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Croatia really is gorgeous, Nile thinks. The sea looks almost tropical, the beaches are white and soft and glow under the sun. It’s nice to simply walk with the sand between her toes and enjoy the rugged cliffs and crystalline water.“I remember this place!”She turns around and lowers her sunglasses to look at Joe. He and Nicky hold hands as they walk, heedless of anyone else around, and he is pointing ahead of them.The thing he’s pointing at is a tall tower, embedded into the cliff face, with a stereotypically pointed roof like in a storybook. At its foot there is a large outcropping of jagged rocks that jut out into the sea, making a barrier between two separate beaches. It looms, brilliant yellow in the sunshine. It looks, Nile thinks with a snort, kind of like a giant Crayola crayon.“You’ve been here before?” she asks. Nicky, to her surprise, grimaces.“The 1400s,” he replies, sounding bitter in a way that’s decidedly rare for him.“What happened?” she asks, always eager for any stories of their long lives they care to tell her, even half-forgotten. They’re a lot more forthcoming with their escapades than Andy is.This time, however, they share a look, Joe wincing. Nicky just looks sullen now, letting go of Joe’s hand to fold his arms.“Well…”The threat of it comes frequently with their line of work, but that does not make capture any less perilous. Immortality does not protect them from pain, or cruelty, and in truth Nicolò has never, ever forgotten the knowledge their sisters gave them in hushed, bereaved tones: that any time they die could be their last, their gift taken as arbitrarily as it was given.Borna is nothing but a baron, skulking around the bottom rung of the noble ladder, and there is no doubt he would like to ascend said ladder. At times the cynically ambitious can be no less cruel than the zealot.Borna has them forced to their knees, sneering down at them.“A Turk fraternising with a Venetian?” he says. “What manner of spies are you?”Nicolò knows he should hold his tongue. But such a slight cannot go unremarked.“I am not Venetian,” he says, spitting the word venomously. “I am Genoese!”Yusuf beside him sighs, no doubt at the fact that it has been four hundred years since Nicolò last set foot in Genoa.Borna simply scoffs. “So there is even less reason for you to be in these lands, hm?”Nicolò gapes at him, and then quickly shuts his mouth.“And you, Turk? What do you have to say for yourself?”Yusuf looks up, face stony. “Nothing, except I am not a Turk.”Borna brays a laugh then, shaking his head. “You look like a Turk, and you speak like a Turk, therefore you must be a Turk.”Yusuf’s glare is sharp as a blade. “I am from Ifriqiya.”“So a Barbary pirate, then?” Borna speaks as if he has caught Yusuf out in a lie. Yusuf rolls his eyes.“You make too many assumptions,” he says.He receives a backhand to the face for that, and he must cut his tongue on his teeth for he looks up, and he spits. The blood does not reach Borna’s face, instead landing on his doublet, but it is enough to make the baron recoil in disgust.“Filth!” he snarls. He punches this time, pounding his fist right Yusuf’s face with a sickening crunch. Nicolò lunges at him, struggling against the guardsmen, but they simply hold him tighter, wrenching him further away.“Yusuf!” he yells.Yusuf coughs. Blood drips from his nose, over his lips and chin, and Nicolò can see, for the barest moment, its crooked misalignment before it slips back into place. His heart thuds as he prays Borna doesn’t notice.“I tire of this,” Borna drawls. He jerks his head towards the window.Yusuf rears back, eyes wide with fear. Nicolò’s insides turn to ice, and for a moment he is frozen, before the fight returns to his limbs.“NO!”The guards that hold Yusuf begin to drag him along. He struggles, kicking, snarling, attempting to bite, and his eyes go, terrified, to Nicolò.“Nico!”“Yusuf!”Borna simply smirks, something evil and soulless that makes Nicolò want to tear his face off barehanded. “Toss him out,” he says, waving dismissively.A wail of anguish erupts from the very depths of Nicolò’s soul as the guards manhandle Yusuf to the window. Their eyes meet, and suddenly he is gone, nothing but a disappearing scream and a sickening crunch that makes Nicolò turn to the side and retch.Red hot rage bubbles forth. With bared teeth and searingly cold eyes, and one last final feat of strength, he pulls himself free.He will take this bastard with him.He puts all of his weight, all the breadth of his shoulders into it. Borna is no small man, but neither is Nicolò, and the baron is unprepared for the charge. They topple over the sill together, and Nicolò’s triumph is vicious but short-lived. The last thing he hears is Borna’s shriek before pain and darkness.Nile stares at them. Joe is shading his eyes as he gazes upwards. Nicky is inspecting the rocks as if he could still see bloodstains six hundred years on. She swallows. Is this what life will be like now? In two, three, four hundred years, will she have anecdotes she will recount with more lightness than they deserve?“How can you be so chill about it?” she asks quietly.Joe shrugs. “It was one death of many. You cannot allow every single one to affect you.”“It affected me,” Nicky murmurs, and Joe looks at him with soft eyes.“Ya rouhi…” he says, taking Nicky’s hands in his. “The man is forgotten, and we’re still here.”Nicky’s lips twitch, and he nods.“Come, time to leave this place,” Joe announces. “I’m sure it’s lunch time now.”