Page 19 of Siren Problems

LUNA

Which is already a red flag. Nothing good ever shows up in my inbox before coffee and a minor existential spiral.

Subject line:

“Congratulations, Dr. Wilder: Westwind Fellowship Award”

At first, I think it’s a mistake.

Then I see the sender. The seal. The watermark. The signature.

Not a scam.

Not a dream.

Real.

I stare at the screen.

Mouth slightly open. Mug frozen halfway to my lips.

And then I do something incredibly mature and professional.

I say, “Holy shit ,” and nearly spill coffee all over the ley line energy stabilizer.

Mira bolts into the room like a spell just detonated. “Did the field specter come back?”

“No,” I croak, spinning the laptop toward her. “Look.”

She blinks. Gasps.

“You got it.” She clutches the back of my chair. “Luna. You got it.”

“The Westwind,” I whisper. “They picked me. ”

“Top-tier research freedom. Full magical archive access. Travel budget with artifact pursuit rights. You could build your own damn department.”

“I could publish every sea-magic theory we’ve proven here tenfold.”

“You could rewrite the ley code protocols.”

I nod, eyes still locked on the glowing screen. “I could... everything.”

And then I see the attachment.

Fellowship Terms and Clauses.

My heart jumps. But I click it open. Because I’m a scientist. I follow details. I double-check my blessings.

The clauses scroll like a glittering red carpet—until I reach the one that makes my stomach turn.

“The recipient agrees to full cooperation with the Department of Magical Integrity in cataloging all anomalous magical artifacts, energies, and entities encountered during grant-related research. Evidence must be turned over in its entirety for classification and containment purposes. No exceptions.”

I stare.

And stare.

Because “entities” doesn’t mean ghosts or ley surges.

It means Calder.

It means his curse.

His voice.

Him.

Mira’s still celebrating behind me, tossing sparkly sticky notes in the air. She finally notices my silence and creeps back to my side.

“You look like you just read your own obituary.”

I point to the clause.

She leans in.

“...Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“They want everything ?”

“All the relics. All the data. All the... beings. If it’s anomalous, it’s evidence.”

“Including?”

I nod slowly.

She sits down beside me, hard. “That’s not just academic. That’s predatory.”

“They always frame it in pretty words. Oversight. Containment. Preservation.”

“But it’s still exploitation.”

I clench my fists. “They want me to prove magic. But to them, proving it means boxing it. Studying it. Draining it.”

“And Calder?—”

“Would be a target the moment I name him.”

Mira is quiet.

I can hear the hum of the ley grid under our floor. The quiet whir of the aura stabilizer. My own heartbeat, thick in my ears.

This is everything I’ve worked for.

Years.

Blood. Sweat. Magical near-death experiences.

This fellowship is validation. Power. Autonomy.

I deserve it.

But I didn’t fall in love with power.

I fell in love with him.

I slam the laptop shut like it might bite me.

Mira reaches for my hand, her voice quieter now. “You don’t have to decide today.”

“I already did,” I whisper. “A year ago, when I applied. I built my career on proving the impossible.”

“But you didn’t know him then.”

“No,” I say. “I didn’t.”

We sit in silence for a while.

Then Mira asks the question I’ve been dreading.

“What are you going to do?”

I don’t answer.

Because I don’t know.

I want both.

I want Calder. And I want this grant. I want to change the field from within. I want to rewrite the rules so people like him don’t have to hide anymore.

But I can’t do that from a position I bought by betraying him.

Mira stands. “I’ll run some simulations. On what we can publish without triggering the clause.”

“Thanks.”

I walk out into the dunes, the wind snapping at my coat, the sea churning like it knows something’s wrong.

And I scream.

Loud. Harsh.

Full of salt and heartbreak and rage.

Because I don’t want to choose.

But if I don’t...

I’ll lose both.

By sunset, the lab is buzzing.

Mira has already printed the grant banner from the university press release and tacked it to the wall above my desk. She’s bouncing between data logs and spreadsheet tabs like a hyperactive sea sprite.

“I’m telling you,” she says, waving a coral-pink highlighter, “this changes everything. We can map the South Ridge leyline fault with equipment we’ve never touched. We can reverse engineer rift decay. Hell, we could build our own magical oceanography lab.”

She twirls, throws confetti into the air, and yells, “Luna Wilder, you sea witch genius!”

Kai, by contrast, is slumped on my couch with a drink and a very tight smile.

“You okay?” she asks, softly, when Mira darts into the supply closet in search of more glitter.

I nod too quickly. “Yeah. Just processing.”

“Luna.”

“I am. ”

She watches me for a moment. “So... do you want to celebrate?”

“I... I don’t know.”

Because inside, I’m quiet.

Not triumphant. Not proud.

Just this dull ache of almost.

Because Calder still hasn’t come back.

He’s not in the shack. Not on the cliffs. Not near the tide marker where he usually broods dramatically at dusk.

And I’m starting to feel it in my bones.

The withdrawal. The slow sinking.

The feeling of being left again.

“Maybe I’m just tired,” I mumble.

Kai gets up, crosses the room, and sits beside me.

“You haven’t seen him?”

I shake my head. “Not since the dream.”

Her brow furrows. “You told him about the grant?”

“I haven’t even seen his shadow, Kai.”

She doesn’t push.

Just leans into me, shoulder to shoulder.

“You still want to go?” she asks after a long beat.

“I don’t know.”

Because it was supposed to be simple. Glory or heartbreak. Power or love.

But it’s not.

Because if I stay—and he doesn’t want me, I’ll have given up everything for nothing.

And if I go, I’ll always wonder if he would've come back.