When Archer woke, the first thing he did was laugh.

He'd brought his finger up to his face to brush away his hair, only to find it bandaged already. There was also a note written on the white: asshole.

So the first thing he did was laugh, because he'd always liked Miller and her passive-aggressive tendencies.

The second thing he did was lie back down in the cell, put his feet up, and think. The cells around him were floating in at least two inches of bloody water, but he still laid down. His head hurt somewhere—he'd been knocked unconscious, perhaps hours ago, perhaps days ago. Time passed differently to him. Sometimes it swam by quickly, other times it crawled by as slow as the bugs on the bars.

Silta was a quiet woman, but since she had to trek through water from the stairs to his cell, he heard her coming. Why she was coming down here, he wasn't sure. He'd been wronged, but in her eyes, he'd put a knife through her, killed her lover, stole her crown, and then beat her for retaliating. He hadn't made his mind up on who was in the right; he just knew he didn't want to be the kind of person to do what he did regardless of what had been done to him.

He didn't look up at her for a moment, thinking of what to say to her. He couldn't look yet, so he kept his eyes on the ceiling and said, "I miss my mother."

"You never knew your mother," she replied, sitting down outside his cell.

Archer still didn't have the strength to look at her. "It's more that I miss the concept of her." He ran his fingers through the red water. "I feel like if I had someone in the back of my mind, giving me guidance, then I wouldn't so confused."

"I had one of those," she said. "It didn't really help."

Archer turned his head finally. She was unrecognizable, her face coloured nearly every place she had skin. The swelling was gone, making him think at least two days had passed, but the bruises were in full swing, crawling over her neck and down the lines of her face.

She leaned forward and handed him something through the bars, and he took it. It was the key to his cell. He covered it with his hand but didn't use it.

"I still love you, Kingsley," she said.

Silence followed her admission for a long moment. It was everything he'd ever wanted to hear, but it didn't really feel right to hear it now. In fact, it felt so much worse to have hurt someone that loved him. Didn't that make it so much worse?

"I thought I could will you out of existence after what you did. I thought I could watch you with Jeanne, watch you fall apart like that, and I wouldn't feel a thing." She looked towards the stairs, blinking a few times. "But I've never been as cold as I want to be."

Archer kept his eyes on the metal bars, the algae creeping up the sides. "I can't believe you let this happen," he said.

She was still for a moment before she spoke again, her words slow and methodical, "Archer, love, I know I've always been the one to keep it to myself, but I need to know. It changes everything."

"Does it?" he replied. "Would you suddenly be better to me?"

"That's not why I'm asking. I've never needed to ask before because I've always been able to tell, but I can't tell anymore—I can't tell anything. Everything feels fake or real or some twist of both. I have no reality, no stability, and I need you to tell me if this is real. If I'm reading you right or if I'm reading you wrong."

"What do you think you're reading?" he asked.

"I think you're still in love with me. I think you feel awful for what you said to me. I think you wish you could take it all back. I think you hate that you feel that way. I think you want to hate me, to pull away and go on with your life, but I don't think you can."

Archer glanced over at her again. "I guess you still have it," he said.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and for a minute, they were silent again.

"Is this what it's going to be like?" he asked. "Revenge, then more revenge? I hurt you, you hurt me, I hurt you again. Does it just go on forever?"

"Not if you realize that I'm still the more wronged party," she said.

Archer nodded. "So we're back to that. We're back to thinking that killing Bardarian was worse than bringing Jeanne back from the dead—"

"No, love. I'm not talking about Jeanne or Bardarian. I'm talking about you and me in a throne room. I'm talking about the knife."

"That hurt me just as much as it did you," he snapped. "I suffered through that and after that just as much as you did."

"Okay, love. Then I say it's uneven, and you say it's uneven. So we'll cancel it out and call it even."

"And go back to what?" he asked. "I come back on board as strategist? I spend the rest of my life getting pushed around by you?"

"That's not what I'm thinking about," she said. "I'm thinking about this game I'm losing. There's too much in my head, all the time. I don't know when time is moving and when it's not. I need help."

"I can help," Archer said, sitting up.

She took a deep breath. "I have these dreams—or maybe they're premonitions, I'm not sure. I've had them for years, sporadically, but they're picking up again."

"When did they start?"

"Eight years ago. The first night with Everson."

Archer rolled his eyes.

She waved her hand, but it wasn't lighthearted or unbothered. "Yes, Archer. I've slept with everyone. Trust me, love, you told me that a thousand times during your breakdown."

Archer lowered his chin slightly. "That's not what I meant." Even though it was, exactly what he'd meant.

"It's the way I was raised, Kingsley," she said, not buying his deflection. "It's means something to you. For me, it was the only way I went up in the world before I had a name."

Archer sighed. "So the dreams. You think they correspond with Everson?"

"I'm pretty sure they come from Everson. The more aggressive he is with you, the worse you get them."

"Why would he be aggressive with you?" he asked. "Sounds to me like he was quite fond of you."

She shifted slightly, the water dripping behind her. "I had this obsession with authority back then," she said. "I was constantly undermined and undervalued, and the only time I felt some semblance of control was when I got someone with power to pay attention to me. The surer of themselves those people were, the less my skill bothered them, and the less they had to prove. Bardarian had his confidence issues, but he never used me to compensate for them. He'd hit me back if I hit him first, but he wouldn't dream of pushing me around at night. Adrian, though—he did it all the time."

"Hold on," Archer said. "You mean—"

"Not exactly," she said. "I didn't need to be forced, but he constantly acted like I did. It was very unsettling dynamic with him; I made him feel like a lesser man, so he made me bleed and bruise under the disguise of romance. But there were some women he did force."

Something ticked in Archer's head. "Lyra."

She nodded slowly. "Yes."

Archer sighed. Lyra Tailsley was not allowed aboard the Reprisal.

"So the more aggressive he is, the worse the dreams get?"

"Something like that. Lyra's are probably the worst, then mine. Bardarian got them pretty bad, too, after the mutiny thing. I have no doubt that Alli gets them, and I'd be surprised if you've never got one after the Corpher situation."

Archer blinked. "I did have one. About Jeanne. A few days later she showed up."

She nodded. "They can resemble summaries of your choices, paths you wish you went down, things like that. For me, they're always similar: I just see this chessboard, these black eyes, Myria's chest. Bardarian's always there, but he never knows who I am. I tell him my name, tell him who I was to him, but he never gets it, like he has no memory of it. And there's this phrase—they don't come back the same. I keep hearing it everywhere."

"You think Everson's trying to bring Bardarian back?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. Setting aside how much he hated Vallin, it just wouldn't be manageable. He found Jeanne's heart because he was following the Avourienne, collecting the bodies we threw over, but I left the ballroom seconds before that place was sky-high; Bardarian's heart is gone."

Archer leaned forward, intrigued by his own confusion. "And that chessboard? You don't know what his next move is?"

She frowned a little. "I remember telling Alli that I was in checkmate, and the only move I had left was a block. I might've said more, but I can't recall it. I don't know why I said it, but I know that when I said it, I could see the whole picture. I knew exactly what was going to happen, but I don't anymore."

"Block," Archer repeated. "Like, literally? Or is that some sort of metaphor?"

She shrugged. "I really don't know."

"What else do we know about the chest?"

Silta wrapped a finger around one of the cell bars. "The chest is supposed to symbolize this divide between living and dead," she said. "Inside of it, the lines of that divide blur, and people who have their hearts inside exist in an area between."

Archer couldn't quite wrap his head around it. "I don't know what moves Everson could have left. His and Jeanne's hearts are in there, and we've just shattered his ship to pieces. There's no way he could beat us to the chest now. Plus, we have the key."

"Actually," she said. "He probably could beat us. Most of his ships are in Bloodsea, and he probably just hopped on another one. He knows this area very well, and since he was the one to make the key in the first place, he doesn't need it."

"But still," Archer said. "There's nothing for him to do but set up by the chest and attack us the moment we arrive. We'll win, every time."

She nodded. "That's why I don't get it. If I could think properly, I would be able to understand his angles, predict his moves. But I can't, so I don't know what brilliant thing he's going to pull."

Archer searched her bruised face. "I don't think he has a move left, Novari. The tone of his voice when he realized I wasn't taking Jeanne—absolute panic."

"Because he worries that if you stay here and I stay sane, then I'll figure out his move. But I don't know his move. Even though you're here."

Archer couldn't look away from the desperation in her eyes. She was panicking, too, just a little more hidden.

"I'm going to lose, love," she said quietly. "I don't know much, but I know that."

Archer thought she may be right.