Zek was up and about, checking that all was in order, his movements full of confidence and long practice. This was his lighthouse, his job, and Izzy felt an ache in her heart as she remembered the way his name had been vilified all these years.
As he worked she stood, peering through the glass walls. The weather encircled them, pounding for entry, driving hail and spitting rain, as if it wanted to destroy them.
“Dear God,” she whispered, as the lights of the steamer flickered out to sea.
And he was beside her, his face a peculiar shade of green in the storm’s light. Once again he reached out for her hand. It seemed natural, and just as natural when she grasped his fingers, entangling them with hers, finding comfort in his touch.
“Neptune is an old god. He gains his power from the sea and those lost within it. The lighthouse is a bulwark against his storms and he’d like nothing better than to tear it down.”
“So . . . what is the plan?” she said, taking a wobbly breath.
He looked at her and smiled. “I’ve come from the between-worlds, Isabel. I’m somewhere halfway between life and death, so I’m not entirely human either. That might give me the edge I didn’t have when I faced him before.”
As if in response to his words, the lantern room was plunged into darkness.
There was a tremendous roar from beyond the cliffs. Not thunder, not this time.
She’d dreamed about this, and now she wished it was still a dream. Neptune was coming up out of the waves, flesh shining an eerie blue, white hair long and wet and wriggling like a nest of sea serpents. It... he . . . was immense, a veritable monster, and as he rose to his full height he was as tall as the cliff and the lighthouse combined. His eyes had no white in them at all. They were shining like ebony as he gazed into the dark lantern room.
“Mortal!” he roared. “I have come.”
Izzy was aware of Zek’s arm tight around her. He was warm and strong, not like a dead man at all, and his breath stirred her hair as he spoke. “It is time for me to go down. Stay here.”
“No! We go together.”
He shook his head. “Stay here.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said stubbornly. “This time we’ll face him together.”
He opened his mouth again, but someone else spoke before he could get the words out.
“Tell her the truth, Zek. Tell her what Neptune really wants.”
Izzy gasped, gaze flying to the opposite side of the lantern room. A woman in a long white dress stood there, her red hair loose, her eyes a brilliant blue. After one glance, she found she could not meet the woman’s stare directly - the pain was too intense.
“No, Sorceress,” her man said, “I will do this my way.”
“Doing it your way wasn’t so successful before,” the Sorceress retorted with a nasty little smile. “Tell her. You say you love her. I believe you must doj you saved her last time at the cost of yourself and all those others. Trust her, let her stand with you. Learn from your mistakes, that’s why you’re here.”
Then it suddenly all made sense. Neptune had saved Zek, and then he’d demanded Isabel in return. Not the steamer after all.
“It’s me he wants,” she whispered. “Isn’t it? It was always me.”
Neptune roared, his tail slammed down on the sea’s surface and a huge wave of spume rose against the lighthouse. When
the air cleared again, the nearing lights of the steamer were visible through the water running down the glass.
“Yes, Neptune wants you,” he admitted. “He told me he would save the steamer if I gave you to him. I said no.”
“But all those people . . . the passengers aboard the steamer...”
“I said no, Isabel.”
Her mouth went stubborn and straight, and Zek watched it with fascination. It was Isabel’s mouth and yet it wasn’t. “This time he’ll get what he wants.”
“No!”
Tears drowned her eyes, overflowing. “Do you know what they’ve said about you all these years? How they’ve blamed you and blackened your name and destroyed your character? I won’t let it happen this time. You don’t deserve it. You saved my life and now it’s in my power to put history right, and that’s what I’m going to do.”