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Her eyes cut to me, two silver orbs bouncing wide, then narrowing as she swims closer. She tugs my blouse to pull me to her, and I don’t even care that I’m drowning anymore.

My arms wrap around her, and she rakes her claws down my back, her tail slipping between my legs with a smooth undulation. I open for her, pressing my pelvis down to grind on her scales.

“This is how it should have been, right?” she sings, her Ocean Voice naming a wish I’ve never dared to make. “You and me.”

No. This isn’t right.

A tendril of lucidity snakes through the nonsensical images in my head. Cordelia’s Ocean Voice belongs to the sea witch.

And I would never allow myself to indulge in a fantasy like this.

I snap my eyes open and feel my hand working beneath my waistband. The aether is humming with Cordelia’s desire.

My clit is slick and swollen, waiting for me to finish what I’ve started, but I pull back and thread my fingers through my hair, tugging it at the roots.

This is a line I refuse to cross.

When Cordelia wants, I feel it. I’m tortured even when I ignore it.

But from the time we were bound, I’ve kept a promise to myself to let her keep that part of herself private.

Shame burns hot across my cheeks. Tonight, I’ve gotten too close to that boundary.

I block all thoughts of her as I wait for her to finish like she always does–with a disappointing plateau of energy before the aether goes still again. When it levels out, I clutch my pillow, afraid of what I’ll find in my next round of dreams.

“Zephyr, are you sleeping?” she whispers to her pendant, quiet, like she’s talking to an actual person. “If you’re awake, do you mind visiting?” Blue light swirls around my fingertips at her request. “It’s just been so long since we talked. I’m not used to that.”

I probably shouldn’t, but her loneliness cracks through me like it’s my own.

Maybe it is.

I muster my last fragments of energy and fold the space between us. No doors or walls could stop me from reaching her.

I manifest on her bed and plaster a grin on my face.

“Did you miss me?” I ask, lying on my side with my legs stretched out and my head propped up on my hand.

“No.” She tucks her chin beneath the edge of her blanket. She’s wrapped herself up in it. “Ok, maybe a little bit. But in my defense, you took longer than you said you would. What were you doing?”

“I had to change my hair, read up on hydrography, and find a way to make a grand entrance.”

She looks at the strands falling over my face. “Will your hair go back to the way it was before?”

“Yes, this is only temporary.”

“You did all of that just to join the excursion?”

“I needed a reason to be here.” I shrug. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yes, you read Darcy so well, it’s almost scary.” She sits up in her comforter, her scrunched nose the only part of her visible through the curtain of her hair. “Goddess, what is that smell?” She turns to me and sniffs vigorously. “Ah, it’s you!”

“No, it’s not.” It definitely is, though. Even I can’t stop my mouth from twisting as I turn my nose toward my underarm. “That’s rude.”

She rolls herself away from me. “Not as rude as lying on my bed when you smell like that.”

“Princess, may I remind you that you’re the one who asked me to⁠—”

She hits the floor, and I crawl over to the side of the bed as she unfurls from her blanket. There’s a flash of her bare thighs before she pulls her nightgown over them and stomps to her dresser, soaking a rag in the small washbasin.