On his way out, Archer snagged one of the wool blankets by the pub door that was supposed to be for covering the windows when the sun came up and the pirates were still drinking. He wrapped it around his shoulders and continued on with his complaining. "It's freezing, Novari," he said, breathing on his hands to warm them up.

"You're fine," she said back, eyes scanning the street in front of them. She walked close enough for her shoulder to brush his over and over, always providing more warmth than any blanket.

"Considering your blood is probably half rum at this point, you're probably nice and warm," he muttered.

She laughed, the stars from the clear night reflecting in her eyes. "I'm sober as ever, Kingsley," she told him. "I've been pouring my drinks down Bates' throat for hours."

He rolled his gaze to her, watching his breath turn to clouds in the dark as he spoke, "Yeah? Pub nights boring for you without some friendly competition?"

"You get me, Kingsley," she said. It was a joke, of course, but it didn't feel like that to him. It felt like she meant it.

"Where are we going?" he whispered, leaning down to ask.

She turned to him as she walked. "Somewhere cold," she whispered back.

"You're kidding."

She shrugged, her shoulder brushing his again. "Not entirely." She took a right turn, and he followed. Silence settled over him, over her, over the entire port. The soft sounds of his footsteps echoed over the cobblestones.

"Is this you finally deciding to kill me?" he asked. "Freezing me to death? Odd way to go about it, don't you think?"

She didn't laugh, didn't respond. For a brief moment, he wondered if he might not be so far from the truth. Staying quiet was so hard for her, and yet now she seemed in no rush to speak.

She took another turn, kept walking. He glanced at her, noting the bridge of her nose, the red tinge of her cheeks from the cool air.

As he watched, a speck of white floated by her head, then another. He stopped walking, frowning as he looked back where he came from. Snow—it was snowing.

"Novari," he whispered, frozen in awe.

"Yes, Archer." Her voice was further away, as if she'd kept walking.

"It's snowing." He reached out to touch one of the flakes, watching it sparkle. They began to come down slowly all around him, silent as they fell.

He felt the curve of her jaw rest against his shoulder, nose buried to keep warm. "You've never seen it snow, Kingsley?" she asked, voice muffled.

He shook his head, watching it collect in her dark hair, each little circle complete with some unique design. "It's so pretty," he said.

He felt the vibration of her humming in agreement. She looked up, watching it come down. "I always thought it made the cold more bearable," she noted.

He turned around to her, starting their walk once more—but this time, she curled her fingers over his forearm, so warm it was hard to believe.

"Does it snow where you're from?" he wondered.

"Never," she replied. "Only up here." She took her hands away, nodding to the building on his right. It was a big one, quite a few stories up. "Climb," she said, reaching for a brick.

"Climb?" he asked, looking up at the height.

"Climb," she confirmed.

He let out a sigh as he tried to find a good route up. He started out strong, but one or two times a loose brick crumbled under his foot and left him dangling over an increasingly large distance downward. He glanced over at her a few feet up, picking out the bricks that could hold her weight with ease.

"Aren't you sore?" he asked. "Recovering?"

She hefted herself up over a loose spot. "No."

He sighed again, trying to pay attention. He was sore, but he wasn't even sure what from. He reached for the roof sill, pulling himself up over the lip a few seconds after her. He got his bearings on the roof, then looked at her. Would she push him? What was the point of this?

She settled down, raising her knees to her chin. She pointed behind him.

He spun as he sat next to her, snow still falling around them. He followed her finger, squinting. There, out in the distance, was a string of lights. In the middle, a circle of spires reached for the sky, sharp tips raised to the cloudless night. It was dazzling, stunning beyond words.

"The Kingsland," he breathed.

"I used to take the new members here to see it before they sailed into it for the first time." She tilted her head a little, thinking. "The extravagance, the lights—it can get into your head, have you wish for things you never thought you'd want. It's best to see the whole picture first."

And it was quite the picture. Those beautiful lights, the spires, the royalty coming off that place in waves sitting so close to this dying port, with its peeling buildings and overgrown streets. The whole picture.

He stared. It was far away still, but he felt like he could see it all right there in his heart. He felt like he could see the King, sitting on his golden throne with a crown atop his head, awaiting his fate.

He leaned back on his hands, keeping his gaze out there on those lights. "I figured it out," he said.

"Give me more than that, love," she said. "I can't read your mind."

He let out a deep breath. It didn't feel that way to him, of course. It felt like she could read all his thoughts, she every little desire he'd ever had. "You," he said. "What happened to you. I figured it out."

She glanced over at him, snow collecting in her hair, settling on her lashes. She didn't call his bluff or tell him he probably got it wrong. She just leaned back on her elbows, eyes firm on him, ready to listen.

He leaned back, too, watching the stars instead of her. "Sirens are ruthless by nature, but their queen keeps them in check. They're only supposed to take what they need, nothing more," he said. "Your mother, though—she didn't like to be mild, so she led a rebellion."

He watched the stars twinkle, watched the snow fall. "When she lost, she was banished for her actions. Her tail was stripped of her, as was her powers and the ability to pass them down to you. She took the other banished members of her failed uprising and formed a little army on Canale, but that never got her anywhere; it wasn't enough."

He looked back at the Kingsland, standing tall while the rest of the ocean slipped under the poverty line. "So she sought out the King, somehow. I don't think they fell in love, but if she was anything like you, he wasn't hard to seduce. Hence, you."

Next to him, Silta tilted her head a little and said, "She had this way of getting in and out of the Kingsland by swimming under those spires rather than trying to get over or through. It takes some practice, some breath control, but it works if you know to do it."

Something deep in his gut twisted as if it knew something he didn't. Instead of listening to it, he kept going with his story, "She told the King that she was pregnant, thinking it would give her access to the throne, but he didn't approve. He married some aristocrat that was good for the bloodline, and in a few years, they'll have a proper heir—Kerian—not some risky half-Siren. He ordered your mother to get rid of you."

He drew his brows. "But you were her last chance, her last opportunity to latch onto power, so she couldn't get rid of you. She raised you on Canale, still building her resistance, and leaves the King believing you're dead. She taught you the Siren way, taught you how to play a man's game. She was an excellent teacher, but she was an awful mother."

"I don't think so," came Silta's quiet answer. "I craved attention, and she used that to motivate me. It was cold, but it was all she knew."

"She only had you for power," he pointed out.

Silta shrugged. "Maybe." She didn't seem convinced that her mother was her villain, was responsible for her callousness.

"She gave you that kill ring," he said. "Against your will."

She glanced up, eyes sharp. She said nothing, but her expression was clear—how did you figure out that one?

"It was obvious," he answered. "You hate that tattoo; you like to leave kills in the past, where they belong. You don't like to dwell on them or cart them around, and I think there are a few lines you wish weren't there."

She searched his eyes. "Only one." Then, "Go on."

He recollected his thoughts once more. "Your mother devised these rules, some of which you still follow. Never falling in love, never putting anything over ambition, never entering situations you don't maintain control—the rules covered everything, and you followed them well for a long time.

"It starts to fall apart when your mother makes a ploy for Myria's chest, which she thought Bardarian had the map to. You plan the attack on the Avourienne, and you carry it out perfectly. The crew is thrown into the cells on Canale, leaving you to interrogate Bardarian and find out where the map is hidden."

She pursed her lips like she remembered exactly how it happened, all those words they'd exchanged, all the uncertainty surrounding those new people all that time ago. The power of not only playing mind games with a high-status figure, but winning them. The navigators had declared that Bardarian flipped her loyalty with his charm, but Archer knew better.

"But then the inevitable happens," he continued. "The King finds out you're alive, so he sends assassins to kill you and your mother. You win, but your mother doesn't. She dies, leaving you to lead her uprising."

He shifted a little, waiting to look back at her for her reaction. "But you knew it would be tricky; the Siren won't accept you as their leader, and they'll drive you out. You could just leave, but you know the rules. You don't walk into the unknown, you make a plan. So you went to Bardarian, and you made a deal. You get him off the island, and he'll make you a crew member. The next thing you know, you're free from your confining life, sailing away under Captain Bardarian and the Avourienne. It was...brilliant."

"Thank you," she said, but he didn't look at her.

"You tried to stick to your rules," he said, "but Bardarian was everything you ever wanted. He was the embodiment of power, so sure of himself, so much older, so cruel and brutal to everyone but you. You fell in love with him, and he knew it. He gave you the attention you craved, but not the power, and you're not so different from your mother. You begged for strategist, and you knew you deserved it, so you left him when he didn't give it to you. He turns into a fumbling alcoholic in your absence."

She glanced up at that, surprised he'd found that out, but the crew of the Avourienne weren't nearly as tight-lipped as most believed.

"I don't get this part," he admitted. "You end up back on the Avourienne , and you even end up with a position of power as a strategist, but I don't know how you pulled it off."

She tilted her head like she was considering telling him but wasn't entirely sure. She finally decided, taking a breath before she spoke, "I wouldn't have left the Avourienne if I had nowhere else to go. Avoid the Uncertainty, that's the rule. The Starling was an upcoming ship at the time, ran by Captain Slint. He wasn't as big as Bardarian at the time, but he knew I could get him to be, so he took me as his first mate." She let out a long breath of air that turned cloudy in the cold. "I was miserable, but I managed for a long time. The problem arose when Slint found out that the Avourienne was spiralling under Bardarian's unstable leadership. He wanted to take the Avourienne for himself, and he told me to make it happen. I did it, just like he asked, but he just couldn't leave it there; he had to make a statement. He handed me a pistol and demanded I shoot Bardarian."

Archer looked to the stars. "You couldn't do it."

She followed his gaze. "I couldn't do it. Angels, Kingsley, it was so unlike me. I just stood there with the gun aimed at his head and couldn't pull the trigger. I couldn't bring myself to do it, so I dropped the gun, and my hesitation was all the Avourienne needed to take the ship back. Bardarian ordered Jackson and Starle to shoot dead every member of the Starling."

"Not you, though?"

She shook her head. "Me too, but I wasn't willing to let go of everything just because I couldn't go that far. I put a pistol to Bates' throat—that's why he hates me—and forced Bardarian to hear me out. When I got him alone, he just..." She trailed off, shaking her head again. "He crumbled like paper, begging me to stay, begging me to shoot him if I chose to walk away again. He was drunk all the time, so Britter and Jackson were pretty much running the ship at that point, and he felt he had nothing to lose but me." She brushed aside the snow collecting on her knees, watching it sparkle. "Sometimes you can still smell it on him, you know, even though he's been sober for years."

Archer felt the chill creep over his skin again. "So if you leave him, the whole ship goes down again? That's the reason you stay?"

Her lips tugged up in a little smile, sad and tragic. "I stay because I love him, Kingsley. Because the rules advise you limit your weaknesses. The more people you care for, the more control you take out of your hands and place into the hands of others. With that man and a knife, someone can force me to do whatever they want."

"He denies you first mate, Novari," Archer pointed out. "The longer he stays on top like this, the more he forgets what it was like to have his back against rock bottom."

"I know that, Kingsley. That's what you're for."

Archer felt a laugh escape him. He shook his head in disbelief even though he'd always known it, always suspected he was the threat to smarten Bardarian up.

"That's what I was for," he corrected. "He's paying you all sorts of attention now, buying you all your gifts, giving you everything you want except first mate, which has nothing to do with me." He looked over at her, feeling his desperation to stay afloat in her mind come through. "Why am I still here, Novari? Why are you still playing with me, still waking up with me?"

She tilted her head, the strings of lights in the distance reflected in her iris. "I don't know," she replied, her voice dry. "I like your eyes. I like the way you think, but I can't pinpoint why it's so hard to let you go." She shrugged, snowflakes shifting on her shoulders. "Every so often there comes along something I can't explain."

"I can explain it," he said. "I love the way you think, the way you talk, the way you look. I can't stand the thought of not being in your vicinity for any extended period of time. I love—"

"Kingsley," she said, placing her long fingers on his sleeve. "We don't need to do this, love. It doesn't need to be so hard."

"I have a right to tell you what I want," he insisted, shaking off her hand. "You don't want me to say it because you don't want it to be hard." He felt his pulse rise, felt the cold disappear from his skin. "You don't want to uproot everything you know for a mere feeling, I understand that, but you have to, Novari. Damn him, damn his crew who never fight to give you what you worked for. I'll find you a ship. I'll give you what you earned."

She gave him nothing but a glance, nothing but some fraction of her attention. "Will I get a hat?" she asked.

"This isn't a joke," he told her. "I have absolutely nothing to lose anymore. Nothing but you."

"Always a wordsmith," she said quietly.

He felt his patience snap, felt his calm shattering. "Listen to me," he begged. "I can give you what you want, Novari, I promise you that I will."

She sighed, finally making an effort to take him seriously. "I know how it plays out, love," she said softly. "A year from now, it won't be so easy to gloss over my morality and our fundamental difference in values just because you're in love. You'll bottle up how you feel because I gave up everything for you, and it'll make you feel guilty just for existing. You'll suffocate me, I'll suffocate you—we'll suffocate each other for the rest of our lives. Let's leave it here."

And she was right, but he couldn't believe it. He refused to believe it, didn't want it to be the truth. He felt anger bubble up in his throat, felt his powerless and inconsequentiality to the situation rise up out of his control.

"You don't know that," he told her. "You don't know any of that, Novari, it's just guessing—"

"No, Kingsley," she said, and it was firm. "It's no."

He felt frustration simmer in his bones. His heart was being crushed by her slim fingers until it was an unrecognizable pile of dust that once beat with a purpose he could no longer find.

"I've engineered you an opportunity to leave in the Kingsland," she said. "Take it. Go somewhere new in this big ocean and live out a life the way you want."

"I can't. I don't want to just forget—"

"I don't want you to forget me either, love," she interrupted. "I can't bear the thought of it, but don't you think it's a better alternative to hating each other?"

He felt his throat constrict, felt his sinuses go warm. "I don't know who I am anymore," he said quietly. "I think the parts about me that I remember aren't me anymore. You're the only thing I'm sure about."

And then she said, "I always go back, Archer. I told you."

Silence ensued, first seconds, then minutes. So it was over? He lost? He lost Jeanne, he lost Farley, he lost simplicity, lost Orphano—and now he lost her, too? Lost the Avourienne, lost Britter and Rusher and Denver? How was that fair?

It was so quiet up there on that roof, with the snow falling. She was still as stone, eyes on the Kingsland, mind somewhere else. So it was over. He lost. He'd never touch her again, never kiss her again, never wake with her head on his shoulder. He'd never get anything he wanted ever again in his life, because there was nothing more he wanted but what he'd lost.

"Halleveire monere," he whispered. He didn't know what it meant, but he felt it. He knew that phrase was on his side, knew that the translation would speak to convince her where he couldn't.

She closed her eyes, and he saw a war range in her mind. It had to be something she made up, something that made his argument stronger. She stayed there for a second, then opened her eyes again, her decision made. She always goes back, like she told him.

He looked up at the stars again. The Avourienne left tomorrow, and they'd be at the Kingsland soon after.

He felt his heart breaking, shattering on the ground a hundred feet below. He was so sure he was teetering there on the edge of the building, so sure she'd take her hands and give him the final push. It was kinder than this.

He saw that in his mind's eye, saw himself falling and never hitting the ground. He just fell and fell, soaring through the void endlessly, flailing his arms in a desperate attempt to slow himself down, his mouth open in a silent scream. He just kept falling. And falling.

"If I leave," Archer said. "Promise me that you'll do something for me."

"What's that, love?" she asked.

"Don't give the throne to Bardarian. Marry him, do what you want, but promise me you'll let Kerian have it. You don't even want it, Novari."

She said nothing.

"I need you to promise me that you'll do this."

She lifted her chin. She didn't speak, but her eyes said plenty. No, Kingsley. I won't promise you that.

Archer closed his eyes. He was falling again. Falling and falling and falling. But despite that endless feeling, he had to hit the ground sometime.