“Raenin’s mom has been dead for decades,” Ivy said.

“Hence, my confusion,” Rose said.

Virian issued a few commands to Tamren who was still standing nearby, and the man headed below deck. Ivy and Virian still had their weapons out from the demon’s arrival and sheathed them before joining Rose at the railing.

“So, what are we looking at?” Virian asked.

“Maybe something good. Maybe bad. Maybe a few more victims for our resident little killer.”

Ivy rolled her eyes. Real cute. Sure, why not? Maybe she should start now and get it over with. She could get back to her wine quicker that way. Or maybe she should just let Rose deal with it. Ivy had no doubt that Rose would handle her enemies on her own if she had to. She could say with absolute confidence that Rose had killed or was at least responsible for ten times the deaths that she was.

“Will it really come to that?” Virian asked, shading his eyes with one hand, straining to see the approaching sails. “Are they hostile?”

“…No. Not with Ivy here.”

Great. Rose was going to make her talk to this new witch, wasn’t she? Her wine felt so far away.

“What’s going on?” Raenin asked from behind.

The three of them turned and Ivy was the first to speak.

“Your mom and her demon are leading a fleet of ships to intercept us.”

He blinked a few times, then let his eyes shift in her direction.

“What?”

“Oh, so now you can look at me?”

“Was there a reason to before? Did I miss you guzzling another bottle of wine?”

Why was he still like this? How could he not understand what had happened? Ivy looked him in the eye, her silent question lingering between them.

“I was the only one who tried to help him, Raenin! Everyone else told me to leave him there.” Rose frowned and Virian averted his eyes, neither objecting to the truth. “What more do you want from me? Are so you mad because I wasn’t strong enough? Well so am I! I couldn’t do anything! I could only stand there and watch as that monster slaughtered one of the first and only people to ever show me any affection. So go ahead. Keep making me feel worse about it. You’re doing great.”

Raenin’s wife Merideth lingered a few steps behind him, apparently having also come up from below deck. She watched with a sad expression on her face, but Ivy knew it wasn’t for her.

“It’s…not that,” Raenin said, “I don’t blame you for anything.” Even his wife looked confused. He sighed, then let out a bitter laugh. “I don’t think he even liked me.”

Ivy turned her head toward Rose, looking for a clue to what he was talking about. The older witch ignored them all and spun back in the direction where the ships were coming from.

“But,” Raenin continued, “when you went missing, he sent me after you right away. When you were in danger, he ran after you like a madman. Dad…was a criminal overlord who justified any means to prepare him for his personal revenge. Yet he sprang into action and went so far as to sacrifice his life like some kind of hero to save…you.”

Oh. Oh, wow. Raenin was jealous. But that wasn’t how it went at all. What the hell had Virian and Rose told this idiot? Armond had somehow recognized Algramath for what he was and had done exactly as he had always claimed, acting on his vendetta against demons. To think he just threw his life away for Ivy? Except now that grudge seemed to be based on a false assumption. What a mess.

“That’s not how—”

Virian’s hand found her own and squeezed. A bit too hard, really. She looked up at him and he shook his head, then leaned down to speak softly in her ear. His breath tickled, reaching past her ear and down her neck, but she had to dispel the sensation from her mind. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to listen to what he was saying.

“I know what you’re going to say. But just leave it. He wants to believe his father died for something rather than a failed attempt at vengeance. It’s not totally wrong anyway.”

“How so?” Ivy whispered back.

“I was a mess. Useless after Cammy was shot. But he rallied me after you vanished. All of us, really. He was the first to act. Before Rose, anyone. He sent Raenin with Cammy and gathered us all to go rescue you.”

And got himself killed. What an idiot. Her eyes started to water again. Why did everything make her cry these days? She dropped her head, trying to hide it, and turned back to the approaching sails. Why would Armond try so hard to rescue her? She was the only one capable of escaping in the first place.

This one likes to pretend he is your father.

She had brushed off Algramath’s comment at the time, but how much truth was there to it? He was the closest thing in her life she could assign such a title to.

“—ello? Ivy?”

She flinched, forgetting for a moment about…everyone else.

“What?” she asked, refusing to look in Raenin’s direction. Why the hell had she come up here without a bottle?

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“You’re furiousat me for avoiding you, and when I pour out my heart you turn and ignore me. No wonder everyone thinks you’re a psycho.”

“Hey!” Virian said.

“Well, you lost one neglectful parent but it looks like you gained another,” Ivy said. The sails had already grown much in size. Far too much. They were arriving at a speed that should have been impossible.

“She controls the water,” Rose said.

Raenin drew back, as though afraid of the rest of the party.

“It’s not possible,” he said.

Rose moved over to where he stood but walked past him to Merideth instead. She placed a hand on his wife’s arm.

“The sooner he accepts it, the easier it will be when she arrives.”

“No!” Raenin shouted. “Dad defined his whole life around losing her. It doesn’t make sense.”

Ivy rolled her eyes at the family drama and Rose’s use of Raenin’s wife to calm him down. She had never so much as seen either of her parents, and from the looks of it, neither had been particularly involved in Raenin’s life. The way she saw it, it was far better to choose who her family was than to be forced into it. Her eyes shifted to Virian, and a small smile crept up her face. Yet what did she know? Nobody should be taking relationship advice from her. With nothing else to do but wait and listen, she let her gaze fall back to the rapidly approaching ships. There were several more in sight now.

“You’ve always told me,” Merideth was saying, “that your one memory of her was making the fountains dance for you as a little boy. It’s possible your father saw wrong.”

The lead ship was almost upon them now, and Ivy could make out figures on the deck. Apart from the sailors tending to the overly stressed sails, three women stood atop the foredeck, facing Virian’s ship. None of them wore richly colored dresses like the witches of Rhune, but instead stark suits of armor, covering them from head to toe. As their ship got closer and closer, Ivy could discern an expression of deep concentration on two of the women’s faces.

The waves churned around the base of their vessel and the sails jerked in the opposite direction, the ship jerking to an unnatural stop. The sailors more than the three women struggled to take hold of anything nearby to avoid flying overboard. The—witches—Ivy presumed—moved a bit, but some secondary, opposing force seemed to hold them in place.

The three surveyed the deck of Virian’s ship, eying Ivy’s group before the one between the other two lunged forward, leaping over the railing and into the water. The other two quickly followed, but instead of plunging into the frigid waters, the waves rose to meet them. A fifteen-foot swell grew out of the churning ocean below, flattening out into a relatively calm plateau where the three witches stood, ankle-deep in the wave. Some unseen power kept them upright and afloat. Ivy might have been impressed several years ago, but by now she had seen a little too much. The others, however, stared with slack jaws. Except for Rose—who had already moved to position herself closer to the heart of the ships’s deck—and…Camellia. At some point, she had sidled up to Ivy and was watching the foreign witches’ advance with a pointedly muted expression.

In a few moments, the witches were looming above the main deck of Virian’s ship, looking down on Ivy’s group. One at a time, starting with the central witch, they leaped from the wave, landing beyond Ivy, near the center of the deck. The eyes of everyone on board followed their arc of travel up and over, settling on their landing. Once all three were aboard, Ivy glanced over her shoulder to see the wave collapse back into the sea.

When she realigned her attention on the new witches, her eyes bulged nearly as much as everyone else, but for a different reason. The lead witch was…huge. As tall as Armond had been, at least. And the other two, while not at the same level, were easily the same height as Virian. The central witch wore a massive greatsword strapped to her back, while the other two had curved sabers belted at their hips.

Their leader stepped forward and pressed one hand to her chest, bowing her head ever so slightly.

“Queen Calla of Iadai greets the Ll'qixllin,” she said. Her accent was heavy, and the words sounded like she was speaking through thick tar.

Ivy couldn’t help but chuckle at the woman, ignoring everyone else, and focusing her stare on Rose. The other two foreign witches, however, did shoot Ivy a glance at her sudden laughter. Everyone else, though? They just stood there like they were standing before a group of grotesque demons. Huh. They weren’t that scary.

Yet even Rose stayed silent, her mask of stoicism showing the smallest cracks as her lips pursed. It only took Ivy another second to realize what had happened. The lead witch had spoken in the demonic tongue, Ivy understanding it instinctively and not noticing. Rose had probably figured it out as well, having an understanding of the language, or by just reading the woman’s mind.

Ivy sighed and stepped forward, briefly passing by a statue-like Raenin, staring at his mother. Once she extricated herself from Virian, she joined Rose at the back—now front—of their group.

“Not her,” Ivy said in perfect demonic. If she concentrated on it, she could consciously choose the strange, tongue-twisting language now. It sounded almost like an entirely different language out of her mouth than the foreigner. The words seemed to permeate the air around her, sending each syllable directly to the other’s minds. Like…how the demons spoke it.

All three of the witches snapped their gazes to Ivy, the leader wrinkling her nose at the sight. The demon disguised as the beautiful blond man reappeared, and she looked to him for support.

“This one?” the lead witch asked. He simply nodded and vanished again. “She is so puny.”

To Ivy’s surprise, it was Camellia who spoke next, “So young and foolish.” She had barely whispered it, yet with a silent tension hanging over the meeting, it was hard for Ivy at least to miss. Yet it also made no sense. Camellia was the second youngest royal child after Virian. She could only be a year or two older than him. The warrior-sailor-witch had to be at least twice their age to be Raenin’s mother.

It seemed that one of the foreign witches also caught the offhand comment. Her head snapped to where Camellia stood.

“What was that?” the previously silent woman asked. A scowl formed on the leader’s face, but she let her subordinate speak. “Do you have something to say, acolyte?”

Ivy blinked. Acolyte? Did these women think Rose was running a witch school or something? Did they have their own school? Huh.

Camellia said nothing in response. Instead, a black mist flowed out from her eyes, and everyone present took an involuntary step back from her. In Ivy’s case, she bumped into Virian, having not realized he had come to support her. In any other situation, she would have acknowledged the gesture, but she was too focused on the smoke that began to shape itself into a vaguely humanoid form. It stood the same height as the lead witch and cocked its head at her. To her credit, she did not back down, besides that initial first backpedal in surprise. The fingers of her right hand twitched, as though itching to reach for the hilt of her blade poking over her shoulder. Before anything could happen, however, the witch’s own beautiful blond demon appeared again, dropping to one knee.

“Traveler,” the blond demon said, “your presence humbles me.”

It was almost funny. No, it was funny. The huge, fearsome warrior witches couldn’t hold a candle to little ole Ivy and Camellia. Ivy started to crack a grin when Camellia’s smoke demon slowly raised one formless hand. When it struck down upon the other demon, there was no sound or great thunderclap. No flash of light or explosion of color. The kneeling demon just…vanished. He had done that before on his own several times already, so Ivy thought nothing of it until she saw the foreign witch’s face. The once stoic and proud woman had gone deathly pale, her expression twisted in anguish. It was then she drew her weapon.

All hell broke loose.