Page 164 of The Queens and the Kings
Chapter Forty Five
BRITT
Lamplight keptBritt and Pedr company while he stood at the wheel and charged through the sea. The currents swirled them southwest, but she had no idea their destination. Pedr had stood on the deck, eyes closed, hands planted, for an hour before declaring it time to go. Within minutes, they gathered to near breakneck speed. The wind whipped so fast it forced them into his quarters.
They sat at his table and spoke all night.
Denerfen flapped between her and her brother, undecided whose shoulder he preferred depending on the changing emotions. Britt, chin stacked on her fist, elbow propped on her knee, followed Pedr’s incessant explanation about his curse without asking questions, though they cluttered her head like a school of fish.
Siren Queens.
Curse.
Arcanist of the Sea.
History.
Secrets.
Betrayal and hurt and dismay swirled low in her gut, like oil on water. It sloshed with a darkening sensation she couldn’t help, but didn’t want. Clearly, Pedr had no control over a curse he had, miraculously, defeated. At least in part. Yet all these years had passed with so much withheld.
So much about her brother she didn’t understand.
“So,” she said with a surprising amount of disquiet, “all of your time on the ocean the past several years has been to recover Mila.”
“Most of it.”
“The rest?”
He held out both hands. “I’m the Arcanist of the Sea. Arcanists can’t touch or enter the domicile of the other Arcanists. At least, not for long. Where else would I go? What would I have done? I couldn’t leave the ship.”
“But the boat thing?”
“The Siren Queens bound me to the Rosenvatten as punishment for kissing Mila and falling in love with her.”
“And to prevent you from saving Mila?”
“Yes.”
Britt blinked in a flurry, struggling to maintain all the details. “They also cursed you so you couldn’t speak about them or Mila?”
“Right.”
“Blessed mermaids,” she muttered. “They’re devils.”
Washed in her own thoughts about a brother she barely understood, events she had no comprehension existed, and the irrefutable pain of lies, Britt sank into the quiet he allowed. Minutes passed.
Piecing together what he’d said with a startled realization, she said, “For fifteen years you have been secretly trying to locate a woman whom you deeply and irrevocably love?”
Pedr met her searching gaze.
“Yes.”
“You?”
His expression clouded. “Yes. Me.”
A hand to her chest, Britt said, “I’ve always known your capacity to love was great, Pedr. Always. But . . . you never shared it outside of me. I’ve always felt it,” she asserted. “Always. But . . .”
