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17

Sylvia

“ J on, stop it!” I flitted between the boys, fighting to steal their attention. “Cliff!” But they wouldn’t listen, even when my shards of ice nicked the skin of their hands and necks enough to draw blood.

My injured shoulder throbbed from Jon’s shove, dismissive as it had been. If I dared draw within arm’s reach again, I could inspire more pointed violence. I turned, raising my hands toward the siren directly.

“You can’t have them!” I snarled. Ice swirled in threatening gusts beside me, making the arching branches overhead shiver in the conjured breeze. “Let them go!”

To my surprise, the siren snapped her gaze away from the hunters and focused on me as though she’d only just noticed I was there. The boys’ footsteps paused. Perhaps a siren’s song took concentration, like any other spell.

The rotting face of the woman was hard to read, but the vicious annoyance was clear—until those milky eyes lit up with recognition. The thinness of the creature was painfully familiar, and I realized with a start that this was the siren I’d freed from the outpost’s tank.

“You,” I breathed. “You made it home.”

“ Are these men yours, Mistress? ” the siren asked.

Hope surged through me, but I didn’t dare lower my hands. “ Yes, they’re mine, so release them!”

Pouting, the siren narrowed her eyes to the fallen weapons on the dock, her tail slapping the water in agitation. “ They are hunters, back to cage me, to strip the flesh from my bones and wear my teeth as trinkets. They deserve to be my first taste of mortal meat .” Her lips curled, revealing a gruesome smile that set my stomach churning.

“They won’t hurt you,” I said.

She giggled in disbelief.

“I saved you,” I reminded her. “So you’ll listen when I say they are not to be eaten. They answer to me—just watch. I won’t let them attack you.”

The siren’s voice was petulant in my mind. “ May I have one, at least? Half of one? ”

“None!” The air shimmered with threatened frost, the grimy water beginning to sparkle. “I’ll freeze this swamp solid and watch you starve to death—do we understand each other?”

Those glossy eyes shifted in consideration. A soft, clicking purr came from her throat. I remained tense, every muscle ready to unleash the torrent of ice magic waiting at my fingertips.

After another beat, the siren slumped off the dock and back into the water glumly.

I whirled on Jon and Cliff, searching their faces wildly. My heart twisted to see them like this—so disoriented, their minds desperately trying to surface from a choking fog. Sometimes I forgot how fragile even the sharpest human minds could be.

“Don’t try to move,” I soothed, my voice strained like a wire.

Jon blinked hard. His hands closed around empty air, finding his gun laying on the dock a foot behind him.He scrambled back and seized it. Both men lifted a hand to shield themselves from a second slip of eye contact.

“Fucking siren,” Cliff breathed, furious—though there was still something conflicted and dreamy in his wide eyes, like he was still willing to dive in after the creature. His grip tightened on his handgun, gaze darting between the edge of the dock and the algae drifting on the water—as close as he could get to aiming at his target. Behind me, the siren gave a throaty hiss.

My heart raced. I wanted to freeze them all solid, if only to prevent a brief and sudden bloodbath.

“Don’t shoot!” I shouted, flying in front of Cliff with my hands raised. “Let me speak to her.”

Jon faltered, angling his incredulous gaze carefully to me— only me. He kept his weapon raised, finger tensed on the trigger.“You can understand it?”

I nodded, stealing a glance over my shoulder. I could only imagine what she looked like to them, or sounded. According to Cliff’s sketches and notes, predatory glamour would cloak her sunken, clammy skin and serrated teeth in radiant beauty. The siren’s glossy black eyes protruded over the tide, watching me with a morbid curiosity. I could turn that curiosity into our salvation.

“You have any idea how dangerous sirens are?” Cliff growled. “We’re like walking ribeyes to that thing.”

“And all non-humans are alike with no exception?” I snapped, lifting my eyebrows.

They both fell silent, and I knew my words had cut deep.

“Five minutes,” I pleaded.

I descended to land at the edge of the dock among the items that had been taken from the Pontiac.

The siren bobbed higher in the water, studying Jon and Cliff with a twitch of her lips. “ They do obey you. How intriguing.”

I found myself fighting an odd smile at that. Why did a part of me enjoy the insinuation?

“Do you have a name?” I asked instead.

“ Aureline.”

My smile was genuine this time. “That’s beautiful.”

Her soft voice entered my mind again. “You are not from here, are you, Mistress?”

“Please, call me Sylvia.”

I chewed my lip, measuring out how much information to reveal. I didn’t sense any immediate malice from her, but Jon and Cliff were right to be cautious. I didn’t miss the way her gaze kept shifting over to them like they were savory herbed pies set out for a feast. She was hungry—and true, gnawing hunger could make even a saint capable of atrocities.

“These items,” I said, gesturing at the flashlights and bullets. “How did they get here?”

“ For scenting. Pulled from the wreckage to seek the visiting Fae presence.” Her eyes brightened knowingly at me.

“You were looking for me,” I said, getting the awful feeling that this mission must have led to her capture. I gauged her expression—the way she looked at me like an eccentric friend, not a dangerous outsider. “Your kind couldn’t have gotten close enough to search the car. Which means… other fairies are looking for me, too, aren’t they?” My throat closed around the words, sudden anxiety shooting through me. “Could you take me to them?”

Aureline cocked her head, falling quiet for a few moments.

“Sylv, what’s she saying?” Cliff snapped.

I didn’t look back at him, holding up a hand for him to be quiet. He cursed, his stance shifting impatiently. Both hunters’ gazes burrowed into me, making my skin crawl—even if it was protective, not predatory.

“ The Fae will be most pleased to have found their visitor. You are… different from them.” Aureline swam closer, her matted black hair clinging to her skin as she lifted a hand toward me, a single clawed finger extended.“ That mark on your face… Did hunters wound you, too? ”

A clawed finger traced down my side. Gentle, but sinister all the same. I muscled down the instinct to flinch away from her touch. “No, it’s—”

I felt air rush behind me. Heavy steps rattling the dock.

“Don’t touch her,” Jon growled.

“Jon, wait!” I screamed.

He looked down at me, expression blazing. He wouldn’t listen—he was going to pull the trigger. Aureline hissed, baring her teeth with a sharp flash of her tail. She slammed her tail into the dock—forcing Jon to stagger to regain his balance. Jon’s attention flicked upward only for a second—but a split second was all Aureline needed. Her hiss became a haunting melody.

No, no, no—

This time, I saw the moment his eyes locked with the siren’s with excruciating clarity. Horrifying, and yet I couldn’t look away. Jon’s stare glazed over, expression slackening. Aureline’s song surged, and Jon crashed onto his knees like a dog yanked by a chain. I took a staggering flight out of his way. His gun plummeted into the water, vanishing from sight.

“Jon,” I breathed, too horrified to scream. It was too fast, too frightening to form anything more coherent.

He gripped the edge of the dock, leaning over the water to peer down at Aureline like she was everything he’d ever wanted. In a sudden, fluid motion, Aureline lunged upward, seizing Jon’s jaw in a bony hand. Her voice re-entered my mind like a sigh.

“ I’ve never seen one like this,” Aureline said, her expression as dreamy as her distorted features allowed. Her thumb stroked his cheek. “Look at all the colors in its eyes.”

“Jon!” Cliff surged forward.

“No, wait!” I shouted, frightening tears blurring my vision. If he shot, the siren might take Jon with her.

If he didn’t, she might anyway.

“I’m not fucking waiting,” Cliff barked. “Get out of the way.”

It had to be nearly impossible to shoot something you couldn’t look at directly—but if anyone could do it, it was Cliff Everett.

“She’ll kill him!” I hissed, turning over my shoulder.

Aureline’s clicking purr drew my gaze back forward. She was still smiling at Jon’s vacant expression, a cruel game flashing in her gaze.

“ Do you want to come with me, my darling?”

“Yes,” Jon answered, his deep voice a drone.

My stomach knotted, the single syllable like a blow.

“Let him go. Now ,” I barely recognized the growl of my own voice.

I cast a spell toward the water, creating ice around Aureline’s waist in warning. I gave her a steely look, promising that only a flick of my finger could force the ice to close right through her soft skin. She flinched at the cold pressing on her, mouth twisting in what was the closest thing to resemble a pout.

“I won’t warn you again,” I said in a low voice.

Without taking her dark, iris-less eyes from me, she unfurled her grip from Jon and sank lower into the water. He sagged, gasping and gripping the dock, left staring at his own distorted reflection in the brackish water.

“ I will take you, Mistress. If you keep your morsels in line.”

I redirected the thread of ice in my palm, letting it coil like a shimmering, frozen serpent. The water around Aureline surged back into motion.

“If they try to hurt you, I’ll freeze their hearts,” I promised sweetly.

Her willingness to believe me was almost unnerving—what sort of fairies did she normally interact with? She trusted me enough to turn her back on the three of us before disappearing under the water. The tell-tale ripples of movements led along the shore, slow enough to track.

Although I was eager to follow, I darted to Jon first as Cliff helped him to stand.

“Are you alright?” I touched Jon’s cheek gently. His eyes were focused now, but I couldn’t shake the image of how unreachable he had been, carelessly brushing away my desperation for his attention.

He nodded, catching his breath. “Thanks,” he said, looking almost embarrassed.

“I like saving your ass sometimes,” I assured him. “It’s kind of a turn-on.” His instant smile melted the worry gripping my heart.

I pivoted, finding that the siren’s movements in the water were quickly vanishing in the distance.

“Hurry,” I urged the hunters. “Before she gets too far!”

Although I could hear them following, Cliff scoffed. “Or what—you’ll freeze our hearts?”

Wincing, I glanced back, wrestling a playful smile onto my face to diffuse the tension. “If you believed that for a second, I must be getting better at lying, right? How about, ‘ Thank you, Sylvia. You’re as talented as you are ravishing.’? ”

Though Cliff gave me a flat look, Jon gave a small snort of laughter, his eyes warming as he shot me a fond glance.

We cleared past the dock, following along the shore to catch up with the ripples of Aureline’s figure. The boys had to take care with the sodden ground along the way, but I didn’t need to slow until the trees began to cluster close to the water.

“How do you know you can trust her?” Jon questioned.

I weaved around a pair of branches and kept my eyes forward. “She… I don’t know, she speaks to me with such respect. As though fairies have some sort of authority over her.” I wondered how often such creatures formed alliances—there were certainly no mentions of it in Cliff’s entry on sirens.

“You’re sure that’s not just her magic working on you?” Jon pressed.

“Unless I’m secretly into skeletal, rotting corpses, I have to say no. ”

“Hey, you never know,” Cliff said. Then he made a noise of disgust. “So you can see what she really looks like? Usually, it takes a blow with a bronze weapon to shake the illusion.”

I perched briefly on a jutting bush to let them catch up, suddenly curious now that I recalled how siren illusions were tailor-made for each human. “What did she look like to you?” I asked.

“Hot blonde,” Cliff said without hesitation.

“Jon?” I prompted.

He cleared his throat, his gaze pointedly set ahead. “Hard to remember.”

“Liar.” I took wing and dropped lower, determined to meet his gaze.

Sighing, he finally looked at me. “Reddish hair. Green eyes.”

“A traitor mark on her face?” I tacked on. “Stunning blue wings?”

“Her hair was long ,” he said, matter-of-fact.

“I’ve been thinking of growing it out,” I said with equally playful nonchalance. Although he’d called me beautiful plenty of times, pleasant heat flushed through me, knowing that his preference for my features would manifest even in a desirous illusion.

“Can you guys save the horny shit for later?” Cliff groaned. “I’m this close to letting the siren drown me. Hell, I’ll do it myself.”

Minutes later, something shifted in the air. The light fell differently through the branches and leaves. The humidity wasn’t quite so vicious. The vegetation felt lush rather than overbearing.

I pulled to a stop when a stone structure jutting out of the water came into view. Thick layers of moss and lichen covered it so well that I might have thought it was a hill. Vegetation crowded so close to the shore that it practically swallowed the structure, making it blend seamlessly in the rest of the swampland .

Our frantic quest to keep up came to a sudden halt as we took in our surroundings.

Flowers were in passionate bloom in every direction, climbing the trees. From the corner of my eye, I noticed something shifting further away from the water among the trees. Both Jon and Cliff raised their weapons, but they faltered at once.

“Stars,” I whispered.

A pair of deer made their careful way through the vibrant bushes. Their coats were white as freshly fallen snow, and pink blossoms had sprouted from their antlers. They avoided us peacefully, disappearing among the brush.

The water seemed clearer here, too. Darting schools of fish were visible, bold with bright colors. I glimpsed a snake with shifting, iridescent patterns shimmering over its scales before it slithered into the water to avoid Jon and Cliff’s wandering trek. Butterflies skirted over the swamp, bearing vibrant wings that reminded me of revel nights and the stained glass of the church. A few of them glimmered, twinkling silver and gold like wayward stars above the water.

“Glowing lights,” Cliff murmured. “Ring any bells?”

The legend Hannah had recounted came flooding back, but this time, it didn’t fill me with uneasiness. The truth behind the story made my heart swell with hope.

“Sylv,” Jon murmured, marveling at a glowing blue lily that opened slightly at his touch. He caught my gaze, a breathless grin growing on his face.

We smiled wordlessly at each other, coming to the same conclusion. This was the sign we had been so desperately searching for. All of these creatures and unnatural blooms were signs that a powerful gemstone was nearby—right within reach.

A shadow skirted over the meadow, and we raised our heads to see a hawk circling through the trees. I flinched closer to Jon, certain for a moment that the bird of prey was coming for me. Its flight dipped low to the ground, circling around all three of us. When Cliff held up his hands defensively, the regal bird landed on his outstretched arm.

My jaw fell open as it folded its wings, giving Cliff’s shoulder a nudge with its head—as docile as one of Hannah’s cats. Instead of the typical high-pitched call, the bird emitted a deep, oscillating hum punctuated by unsettling clicks. Cliff straightened his arm like a falconer, exchanging an awestruck look with Jon.

“You guys seeing this?” Cliff breathed.

I swallowed hard, nodding back. The hawk was translucent , with glass-like feathers that allowed us to peer directly inside at the sinewy muscles and pulsing veins inside. When it spread its wings, sunlight refracted through each feather like crystal, casting fragmented rainbows over the waterlogged earth.

The stretch of water to our right gave a lurch as Aureline surfaced up to her shoulders, looking wholly out of place in this delicate sanctuary. I darted closer, waiting for further instruction. She dove back down before I could reach her, vanishing somewhere beneath the massive stone structure.

“That’s where she wants us to go,” I called over my shoulder.

When Cliff set forward, the altered hawk took flight again, soaring through the flowering vines above. I watched it go, committing the beautiful, strange creature to memory.

A narrow path cut across the water, leading toward the mysterious cobbled building. I kept pace with the hunters, searching for an opening in the stone until Cliff pushed away vines and moss to reveal the entrance. The cut of the arched opening had eroded, giving it the appearance of a cave more than a dwelling. The darkness that waited within was a far cry from the gorgeous landscape around us. It gaped like a maw, and I couldn’t help but hesitate .

“Maybe you should wait out here,” I suggested, beginning to understand how they must have felt when they told me to keep my distance from the outpost.

“No,” they both said at once.

I turned to face them, grateful and uncertain. “We don’t know how these fairies might take to humans—and if the siren lets on that you’re hunters—”

“You’re not going in there alone.” Jon leveled a firm look at me, then took the first step into the darkness.