felix got just before he killed someone.
Olivia had healed Felix’s superficial wounds, but some injuries went deeper than skin and bone.
The young man Jonas had found in that dark dungeon was not the Felix he remembered. When he was rescued, there was relief in his gaze, but there was also a deep anguish there. And that anguish remained to this day.
“If you’re worried I still have a soft spot for her,” Felix finally said, “don’t be. I’ll be happy to tear her apart with my bare hands if I get the chance.”
Jonas put his hand on Felix’s shoulder. “You’ll get your vengeance.”
Felix laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, that’s the plan. If I can get her, then get this fire bastard too, well . . . that’s all I could hope for in what remains of this pathetic life of mine.”
“Kyan is dangerous.” Jonas hadn’t figured out how exactly to deal with the fire god yet. In fact, he had yet to fully come to terms with the idea of a Kindred transfigured into flesh and blood.
“Yeah? So am I.” Felix cracked his knuckles. “All I need is a few moments with him. If he looks like a man, walks and talks like a man, he might have a heart like a man that I can rip right out of his chest.”
“You’ll be killed before you have the chance to lay a finger on him.”
“Then I’ll be happy to meet up with Lys in the everafter much sooner than I thought.”
Jonas surprised himself by letting out a snort at that, which earned him a sharp, searing look from Felix. “She’d be surprised to know how much you cared about her.”
“I didn’t just care about Lys. I loved her.”
“Sure you did.” What happened to Lysandra was still an open wound to him. Even her name spoken by someone else made him flinch. “You barely knew her.”
“I know how I felt. You don’t believe me?”
Jonas knew it would be best not to lose his composure by engaging in an argument about Lys, but he feared he was too close to the edge to control himself. “If you really loved her, perhaps you should have been there to help protect her.”
Felix narrowed his eye, making his glare even more menacing. “You don’t want to start this with me right now.”
“Perhaps I do. After all, you suddenly claim that you were in love with her.” Jonas stared at him for a long, silent moment, his forehead growing hot. “But I’m the one who had to stand there and watch her die.”
“Yeah, you watched her die. If she’d been with me instead of you I know she’d still be alive.” Felix took one threatening step closer, and then Jonas saw his gaze go blank like the skilled assassin he was.
Jonas wasn’t afraid, though. This conversation had quickly made outrage flare up within him. “True love, huh? Were you thinking about Lys while bedding Amara? Or was it only after you heard she was dead?”
He saw Felix’s fist only after it had already connected with his nose. He heard a crunching sound, felt a wash of pain, and then a rush of hot blood trickling down his face.
“You know what the worst thing is? It’s that Lys didn’t love me, she loved you,” Felix snarled, “and you let her die, you useless shit.”
The splitting pain of his broken nose—of Felix’s accusations, of the memory of Lys’s final horrific moments—hit Jonas like a cannonball to his gut. Rather than drop to his knees in the face of this pain, he clenched his fists and threw a glare of sheer hatred at his accuser for making everything more painful than it already was.
All of a sudden, without Jonas making a single move, Felix gasped. His smug look vanished, and then—as if an invisible giant had scooped him up off the ship’s wooden deck and tossed him like a rag doll—he flew backward twenty paces. Felix had to grab onto the railing to keep from falling off the side of the ship and into the sea.