Prin was aware that this was a bad idea, capitol B capitol I, for a variety of different reasons. Not the least of which was that they were on a boat, and therefore a place impossible to properly run away from. Also clean up would have its difficulties, as he had discovered before. Though this ship was more populous, making it even worse.

  He didn’t care.

  Prin had gotten dressed quickly, and decided if he could not track the boy, he would try and forget about him, move on to slower prey.

  It had been no problem at all to pick up his scent. Maybe it was the cologne that had saturated the air around him with the scent of cedar wood and dark berries, with an edge of burning leaves. A very different smell for someone so young and fresh. It left a trail that was so easy to pick up on it almost seemed deliberate.

  Prin did not know why he felt some animosity for this Kit person, it was almost instinctual, from the gut, more than anything he had said or done.

  He moved through the hallways and decks of the ship. Wondering.

  The wooden flooring creaked under his feet. He supposed the salted air was hard on wood.

  Ahh, it came to him why he felt this way, as he saw a man and woman kissing. Him bent toward her smaller frame, her lips pursed as she stood on her toes, their eyes alight with affection.

  Kit liked Elwin. He wanted to take Elwin away from Prin.

  It was hard for Prin to pick up on these signals, so he hadn’t noticed at first. But the hunting Prin had no trouble knowing who he liked (Elwin) and who he didn’t (almost everybody).

  The light from the sun was so strong, he really wanted to avoid it. Not that it hurt him any. It was just too . . . revealing.

  Prin explored the ship, eventually sorting the old scents from previous days from the new and finding the boy eating breakfast by himself with a book. Not at the buffet, but in a wood paneled restaurant, affecting the gentility of a place for rich people that is not attached to a large boat.

  Someone in a neat, all covering black dress, like clothes for a state funeral, sat down across from him and they smiled at each other. The boy’s smile was wide, the fake smile that people use when they want to be friendly, pleasing, hers was small and terse, but maybe as close as she ever got.

  It was Cora, the old lady that had bought their clothes, the one who Aster wanted to befriend. At the thought of Aster, it was like another hiccup in his brain.

  Was that what she was now? His conscience?

  Prin snorted, a lot of good it had ever done him to have one of those. Maybe he should have finished eating her. But the fairy, the protective little bug was determined, and powerful enough apparently, to make that difficult. He would have to forget it. For now.

  He knew he could have gotten the unexpectedly kind woman to follow him, perhaps by feigning illness that required an escort back to his room. However, she looked unappetizing, too brittle and frail, very little body fat, at an age where she was now beset by hidden illnesses, all vying for the chance to bring her final breath. No, someone like that would have to be a last resort.

  And there was no reason to dreg the bottom of the barrel when there was all this deliciousness all around.

  Elwin went back out in the hallway and looked both ways, feeling a franticness threatening to rise, like a small child who had lost sight of his parents.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Then, he went the logical place, next door. Maybe Prin had gone looking for him there while he had been taking Aster to the doctor.

  The door was locked.

  Elwin banged on the door.

  No answer.

  He did remember, come to think of it, Aster locking it behind herself as she left. So it was probably just Dru in there, sleeping it off.

  But what if . . .?

  Elwin knocked harder.

  Finally, quick footsteps to the door.

  Dru answered the door, rubbing her eyes with her fist, glasses absent, hair tousled, and looking generally miserable.

  “What the hell, man?” Dru asked, her voice dragged through mud and broken glass.

  “Have you seen Prin?” Elwin asked hurriedly. He felt relief to see her standing there, whole, and . . . well maybe not well, but uneaten anyway.

  Dru narrowed her bloodshot eyes in his direction. “No. Not since you kicked me out of your room. Why, are you missing a Prin?”

  Elwin thought about his answer a beat too long, and Dru continued crankily.

  “Listen, I know you two are like, joined at the hip or something. But he is a grown man, or nearly one, and I think he can wander off by himself without calling in the rescue squad. Don’t you?” Dru asked.

  If only she knew. But it was best she didn’t. How would one explain this anyway?

  Dru’s gaze suddenly clarified into a canny look. As though she did know something and was watching Elwin’s face for confirmation.

  He schooled his features into blankness as best as he could.

  “Don’t you?” Dru repeated. “Wait, is this about –”

  Elwin didn’t wait for her to get the words out, before turning away. “Never mind.” He said. He didn’t have his wits about him enough in his state of near panic to have this conversation. Whatever the girl thought she knew would just have to wait. He didn’t have time to explain himself, or duck and dodge explanation either.

  Elwin hurried off to look for Prin on his own. It was no one else’s responsibility but his anyway.

  Aster was in the middle of a series of weird dreams involving chasing her mother through smoke filled hallways while a giant bird kept swooping down from nowhere and taking chunks of flesh off her arm with its sharp beak, and similar scenarios, when she was awoken.

  So she wasn’t exactly sorry to be rescued from sleep.

  The nurse was leaning over Aster with a glass of water in one hand and a paper fan she was fanning Aster’s face with in the other. “Time to wake up, dear. You wouldn’t want to sleep away your entire vacation!” He sugary tone was almost able to hide the underlying edge of wanting Aster to fuck off out of her hair.

  “I – no s’okay, I wanna sleep.” Aster tried to shield her face with her arm but it felt swollen and heavy. The arm was bandaged clear from her hand to her elbow with almost cast-like thickness. The blousy sleeve of her shirt could barely contain it.

  “I know you are a little thing, so the sleepy-time medicine probably hit you hard.” The nurse said sympathetically. Or an okay imitation of it anyway, which was good enough for Aster. Had to be.

  “But we need the bed for other patients.” The nurse added. “Do you need assistance back to your cabin?”

  Aster sat up, feeling a head rush like waves crashing. She’d been through worse before and no doubt would be through worse yet. “Naaah, no, I’m fine.” She assured. Getting off the bed, she had forgotten the height of it and almost splatted onto the tiles.

  The nurse didn’t witness this indignity, as her back was turned and she was walking away, clearly expecting Aster to follow.

  She did follow, trying her hardest not to weave to and fro like a drunk on payday.

  The nurse handed Aster a bottle of pills and swatted her right out the door like an annoying fly. How rude! What was with these people? Could they tell she wasn’t actually rich, and was here as a charity case? More or less?

  Aster harumphed indignantly as she wove her way out through the hallway, through the deck and back into the dimmer, cooler, halls of the ship’s guts.

  Only problem is, she really wasn’t sure where she was after all.

  No one stopped to try and talk to her or offer an arm, and she was feeling . . . invisible. And overwhelmed. Both of which were not feelings Aster was used to. Back on the island just about everyone knew her and any scrap of her attention was greatly coveted.

  Were they distancing because they thought she was drunk? Or crazy? Or, perhaps they just couldn’t be bothered. Wait, were these people walking around even real?

  What kind of drugs had that doctor given her? The kind you lick off the back of a frog?

  Aster made herself chuckle with that one, and despite the people who looked like just a blur of drab colors going by in either direction, the cobwebs in her brain, and stiff unwieldiness of her bandaged arm, she thought for a moment that it couldn’t be all bad if you could still laugh.

  Just then a figure stood out. The familiar head of black curls, and outfit she had helped pick out just yesterday. Azure eyes you could drown in without a care in the world.

  He approached slowly, or at least it seemed that way compared to the blank randomness of the others who seemed to be somehow all rushing as if they were late to lunch, and mother was not going to save them any.

  Lovely Prin with a little smile on his face.