The Wicked Sea

by Jordan Stephanie Gray

Genres: Romantic Fantasy; Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Action & Adventure Romance; Fantasy Romance; New Adult Romance

Synopsis

In this dark and sultry romantasy a mermaid battles hatred—and lust—for the wretched warlock who saved her life.

Mermaid Zephyra of the Syl dreams of freedom. On the run from a dangerous captor and years of abuse, she’s shed her tail, grown legs, and hidden herself on land in the merrow-loathing kingdom of Mortia, left to steal and barter on the dirty streets. But her freedom is short-lived when she’s caught and sentenced to death by the brutal warlock, Arion Stone.

Arion is as beautiful as he is cold and deadly, only interested in punishing the merrow he views as evil. He has grown as strong as any warlock might, but at great personal cost…which can only be remedied by the heart of the God of Death, lost to a fabled kingdom beneath the ocean’s treacherous depths.

So Arion offers Zephyra a deal she can’t refuse; help him find the mystical heart, and he’ll spare her life. With no other options, Zephyra agrees, entangling their souls and forbidden desires in a magical bargain until death do they part. But Zephyra's past is catching up to her, and the enemy she fled seeks vengeance. If Zephyra and Arion can't learn to fight together--and trust each other--there are worse things awaiting them than just death.

Of course, in the wicked sea, everyone has secrets, and no one should be trusted.

For Fans of:

Enemies-to-lovers
Magic Sensual Bonds
Winged Romantic Lead
Forced Proximity

Release date: April 7, 2026

Publisher: Requited

Print pages: 448

Sample

This is disgusting.”

“Then perhaps you should eat some ginger or, even better, leave.”

“I didn’t say I was going to puke. I said it’s disgusting—which it is. There are dead bodies in there. Freshly slaughtered. Days ago. By sirens. Remember? Rumor has it that the gore will stain the palace forever.”

“Remind me again why you demanded to come?” Vesper asks me with a deepening frown. The sight of it is almost as unnerving as seeing the kingdom splashed behind her, all razor-straight edges and glistening white marble. Ancient and fortified and deadly. Maybe I’ll puke after all. Mortia has never been a welcoming place, least of all for someone like me.

If this goes wrong in any way, that’s it. For all of us.

Vesper moves two steps above me, and the torches outside the temple walls coax her shadow larger and paint her dark skin an even deeper shade of brown. She crosses her arms beneath her navy cloak, and the silver bangles on her wrist clang from the movement. Navy to match her eyes. Silver to match her hair. All things considered, she looks exceptionally beautiful for a midnight grave robbery.

I would tell her this too, if she hadn’t spent the entire walk here searching for excuses to send me back to the streets. No matter how anxious I am, I refuse to let it show. I refuse to leave. The score is too big. It could change my entire life. “I told you. I’m the one with the key.”

Her gaze narrows, and she licks her lips. Obviously, she isn’t finished with me yet.

“Show us.”

“What?” I blink wide turquoise eyes at her and run my hands through my thick honey curls.

“Show us the fucking key.”

“The most important part of teamwork is trust. After three jobs together, I thought you would trust me more—”

Vesper slides up another step, halfway to the temple now. “First job,” she says slowly, “you scorched half our map and we had to fumble our way through the jeweler’s vaults while three soldiers chased us down. Second job, you fell asleep when you were meant to be our lookout. Third job—”

“Third job, you exploded my babies,” Stavros says gruffly, stroking the gunpowder satchels in his arms with a pallid hand. I half expect him to kiss the rough fabric, but unfortunately, he chooses now to keep his oddities to a minimum. His mustache twitches. The veins twining up his thick neck begin to bulge. I sidle up beside him to pat him on the shoulder. When he growls, however, I think better of coddling the five-foot-tall three-hundred-pound ball of anger and quickly dance away.

Snatching a dagger from the belt strung across my waist, I lean against a massive column. “If you despise me so much, you shouldn’t have invited me.”

“You invited yourself,” Vesper hisses, “because you claim to have the key.”

“Trust is not just a five-letter word—”

“Guys! Stop fighting,” Eos snaps. “We have three minutes before the guards’ route returns them to the front of the temple.”

She is the only one who doesn’t glare at me, instead directing her ire at her older sister. Vesper meets Eos’s gaze with an eye roll.

“Zephyra is right,” Eos says. “The only way we pull this off is if we work together.”

I smile brightly, winking my victory at Stavros, but Eos pulls the dagger from my grasp and stuffs it into her tool belt.

“Excuse me? I stole that. It’s mine.”

Eos pushes intricate silver braids behind her ears. Resolute, she lifts her chin and marches up the grandiose staircase. “You can have it back once we’ve excavated our treasure. Now, get inside before we’re tossed into prison.”

Prison.

I shudder.

No way is anyone locking me up tonight. My hands curl into my palms, turquoise nails slicing half-moons into my lightly golden skin. The pain grounds me. It reminds me of what I left, what I’m still running from. No. I’m not going back there ever again.

I hurry up the stairs, gently smacking Eos on the shoulder. “Don’t boss the adults around.”

“I’m seventeen.”

“You’re a child,” I tell her. “But it’s okay. We love you regardless.”

Eos grumbles under her breath, and I know I’ve hit a nerve. At four foot eleven, with cherubic cheeks and a frame as slender as a skeleton, Eos is constantly mistaken for an actual child. Pretty helpful when she needs to purloin a meal or two for her and her sister, though she would never admit it. Not only do people pay less attention to children, but they’re also less likely to turn one in if they’re caught thieving. Of course, Eos doesn’t get caught. Neither do Vesper or Stavros.

Neither do I.

Huffing, I throw myself inside the temple with seconds to spare. The abacus shields us from the weather, but there are no walls to hide within. Instead, the four of us press up against separate marble pillars for sixty full seconds before peering out.

Sure enough, four guards stand watch with their backs to us. In another eighteen minutes, they’ll begin their rotation again, splitting up and marching for the south side. We’ll have to climb down into the antechamber fast if we’re going to rob this place and escape before they notice we were ever here.

“Statue,” Stavros whispers, his voice as light as the summer breeze. He twirls his mustache six times for good luck. “In three, two…”

One, I think.

We race for the massive statue in the middle of the temple on quiet feet. No socks. No shoes. Silence is as much a necessity for these jobs as gunpowder and daggers. Though Vesper believes me to be an amateur, I’ve managed to steal enough to keep away from the sea for over half a year. No one treats this more seriously than I do. Because if I’m caught…

If I’m caught, it won’t necessarily mean a swift hanging in the city proper.

If I’m caught, he will come for me. And all the progress I’ve made, all the freedom I’ve stolen, will be for nothing.

Vesper reaches the target first, and she yanks Eos after her. The two crouch behind a set of chiseled charcoal wings. I join them by pressing up against a rather impressive oblique. My hand slips with sweat, and I find myself accidentally fondling the stone ass cheeks of Mortia’s most revered god.

Mortem.

The God of Death; the first and worst traitor to mer-kind.

I consider snatching my dagger from Eos’s belt to slam the blade up his emphasized ass crack, but Vesper grips my wrist with a surprisingly strong grasp. “No, Zephyra,” she hisses, so low, I almost don’t hear it. “I know that look. Don’t do anything reckless.”

Reckless.

The word crashes overhead like a dangerous current, threatening to pull me under. I blink hastily, however, erasing the bitter memory before it can drown me. Not here. Not now. Not when a trove of gold awaits.

If I can just make it through tonight—if we can all make it through tonight—there won’t be any reason to worry about trauma and pain again. We’ll have enough coin to go our separate ways, to fund mildly lavish lifestyles in whichever cities or kingdoms we prefer. I’ll move to the mountains, as far from the sea as I can manage, and buy a small cottage with a real bed. Real pillows, and maybe even a stove. No more rooting through the garbage for scraps or sleeping on the hard limestone of dark, dirty alleys. I’ll buy a home, and I won’t have to run anymore. Won’t have to hide or pretend. I’ll be safe.

Free.

Goddess. It’s so close now, I can almost taste it. Like sweet, ripened berries plucked from a garden no one else can enter. Wiping my hands on my linen trousers, I refocus on the present moment. On the temple and my three associates staring at me with their hands outstretched.

Fuck. What did I miss?

“Um… hello,” I say blandly.

Vesper glares at the ceiling. “The key, Zephyra.”

Oh. Right. I force a cheery grin, and Eos instantly groans at the sight. “See, the thing is… I couldn’t actually get it.”

“You what?” Stavros asks. His biceps strangle his precious satchels, and a bit of gunpowder spills from the openings. “Where is the key?”

I push Vesper’s hand away. “I tried, okay? But the merrow attack was only four days ago. The palace is swarming with guards and soldiers and executioners, and King Constane is on high alert for any sort of treachery. Soldiers have been told to arrest any suspicious persons without trial. I couldn’t exactly seduce the High Priest right under their noses.”

Vesper glowers at me now, and Eos doesn’t try to stop her. Sharp as a blade, Vesper says, “You can’t seduce the High Priest. Mortia priests and priestesses vow eternal silence and celibacy in honor of Mortem. You should know that.”

I blink at her. “Oh. Well—good thing I couldn’t try.”

Vesper seems about ready to throttle me. “I cannot believe you. Why are you here if you don’t have the fucking key?”

It’s not a bad point, but there’s no way in the Fathoms I’m missing out on this score. “I offer this group more than just a key.”

“I’m not seeing evidence of that.”

I narrow my gaze. “Who told you that the king’s premier jeweler was moving inventory three months ago? Who found the records for the shipwreck you plundered?”

Vesper seethes, her cheeks flaming red. “You are not and have never been a real part of this crew. You found us in a tavern, and you attached yourself. We allow you to help us—”

“Two hundred twenty-six,” I hiss. “That’s how much copper we’ve made the last few months. I’ve helped plenty. Stavros may have been the brains behind this particular plan, but that’s because he’s desperate for a reason to explode his newest shipment of gunpowder. I’m here to make sure it goes smoothly and we actually nab the jewels.”

“It is true,” Stavros answers earnestly. “I want to make boom.”

I grin at him, and now he winks at me. It’s oddly disconcerting as he continues stroking his precious powder. At least he’s on my side. Vesper shakes her head, however, still unconvinced. “This is the fourth time you’ve screwed up. If we’re caught—”

“We won’t be caught.”

“You’re a liability,” Vesper snaps under her breath.

Panic begins to seize my lungs. Reckless. A liability. It’s a familiar narrative. It’s damned me more times than I can count. I shove my coarse blonde locks behind my shoulder and lift my chin, my own skin flushing with bitter resentment. “You have such interesting hair, Vesper,” I whisper. “I don’t believe I’ve seen that kind of blonde before. Almost as if it’s… silver in the light.”

A muscle feathers in her jaw. Her inhumanly silver brows pinch. “Maybe because it’s natural, and you wouldn’t know anything about that. Would you, Zephyra?” She reaches for my own hair, and I smack her hand away.

Luckily, Eos interjects before I can hurl myself at her sister and potentially expose our entire operation. “Both of you, knock it off.”

I glance at her, deciding on my next insult, when my gaze drops to our feet.

Aha. That’s it.

Tilting my head, I force a serene smile and flutter my lashes at Vesper. “What’s the point of your minnow of a sister coming if not this?” I gesture with delicate fingers to my new discovery.

An air vent an inch or two less wide than Eos’s shoulders rests between us, right beside the keyhole that would typically open the secret stairwell.

“Eos goes down,” I say, “and she opens the stairwell herself. So long as she does it soon, we’ll be able to finish the job behind the guards’ backs.” I lick my teeth when Vesper stares at me, unable to think of a mean retort. “See? Helpful.”

“I don’t know whether you are a genius or just really fucking lucky,” Stavros says, his unibrow pinched in concentration.

I shrug. “A bit of both.”

Vesper sighs. Apparently deciding I’m no longer worth the fight, she turns to Eos and asks, “Can you fit?”

Eos studies the vent. Prying up the metal frame with my dagger, she traces her fingers along its smooth edges. “Hypothetically, yeah. Looks easy enough.”

Vesper’s gaze flashes with an anger typically reserved for reckless daughters rather than careful sisters. “If you dislocate your shoulder again—”

Eos huffs. “I’ll be fine, Ves.”

Vesper frowns, clearly incredulous. “No amount of coin is worth your safety.”

“Ves, I’ve got it. I’m a professional, remember? No one smaller and skinnier in all of Mortia.” Eos scrunches her nose, beginning to dangle her legs over the opening. She concentrates the same way she always does—with her tongue poking through her lips. Her feet slide through first. Her thighs don’t even touch the sides. “Easy,” she mutters. “No problem.”

Vesper holds her breath, knuckles paling as she grabs Mortem’s wing for strength. The stone splinters, however, and she glances at her hand. The sudden realization that she is both touching the God of Death’s statue and breaking it makes her rip her grasp away. She exhales a ragged breath, seeking her sister once more.

Eos grips the marble with confident hands and forearms, biceps flexing as she lowers herself farther and farther into the hole. Her torso disappears next. Then her chest. She smiles triumphantly for a moment before her mouth screws up tight. A pained whimper passes her lips. She doesn’t move past her shoulders. She can’t.

“Shit,” she whines, twisting to try to release the pressure from her bad shoulder.

“Guards in eleven,” Stavros says, keeping track of the time in a way that feels almost magical. He shifts the gunpowder in his arms and stands. “We go now, or we don’t go at all.”

Vesper looks warily between us as Eos exhales another whine. I can’t tell if she’s making progress or if she’s hurt. She should have fallen into the antechamber seconds ago. If she gets stuck… if those guards find us here…

Glancing at their silver hair, I swallow hard.

“Eos,” Vesper says suddenly, “let me pull you out.”

“No.” Eos wiggles, biting down on more curses as her body twists unnaturally. “Fucking broad shoulders.”

I stare at Eos. In so many ways, she really is a child. Small, bright-eyed, hopeful. If the guards catch her, she’ll die. “We’ll try another day,” I say, leaning over to help Vesper drag Eos out.

Eos glares up at us. “No. I can do it.” She seeks her sister’s gaze. “We’re getting that coin, and we’re leaving this shithole. Okay? I can do this.”

She shuts her eyes, and her tongue slithers out again. With an indelicate ergh, she yanks one hand inside the vent and forces it behind her back. It buys her the inch of room she needs, and her eyes pop open on another triumphant grin. “See you below,” she whispers, and then she drops. Falls.

A light thud follows, and Vesper exhales palpable relief. So do I. Both breathing heavily, Vesper and I step away from the statue in anticipation of the staircase unveiling itself. She glares at me from the corner of her navy eye, and I understand well enough that this time, her frustration isn’t my fault. At least, not all of it.

“If anything happens to my sister,” Vesper murmurs, “I will kill you, Zephyra. Do you understand?”

“We will make boom,” Stavros agrees.

Vesper nods, never once taking her gaze off my face. “Yes. We will make boom.”

In Mortia, deceased commoners are burned on pyres along walls that run from continent to continent in order to protect humankind from traversing merrow-infested seas. Nobles, on the other hand, are buried beneath the Temple of Mortem in a special antechamber blessed by both the High Priest and a warlock elder during elaborate funerals. When the floor rumbles and the entry to the stairwell releases, thanks to Eos, the bitter stench of liquor and the sweet scent of divinity salts—drugs—confirm every rumor we’ve heard about those indulgent celebrations. It almost doesn’t feel sanitary to open the doorway.

“Smells like fornication,” Stavros says, shielding his nose with the gunpowder.

I don’t disagree. Neither does Vesper, though she still crawls toward the latch. It spans six large marble tiles, and she slips two fingers under the fissure to pull it the rest of the way open. Doing so releases another gust of nauseating air, this one tinged with rot, and it takes everything in me to not gag.

“Eos?” Vesper whispers. “You okay?”

There is no answer.

“Eos?” she repeats desperately.

Silence.

My stomach churns with anxiety. “It’s deep. She probably can’t hear us down there.” But even as I say it, I know it might not be true. Truth is, none of us has ever attended a noble’s burial before, never entered these crypts. We’ve heard stories though—horror stories of revelry bordering on hedonism down below. And although we watched a procession of drunken nobles parade out of this very stairwell earlier this evening, we don’t know if every single one of them left. We don’t know what’s waiting down there.

Stavros grabs Vesper’s arm before she can descend into the darkness. “Do not worry, Vesper. If your sister is hurt, we will bathe in the blood of her assailant.”

Vesper presses a palm to his cheek. “Thank you, Stavros.” She sucks in a sharp breath, then steps below. Stavros treads immediately behind her. For some reason, the sight of them disappearing together—always in unison, perfectly in step—fills me with inexplicable unease. It lifts the hair at my nape, and it makes me hesitate. Just for a second.

You are not and have never been a real part of this crew.

Their relationship has always felt strangely intense, and not in a particularly romantic way. The two share a tent with Eos, pitched between two ramshackle buildings using shredded clothing and cypress branches as a makeshift awning, and Stavros doesn’t sleep. Instead, he watches over them. Three nights ago, when I tried to slip inside and share news about the masquerade’s siren massacre, Stavros had me pinned to the floor with a rag shoved down my throat before I could even scream. He nearly lit me on fire.

I shake off my hesitation and start forward, ignoring that tight, itchy feeling across my skin.

I can’t imagine what they’ve lived through together, or what Stavros will do if something happens to Eos. I can’t imagine what I’ll do. I haven’t been part of their crew for long—and I’m clearly not always a welcome member—but Eos is the best of us. Her sunshine smile. Her tinkling laugh. She gave her last three coppers to an elderly woman, just so the woman could feed her dog. None of us will ever do better—be better—than Eos.

She’s the only one here who believes in me.

Praying to the goddess for Eos’s safety, I follow Stavros down silent steps and pull the latch shut tight behind me.

Stavros strikes a match on his jaw, and the sudden burst of flame casts the antechamber in stark relief. Thank the goddess. I hate the dark. No. I hate the things that hide in the dark.

Silence presses into us as we pivot, searching for any sign of Vesper’s sister in the cold dampness of carved sandstone and sediment. Finally, unable to stand it, I whisper, “Eos?”

“I—I don’t see her.” Vesper whirls toward the stairs, panic strangling her voice. “Maybe she ran back up. Maybe we missed her.”

“Not possible. She is not magic,” Stavros disagrees with a firm shake of his head.

Vesper ignores him, peering into the shadows of the stairs. “Eos? Eos, please—”

“Boo.” Eos leaps out from behind the stairwell, a teasing smile bright on her cherubic face, and I nearly leap out of my skin. Her blue eyes gleam with mischief. “You should see your faces. Scared, much?”

Vesper raises a hand to her heart, her gaze watering with relief as Stavros staggers back a step and almost falls in a heap of gunpowder. I throw my hands into the air with an exasperated hiss. “What the shit, Eos?”

“That’s what you get for calling me a child,” she sings sweetly.

A rush of nerves ignites my chest—at the dark, at the mission, at Stavros and Vesper and Eos with her hilarious fucking jokes—and bile burns my tongue. I force it down with a swallow. “It’s not funny. We thought you died.”

For once, Vesper agrees with me. She stalks up to Eos and tugs hard on one of her little sister’s braids, her expression stonier than the walls around us. “Pull that shit again, and you’ll wish you had. Do you know how dangerous it is to be down here? If we’re found… if they catch you—” Vesper’s voice breaks on a rising sob, and her touch lightens as she strokes Eos’s silver plaits.

Perhaps they can pass their hair off as blonde on the streets. Perhaps no commoner looks twice under their hoods and cloaks so long as the girls aren’t making trouble. But the king—his guards and soldiers—won’t be so oblivious. They won’t be so kind.

I reach up, fondling a blonde curl of my own, my throat still tight with anger and—and something else. “Let’s just find the fresh bodies and get the fuck out of here.”

“This place is bad,” Stavros says plainly, in that deep, ragged voice of his, before he starts moving toward the far wall.

I stay close behind him, desperate to follow the light. Desperate to avoid the pitch dark and the terrible memories hiding within it. “Couldn’t agree more, big man.”

Still, this place—it’s nothing like the prison I fled. Nothing like the craggy adamant of jagged black walls and sharpened gables. This chamber is smooth. Flat. Wide as the eye can see, but open. I force my breathing to remain light and even. Calm. Because there is no punishment hiding within these shadowy alcoves. There is no him.

However, it’s still dark. It’s still quiet. My heart pounds beneath my rib cage, begging me to run. To flee. This place might not be the prison of my nightmares, but it’s still dangerous.

The ceiling hangs low overhead, pressing down as if to remind us that we’re below the earth—us—where we wouldn’t belong even if it weren’t illegal for commoners to come here. And the architects certainly didn’t make it easy for us to trespass. There is only one entrance; therefore, there is only one exit, and the chamber sprawls so far that we have to walk and walk and walk before we reach anything new.

And walk we do. I manage to step on Stavros’s heel only twice. The third time, he turns to snarl at me, and I force myself to grin, to slow, to allow a bit more space between us. His match casts flickering light upon the western wall, where murals painted in shades of crimson depict Mortem at every divine stage of his celestial existence. A new god with burgeoning wings, arms stretched toward the sunshine as he smiles serenely, peacefully, with his three godly brothers at his side. Then older, a great kingdom rising above him as he wipes sweat from his strong brow. Contemplative. Wise. Powerful.

And finally, Mortem kneeling at the foot of a dais, holding his heart in his hands as a second imprint of him—a shadow self—floats down an icy river.

I laugh bitterly under my breath. Mortem erected the underworld—the Fathoms—only after he fell. After he slaughtered innocents and incinerated half the world.

Now everyone, human or merrow, must answer to Mortem when they die. It’s why this kingdom celebrates Mortem so loudly, so effusively. It’s why they bury their nobility within his temple. It’s why the wealthy don their most expensive jewels and regalia before being encased in these very walls. All in the hopes of impressing—bribing—their renowned god.

Humans are fucking idiots.

“Wherever they entombed the bodies, it isn’t here.” I gesture to each of Mortem’s hateful faces along the mural. “They wouldn’t desecrate the bastard.” That, and there’s no evidence of this wall having been rebuilt in the last few hours.

“Rather hideous.” Vesper stares up at the paintings with me. “You’d think someone in this damn kingdom would understand Mortem was a savage prick.”

I stiffen. Glance at her through my periphery. This is the closest we’ve come to an honest conversation with each other. And though we’ll never speak our truest admissions aloud, I can’t help adding, “I think their heads are shoved so far up Mortem’s ass, they’re snorting his shit and calling it divinity salt. They don’t care about the truth. They’re too afraid.”

They can pretend it’s respect. Reverence. But the Kingdom of Mortia renamed itself after he created the Fathoms—when the wealthiest began to worry how eternity would look in a place like that. With Mortem on its throne, what else could they do but kneel and slaver at his feet? No, Mortia doesn’t worship Mortem out of deference.

They worship him out of fear.

“Cowards,” Stavros says, echoing my thoughts. “Mortem is a dickhead.”

Vesper and I turn to him, equally startled. From what I know, Stavros grew up here, was born and raised in the streets of the kingdom’s capital, Crestfall. He is just a human—albeit, a very large, very wide, very explosive sort. At our shocked expressions, he grins at us and winks.

The reaction is so unexpected, so delightful, that I can’t help snorting. Vesper does too. At the sound of it, Eos cackles, and soon all three of our voices rise together in laughter, colliding with the mural and echoing throughout the empty chamber. Only then do I realize just how tense our bodies have grown, how debilitating our own fear in the shadow of Mortem. This place is bad, Stavros had said, and he couldn’t have been more right.

At least they’re here with me. The thought strikes unbidden, and when Eos reaches for us in the next moment—both of us, falling against her sister’s side and wiping happy tears on the frayed edge of my sleeve—warmth bubbles inside me. Somewhat uncomfortable and certainly unfamiliar, but… nice.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I should have tried harder to grab the key. I almost fucked us over.”

I don’t know why I say it, but maybe it’s because Vesper was smiling at me. Or maybe it’s because someone smiled at me. No one ever smiles at me.

Vesper shrugs at my admission, as if she’s suddenly unbothered and unworried. “None of us wanted to try infiltrating the palace. You stepped up. It didn’t work. But we still made it down here.”

“We keep moving,” Eos agrees.

“Always moving,” Stavros echoes.

“Okay,” I say.

Another grin. From her, from Eos, from Stavros. Almost as if, in this moment, we’re more than a crew. We’re a family.

Until we aren’t.

The moment ends faster than it began. Vesper clears her throat and steps away. Stavros lights a second and third match. Eos straightens, brushing off her wispy blue cloak before darting ahead to continue our search. Somewhere in this goddess-forsaken crypt is a fresh tomb filled with the bodies of revelers probably still wearing their elaborate masks, and the sooner we find it, the sooner we can leave.

That doesn’t stop us from seizing opportunity along the way, of course. The farther we creep into the chamber, the more gold sparkles in the light of Stavros’s match. We skirt around plinths and pedestals as we search, swiping gold coins, incense, and gemstones—all offers to Mortem from the dearly departed. I empty a dish of taffies into the belt on my waist. Stavros picks up a silver chalice and shoves it into his pocket. A decent haul, but nothing like what will be on the bodies themselves. My hands clench and unclench, knuckles cracking with severe longing. So close now. So fucking close.

“Time?” Vesper asks Stavros.

“Seven,” he says shortly. “Six if we’re unlucky.”

“We usually are,” Vesper mutters.

As we near the eastern wall, the earthy scent of fresh mortar rises. “Found it,” Eos says, scraping a finger through the thick sludge. She turns to smile at us, a pile of hastily stacked limestone bricks behind her. Still wet. Still fresh.

“We should be able to disassemble it. No one will notice until the next noble dies, and by then we’ll be far, far away,” I say.

“Paradise,” Vesper says. “Stavros, can you start—”

He doesn’t need her to finish the thought. Storming up to the wall, he punches a heavy fist at the middlemost brick, and it instantly explodes through the other side. Then he reaches a large hand into the new hole and begins to rip away the remaining bricks. In thirty seconds, he’s decimated enough that Eos can slide through. In another thirty seconds, he’s wrecked a quarter of the wall.

“Ladies first,” he announces with a broad sweep of his arms. He bows and wiggles his brows, beckoning Vesper and me forward.

Just as always, when I move, he slides in front of me. “I said ladies,” he declares, allowing Vesper a head start.

I glower at him, ignoring that spark of hurt in my chest. Because it isn’t hurt. It’s irritation, and whatever moment we might’ve shared earlier was clearly a figment of my imagination. “Jokes aren’t funny if you repeat them twenty times.”

Stavros shakes his head as his matches burns out. Plunging us back into fetid darkness. He chuckles as he searches his pack for another match. “That joke is timeless. Ask Vesper. She always laughs at it.”

Though my breathing hitches, I force it to steady once more. I force my hands into fists to stop them from reaching out for someone, anyone, to anchor myself in the darkness. “She would laugh at cabbage if you threw it at my head.”

“And I wonder why,” Vesper calls as she ducks into the burial chamber. “Probably has nothing to do with the two ruby necklaces you lost us last we