Page 29 of Siren Problems

LUNA

I don’t know what I expected from Kai’s re-opening party, but it sure as hell wasn’t this much glitter.

Sip the whole place hums like it’s breathing along with the tide.

There’s magic in the air—and not just the literal kind. Everyone in Lowtide Bluffs has shown up. Fisherfolk who never leave the docks. Seers and sirens and the odd nymph with sea-glass in her hair. Even the town mayor is here, looking confused but pleased while sipping a bubbling purple drink.

I move through the crowd, barefoot and buzzed, weaving past a trio of kelpies debating tidal sovereignty and a were-seagull in a tux shirt unbuttoned halfway. There’s joy in the air, heavy and heady like summer salt and freedom.

Mira’s posted up at a corner booth, elbow-deep in leyline readings and poking at a glowing relic like she’s trying to make it sing opera. She waves without looking up. “Luna, the tide resonance spike is behaving weird. You need to see?—”

I cut her off with a grin. “Mira. Babe. I’m wearing a skirt that sparkles when I twirl and drinking something Kai called ‘Sea Bitch.’ Science can wait.”

“Fine.” She sips a bright green drink. “But it’s peaking under the moonlight. Literally peaking.”

“That’s what she said!” Lyle cackles as he slides past with a tray full of cocktails, each topped with a spiral of glowing lemon peel.

“Lyle, what’s in the Whirlpool Heartache?” I call out.

“Regret and pomegranate,” he says cheerfully. “Want two?”

I wave him off and keep moving, because I see him. Leaning against the back wall, arms crossed like a sea god carved from shadow and salt, is Calder. The crowd parts around him like even now the tide knows better than to get too close.

But he doesn’t look untouchable anymore.

He looks... mine.

I saunter over, feet sticky with spilled spells and joy. “You gonna lurk all night like a sea-salted vampire, or are you gonna dance with me?”

He raises one of those perfect eyebrows. “I don’t dance.”

“You don’t yet. ” I tug his hand. “Come on, sea monster. One dance. For me.”

He exhales like I’ve asked him to fight a kraken, but lets me pull him onto the makeshift dance floor—really just a cleared space between the tables, where laughter spills louder than the music.

There’s no real band—just that weirdly tuned fiddle and enchanted drinkware chiming in sync—but the rhythm is enough. We sway in time with the chaos. Calder’s hand slides to my waist, warm and grounding, and I don’t even mind when he steps on my foot the first time.

Or the second.

“I warned you,” he mutters.

“You’re lucky you’re hot.”

We move slowly, awkwardly, letting the spelllight dapple across our skin. He holds me like I’m something precious. I look up, and his eyes—those deep, storm-gray eyes—soften in a way that turns my insides into seafoam.

“I still don’t understand how we got here,” he says, voice hushed. “How we survived it.”

I squeeze his hand. “You stopped running. I stopped pretending I didn’t care. Magic did the rest.”

He huffs a breath that could almost be a laugh. “You always simplify the impossible.”

“It’s a gift.”

Across the room, Mira raises her glass in our direction, and Lyle whistles like a pirate at a siren sighting. I flip him off with a grin and lean into Calder’s chest, soaking in the warmth of him, the way his breath stirs the top of my hair, the steady beat of his heart against my cheek.

“You’re dancing,” I murmur.

“I’m dancing.”

“For me.”

He chuckles. “Only for you.”

The spellfire flares as the fiddle launches into something vaguely romantic, and Calder—bless his sea-scarred soul—tries to twirl me. It’s a disaster. We nearly trip over each other’s feet and crash into a table full of potion shots, but I’m laughing so hard I don’t care.

“I love you, you grumpy ocean cryptid,” I say as I catch my breath.

He pulls me closer, forehead to mine. “And I love you, storm-brained lunatic.”

The world falls away for a moment. Just me and him, wrapped in light, in magic, in something deeper than ley lines or curses. Something real.

We dance through the end of the song and into the start of another, barefoot and stumbling and entirely too happy.

And when he kisses me in the middle of it all, it’s not a grand gesture or a dramatic finale.

It’s a beginning.

Mira knocks back her third “Sea Bitch” with the kind of confidence usually reserved for dragons and research scientists. Her elbow flies wide as she laughs at something Kai says—and knocks an entire glowing goblet onto the nearest guest.

Unfortunately, the guest is a water sprite.

“Oh no,” I mutter, watching the sprite blink, sizzle faintly, and start muttering in ancient stream dialect.

“Oh hell,” Mira gasps, grabbing napkins that immediately disintegrate in her hands. “I am so sorry! That was—experimental alcohol! Possibly sentient!”

The sprite begins to swell like a wet balloon about to scold. But before a full-blown elemental tantrum can explode, Lyle steps in with the grace of a trickster fox and a shot glass of rainbow mist.

“Peace offering,” he says with a wink.

The sprite gurgles once, tastes it—and bursts into delighted giggles. Crisis averted.

Except now Lyle’s twirling dramatically with a dryad who appeared out of nowhere, her bark-slick dress shimmering with moss. “We’re getting married,” he announces mid-spin, holding up an enchanted ring of coral like it’s a trophy. “She loves my cocktails and my commitment issues.”

The dryad smiles, unbothered. “I like his chaos. It’s very nutritious.”

“Lowtide marriages aren’t legally binding after midnight,” Kai calls. “But if you consummate it in the tide shack, we all owe Mira five gold.”

Mira chokes on her drink. “Why am I always the one with bets I don’t remember making?!”

In the midst of it all, Calder climbs a barstool like it might fight him for dominance, holding up a simple glass of amber sea-aged whiskey. The bar quiets. He doesn’t yell—he doesn’t have to.

“To Luna,” he says, voice steady. “The storm who taught the sea how to stay. The chaos I didn’t know I needed. The voice that broke my silence.”

My throat knots, heat rising behind my eyes.

He looks at me like I’m the center of the world. “You didn’t just save me. You made me want to be saved.”

The entire bar erupts into howls, clinks, toasts, and two pixies start throwing confetti that definitely wasn’t there before.

I smile through it all, heart pounding with joy so bright it’s almost hard to hold.

Because this—this beautiful, ridiculous, magical mess—is mine.

And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.