Page 46 of Lore of the Tides

“What if I were a friend?”

“My friends are lost to me. I am alone.”

The creature was standing in front of her now. “You need not be alone anymore.”

Lore could smell the fathomless depths of the sea on them. It was intoxicating. Enthralling. Dangerous. No human should know what the bottom of the ocean smells like.

“What are you called?” asked the siren.

Lore should lie, like she did with Queen Riella. She shouldn’t give up her name. Her mother had told her, long ago, that when a demon asked your name, you should never tell them.

“Lore Alemeyu.”Fuck.There was magic at work here; she could not lie to this creature.

“I heard you called something else. A hateful word whispered on the wind.”

“They call me witch. I do not mind. To be hated for being something new. Unknown. To be feared for it... It is better than being pitied.” Lore frowned. She hadn’t known she felt this way, but it was the truth. She would rather be called “witch” by the fae than any of the other words she’d had pitched at her.

The water was rising. Icy tendrils kissed her waist.

If Lore did not escape this sinking ship soon it would not matter what they whispered about her on the wind or otherwise. She would not hear it. This ship would be her grave; she would be dead.

“Come with us; we siren, too, know something about being feared.”

Lore shook her head with vigor. “There is a male on this ship, I cannot leave him.”

The siren’s lips quirked into a smile, though it was not one ofkindness, but mischief. Lore imagined this was the face Yissa, the trickster god, wore when he banished the humans to this existence of misery.

“Tall, dark, and handsome with locs that flutter in the water? Stubborn?”

“Yes!” Lore gasped.

“I see you have similar motivations. He wouldn’t leave the ship either, without the promise that we would find you.”

This creature had spoken to Finndryl already?

“Have you freed him from his room as well...?” Lore asked, wanting to know if going with the siren would lead to “freedom.”

The siren blinked. Its lashes were otherworldly long, captivating. “He only complied when we told him the truth of why we are here.”

“And what is the truth?”

“We have been searching for something new. Something... unknown.” The siren blinked emerald eyes before narrowing their gaze upon her. “Something new, like you.”

Lore was the reason the ship was attacked. That Cecil was most likely lying dead in the corridor?

“Is he safe?”

“As safe as a lander can be in the ocean.”

“If I come with you, will he be whole, unharmed?”

“I swear it.”

“But wait, there is something else I need. It’s in the commander’s quarters.”

“We do not have much time before the ship sinks. Your kind will not last long below water without our ritual.”

“I must have it. Please—let me try.”