Through the thin, drifting mist, two sirens touched down on the deck, translucent drool spilling from their jaws as they prepared to feed. Lothar and Prajna were already moving.

The sirens recoiled in alarm. Their bodies were fragile. Their lower halves, sheathed in slick scales and slime, could shrug off sword-cuts: blades simply slid aside. But their upper bodies were soft, unprotected human flesh.

They survived the deep not through tough skin but through magic. They had no desire to trade blows with an armed knight.

Selena was just a beat too slow lifting off. The blood pooling beneath her twisted under Fringilla's command: coagulating into tough, rope-like bonds. They lashed around Selena's slick fish-tail and pinned her flat to the deck. Lothar was already on her, the slight rocking of the ship no obstacle. He raised the bastard sword high.

Selena thrashed her wings, clawed at the blood-ropes with her sharp nails, desperate to break free. It was useless.

"Please. Please—spare me. I'll bring you pearls and gems from the seafloor. I'll make you the richest man in the world. Please!"

She spoke fluent Greek with a faint Anatolian accent, her voice as crisp and clear as a lark's song. She was beautiful. Breathtaking. But the man standing over her had a heart of iron. In his cold eyes, not a flicker of pity or mercy.

The blade fell.

Thud. A beautiful head rolled across the deck. Blood fountained from the neck of the headless body and splashed across the planks behind Lothar.

Selena's performance proved Fringilla wrong. The sirens were not mindless; they simply could not control their hunger for human flesh. That left Lothar no basis for negotiation.

"Kina!" The two sirens in the air shrieked. "Selena." That wasn't her true name at all. It was what the Jewish merchant had called her, a corruption of "Siren."

Tears, crystalline and bright, spilled down their cheeks. Their jaws unhinged, small pretty lips peeling back to reveal rows of serrated fangs. The corners of their mouths split farther, farther, until only thin strands of flesh held them shut. Drool poured from the widening gaps. In the space of a heartbeat, those seductive red lips had become a gaping maw that stretched from ear to ear.

The two sirens screamed. The sound was fury and grief fused together, and the mist on the sea boiled at its passing. Lothar felt as though a tidal wave were crashing over him. Wounds like axe-strokes materialized across the deck.

Without hesitation, Prajna stepped in front of Lothar. The demon-faced shield came up.

Clang. Clang. Clang. A staccato hammer of impacts, as though the air itself had turned to steel. Bracing against Prajna's back, Lothar felt the force driving them both backward.

"The sirens are this strong?" He was stunned. In close combat they were nothing compared to the werewolf, but this ranged sonic attack was on par with heavy crossbow fire.

"Yes," Prajna said. "And they can fly. We'll have trouble landing a hit."

"Big Stiff—draw their attention!" Fringilla shouted in Chinese. Her linen robe billowed as mana surged around her. White hair lifted into the air.

"We have to finish them in the air! If they dive beneath the hull and punch through from below, we're all dead!" Prajna's reply came rapid-fire: the most words she'd strung together at once.

The demon face on her shield twisted alive. A wave of hellish presence erupted outward; the world seemed to bend around her. The two sirens' teeth chattered uncontrollably. Their scream died in their throats.

"That presence—it's Cerberus! The Gate of Hell!" "That should be at the bottom of the sea. How is it here?!"

On the deck, two wavering, translucent shapes rose from Selena's corpse, then streaked like swallows toward the gaping mouth of the demon-faced shield.

"No! Kina's soul—don't let it devour her!" The sirens dove forward.

Fringilla was already moving. Light as a leaf, she sprang to the gunwale and launched herself skyward. In midair, she gestured at the blood pooling across the deck.

It answered, rushing together, condensing into a throwing spear that reeked of sweet copper. "Get down here!" The blood-spear screamed toward the two sirens. Hemomancy lent it terrifying speed.

But the sirens, despite their panic, had kept their guard up. At the last possible instant, both froze in place. The spear shot past, inches from their faces.

Then the black shield came spinning: a razor discus scything through the air. And right behind it, a second blood-spear, fresh-formed in Lothar's hands, Fringilla's work behind Prajna's cover.

Schlick. The black shield cut one siren in half at the waist. The second spear caught the other square in the wing. She listed and tumbled from the sky like a kite with its string cut.

"Die!" Fringilla clenched her fist. While the winged siren was still in midair, the blood-spear buried in her body detonated: unraveling into a thousand hair-fine crimson needles that turned her to a sieve.

"Yes!" Triumph sharpened Lothar's voice. Their coordination had been flawless: a perfect three-part attack.

In truth, when he'd thrown that spear, he hadn't been sure he'd hit. Training on horseback, he'd only landed three in ten. The deck was less treacherous than a saddle, but not by much.

Prajna let out a long breath and extended her hand. The shield, which had flown far past the ship, arced back like a boomerang and slapped into her grip.

Fringilla stumbled and collapsed. "Frin!" Lothar rushed to her side.

"Don't panic. She's only overdrawn her Spirit," Prajna said, her tone level. "It's not serious."

Fringilla was an Epic Retainer, but still only Level 1. Lothar had worried what she might do with more power, and his purse hadn't allowed it anyway. Casting that many high-yield spells in quick succession had pushed her past her limits.

He gathered her in his arms. She weighed nothing: like a paper girl, light enough the wind might carry her away.

"Back to the cabin. Now."

"Mm."

The battered ship limped into the port of Crete the next morning. With its original owner dead, the vessel passed, by natural right, to Lothar. The repair costs did as well, though only the deck and mast had suffered light damage. The delay would be brief.

In Crete, they took on fresh water and supplies. The island was predominantly Greek, its political landscape a tangle of competing powers: the Eastern Empire, Venice, Genoa, even the Ayyubids all projected influence here. After resting the morning at a dockside inn, they set sail again in the afternoon. Their heading: the port of Jaffa.