Page 23 of Siren Problems

LUNA

I ’ve rewritten this damn chant four times, and each version makes me want to lob my notebook straight into the sea.

“This is the magical equivalent of drunk texting your ex,” I say, stabbing my pencil into a scratchpad covered in chicken-scratch notes and coffee stains.

“It’s not drunk texting if you mean it,” Kai offers from the counter, where she’s perched like a caffeinated sea sprite.

She’s wearing her ‘brainstorming’ hoodie—oversized, threadbare, and absolutely smothered in embroidered charms and pinned-on sigils that have long since lost their original purpose.

Mira snorts without looking up from her array of bones and crystal shards. “It’s not a breakup if neither of you ever admitted you were together.”

“Guys,” I groan. “Not helping.”

Lyle pipes up from the floor, where he’s half-curled around a pile of enchanted driftwood. “Actually, I think this is going great. For once, nobody’s bleeding.”

“Give it time,” I mutter.

But beneath the sarcasm, I’m grateful. We’re all exhausted—emotionally, magically, academically—but they showed up anyway. No questions asked. Just friends who would literally help me reverse-engineer a siren curse using duct tape and questionable runes.

Kai swings her legs, mug balanced on her knee. “You said the curse was fueled by grief and betrayal, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I say, brushing my hair out of my face. “The spell matrix was saturated with old magic. Stuff tied to Calder’s voice, his heart. ”

“So we reverse it,” she says. “We flood it with something else. Something newer. More human.”

“Love?” Lyle suggests, half-mocking.

I freeze. Mira stills. Even Kai pauses.

“Yeah,” I say after a long beat. “Love. But not the pretty kind. Not hearts-and-flowers or first-date flutters. I’m talking about the messy kind. The holy-shit-I’d-bleed-for-you kind. The kind that doesn’t flinch when you’re ugly and broken and pissed off.”

Mira’s voice is soft when she says, “You’re in love with him.”

I roll my eyes, but my heart’s beating way too fast. “Congratulations. We’ve all caught up to the plot.”

“Then stop writing this like a term paper,” Kai says, hopping down. “We’re not gonna crack this by being clever. We need to be honest.”

“I am being honest,” I protest, waving my notebook. “This is the most honest I’ve ever?—”

“No.” She takes the notebook gently from my hands and sets it aside. “This is cautious. It’s intellectual. It’s safe. You wanna break a love-curse? You better bleed for it.”

Mira clears her throat. “Metaphorically. Please. No more blood on my quartz.”

“Seriously,” Lyle says, holding up a rune stone. “These things are porous. ”

I sit down hard in the rickety chair. The legs groan like they’re judging me.

Kai leans forward. “Luna. What would you say to him if he were right here?”

“I’d punch him first,” I mutter. “Then I’d... I don’t know. Tell him to stop hiding. Tell him I see him, and it doesn’t scare me. ”

“Write that, ” Kai says.

So I do.

The words come slow, but true.

I write about the first time I saw him in the moonlight, cursing the sea like it owed him something.

I write about the sound of his voice when he’s not trying to be mean—but trying not to care.

I write about how it feels to look at someone and know they’ve been drowning for centuries, and still want to throw them a rope.

I write about love. Real, terrifying, get-under-your-skin-and-haunt-your-bones love.

And when I read it aloud—just once, soft and shaky—Kai wipes at her eyes with her sleeve and mutters, “Okay, yeah, we’re cursed too now.”

Mira doesn’t say anything. Just adds a new symbol to the circle, something glowing and gentle.

Lyle whispers, “That was, like, violently romantic.”

I laugh.

I believe this might work.

Not because it’s perfect. But because we made it together.

Because my truth is finally louder than my fear.

And Calder? He’s going to feel it.

Even if he’s too afraid to admit what he feels back.

The next morning, the sea fog clings low to the sand like it knows something’s about to break.

Mira’s got her hair twisted up in about six different pencils, aura scanners strapped to her arms like some techno-shaman war general. She hands me a rune disk pulsing with gentle blue light. “This one’s synched with the heart relic. If the chant takes hold, it’ll act as a stabilizer.”

“Good,” I say, fingers closing around it like it’s a lifeline. “How’re we on ley convergence?”

“Peak’s at moonrise,” she says. “That gives us twelve hours. I’m mapping the energy flare around the altar. Kai’s placing signal stones along the tidepath.”

“And Lyle?” I ask.

Mira grins. “Building a dramatic fire pit and pretending he’s not nervous.”

“Classic.”

We hike down to the cove, packs full of relics and spell components clanking like we’re heading into magical battle—which, honestly, we are. The sea churns near the rocks, uneasy. The current’s restless. I can feel it under my skin, like it’s waiting for a decision.

Calder hasn’t shown up.

I don’t expect him to.

He’s made it clear he doesn’t want saving.

But I’m doing it anyway.

Not because I think I can fix him. Not because I think love solves curses.

But because I see him.

And no one else ever tried to.

Kai’s already knee-deep in saltwater, planting runes along the perimeter like she owns the tide. Mira’s setting up a pulse generator made from enchanted kelp fiber and stolen council code. She glances at me over her shoulder. “If this backfires, I want my eulogy to include my Wi-Fi password.”

“Noted,” I say, managing a grin.

She gets serious. “You sure about this?”

“No,” I admit. “But I’m done letting him carry this alone.”

I plant my boots in the sand, heart hammering.

Calder doesn’t have to show.

He doesn’t have to say yes.

But when this spell hits the water, it’ll call to him.

And if there’s any part of him left that still wants to be free—he’ll come.

Even if it kills us both.