The Siren.

The Imprint.

The dreams started that night.

I expected the usual: broken masts, broken bodies, smoke and blood and old ghosts angry I was still breathing.

Instead, I got her.

We stood in water waist-deep, the sea flat and dark as spilled ink. No ship under my feet, no sky I recognized overhead. Just that half-light that lives between night and dawn.

She was there ahead of me, turning slowly, bare shoulders slick with some kind of silver reflection that had nothing to do with any visible moon. Her hair clung to her back in long, heavy strands. When she faced me, her eyes were the only bright thing in the world.

“Should’ve let you drown,” she said. “Would’ve been easier.”

“You tried,” I said. My voice sounded normal in that nowhere-place. “If you shove a man that hard, you don’t get to pretend you were gentle.”

Her mouth twitched—not quite a smile, not quite not.

“You shouldn’t have grabbed it,” she said, chin flicking toward my chest.

I glanced down.

The pendant glowed faintly against my skin, the water around it disturbed by something that wasn’t current. My fingers brushed it in the dream just like they had in the wreck, and the hum of it rolled up my arm.

“I needed a souvenir,” I said.

“You needed air.” She stepped closer, waves parting around her. “I gave you some. I should’ve left it at that.”

“You gave me more than air, love,” I said. “What was that down there? I don’t usually kiss strangers while I’m dying.”

Her eyes flashed, gold brightening. “Don’t flatter yourself. That wasn’t a kiss.”

Felt like one, I didn’t say.

“So what was it?” I asked instead.

"Imprint." She said.