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you,” he said. Though what in all the seven seas he was to do with them . . .
    Dylan shook his head. “Regina shouldn’t travel.”
    “I wouldn’t leave anyway,” she said. “I’ve got family here. A kid. A life.”
    Conn raised his eyebrows. “And if you lose your life? What becomes of your child then?”
    She pressed her lips together.
    The big man with the quiet eyes—Caleb, Dylan’s brother—stirred by the door. “She fought. We all fought the battle that came to us. Where the fuck were you?”
    In his tower on Sanctuary, trying to hold a castle of sand against the encroaching tide.
    “You see a battle,” Conn said coldly. “I see the war.”
    Caleb stuck his thumbs in his pockets. “So we’re just more collateral damage?”
    “Not if you come to Sanctuary,” Conn said.
    They all gaped at him.
    Not the reaction he was hoping for.
    “In attacking you, the children of fire have exposed their weakness. They fear you. Or at least,” he added carefully, “they fear the children to come after you. The daughters of Atargatis are a threat to them.”
    And an advantage to me, Conn thought but did not say. A tool. A weapon to be grasped.
    Lucy’s face—watchful eyes between curtains of thick, fair hair—flashed briefly in his brain.
    But it was her brothers who concerned him now.
    “Come to Sanctuary,” he repeated. “Where I can protect you.”
    “Protect?” Margred asked. “Or control?”
    “You will be safe there,” Conn insisted.
    “We’re safe here,” said Dylan’s woman. “Dylan warded the whole island.”
    “Dylan is but one,” Conn said. The youngest and least of his wardens. “There are a dozen guardians on Sanctuary.”
    Or there could be.
    He would call them back, he decided. The ranks of the wardens had thinned as their people dwindled, as their magic declined. There were fewer than a hundred now. Too many of the seaborn had been lost as Conn’s father was lost to the bliss of the land beneath the wave. Atargatis had been among the last of the old ones to still take human form. Which made preserving her bloodline even more important.
    “Well, I’m the only cop on World’s End,” Caleb said. “I can’t just pack up and leave. I have a responsibility to the people here.”
    Conn looked pointedly at Margred. “Greater than your responsibility to her? To the children you might have together?”
    Margred sucked in her breath.
    “There aren’t going to be any children,” Caleb said flatly.
    “There could be,” Margred said.
    Her husband’s face set like stone. “I’m trying to protect you.”
    “So you keep saying. Or we would have a baby by now.”
    Conn, sensing weakness, pressed his argument home like a sword. “Have your baby on Sanctuary.
    Where you both will be safe.”

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    Margred’s mouth opened. Closed.
    “Want a piece of candy, little girl?” Regina muttered.
    Dylan shot her a warning look.
    “What? We already talked this over,” she said. “I won’t leave Ma. And I’m not ripping Nick away from the only life he’s ever known to hang with the lost boys in Never-land.”
    “All right,” Dylan said. “If—”
    “You need time to consider,” Conn said before they could refuse.
    The lump under his ribs had coalesced into a hard, cold knot. More was at stake here than their human ties or loyalties, than their practical considerations or their pride. More was at risk than their safety.
    The demons were circling World’s End, drawn to the promise of power like sharks to the scent of blood.
    If Conn could preserve Atargatis’s bloodline . . .
    He regarded them a moment: two humans, a selkie who had lost her pelt, and a warden just coming into his power. The heirs of Atargatis. The key to the prophecy.
    The knot in his chest tightened.
    “I’ll leave you to talk,” he said.
    Caleb gave a short nod.
    But at the entrance to the hall, Conn paused. “You should ask