MESSY MIDLIFE MAGIC

A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Novel

Forty is Fabulous

Book 5

HELOISE HULL

Messy Midlife Magic

Sirens just want to have fun—and break their curse. 

I've been chained to a rock for centuries, abandoned by my family, and cursed to live as the only siren left with her voice.

The only way to break a god-curse is to kill the god that set it, and the gods are long gone, trapped beyond the realms.

For now, I’m a domesticated demon, keeping house on Aradia with my new-found friends.

Until I hear another—another that couldn’t, that shouldn’t, exist.

“Chi si volta, e chi si gira, sempre a casa va finire.

On Aradia, no matter where you go, you will always end up at home.”

-Nonna

ONE

Ilona

Thunderstorms had never bothered me. In fact, I welcomed them. As a child, I would run outside with open arms, my breath catching hard in my lungs from excitement. The clouds, the wind, the raw energy, they called to me. But in vain. Each time, I would be dragged back inside by my mother, who turned frantic every time she caught a whiff of rain in the air.

“Too dangerous,” she’d say, and I never understood it. Deep down, I knew storms were inevitable. A part of life. Even necessary. They would never do me harm.

But this storm? I would give anything, even my prized hooded flame fairy wrasse saltwater fish, to be as far away from it as possible, and the sooner the better. It seemed to have it out for me.

I know that sounds crazy, but I swear, it hated me. It raged and hissed, always in my direction, like it wanted to tear my hair from my scalp and toss me against the rocky cliffs of Greece, laughing while the lightning strikes split me into pieces.

Pure menace, that’s what I felt from the skies, and I was stuck on a ship in the middle of the Mediterranean, unable to flee, to save myself, knowing this storm wanted something from me. Perhaps everything. It wanted to scoop me up and use me.

But that was impossible.

Right?

One week earlier

My phone vibrated against my leg. An incoming email. Voices droned on, and I did my best to ignore the urge to surreptitiously check my inbox for what I knew was waiting for me. Instead, I smiled with everyone else at the long boardroom table, and I nodded in unison. Yes, we definitely needed a new anchovy exhibit. This place felt incomplete, no, it felt absolutely shabby, without one.

I sat on the board at the local aquarium in Kansas City, Missouri, a position my recently ex-husband had secured for me in a rare feat of pity. Mostly, I attended monthly board meetings with rich retirees and sparred over strategic plans and money issues.

But after the meetings were over? I explored. The aquarium was my private ocean, and I adored it. The quiet dignity of the stingrays gliding over my head, the playful octopi curling up the glass, the mesmerizing jellyfish floating through dark waters, I loved it all and allowed myself to get lost in the deep wonder of the ocean. Nothing on land could compare, which was unfortunate for me since Kansas City sat squarely in the middle of the U.S., a thousand miles from any sea.

The rock pool was my favorite. I let my fingers trail in the astonishingly cold liquid, brushing my fingers over the prickly sea urchins and the velvety anemones before gently stroking the hard backs of the starfish. Starfish were so much more than a pretty outline. Some days, they would flip upside down, exposing their soft and vulnerable underbellies, forcing a staff member to stand at the edge of the pool and inform children they could look, but not touch; the starfish wasn’t in the mood.

I could relate.

Today was one of those days where I wished I could hang a sign from my neck that read, “Look but don’t touch. I’m not in the mood.” Unfortunately, I didn’t have that luxury. I had nemeses.

A trio of perfectly coiffed women stared down their noses at me, their fingertips pressed together and their hands neatly folded on top of the long table. Not everyone was lucky enough to have a nemesis. Somehow, I ended up with nine.

The other six formed a ring around them, and if you had told me they were Stepford clones of each other trying to pass as humans, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. The only thing different between them was their clothing, and only because of the subtle differences in the color of their dresses. They’d even arranged their hair the same. Long tendrils of perfectly curled gray-white hair along either temple and a mass of curls tied back with a ribbon.

Oh, and the ribbons were all different colors, but still. Who does that? It was eerie, but apparently I was the only one who thought so. When I tried to make a joke about it at the last aquarium fundraiser, the president of the board had lifted a bushy eyebrow and said the aquarium was not in the business of fashion-shaming. I’d let the rest of the Stepford jokes die on my tongue, sipped my glass of champagne, and escaped into the sea horse temple for the rest of the night.

“Ilona? Are you with us?”

I shook my head, feeling like rocks were weighing it down. “Yes, yes, I’m currently here. Thank you,” I replied.

“Our mission is to move forward, not become mired in the past,” Clio said sweetly. She’d been a history professor before retiring, so that was rich, coming from her.

My phone was practically burning a hole in my pocket. I wanted to look at the message so very badly.

“I think everyone can agree we aren’t going backwards,” I replied. “Like a shark, this institution can only breathe when moving forward.”

“Precisely,” the president agreed. “If anyone has any more ideas for the anchovy exhibit, please state them now so we can discuss them.”

Calliope raised her hand, and I groaned. Not out loud, but silently, inside my soul. She always gave epically long speeches, even when ordering her dinner. A salad with no dressing turned into a ten minute soliloquy on modern eating habits. I could only imagine how long her presentation about–the societal importance of and the critical need to connect with anchovies on an individual level–would take.

I honestly couldn’t wait any longer. As she opened her mouth, I let her words wash over me like water and finally succumbed to the urge. Beneath the table, I palmed open my phone and quickly navigated to the email app. Before I even opened the message, I knew deep in my gut it was a no.

Rejection.

As always.

I got home that night to an empty apartment, also a gift from my ex-husband but a court-mandated one. There was nothing homey about it, except for a faint scent of sea salt and brine emanating from the salt water fish tank in the corner of my living room.

Cooing softly, I went to feed my tropical coral reef fish. The home I’d created with John had turned out to be, in fact, just a house, and I’d taken almost nothing with me in the divorce. After everything that had happened, I simply wanted to walk away, to wipe the last vestiges of our life together off my sandals, so to speak.

I let my hooded flame fairy wrasse nibble on my fingers, enjoying the exfoliating sensation, and studied the opalescent movements of my angel fish.

The wrasse was a jumper, so I kept my aquarium covered. Just under the lid was a slug. Odd. He wasn’t supposed to be there. It had probably been attached to a sea plant I’d recently purchased at the aquarium store. I peeled him off the lid, saying a little apology for the rude awakening he was about to experience, and put him outside my door under a rock. “You’ll be fine,” I told him, deciding it wasn’t really talking to myself if there was a sentient creature nearby.

I poured a nice glass of red wine and clicked open the DNA ancestry results for the fiftieth time. There was the proof in black and white. Greek. I was Greek. My mother, who had always been tight-lipped about her past, couldn't have denied this, even if she wanted to. We were both Greek. I mean, we had the body hair to prove it without a DNA test, in my opinion.

I let my breath out in a long huff.

An ad popped up on my screen for a cruise around the Mediterranean. It probably was tailored to whatever results you received. A Viking cruise for the Nordic folks, a Rhine River cruise for the Germanic tribes. A beautiful weekend down the Canal du Midi for the French. Sneaky cross-over marketing at its finest.

Still, it looked gorgeous. Black sand beaches, lime-washed white homes with iconic blue domes over Santorini, crystalline blue waters, jugs of deep red wine on tables laden with all of my favorite foods.

Greek. I was Greek!

Discover yourself on a beach in Crete and feel the history between your toes, the tagline read. Follow in the steps of Odysseus and journey through your very own Odyssey!

I tapped my fingers against the mouse. Didn’t it take Odysseus over ten years to get home? I wasn’t sure this was the best marketing scheme they could have concocted, but surely they were betting most people hadn’t read the Odyssey—at least not since high school. Goosebumps rose along my arms as I clicked through the ad, each picture more gorgeous than the last. Yes, I did want my very own odyssey. I wanted my life to mean something. I wanted to know where I came from, who I was, and maybe even where I was going.

This couldn’t be it. My ex was wrong. My life was not meaningless, just because I didn’t have children. I would find my meaning—or make it myself.

Lightning crackled through a velvet black sky. A storm? How had I not noticed? The windows rattled, and the power flickered once, then went off.

I blinked. The entire house was blackout dark—except for my desktop computer screen, which still read: Discover yourself in Greece!

TWO

Acantha

Nibiru

Nearly a Thousand Years Ago

Acantha rose from the depths, her body purified, water streaming down her back and breasts. Her siren sisters gathered in a circle around her, each one carrying a precious instrument of the rites. One strung a garland of myrtle around her neck, another gifted her with sweet roses. Her mother stepped forward with an amphora of wine, its terracotta belly slick with dew, the cool wine sweating inside from the heat of the day. Tipping the amphora over her daughter’s mouth, she let the thick red wine dribble on her tongue and roll down the sides of her mouth, anointing her with its ecstatic purpose.

Not all was well, but all would proceed. Acantha should not have been chosen, not after what happened that day near the mountain. She had committed the greatest sin of sirens. She had fallen in love. With a man.

Sex and love were two completely different things, usually at odds with one another. As her mother always told her, “Sirens do not stand the company of men, whether they be mortals or gods. Take care, thorny one.”

But she had done both. Glaucos had been a man who had turned himself into a god, and she had fallen in love with him. She bristled with excitement now, only thinking about one thing: him.

The rites continued as sirens approached Acantha, holding garments dyed purple from crocus and hyacinth petals. They were scented with rose and anointed with narcissus and lily. The garments slipped over her supple body like soft waves. Her fellow sirens gave her drops of pomegranate seeds, the ruby jewels luscious with juice. One siren pressed the pad of her thumb against Acantha’s forehead in between her eyes. They all murmured, “Mate well, sister,” and retreated back into the circle.

Finally, the sirens had bestowed all of their gifts and wishes. Like a school of fish, they rearranged themselves into a single line, and then, solemn and songless, they dipped down to choose their cup, some filled with milk, others with scented oils and honey.

Together, the sirens made the journey from Nibiru to Axis Mundi, the cosmic world axis where the gods resided. The temple to Aphrodite sat quiet and proud, her priestesses already robed in white and prepared with their own cups of beer, laced with laudanum. One by one, the sirens sat their cups of offerings in the temple’s niches and received their own cup of beer. The sacred trances would usher the divine rites into being.

Acantha arrived last, her head downcast, but her eyes darting from side to side. She could feel her would-be lover’s presence; it was an extra heart beating next to hers. She would know Glaucos anywhere. The garlands of flowers felt heavy and dramatic. They were for the divine rites, but Acantha did not need nor want them. She only wanted him and the rippling lines of his abdomen, made strong from his mortal years of fishing in the sea and made immortal by the gods. She kept her head down as was required, but she could feel him step forward once all of the sirens had drank of their beer. The trance would begin soon.

She heard rather than saw his own hyacinth robes drop to the ground with a silken thud. His legs came into her view first

They would come together as one flesh right on the steps of the sacred temple to shining Aphrodite, to golden Aphrodite, in front of the goddess herself. She was Anaduomenê, the goddess that rose from the sea, born of sea foam and semen, and it was only right for her to oversee the conception of a siren.

Glaucos was there, his hand warm and firm as he lifted her chin with his thumb and forefinger. No words were spoken, but her heart nearly burst as she stared into his sea-glass eyes, and she could not help but sing. She was, after all, a siren.

Beautiful-throned, immortal Aphrodite, I implore thee!

He laid her on the steps, their robes covering the hard edges, and she invited him inside.

Enter, my lover, enter now. Love me and mine.

He held her hips firmly.

Do not be afraid, you will have a daughter, and she will be queen of daughters.

And Acantha cried out in ecstasy, breaking another of the divine rites rules. She didn’t merely endure this man; she embraced him. All was not well with the sirens, but all would proceed.

THREE

Thessaly

“You are doing it wrong,” I informed the two humans sitting at the round, wooden table in the kitchen of Villa Venus. One, the male, paused with a piece of focaccia halfway to his mouth. He looked confused. What was confusing about what I said? He was eating it wrong–the position of his hand, the tilt of his head, even the cadence of his chewing. None of it was right. His hair also looked unkept, and I was about to mention it when Aurick poked his head around the corner.

He was on his way to see Ava at the bakery to, no doubt, do dirty things. I could smell her pheromones this morning when she left to help Rosemary. Even if she didn’t want any more children, her body still cycled in heat. I tried telling her that, but for some reason, she’d turned red and mumbled something about bedside manners. She always said that, even when I was not at her bedside. What did bedsides have to do with manners? Aurick was at her bedside. She should talk to him about manners if she was so concerned with the bedside ones.

“Do you need any help, Thessaly?” Aurick asked. “I’m on my way to get Ava, but I can always stick around.”

“No,” I informed him. He stood there expectantly, like he wanted me to say more unnecessary words. I stared back.

“Okay…” he dragged out. He looked at the human couple at my table.

They seemed to have a conversation without talking, and the human woman cleared her throat. “We’re good, too, thanks. Probably going to get moving and explore soon. It’s so beautiful here! I can’t believe people get to live here. Like, forever.”

“People don’t,” I told her. “Eventually, they die.”

I was being very helpful today.

Aurick left as he usually did, rubbing his temples as he usually did as well. A migraine, he called it.

The humans exchanged a look. It was their second morning at the bed and breakfast, and I noticed they did that often. I noticed most of the humans did that often around me. Ever since we had rid the world of the last remaining gods, Thoth and Ava’s Tefnut, Aradia had begun to heal. The ferries began to operate again, and tourists arrived in droves. I had to ‘normal’ in front of them, which was nice. I didn’t mind ‘normaling’. I had a purpose here in the villa, where as, on the rock Poseidon had chained me to, I had nothing but my songs, and my songs only made me sad. So when Nonna and her archon lover, Culsans, left for their last great journey into death shortly after the Battle of Aradia, I volunteered to take over Villa Venus.

It was either run the bed and breakfast, or go back full-time to Nibiru, the home of my people. Everyone thought I’d choose Nibiru, but that’s because they hadn’t met my grandmother or my prickly mother, Acanthus, who even found fault in the new siren world Ava had created for them. So I stayed at the villa. It was warm, a major plus, and I saw Coronis every day. I didn’t know what she was to me, but I liked seeing her face.

That was new. I didn’t mind new.

Ava and Aurick still lived here, and they graciously offered to help as I got my feet under me. That’s how they put it, even though my feet were always under me, except when they were a fish tail. Their offer was very kind of them. Kindness was also new.

I didn’t mind new.

The woman stood and grabbed another piece of focaccia while the man took their espresso cups. “Do you mind if we eat outside? The sunrise is just so beautiful over the sea.”

“It’s an ocean, not a sea,” I began, getting ready to tell them it wasn’t proper for digestion to eat standing up and they could break the cups if they dropped them, but just then, Aurick popped his head in again.

“Of course, you can. Come out front. The view is best around the corner.” He ushered the humans out the door and gave me another glance that was supposed to mean something, but what, I could not fathom. Nonverbal human communication was more mysterious to me than the depths of Nibiru. At least, that’s how Aurick put it.

As the three of them left to discuss mundane human topics, I began cleaning the kitchen, washing the earthenware dishes with my water magic. Next came the bed. Ava had explained it to me yesterday. I was responsible for making breakfast and making their beds. That was it. No need for ‘chitchat’ as she called it.

I hadn’t been ‘chitchatting’ though when she said it. I was informing them they were going about life all wrong. They’d asked for a decaffeinated espresso, in the afternoon, no less.

Perhaps, I was a little more curt than usual. Once a week, Ava pointed it out, always when I was scheduled to go home. “Like getting hormonal around your period, except yours is weekly,” she’d said.

She was one to talk. She’d broken her god curse and lived her happily ever after on Aradia. Me? No matter how long I spent in the Library of Alexandria researching god curses, I couldn’t figure a way out. I was stuck, as liminal as the spaces I inhabited. Only the god who set the curse could break it, and Poseidon was gone forever. That was the deal, and it sucked for me. I liked where I was chained, I just didn’t like how. My agency was gone.

I brushed aside thick cords of braided garlic and branches of ruby red cherry tomatoes from our garden to put away the earthen jugs, stacking them neatly on the kitchen shelves. The ocean breeze caught the edge of the yellowed curtains and snapped them back. I closed my eyes to take it in, the alluring call of my rock getting stronger. It was time.

Whenever I thought fondly of that rock, I knew it was time to go to Nibiru and allow Grandmother to cleanse me of the curse the best way she knew how. If I didn’t, I’d find myself perched back on that rock, singing mindlessly–and dangerously, since my song lured those who heard it to a watery grave. The townspeople in Aradia really didn’t like that.

Quickly, I made up the humans’ beds, snagged a shard of cheese off of the wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano, and hopped onto the lintel, bundles of sage and rosemary hanging from the edges. I let the salt crystals melt on my tongue before plunging into the space between worlds. One last treat before the cold of astral travel. I really hated the cold.

Grandmother was attaching oyster shells to the bottom of her dress when I entered her room. She looked up, pleasure in her eyes at the sight of me. A stab went through me, as sure as a fisherman’s hook. Ava told me it was guilt, and guilt was a feeling.

Regardless, I didn’t like it.

And I didn’t like that I didn’t like it.

“Come, let me look at you. Is that pout really necessary? Stop sulking, Tess. Enough of that. Set the table while I spoon out the seafood stew. We’ll eat together.”

“And Acantha?” I asked.

“You can’t get rid of me so easily, Daughter.” Acantha swept haughtily into the room, the sight of her face, so very similar to mine in every way, still shocked me. After hundreds of years chained to that rock, I had managed not to think about her or her prickly ways. The only thing that bound us was our shared love for my father, and when he got trapped behind the pillars with the rest of the gods, our fragile bond went with him. Our relationship, despite weekly meals, was as stagnant as a scummy pond. Maybe if Glaucos hadn’t disappeared. Maybe if the gods hadn’t cursed me and my entire species by taking away everyone’s songs, everyone’s but mine. Maybe things would be different.

My world was built on maybes, and I didn’t like that, either.

I wanted to kill Poseidon. Sadly, I’d never get that chance. Like the rest of the gods, he was stuck in the Axis Mundi behind the collapsed pillars. There was Earth, where the mortals lived, and there was the Axis Mundi, where the gods lived. Between that, there was Nibiru, where the demons lived. Humans and demons worked together to collapse the four pillars holding up the Axis Mundi and trapped the gods there hundreds of years ago.

And so I’d been cursed—for hundreds of years. It wasn’t until Ava Falcetti came and used her god powers to loosen some of those bonds that I was finally able to escape my rock of doom, but she didn’t have the power to fully sever the curse. Only Poseidon, the god who cursed me, could do that.

Grandmother’s stew smelled delicious, and it tasted even better. As the water goddess Tefnut, Ava had created this water world for my kind, but I still avoided the other sirens. While they weren’t outright hoping to kill me anymore, they still didn’t trust me. I could sing, and they could not. Some things really are that simple, some things really are that black and white.

“How are Ava and Aurick?” Grandmother asked.

“Mating again.”

“That’s lovely. Does she want more offspring?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“I see.” Grandmother gave me a large mussel. I cracked it open with my sharp teeth and sucked the salty creature between my lips.

“My curse is reverting back,” I said without preamble.

Even Acantha stopped scowling at me and simply stared. If Ava couldn’t help me, not permanently anyway, we had no hope as a species. Without the gods, we didn’t have our songs and we didn’t have prospective mates. It might take thousands of years, but sirens would eventually die. Grandmother had seen nine thousand years, and she had only witnessed nine new sirens babies, her own daughter and me included. By siding with Ava and stopping Thoth, I had doomed us all. Sirens would eventually die out, and it was all my fault.

“Then you must accept your fate. It is only fair after what you did,” Acantha said carelessly.

Grandmother hushed her. “No one must accept anything. Did humans and demons accept the gods? No. We changed our history. Perhaps it’s time we ventured farther into the depths of Nibiru. There are still items of power hidden in our realm, just as powerful as the scythe. Perhaps, they could help Ava harness her god magic. We have not exhausted all our channels. The ocean is wide and deep, but Nibiru is deeper.”

“To what ends?” Acantha scoffed. “Delay the inevitable? No. Let my daughter face the consequences of her actions. As her mother, I could demand it.”

“Be quiet. She is a daughter to all of us. She is a siren. In fact, leave, Acantha. I wish to speak to Thessaly without your interference.”

Acantha pushed herself from the table, the chair scraping below her feet, and left the room, a low grow rumbling deep in her throat. It was a good show, but even she knew her bravado meant nothing where Grandmother was concerned.

I remained silent as Grandmother spooned more seafood stew into my bowl, but I found that the luxury of hunger was no longer present in my belly or my soul. The stew had momentarily warmed me, but that warmth had fled at my mother’s words. “I will never be enough,” I said.

“Your penance is not my concern,” Grandmother said dismissively. “That is for you to decide. Not me. Not Acantha. Not even Poseidon. Yes, you killed an innocent prince and his bride. Yes, he was the son of a demigod. Yes, Poseidon took his revenge on you. Yes, Acantha blames you for all her woes. You cannot change her. Why try? Why wallow? Instead, do something.”

“What would you have me do?” I shouted, suddenly on my feet. “There is nothing I can do! The curse is the curse.”

Grandmother didn’t respond in kind to my outburst. She stared plaintively at me, which deflated my anger and furthered the guilt. I sat back down and picked up my spoon. Sirens sang. They didn’t scream. “I have customers at the villa. They’ll be expecting me. I must go.”

“As you wish,” Grandmother said, gathering her herbs and bone skull bowl. It was the only thing she’d kept from the old house before Ava made our new home. She prepared a tisane and handed the bowl for me to drink. Because I couldn’t tear out my taste buds, I pinched my nose and swallowed it as quickly as possible. The mixture still made me gag, but already I could feel the pull of my rock receding, the curse’s grip lessened momentarily… until the next time.

“Do you remember why you went to that sea witch?” she asked.

I looked at her sharply. “To gain the love of the prince, Grandmother. We all know this. Everyone in the world knows this now, thanks to that silly movie.”

Grandmother’s hand lay across my brow. She caressed the side of my face and cupped my chin, her purple eyes, the same shade as mine, bright as they held my gaze. “So, you don’t remember.”

“I do,” I insisted, but maybe I didn’t. It had been so very long ago.

“Perhaps you should try. Perhaps there is an answer buried deep in your memory that will guide you.”

FOUR

Ilona

“Your hair! It’s on fire!”

I smiled politely. My hair was the first thing people usually commented on. Either that, or they asked if I was cold due to the constant blue tinge to my skin. But my hair? It was electric red. I didn’t mean electric in a hyperbolic way. It could rival the cartoon character the Little Mermaid for its sheer brilliance. This time, I was pretty sure ‘on fire’ was supposed to be a compliment. I patted it awkwardly.

“Yes, it’s bright—ah!” It wasn’t a compliment. It was the truth. My brilliant hair was actually on fire. “Ahh!” I screamed again.

“Hold still,” the woman ordered, a little too calmly in my opinion. She had unbuttoned her jacket and wrapped it around my scalp, twisting the denim tighter and tighter to suffocate the flames. She clapped me upside the head a couple of times for good measure.

Ashes rained down on my shoulders as my red hair turned black and burned to a crisp. The rank smell of burning hair suffocated me more than the jacket. “I can’t breathe!” I gasped.

She pulled the jacket off of my head, and my hands immediately went to my head, tears pricking hotly at the corners of my eyes. My first day on my life-altering cruise, and I’d sure altered my life. Or, at least, my hair. It felt fried, charred to bits. Unsalvageable. Burned.

“I’ve… I’ve got to…Excuse me,” I began blubbering. I wanted to race back to my cabin and take stock of the damage. Invest in a hat. Have a good cry. But the woman wouldn’t let me. She appeared younger, in her thirties perhaps. She stopped me with a hand on my elbow.

“Don’t go crying in your room alone. Come along. I’ve got some hair products that will help… I think. Luckily for you, I’m a hair stylist in my daily life. What were you doing standing so close to the tiki torches anyway?”

“I just… Was I? I was mesmerized by the water I guess. My mother never let me go in the ocean. She was afraid of it, afraid of everything. Rip tides, rogue waves, sea creatures, sharks, you name it, she feared it.”

The woman was still holding my elbow as we walked, and she kept me talking. I was eternally grateful.

“A nervous nelly, eh? And now? What brings you smack dab in the middle of the ocean?”

“She died.”

The woman blinked. I knew how crass it sounded. The second I shut the door on the police officers who came to give me the news, I did the one thing she always told me not to do. I went to the ocean. I was a horrible daughter. Faithless. Disloyal. Guilt branded my soul every second I spent here, but the water was a balm. I yearned for it, and I couldn’t explain that yearning away as simple rebellion. I wasn’t a teenager for goodness sake! I simply wanted to see the real, life ocean and feel its power on my skin instead of merely imagining it in my head.

Okay, so it was rebellion, but not for the sake of rebellion. This yearning for the salt waters of the sea ran deeper than that. When I ran away and moved to the coast from landlocked Missouri, that was a teenage rebellion. My mother had followed my trail all the way to San Francisco and dragged me back in only a matter of hours. I let her, after I saw how much my short absence had made fall physically ill. She was hyperventilating when she found me and nearly had a heart attack. Her fear had always been a palpable, living thing that I couldn’t understand.

I’d been loyal up until her death. I had stayed away from the ocean. Now, I had to hear the siren song of the waters where they were. In Greece.

Actually, Turkey.

“Well, I guess I can’t say she would have wanted you to do this, seeing as she was afraid of the ocean apparently, but I’m glad you’re here. I’m also traveling solo, and we women have to stick together.”

“Is this your first solo excursion?” I asked, leaning against her. She was quite tall, at least six feet, and had steely blue eyes that missed nothing.

“Oh no. Solo traveling is my passion. Stick with me, and you’ll be fine. I’m Bella by the way.”

I believed that whole heartedly. I wouldn’t want to mess with her, even if she was alone. If I had to guess, she never skipped leg day and could probably shred cheese with her abs.

“I’m Ilona,” I said, tears still spilling out unbidden. I felt as if I had no control suddenly. This was not how my first experience doing something just for me was supposed to go.

“You can’t be upset while looking at the Med. It’s physically impossible,” Bella told me.

I snuffled up the last of my tears. “It’s the Dardanelles Strait actually.” I paused and cocked my head, confused. “I have no idea how I know that.”

Bella watched me closely. “It looks like your high school geography is coming back. I’m impressed.”

As much as it made me feel warm and fuzzy to hear someone say they were impressed by me, I had a feeling that if I mentioned I could also tell her our current latitude and longitude, 40.0482° N, 26.3013° E, water depth (seventy-two meters), as well as the wind speed—seven point five knots, a gentle breeze—I would seem… I don’t know. Certifiably insane? At least, it did to me. How did I even know that? I shook my head like I had water in my ear, or maybe, like I could somehow fling the information out of my head and into the sea. How did I know all that suddenly?

Bella stopped in front of her cabin and opened the door. She beckoned me inside, and I saw she’d splurged on a cabin suite. While I made due with a bed and a barebones bathroom—and my little porthole—she had a walk-out balcony with a table and two chairs. “Go sit, I’ll be right there,” she gestured.

“Thanks,” I said, only a little tearfully. At this point, it was only my pride that was truly hurt, although I had caught a glimpse in the mirror, and my hair was much shorter than it was an hour ago. It also stuck up a little in the back where it’d been fried, but I didn’t have any burns on my scalp or face, so I had to be thankful for that.

Dolphins followed alongside the boat. From the balcony, I could see their graceful silhouettes slicing through the water. For a moment, I watched their playful progress and inhaled the intoxicating scent of the salt spray. I couldn’t get enough of it.

“Here, rub this in your hair three times a day, and you’ll soon start believing in magic. Or, at least, me,” she laughed, her eyes lighting up. I swore… they might have even glowed.

“Is this your own line of product?” I asked, turning the nondescript bottle over. It had no labels, no logo, nothing to indicate it held a magic tonic within.

“You could say that. I’m experimenting,” she told me, squirting a dime size amount into my palm. It smelled like mint and rosemary and hyssop, fragrant and fresh. I rubbed it all over my head and sank back into the chair. My scalp already tingled from the massage and ointment, and I willed my hair to repair itself with the power of positive thinking.

“This is gorgeous,” I sighed. “You’re right. I can’t be upset with this view.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Bella sank into the other chair, and I wondered how she afforded all of these solo trips—and not on a shoe string budget—with a shampoo line that wasn’t even branded yet. But I didn’t want to pry or offend my new friend, so we chatted about the itinerary. Bella was looking forward to the dark wines of Ismarus, famed in the Odyssey for their potency, while I couldn’t wait to see Sardinia, the place where Odysseus heard the song of the sirens–and eat lots of delicious Sardinian food.

My ex, John, was not what one would call a foodie. Our anniversaries and birthdays usually meant a night out to the country club he’d made us join so we could see and be seen or as steak house in downtown Kansas City if he was feeling adventurous. Spicy things scared him, which might have been why I eventually did, too. I was simply too spicy. And infertile, apparently. John desperately wanted a family, and my inability to give him that soured everything. Women had been left by their men for less, he told me, and he’d said it with a completely straight face.

The memory still stung.

As we sailed up the Strait, we could see green hills dotted with red-roofed buildings along the shore. The first stop on our cruise was Çanakkale, Turkey, the ancient site of Troy and the modern site of the battle of Gallipoli in World War I. It was where Odysseus’s odyssey had begun. And now, mine. An imposing medieval fortress loomed to the north, but the Bronze Age archaeological site was to the southwest. Time had moved the shore away from Troy, so we’d have to get off the ship and drive to the actual archaeological site.

By the time we disembarked, I felt less traumatized by my hair and more traumatized by the fifty-foot reproduction of a Trojan horse, which our guide informed us was used in the 2004 movie and given as a gift from the production team. We climbed inside the horse and up a few flights of steep stairs for an obligatory picture from the tiny windows. I hated to admit it, but the reproduction, despite its size, wasn’t nearly as impressive as Brad Pitt’s naked butt in the movie. Mmm. Brad Pitt’s 2004 butt. Now that was a work of art fit for memorialization.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I just want to lie down with a cold drink,” I admitted to Bella. “I think I’m still jet-lagged.”

I didn’t tell my jet-setting friend that it was the first time I’d ever been outside of the United States and only the second time I’d left Missouri—those two hours spent running away from home being the only other time. That sounded uncool and I got the distinct feeling that Bella was very, very cool.

“Me too. Let’s get a taxi back to the boat.”

“Thank God,” I laughed. “Where is our next stop? I left my itinerary and map back in my room.”

“Let’s open a bottle of wine and find out,” Bella suggested with an eyebrow waggle.

“Sounds like a plan to me. I’m going to rinse my face and change first. Troy was a lot dustier than I imagined.” We hugged and parted ways on the gangplank.

There was a carafe of fresh squeezed orange juice and a bowl of cut fruit waiting in my quarters when I entered, instantly delighting me. While I only had a tiny porthole for natural light, at least the service and amenities still held themselves to a high standard. I took a sip and set about rinsing away the grime from the archaeological site. Reaching for the hand towel, I screamed and dropped it, immediately feeling dumb. A little slug had crawled up the sink and onto my towel. “Sorry, little guy. Didn’t mean to drop you so unceremoniously,” I said, bending down to pick him up. “But also, not that sorry, because you can’t stay here.”

I stared at the small slug, its two antennae moving forward and backward, completely stumped on where to put him. Sea slugs and land slugs were different things; I doubted he could survive a dip in the salty water, seeing how pouring salt on slugs was a cruel way to kill one. And he was sort of cute. I couldn’t just murder him. “Hm. What should I do with you?” I asked.

No answer.

“In you go,” I said, plopping him into an empty glass in my en suite bathroom. It was moist enough from my hot rinse that he’d be fine for a while. I pointed at him. “Don’t get too comfortable. You’re going outside at our next port of call.” And I could swear his little antennae wiggled right at me.

“Well, I’ve got to go.” I paused at the door, staring at the creature. “And I really need to consider joining some social clubs when I get home. I can’t keep talking to random creatures I find in my bedroom.”

I knocked on Bella’s door and waited.

A gorgeous man answered. My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry. I must have the wrong room.” But Bella’s voice echoed from somewhere behind him.

“Get yourself in here, solo woman! You’ve got the right room.” Bella popped into view, her hands full with wine glasses and a corkscrew. She nodded at the man in the doorway who was grinning. “This is Adrian. He’s also a passenger, and we keep running into each other on the boat, so I invited him over to join us. Hope that’s okay? If he’s ridiculously rude or says something stupid, we’ll just throw him overboard off my balcony. Sound good?”

The grinning man was indecently attractive. My mouth was suddenly as dry as ancient Troy, mud-bricks not included. I nodded and licked my lips.

“Great. You two go make small talk while I find the bottle,” said Bella.

Adrian slid open the glass balcony door and bowed. The man had tousled, wind-swept hair, and my brain immediately screamed surfer dude. “After you. What did you say your name was?”

“Oh, I didn’t. It’s Ilona.” I couldn’t stop patting my hair, especially the part that had been on fire only a few hours ago. But why? This man was at least two decades younger than me. He was not interested. If he was interested in anyone, it was the beautiful Bella, whom he’d kept ‘accidentally’ running into. I was probably crashing their gorgeous rom-com moment and should excuse myself to go hang out with my new slug friend.

Adrian pulled out the wicker chair and gestured to it. “So you’re traveling solo?” he asked, and I felt frozen like a raccoon, caught half-way in a dumpster.

“Yep. First time,” I squeaked. “I thought a cruise would be a good entry point. Some guided stuff, built in room and board, and excursions. You know. Ready-made.”

“And halfway across the world on your first one. Ambitious. Where are you from? I’m sensing a real earthy American accent.”

“You got it.”

He waited.

“The Midwest. Smack in the middle of the country. I’ve never been this close to water before, and now I’m surrounded by it. It’s…”

“Invigorating?” Adrian suggested. “I know exactly what you mean.”

His eyes lit up at that, and I was about to ask him where he was from when I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the sliding glass door. My hair looked completely… normal. No—it was better than normal. It was movie star amazing. I slapped a hand over my mouth.

“Is something wrong?” Adrian asked, rising slightly from his own wicker chair. Behind him, the sun had begun to set on the horizon, and the scent of brine was pleasant in the slight breeze. It was perfection, it was better than I could have dreamed. It was everything.

“Um, no. Nothing. Sorry. The sunset is stunning. It’s a lot to take in. For a simple Midwestern girl.”

Bella came out carrying a bottle and three glasses.

“Where to next?” I asked, accepting mine. I couldn’t stop glancing at my reflection. It was impossible. Or else Bella was about to become extremely wealthy for her miracle hair cures. She watched me, watching myself, and gave me a subtle wink.

Adrian paged through the welcome packet, studying the itinerary and pamphlets. “According to our official Odyssey map, we’re off to Ismarus.”

“Better be careful,” Bella said with a laugh. At my confused look, she added, “In the Odyssey, the men become overwhelmed with greed and vice at their first stop. They plunder the cities and take the wives hostage, but they linger too long, drinking the locals’ wine and relaxing.”

“I see,” I said, trying to recall the details of a story I hadn’t read in years. When I’d booked the cruise, the Odyssey angle was an afterthought. A weird one, even. I was more interested in the food and culture. I would’ve followed the path of a migratory bird if it meant I got to visit the same locations.

“After ten long years of war, that makes sense to me,” said Adrian. “I mean, is it distasteful to modern sensibilities? Yeah, of course. War is distasteful. But in the ancient mind, the soldiers were letting off well-deserved steam.”

I rimmed the top of my wine glass, listening to the dance of the music it produced. “Maybe, but just because something was common, didn’t mean it wasn’t distasteful even then.”

Bella smiled at my pushback. “I think the locals found it distasteful. The men lingered so long, the city was able to regroup and decimate Odysseus’s crew. They barely escaped on their ships, and then Zeus blew them off course all the way to Africa. They knew it was wrong, even then.”

Adrian raised his glass. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that! And no storms, please. I want to enjoy my holiday.”

“Cheers to that,” I said, also raising my glass.

“Or as the Greeks say, Yamas!”

We all clinked.

When I got back to my room a few hours later, the slug was missing from the glass. I blinked a few times to clear my head. Had he escaped? Where had he gone? I had even left him a piece of lettuce, and he seemed quite happy when I left, for a slug.

My cabin was tiny, but so was the slug. I opened the few drawers along the wall, rearranged the papers on the dresser, and even got down on my knees to look under the bed. Nothing. I pulled back my sheets and took a peak. No need to squish him in my sleep. Still nothing. Not even a slimy trail to mark his exit.

For all intents and purposes, it seemed like he was simply… gone. What a strange and strangely wonderful day. I glanced at myself in the mirror one last time, unable to believe it. Maybe my mom was wrong. Just because some things might seem to be too good to be true doesn’t mean they are. Sometimes, miracles can happen.

FIVE

Thessaly

Had anyone else told me to remember one of the worst moments of my life, I would’ve told them to mind their business. Actually, I might have bitten off their head. Literally. Unfortunately, Grandmother wasn’t anyone else. She was the matriarch of the clan, and even cursed sirens had to respect her wishes.

That didn’t make me happy about it, though.

“Your Grandmother is a wise woman,” Coronis said. “If she asked you to do this, I’m sure there’s a reason.”

I grunted, my shoulder raising in a half-hearted shrug. Coronis had come with me to the entrance of the cave on Aradia. I could smell her fear of the demon realm. “You don’t have to come.”

Coronis waved me off with a hand. “What do you mean, darling? Of course I do. This is important, and I want to support you. But I would appreciate getting back in time for apertivo hour.”

“Because you’re afraid.”

“Stop smelling my emotions, darling, and let’s go.”

While traveling to Nibiru was easy enough for me, Coronis would have to go the old-fashioned way—by boat in the cave on the island. The only time she’d done it before was with Ava to see the Library of Alexandria. From the sounds of it, they’d had a rough experience. This time, I vowed to guide the boat with my siren senses and get us there as safely as possible.

Thirty minutes later, a very wet and annoyed crow shook out her wings, splashing water everywhere as she transformed back into Coronis.

“That was as bad as I remember. Maybe worse.”

“Was it?”

Coronis looked at me from under her elbow where she was trying to wring out her silver hair. “Not all of us are waterproof, darling.”

“Sorry.”

Coronis ruffled her hair one last time and stood straight. “We’re here now. Let’s see if we can figure out what you don’t remember.”

“The river Mnemosyne is just as treacherous as the river Lethe,” I told her. “Remembering can be just as hard as forgetting and just as painful.”

“I’ll be right next to you. I won’t leave you,” Coronis said, slipping her hand in mine. It was warm, and I hung onto it as if it were my raft to life.

No matter what happened in the outside world, gods could die, empires could fall, people could drink espresso after noon, yet Nibiru never changed. Mists eddied around our ankles, while shades wandered all around us. Some gathered in groups quietly discussing unknown things, while others simply walked alone, their hands clasped behind their backs. Those shades were fine. Those shades didn’t scare me. It was the ones with their crimes written on their bodies, crimes so horrendous they couldn’t escape them even in the afterlife, that made this place so dangerous.

“How do we get to the river?” Coronis whispered, also feeling the solemnity of this place between lives, a place of transition. Nibiru was vast and endless. I doubted anyone had ever traversed it all.

While had visited the Library of Alexandria, she had yet to visit the siren’s home world with me, and if pressed, I couldn’t exactly explain why I hadn’t taken her. Of course, it wasn’t fun for her to jump into this realm, and everyone, even Coronis, had a natural fear of sirens. We were, after all, demons, and there were plenty of stories about the sirens who killed for pleasure. I had no doubt some of my sisters did that.

Better to keep her safe.

“The rivers are located beyond the Cave of Hypnos,” I replied.

Coronis shivered. “We don’t have to go through it, do we? Remember when Ava went? If it wasn’t for Gianna, Queen Dido, and Caterina Sforza guiding her, she would have never made it. Even Tiberius fell asleep, and he’s a daemon!”

“There are other access points, I’m sure, but you do not have to go. I will not suffer the same effects of Hypnos’s poppies that you would. Stay outside the cave and wait for me.”

Coronis firmly turned me to face her. “Darling, not an option. I am here with you until the end.”

Something hot and wonderfully warm pricked at the inner corners of my eyes. Tears. I closed them and one dropped. Carefully, Coronis kissed each eyelid, pronouncing my tears as salty as the ocean.

“Let’s get this over with,” she announced, her hands still on either side of my face. I opened my eyes and her silver hair shone in the mists of Nibiru. “Don’t be afraid, my sweet siren. I’ve gone through memories. I know how to deal with the aftermath.”

And I remembered how Ava and Mac’s honey had accidentally shown them the night Coronis was turned into a crow by Apollo, scorched black for her betrayal. If anyone could be there for me, it was her. I trusted her above all others.

I nodded and we set off toward the southern pillar, one of four that had once held up the godly realm called the Axis Mundi. The southern pillar had been held by Krios, Titan of Spring, but it now lay broken, covered in brown vines and withered flowers. If Thoth had gotten his way, the pillar would have been propped up long enough for the gods, who were all stranded together in the Axis Mundi, to sneak back and repopulate our realm.

To rule our realm.

As much as my mother and other sirens–and probably even more demons–wanted that to happen, I had sworn to help humans and never let the gods escape again. The gods had no place in our world—even if it meant the sirens’ eventual destruction. We had lived long enough.

Drifting shades clumped thicker as we got closer to the pillar. It had always drawn them like moths to a flame. These shades were the ones that refused to drink from the River Lethe, refused to forget, refused to shed their mortal lives, and cross over. These were the cowards who feared truth.

Coronis’s hand tightened around mine as a few shades became interested in our presence, drifting closer. One man had a bag tied around his neck, hanging down to his chest. It was squirming, and I could hear noises coming from it. Tiny mewling noises told me it was full of kittens. My eyes shot to his head; it was dripping wet. Drowner. Murderer of innocents.

Another woman wore the remnants of puritanical clothing engulfed in flames. The fire licked soundlessly around her, no doubt a consequence of her accusing fellow women of witchcraft and sorcery. I wanted to kill her again.

The shades began to gather around us faster, no doubt smelling our very real bodies and the life pumping through us. One became bold enough to lunge, clutching at my chiton. I chopped downward at his wrist, my teeth in a snarl as Coronis transformed into a bird and soared above us, diving to peck at their eyes and tongues. More poured into, surging forward. Wanting us. Then, one taller than the rest broke through their ranks and fear doused me in cold shivers.

A large, burly figure burst through the mists, knocking shades over like bowling pins. His head was shaved and his leather duster went all the way to his black boots, the bottom of it lost in the swirling mists around our ankles. He had an enormous tribal design tattooed on one side of his face.

“Manu! You’re here!” Coronis threw her arms around the dead mage, and I could smell her excitement. The runes burned into his shaved head glowed black once more, a beacon in the dark world of Nibiru. The last time he’d been alive on Aradia, a scorpion had stung him, and black tendrils of poison had spiderwebbed through his body, but all signs of it were gone. It was a person’s crimes that remained in the afterlife, not their cause of death. And Manu was certainly dead.

“You haven’t drank from the River Lethe?” she asked, pulling away to look at him. “I can’t wait to tell Ava we saw you!”

“I had intended to drink,” he explained. “Although it was all very disorienting after the daughter of Ares killed me. Not expecting it, I hadn’t given it a thought, and then I was here, wandering toward the river after my death crossing. But as I was getting my bearings, Luca appeared. He explained what happened with Ava and Thoth, how she tricked him with the oleander tea, how it stripped their godly souls and destroyed their bodies, and how she completely diffused his essence with the scythe of Ouranos.”

We both nodded, having relived the scene a hundred times each. “Where is Luca now?” Coronis asked.

“Gianna met him at death and guided him here. We watched them enter the Cave of Hypnos and enter their eternity together.”

“We?” Coronis asked. “Does that mean you found Queen Dido and Cat?”

“He found us, alright,” said a voice tinged with an archaic form of Italian, circa 1500. Caterina Sforza.

A commotion sounded near the pillar, a fight breaking out between shades. They snapped and snarled, swirling around each other as they fought.

“What’s happening?” Coronis asked as I watched. “What do they want?”

Manu’s runes glowed as he worked his magic in death, dispersing the shades with mage magic. They scattered, as if narrowly missed being struck by lightning.

“We’re not sure, but as you can see, I found my purpose. I am needed here in Nibiru. The number of shades who began accumulating at the pillars has only grown exponentially with the death of Thoth.”

“Why?” I asked. “He was their last hope to prop the pillars and surge back into our realm.”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Manu asked. “Why?”

SIX

Thessaly

“Manu is an official member of the girl gang,” Cat said. “And I didn’t even have to poison him to make him see reason.”

Dido inclined her head, and she looked exactly as Ava had described her, pearls and a golden diadem brilliant against her black hair, wrapping her head in elegance.

Manu had slid into Gianna’s place with ease it seemed. Together, they worked to keep shades safe who wanted to drink from the River Lethe and begin their eternal journey. Only cowards and criminals were too scared to drink from the river, and they were always on the prowl, desperate for a taste of life in all of this death.

Coronis smelled worried. Her face had sudden wrinkles and a frown, so I knew I was right. “And you don’t know why? If you can think of anything different or odd, it might help. I’ll go back and talk with Ava, but I already know she’ll want as much information as possible.”

Cat pulled out a bejeweled dagger and twirled it lightly. “It wasn’t all at once, but the shade activity has definitely been building, and it’s practically exploded in the last few days. Sometimes we come across shades sitting cross-legged in the fields of poppies by the Cave of Hypnos. They seem completely out of it. Even their eyes turn milky white.”

“Can shades get high on opium?” Coronis asked.

“No. They cannot,” Dido said.

Cat chortled. “Could you imagine? The entire damn field would be crawling with shades if they could find a way to numb their sad, scared existence. Too afraid to move on, weighted down by their crimes here.”

“Then what…”

Manu lifted his shoulders. “No one knows. They are completely unresponsive if shaken or even dispersed and killed with rune magic.”

“Or my dagger,” Cat piped up.

Coronis and I exchanged a look. That sounded ominous. “We’ll need to let Ava, Aurick, and Mak know when we return,” Coronis said.

“Mak?” Manu asked.

“Oh, you died. You don’t know,” I said. “Makron, son of Makris, grandson of Aristaeus, great-grandson of Apollo, was elected head of the Council of Beings in place of the night-walker Bruno.”

Coronis elbowed me, but I wasn’t sure why this time. I was only letting him know I understood his ignorance of current political affairs on earth. It was because he was dead. But he knew that. I wasn’t telling him new information.

Manu winced a little and nodded. “A good fit. Mak has done much for humans and takes less after Apollo and more after his mother.”

Coronis had begun pacing, her bobbed white hair glinting every time she walked past a silvery shade. “More shades appearing at Krios’s pillar—wait, all four of the pillars or just this eastern one? Have you been to the others?”

Dido nodded. “I have just returned, actually. It took more than a fortnight to reach them all, but shade activity has increased at each. For some reason, this pillar has the most activity. We’re not sure if it’s a coincidence that it’s where Ava and Thoth battled, or if there is a more serious reason.”

“I think it has to do with the poppies. It’s the closest pillar to the poppy field,” Cat added.

“But they can’t get high,” Manu pointed out.

“They’re getting something,” Cat retorted darkly. She beckoned us over the edge of the field. “Look. Look at their eyes.” Yanking one around, Cat peeled back the eyelids of the woman sitting on the ground and pointed. “See? White as milk.”

I crouched down and got as close as I dared. Was she in a trance? Hallucinating? Under a spell?

“How are they ingesting them?” Coronis was asking, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of the female shade. A thought had gotten stuck in my brain like flotsam on the sea, and just as I used to, I began to swim toward it, reel it in, examine it closer.

I shot to my feet. “Give me a poppy.”

“Darling,” Coronis said soothingly. “We all need a little escape now and then, but is this really the time⁠—”

“I’m going to slip into the liminal space between sober and high. I want to see what they’re seeing.”

“No!” Coronis staggered forward a step.

Cat let go of the female shade, her face dubious. “Would that work?”

“Doesn’t hurt to try,” Manu said gruffly. And Dido agreed.

“Demons such as sirens have powers we can’t even dream of understanding,” she said.

“ At the very least, she might find something that we cannot.”

“Or she might overdose and become a shade herself,” Coronis snapped. Her heart rate had skyrocketed and her pupils were dilated. I moved to her, now the one that had to soothe her ruffled feathers.

“I won’t hurt myself,” I promised, taking her fingers and touching them to my temples. “I’m only retreating into here. Nowhere else. I can’t be killed that easily, and I want to help. Let me help.”

Coronis squeezed her eyes shut tight. “Thessaly…”

“It’s going to be okay.

“Yes,” Cat contributed. “This one is just fine. See?” The Tiger of Forlì knocked on the female shade’s head, and we watched in a little shock and a lot of horror as the shade disseminated before our eyes. “Uh, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Cat said, in a morbidly curious way, toeing the empty spot where the shade woman had sat only a few seconds before.

Coronis stabbed her finger at the empty space. “See? Right there. Something bad.”

I watched Coronis, but said nothing. I never knew what to say in these situations. Coronis knew that about me, and she usually didn’t push, but right now she was really worked up, flapping her arms like she was in her crow form, except they were just her magnificently muscled human arms. “Thessaly, you can’t be serious!”

“Please,” I said quietly. “Trust me.”

“I won’t watch you hurt yourself,” she said as she crossed her arms and turned around. My heart constricted tightly in my chest.

Manu plucked a red poppy from the field and handed it to me. “I’m not sure how you’ll use it to jump into a liminal space, or know when to stop, but here you go. The shades basically consume the whole thing, seed pod and all. Back when I was still with the living,” and here for some reason, he shot me a look before continuing, “I’d heard of wild animals getting intoxicated in fields of poppies by doing the same thing.”

Coronis suddenly turned around, and it felt as if she’d opened a cage and let my heart free. “Fine. I’m watching. You hold my hand and just… be safe. Understand?”

I nodded once. Words had always escaped me, but I knew Coronis understood me and the warm fuzzy feeling she brought to my world. It felt even better than curling up in a Villa Venus complimentary robe, and that was my very favorite thing to do.

“See you on the other side,” Manu said.

Cat took the seed from him and used the edge of her dagger to scrape the pod, activating its natural defense: opium. Dido took my hands, insubstantial and completely solid at the same time, her caress like claws. “As I told Ava, Dux femini facti. A woman will author her achievement. Bona Fortuna.”

I sat down cross-legged just like the milky-eyed shades, in case that mattered, and placed the poppy seed pod on my tongue, licking where Cat had nicked it. Then, I closed my eyes, and I jumped.

SEVEN

Ilona

The outdoor restaurant at Ismarus had a giant tree in the middle of the patio. Tables and chairs were arranged in random clumps beneath its lush branches making the whole affair feel more like a dinner with family than an haute cuisine experience, which suited me just fine. I’d never been comfortable at the fancy white gloved restaurants that John insisted we frequent. According to him, it was our duty, having arrived at a certain social stratum, to be seen at them. Now, I wondered if he even liked them.

But this? With people shouting yamas! and breaking plates and pulling long bites of molten cheese straight from a communal dish? This was heaven. There was a whole, ash-roasted eggplant with a bright, acidic salad piled right in the fallen cavity of the creamy, smoky vegetable, salt-baked fish with the head still on, a Greek salad with a block of feta the size of my fist sitting on top, and ouzo.

So. Much. Ouzo.

I sipped at the anise-flavored drink served in tall shot glasses, but reserved most of my alcoholic intake for the famed black wines of the Odyssey.

Bella ordered grilled sardines that came skewered and with the scales still on. That felt a little much for me to start my international eating adventure, so I ordered the spit-roasted lamb and beet salad with spinach. Adrian went with the grilled octopus, but I’d watched that documentary about the intense relationship between a diver and an octopus and vowed through tears to never eat another octopus. Of course, that had felt much easier landlocked in Missouri than it did right now with a beautifully tender, parsley-flecked dish of octopus sitting in the middle of the table, but I avoided eye contact and went for another piece of saganaki, pulling a long piece of flaming cheese onto my bread and enjoying the rich, nutty saltiness against a briny grape leafed dolma.

“How did you choose the Odyssey-themed cruise?” Adrian asked.

I took a minute to think about my answer, but it was simple really. Shyly, I admitted, “I took one of those DNA tests online and found out I was Greek. My mom was always so tightlipped about, well, everything in her life, so it came as a bit of a shock. Then I saw an ad for this cruise line, and with my divorce finalized, I said screw it. Don’t think, just do it! So I did.”

“And now here you are,” Bella said.

I lifted my tall shot glass of the ouzo in response.

“Oh look! It’s Morana.” She half-stood and began to wave vigorously.

“You randomly know someone all the way on the other side of the world?” I asked, more than a little impressed. “You must travel so much.”

Bella smiled. “You have no idea.”

The woman gave a nod of recognition and began to make her way over to our table. Adrian stood up and shook her hand, so I followed suit. She appeared a little sallow for vacationing on a bronzed, Grecian island, but heck, so did I. The woman also wore black jeans with a black t-shirt and black combat boots, but that didn’t feel too out of the ordinary. She had a vibe, one that she was clearly going to stick to, even in paradise. I could appreciate that. No judgement here. Tattoos vined up her left arm and curled behind her left ear into her shaved hairline, but I couldn’t make out what they were besides twisting snakes and flowers of some sort.

Bella introduced us one-by-one, finally saying to the newcomer, “Ilona here is our lone American and, even better, she’s experiencing her motherland for the first time.”

I laughed. “More like your token American. Thank you for taking me under your wing, by the way.”

She waved it away. “Of course. We love opening up the eyes of people to the wonders of the world. It’s why Morana and I got in the travel business to begin with. I, of course, left, but Morana is still helping people find themselves, helping them figure out exactly where they belong.”

“With the wonders of the ancient world, typically,” Morana said casually, accepting a glass of the house wine from the carafe on our table.

She gave me an odd feeling, and it wasn’t the tattoos. Creepy tattoos I could handle. Shaved heads, I could handle. Did I expect to see them on a woman in the corporate world? Of course not, but maybe the luxury travel business was different. No, it wasn’t quite her physical appearance. It was something deeper than skin.

Morana took another swallow of the sweet, red wine. “Everyone must know their place. That is the way of the world.”

I furrowed my brow, setting down my cup. “Is everyone’s place in the world pre-defined?”

Quickly, Bella refilled it. I could tell she was trying to lighten the mood by saying yamas! and throwing back another shot of ouzo. Reluctantly, I pretended to join her, already feeling the effects of sun, jet-lag, and copious amounts of alcohol.

Morana fixed me with an eagle eye. “Not everyone can be the boss of a company. Some of us are made to work in that company. Others are made to buy from that company. We can’t all be all things, no? Who would grow our food? Someone must clean toilets.”

I stumbled over my own tongue, unsure what to say. Did it sound reasonable on the surface? Yes, of course. The work of the world for humans to survive must be done. But it almost sounded like something disturbing, like someone justifying their horrible choices. Like when a parent prepared to hit their child, telling them, ‘This will hurt me more than it hurts you.’

“No, but we’re humans. We can all strive… I just… There’s something⁠—”

“Ilona, are you quite alright?” Bella asked. She put a burning hot hand to my forehead. Or maybe it was my forehead, burning up. “You don’t look well. Perhaps we should take you back to your cabin.”

I stood woozily, barely catching myself on the back of my chair. I could feel the edges of my vision blurred, an ensuing storm of a blackout creeping up on me. I thought I was speaking, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it was I was saying.

“Here, drink this. It has electrolytes. I have a feeling you’ll need it come morning,” said a voice. Adrian. He was gripping my elbow, keeping me steady. “Easy there, tiger. Just hold on to me.” And his words were so reasonable and his voice delivered them so effortlessly, I let him carry me down the stone steps of the cliffside restaurant and thought no more. It was a complete freedom in itself, all the way to my room.

When I awoke, I was on top of my sheets, my shoes still on, my head spinning, and something squishy and moist covering my lips. My room had a faint blue glow, and thankfully, I was alone, fully clothed. Relief flooded through me warmly and snugly.

Snug. Slug. There was something slug-like on my face. Moist and earthy-smelling.

The slug. The missing slug. It was trying to get itself eaten! By me! I wanted to scream but then the slug might accidentally slide down my throat, and oh dear god, had anyone in the history of the world ever died by choking on a slug alone by themselves in their room? Please, when the news outlets wrote up my obituary, please, omit my cause of death. Please, make it mysterious. American tourists mysteriously passes away at sea. Very, very mysteriously.

The slug’s antennae perched on either side of my nose as if they were tiny hands taking a hold of my face. Its beady black eyes stared into mine, and what was it doing? What was it possibly doing?

“Are you listening?”

“Bella?” I asked tentatively through pursed lips so they weren’t wide enough to swallow a slug. “Adrian? Is that you? Could you flip on the light for me? Something weird is happening.”

“So you are listening. Just not well.”

“Adrian?” I asked again. “Please, help! There’s something⁠—”

And that’s when the bug crawled on top of my nose and stared me in the eyes. I could have sworn it was trying to tell me something, but what, I wouldn’t know.

Because, for the second time that day, I blacked out.

EIGHT

Ilona

My head pounded. Sunlight streamed through my porthole. My tongue felt three times too big for my mouth. And it was dry. Drier than my dry spell. Which was very, very dry.

What wasn’t dry?

The slug, still sitting on my face.

Internally screaming so I wouldn’t accidentally swallow him, I reached up and plucked him between my fingers. A thin line of mucus formed a delicate, watery bridge from his body to my nose.

People pay for this sort of treatment. People pay good hard cash for this sort of thing. I kept repeating that over and over in my head. People did. They paid for bottles of snail mucus to rub on their face nightly. Cold hard cash. I was getting a spa treatment for free.

The slug squirmed, tossing its body this way and that, and I dropped him in the mug of water next to my bed. It made a gurgling sound, but all of my goodwill and thoughts about saving the small creatures had flown right out of the porthole.

“Drown and see if I care,” I told the bug, rushing to the bathroom to rinse my face under the faucet. My world spun a bit, and it had less to do with the rocking of the boat and more to do with a hangover rearing its head. What was in ouzo?

“You would care. You would care a lot.”

I screamed.

I tried to faint again. No luck.

The slug clamored out of the cup, its tiny antennae flaring angrily. “I am Germanicus, and a simple cup of water cannot hold me.”

“How…?” I could’ve finished that sentence a hundred different ways. In the end, I chose none of them.

The slug shook like a dog, little drops of water plinking onto the surface of the table. “I am a daemon,” it answered, as if that explained anything.

I scuttled on my hands and feet like a crab, backing away from the cup of demon slug, and ran smack into my glass shower door, hitting my head hard. Great, a concussion to look forward to.

“Demon! Stay back!” I shouted while rubbing my head, really sticking up for myself here. All of those women-led self-defense classes I’d taken during my separation from my ex were clearly paying off.

“I said I’m a daemon. Not a demon. Really big difference, lady.”

“Demon slug!”

“Stop calling me a demon slug! It’s wrong on two accounts. I’m not a demon, and I’m certainly not a slug,” said the demon slug.

That, actually, shut me up. I stood up, staring at the very obvious slug. I wanted to hold the thing up to the mirror and say, Sir, you are not only a demon slug, you are a delusional demon slug. But I had a feeling it wouldn’t like that.

If a slug could roll its eyes, this one did. “Oh fine, I’m inhabiting the body of a… slug did you call it? Whatever. Of this magnificent creature that I have chosen to guard my essence. This slug form has more teeth than anything in the world, yes more than sharks. Did you know that? Little old me. And watch, I can stretch twenty times my length.”

The delusional demon slug proceeded to stretch itself down from the rim of the glass and plop on my once-pristine nightstand.

“Slugs have the most teeth in the world?”

“And it ain’t even close,” the slug replied smugly. “I know. I researched it and found this thing.”

I shook my head, feeling for the lump, the source of my obvious concussion. Time to head to medical and get that looked at.

“Where are you going?” the demon slug asked as I threw things haphazardly into my suitcase.

“I’m clearly hallucinating. I think I need to call a spade a spade. I’ve failed on my own. Time to go home.”

“You can’t leave,” it said. “I’m going to guide you. I’m a daemon.”

I blinked.

It stared.

I laughed hysterically.

It laughed hysterically.

We had a good time, the demon slug and I, before I tried to squish it beneath my foot and dive overboard.

“Stop! I’m Germanicus, and I have to get you home. To Nibiru. And if you really want to split hairs, you murderous wench, you’re the demon! Not me.”

I finally managed to faint again.

Extra points for not hitting anything breakable on the way down.

Chapter Nine

Edge of the Atlantic, Gibraltar

The Fifth Siege of Gibraltar

March 1350

Winds battered the trees and broke favor upon the shore. A storm without rain or thunder rose over the horizon. I knew what that meant. But who was this woman and what did she want? Did she know what it meant or must I save her?

I had never once seen another face besides his on this island, and I took a moment to indulge in the sight of something so novel and new. Her black curls framed her face like cupping a heart, and it struck loose something in my brain, like a rock un-wedged by careless, climbing hands.

He met her at the entryway with no door, because doors only impeded the harmony of the winds. He smiled, his arms open and welcoming, but I had known him long enough to know he was angry. There was a tightness around his eyes that he could not hide.

Why would he be angry? The moment her feet touched the shore, he had risen in anger. Why? How could he know her when he only knew me?

“You’ll stay for dinner?” he asked, and she said yes, of course. I always intended to, and when we sat down to eat, she raised a goblet in his favor. He never could resist a goblet or a compliment.

When she left, she took me with her, and he was too drugged to stop us, although he had tried, falling and hitting his head on the table, causing me wonder if it would leave a mark. Sharp nails dug into my skin as she dragged me away, away from the edge of the Atlantic, to land where others like me lived. Humans. And I wondered if I’d ever see him again and if he’d have a scar.

I was to call her mother, and she would care for me. The gods, she told me, were gone, and they were not returning. This was her duty.

Why me? I was only twenty. I had done nothing of importance.

I followed her, and she took me ashore and the winds did not chase me. He did not chase me. He forgot about me.

Instead, we found a mountain. We walked along the edges, along the lengthy ditches and through the camps of men and mistresses at the foot. A fortress nearly as large as his stood on the rock, and no one seemed to be moving. At least twenty thousand men camped in their hastily dug ditches, waiting, waiting. Pennants flapped in the wind, a yellow castle loomed on a red background, and men sang and cooked and sighed and fucked.

“A siege,” she murmured. “Let’s get through it and we’ll go north.” She seemed resigned to the fates of men, but I was fascinated. There were so many faces, and they all looked different, yet still had the same features. Eyes, noses, mouths. All the same, yet so infinitely different. It was a marvel and I wanted more.

“I know you,” I said, wanting to make some sort of friendly talk. She had, after all, come to save me.

She lifted an eyebrow. “Perhaps you should drink this.” She gave me a small blue bottle, a vial stoppered with wax.

“Maybe later,” I said, handing it back. I wanted to drink in the siege and the sea of humanity. I did not want to drink whatever it was she had given him.

I began to hum, and then I began to sing with them, my heart soaring a little. I had loved him, but I was free, and like a bird, I wanted to sing. My hums burned in my throat, and I wanted more. I began to sing more truly.

The men and their mistresses sickened and died soon after that. They grew great big buboes under their arms and along their groins, and their fingertips turned black and they bled pus. My mother tells me I even killed a king, the only monarch to die of the Black Plague.

She didn’t suggest I drink the vial next. She didn’t even ask. She forced the vial on me, and right before it all went fuzzy, I realized I had traded one cage for another, a more insidious cage. One without bars. One made up of the illusion of freedom. But I couldn’t cry because I would have to remember what I was crying for.

TEN

Thessaly

Wherever I was, the place was even mistier than Nibiru. It was thick enough to choke on, and I found myself shivering as if I were back on that rock, bound forever by Poseidon. Which, I reminded myself, was exactly what might happen if my curse continued to revert. There was nothing to do but move forward and try to find shadows of the shades in the liminal space. I hoped to see them on both sides, figure out what they were seeing and where they went.

The Cave of Hypnos was on my left, surrounded by the field of red poppies, highly hallucinogenic. I knew the memory lake was just beyond it. Maybe I could spare Coronis the journey through the cave if I did it now. So I veered left. To the lake.

Large, pearly orbs drifted on the banks of the water. They were ragged at the edges, frayed like old cloth. Coronis said she and Ava threw them in the water when they first visited Nibiru and had no idea what they were, but I knew, because I inhabited Nibiru. They were memories. Some were reduced to mere fragments of memories now, bare remnants of someone’s experience.

A woman stood on the far side. She knelt at the water, letting her fingers drag through the water. Despite the gentle current going in the opposite direction, memories drifted towards her, drawn by her presence. If I squinted, I could tell she was a memory herself, the keeper of the river. I gasped. It was the Titaness Mnemosyne, or at least some version of her. The real thing wasn’t really here, not anymore. She had water pouring down her body and wasn’t that odd? She seemed more like a memory herself, slightly shaded, but still striking. Her dark hair curled around her heart-shaped face but her robes clung to her wet stomach and thighs as if water was constantly streaming down her body.

Stiffening, I told myself, just a memory. She’s just a memory that hated sirens. No big deal. She probably won’t hang you by your toes and tie up your vocal cords like a preschooler's art project. Ignore her and her taunts.

Mnemosyne had birthed the nine muses, and to most, the muses were ethereal beings of wonder and artistic reverence. To sirens, they were the worst. Our natural enemies, muses claimed they were superior to singing. Of course, we sirens could not abide such slander and challenged them to a singing duel, presided over by Hera. Long story short, apparently their artistic version was better than our beguiling and haunting version, and thus Hera declared the muses the winner.

Grandmother still hisses when she hears Hera’s name, insisting the sirens were set up. Why else talk us into challenging them, only to give them the win? They were the illegitimate daughters of Zeus! And everyone knew how she felt about his many illegitimate children.

After our loss, Hera allowed the muses to pluck our feathers and turn them into crowns for themselves. We retreated to our watery islands, forever excluded and looked down upon. I nearly spit just thinking of the muses, as Grandmother always did when they were mentioned.

The thing spoke. “What is it you are seeking, siren?”

“A memory.”

She spread her arm, the tattered silk of her chiton sweeping across the misty landscape like mummy wrappings. “And we stand in a sea of them. How convenient.”

“I need one about myself. Why did I visit the sea witch?”

Orbs holding memories began bumping into me, giving me blinding flashes of what they held. I struggled to stay present as memories clung to me like an oily residue, other peoples’ panic, anxiety, terror all assaulting my senses.

“Which led to all of your current misery,” said the Titaness. “Yes, I see why you’d want that one.” Mnemosyne hadn’t moved, but she was suddenly next to me. Her fingers twisted in my hair, and I felt the pain well enough to actually grimace, even though she was as insubstantial as the mist.

“You cannot have your memories, siren.”

“Because I’m a siren or for some other reason?”

The Titaness smiled.

Memories continued to bump into me, faster and faster. I jumped from a slighted lover to a mourning mother. Why were there so many sad memories here? Where were the sunny beach days and the children running through fountains of water spouting from the ground? Was Mnemosyne only keeping the sad ones in this place or did they congregate here? Was that why she was so… creepy?

Mnemosyne laughed when I fell, and I wasn’t able to catch myself. My hands splashed in the water, but there was no comfort in it; not even wetness. Only memories and illusions. Most glitched, unable to even keep their original shape or ideal. But some were completely intact, a perfect, pearled sphere.

“Memories are more powerful than people understand,” the Titaness said. “They are not the past. They are the present. They are the future.”

More memories assailed me, and I was forced to dive in order to escape them. I reappeared near the bank, where the Titaness had originally been standing. Her voice was suddenly serious. “Stay away from that one.”

The glowing orb before me looked… irresistible. It felt important. I wanted it. And she didn’t want me to have it, so obviously I needed it.

“You can’t have it!” she screeched, lunging at me, her clawed hands grasping and desperate. I surged forward, even more desperate than she. I had to reach that orb and see what she didn’t want me to see. I heard an anguished scream as my fingers touched the smooth memory, but it was too late. I became someone else. I became… her.

When he had called me here, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. Trepidation dogged my footsteps, making it difficult to move forward. Reed torches lit the slick hall, but even they could not penetrate all that was black, their dim circles of light weakly projecting only a small corona of light.

When he asked me to extend my palm and offer up my wrist, everything inside of me yearned to pull back. I let him take my arm, his hands as cold as the upper atmosphere he commanded, and let his long nail run down the side of my vein, spilling my golden ichor. I didn’t say a word. Instantly, the blackness melted away, and we stood in a room of pure crystal. Shockingly, brilliantly crystal. And it was not empty.

The sun god Ra had cloaked himself in shadows, but not for long. He lit the first fire with a single word. To it, he added the fine powdered silt of the life-giving Nile and burnt almond shells, ground down together and poured through a hollowed papyrus reed.

Next came Inanna, goddess of the east. She offered a drop of breast milk, one from each nipple, squeezed over the spitting fire.

Finally, came my father, Ouranos. Lord of the sky. He filled his chest to the brim and let loose a long breath onto their creation, slowly simmering.

It was a trifecta of ancient gods, all gathered for one purpose.

“None of the lesser gods must know. This was for the ancients, for those that created,” Ouranos murmured. “When we are brought down, they must still not know. They will tangle it for their purpose, and it only has one.”

“Why was I chosen to witness?” I dared to inquire.

“Because you, my daughter, are memory.”

The memory ended, Mnemosyne herself evaporating with it. I stood there, gasping, water streaming down my chiton, my head whirling as I thought of the crystal room that Ava’s god-blood had unlocked, giving her so many memories to make sense of herself. A direct Daughter of Ra. What had they done in that crystal room before I or many of the other gods were even born? Kronos had not yet killed Ouranos, Zeus had not yet killed Kronos. It was more ancient than I could begin to imagine and I had lived a thousand years.

And that’s when the next necromancer appeared.

ELEVEN

Thessaly

“Necromancers!”

I was desperate to get out of this memory, and not because it was painful. Because I knew one more piece of the puzzle. I wasn’t sure what, why, or even how, but I knew who. Gagging on the poppies, I thrashed, feeling around for something to hang onto, something solid in the land of the insubstantial, but there was nothing.

“Coronis,” I tried to croak, and then her face appeared, and I clung to that vision, that ideal, like a life raft.

I gasped as I came up, feeling like I was emerging from the ocean without lungs. I couldn’t get oxygen; I was floundering. Who could save a drowning siren, though?

“Darling!” Coronis flew to me, her feet as light as air, and wrapped me in her arms. “Shh, breathe first, darling. Shh.”

I struggled against her for a moment, but then sagged against her breast, unable to resist her comforting touch. My breath returned, and my heart found its normal rhythm. “I’m okay,” I finally told her, but my voice came out small and tired and utterly unconvincing.

Her kisses on my forehead and in my hair were the most substantial thing in a world of mist, and I clung to her for a second more before standing, shakily.

“Necromancers,” I said again.

Manu’s cheeks were pulled into a frown, and even Queen Dido looked troubled. Cat seemed ready to claw people’s eyes out. “What about the dark mages?”

“They are the ones communing with the shades when they ingest the poppies. I saw one. It had possessed a shade, and it forced it to eat the poppy.”

“Of course,” Manu sneered, his lip curling up at the thought of his nemeses. “How did we not think of this?”

“Because we expected human nature, not conspiracies,” Dido replied reasonably. “Across human history the allure of oblivion has always called to us. We’ll use anything to escape our reality for a little while. How could we suspect it was anything else?”

“What is the conspiracy?” Cat asked. “What is the purpose? Why would necromancers get shades high to converse with them? They can already converse with the dead, can’t they?”

The idea struck us all as surely as a bolt from Zeus’s belt of thunder. There was something much larger at play.

“Mak and the Council of Beings need to know,” Coronis said decisively. “We must hurry back to Aradia and go from there.”

“What can we do? We can continue patrolling the pillars and Hypnos’s Cave, but not all at the same time. There are four pillars and only three of us.”

“It’s an impossible task,” Coronis agreed. “We need to talk to the others, see what they think. Ava and Aurick went once to a necromancer lair with Luca. Perhaps they can go again. Or maybe tell me where it is. I believe it led to some sort of shoot-out. They may very well be recognized.”

“In the meantime, we will stagger ourselves, visiting pillars and the Cave. Shades know not hunger, nor cold, nor thirst. We will not rest,” Cat said, her hand to her heart as if she were back in battle, fighting for her sons.

We said our goodbyes and emerged on Aradia to an almost eerie calm. Despite being high tourist season, there was no lively chatter, honking of bike horns, or even Mario roaring at someone for asking for pineapple to go on their pizza. In fact, there was nothing at all.

Coronis’s forehead furrowed, and I nodded toward the town. I always slipped into the liminal spaces and scouted ahead at these moments. “Meet me on the outskirts of town,” I said quietly in case anyone was listening.

“Are you sure you’re okay to travel?” she asked, concern making her eyes soften.

I didn’t reply. Instead, I stood at the in-between place of the cave and the earth. Instantly, I fell into the liminal archway, straight into the lintel of the basilica at the top of the town’s medieval walkways. Lately, it was crowded with tourists entering and exiting, all of them marveling over the frescoes and beauty of the mosaics, none of them realizing the monosyllabic innkeeper of Villa Venus was the siren depicted on the walls–or that a god had slumbered under a stone slab for centuries, only to be recently awoken and ultimately killed.

It was as eerily quiet here as it was near the cave. Flipping over the lintel, I landed on the balls of my feet and my fingertips.

Right next to a corpse.

Luckily, I had the presence of mind to remain silent, because every few streets, more tourists and islanders were lying on the ground in some sort of mass execution. My first thought was to jump back to the cave, take Coronis in my arms, and flee. Could she be happy permanently in Nibiru? With me? With only me?

The male tourist closest to me moved, or rather, his chest did. I flinched for a second before inching closer. Breathing. They were still breathing. Not a corpse. Just knocked out, as humans so easily are. That was fine. Perhaps they all tripped and hit their heads at the same time. It would be odd but believable. Mortals were very clumsy for being so fragile. I always thought they should be more prudent.

I crept on all fours, nostrils flaring as I tried to take in the evidence. They didn’t smell dead. They smelled… I mean, gross, like humans, but alive. All of their chests were moving slowly and rhythmically. Up and down. Some had their mouths open and tongues hanging out in unbecoming ways, but all had their eyes shut and their hearts beating.

And then, right there—I’d almost missed it, because I had never had to look for it before—I saw the signs. This thing, this intruder, had nearly escaped me. But all the pieces fit.

I knew exactly what had happened.

I just didn’t understand how.

It was impossible. More impossible than a dying god under a basilica or a wandering goddess finally found. It was a siren who had sung.

TWELVE

Ilona

Today, the boat was going to Cythera where Odysseus had wound up waylaid by massive storms. I, however, was simply going crazy, waylaid by my own mind. How else to explain why I had a slug that was clearly communicating with me from my fanny pack? Lingering images from the oddest dream I’d ever had wasn’t helping the feeling that everything was just a little too unreal in my world right now. Was my mother right? Should I have never left home? Maybe I was that fool but too foolish to know it and wasn’t that how it always went with fools?

“How are you feeling?” Bella asked.

I found her on the deck, enjoying a breakfast of mimosas and croissants with Adrian. I, however, was feeling too queasy for anything other than the teeniest sips of orange juice. Even the thought of plain water made my stomach turn uncomfortably in my abdomen. And what a loaded question before it was even ten in the morning. Feeling? How was I feeling? Wild as a maenad. Hand me a thyrsus, strip my clothes, and let me loose.

Adrian laughed at the look on my face. “Ismarus got to you, eh? In the Odyssey, it caused blackout drinking for the crew. I think we were supposed to dilute it.”

“Dilute it!” I squeaked, clapping a hand to my mouth and remembering, forcefully, the first time I drank and then puked as a teenager. It was a sweet, watermelon wine. Too sweet. I had snuck behind the high school dugout after hours with three other kids, all of whom I was trying to impress. I did not succeed, not at the attempted cartwheels across the field, not at the drinking, and certainly not at the impressing. “I didn’t know we were supposed to dilute it. The modern black wines can’t be nearly as bad as the ancient ones.”

“The restaurant did it for us, but it probably wouldn’t have hurt to add a little more water. Ismarian black wine is something else.”

“Eat some fruit. It will help.” Bella pushed a plate heaped with fragrant, orange, musk melon toward me. “What’s on the agenda today?”

“Take your pick of beaches and cool rock formations,” replied Adrian.

In the misty morning air, huge cliffs of white rock rose only a few hundred feet from where we had moored. The brilliant white washed buildings on the Ionian Islands were as crisp as the first apple of fall. Red currents grew right in front of us, and the rocky terrain was full of artemisia, mugwort, and cheerful asters. I couldn’t wait to explore it like some nimble mountain goat. Once I revived myself, that was. I took some more juicy melon and chewed slowly.

“I think we could all use a little relaxat⁠—”

Alarm bells cut Bella off mid-sentence, ringing through the intercom system. A sudden cool breeze swept through the patio full of vacationers enjoying breakfast. I knew its significance immediately deep in my bones despite never having felt one; it was a sea storm wind. A dangerous one, coming from the… east? How... That wasn’t right, but I knew immediately it was.

Thunder clapped once, loudly, as if it were already here, although the skies around the ship were still blue. My stomach roiled uncertainly again. “What do you think that’s about?”

Bella and Adrian exchanged a look that made me feel like an odd interloper. They were clearly an item, which didn’t so much as hurt as make me feel embarrassed. I was a third wheel, and they never told me.

“We should probably get back to our cabins. Why don’t you hunker down in mine?” Bella suggested.

“Me?” I said. Surely they’d want privacy. This storm already felt dangerous, the boat rocking too and fro in the gathering waves, and I highly doubted we would leave our mooring anytime soon. Not to outrun the storm to another port, not to tender a littler boat to shore and safety, not for anything. We were stranded on a ship, about to be tossed around the sea like a toy. Ships had gone down for less. Ships had cracked for less.

I pictured someone breaking a handful of dried spaghetti over a boiling pot of water and the image, mixed with the furious rocking of the boat, made me want to puke. So I ran over to the side of the boat and did, along with a fair number of other guests. At least I wasn’t alone this time, not like in high school.

Adrian stood as everyone began to panic. The storm rolled in over the coastline, huge and threatening. It wasn’t hard to see how the ancients believed these storms were mercurial gods, full of wrath and fury, sweeping in with no warning. No wonder the Greeks tried to never sail without the shoreline in sight. But they also ran aground and sank a lot.

More terrifying than the storm, however, was my realization that it wasn’t natural. Somehow I understood that fact, believed it in my bones—that was what made me fear the most. It made me fear myself.

The captain came over the loudspeaker to ask us to move to our designated zones we had (presumably) practiced as we left our port on the first day, but the whipping winds and creaking of wood and huge splatters of rain had already begun.

“It’s a Medicane. A hurricane in the Mediterranean. We need to take cover now,” Adrian said, pulling at me. Bella followed behind, grabbing their plates of food. If I couldn’t think about eating before, the idea of food now was positively repugnant.

I could sense the slug, Germanicus, in my fanny pack, although I sure as heck hadn’t put him there. He kept quiet, although I could feel his wet antennae poke out of my fanny pack and graze my wrist, as if searching for a little bit of comfort, and the thought oddly buoyed me, even if we still hadn’t quite decided whether I was going to squish him once we got to shore or not. He said if I killed him, that would prove everyone’s point. That demons were the worst or something. I’d basically stuck my tongue out at him. It was a bit much to let a talking slug call me a demon and even more to believe it. I stoutly refused to do that.

Either he could talk or I was a demon. Not both.

Both was too much, and I was a simple woman.

The rain pelted us as we began to run, the ship shuddering as if already trying to come apart at the bolts. This stupid boat wasn’t even trying to stay together! Put a little effort into it!

The crew rushed around with frenzied looks on their faces while lightning cracked around us. I smelled the ozone a split second before a bolt hit the mast, sending sparks and shattered pieces of expensive-looking equipment flying across the deck. I screamed long and long, almost like a musical note, and covered my head, trying to keep up. At some point, I had to face the facts. My mother was right. I wasn’t meant to travel. I wasn’t meant to leave the land. I was meant for lesser things. I had made a mistake.

If the sky was ominous a few minutes ago, it was downright deadly now. Storm clouds surrounded the boat completely, nothing visible outside of the deck except for huge swells, black clouds, and streaks of lightning.

“Come on, Ilona!” Bella shouted, suddenly appearing next to me. “Don’t just stand there.”

“Sorry,” I whispered, almost mesmerized by the storm. It did feel divine, as if a hand of a god was involved. From the west.

“Keep moving,” she instructed.

I clutched my fanny pack, following her lead. She sounded like she knew what to do in an emergency, which was good. I had no idea what to do in an emergency. I couldn’t even perform CPR or the Heimlich Maneuver if needed. The only emergency I’d been in was when the board of harpies had run out of fake sugar for their coffee, and I’d had to run across Kansas City to find some. Bella looked and felt very competent, but every so often, she would glance over her shoulder, staring into the depths of the storm as if she, too, could feel its divine rage.

I ran with my legs in full stride as I had never run before, pounding the deck, the rain soaking through everything I owned. Every step was a task, and when we reached her room, throwing open the door, I cried real tears of relief. We bolted the suite’s glass sliding door to the porch and braced ourselves, unable to see out past the storm clouds and unable to muster up the courage to try.

Then, without warning, the storm broke. Sunlight streamed through the room, the clouds evaporating as if never there. I raced to the door, flinging it open. The air smelled different, washed clean. Everything was confusing, but one thing was clear.

We were no longer moored. And we were no longer in Greece.

THIRTEEN

Thessaly

The siren must have ceased her singing, because I couldn’t hear it, I could only feel the lingering vibrations of her chords. They were unwieldy and weak, as if she was not practiced in the art of the music.

Was she an old siren that had not been caught up in the dragnet of Poseidon’s curse? Or a baby siren, somehow born outside of the divine rites of our kind? I had never heard of such a thing happening, not even a whisper, and sirens were not known for keeping quiet. Surely such a possibility—having a child without the gods and the rites—would’ve circulated through our stories had it ever happened.

I just didn’t see how it was possible. My own conception between Glaucos, a mere fisherman before he consumed the dog’s-tooth herb, and my mother Acanthus, had still been conducted within the rites. A siren was born once every thousand years. I was not yet a thousand. Nearly, but not yet.

I flipped back to Coronis who was pacing anxiously where I’d left her. She ran to meet me, her white bob flouncing around her ears. Even rattled, she looked chic and put together. A real talent. No, she would not be satisfied in Nibiru.

“What is it, darling? What’s happening?”

I always found it best to not dither about with news, whether good or bad. “Everyone has been song-cursed.” I’ve also found that when dealing with non-demons, they don’t always take facts well, even though they were true. Curtness was not a virtue, but we didn’t have time for virtues.

Coronis let out a string of curses, weaving ancient Greek with modern Italian and elevating swearing into an art form. If she had been a siren, she would have managed to kill everyone with her artistry of the spoken word. I was impressed and told her so.

“Darling! Now is not the time. What do you mean song-cursed?”

“Everyone on the island is unconscious but will survive. They are under a siren’s song, but the siren either did not want to drown them or she did not know how.”

Coronis took all of this with a rapid blink of her eyes. Not once did she look suspiciously at me, despite knowing the impossibility of such a thing. “Okay. What do we do?”

“We wake them up.”

“Can you do that?”

I allowed myself some pride, my chest puffed out. “I can.”

“Good, let’s go.”

Coronis transformed into her crow form, large and impressive, and flew into town. I met her at Marco’s taverna, an array of people laid on the ground around his bistro chairs like shocks of wheat on the field after threshing. I went to Ava first as Coronis spun in the air, becoming a woman again. She joined us anxiously as she smoothed her hair behind her ears and bent over our friend. Aurick was next to her, and a carafe of red wine lay broken between them. Coronis began mending her small cuts from the fall, although Ava’s beautiful, white linen pants were beyond repair. Softly, I sang in her ear, a song just for her. A song of love and longing, a song to make you follow it to the ends of the earth and back. A song to make her follow me. I was Orpheus, calling to my beloveds. Follow me, I sang. Follow me home.

Ava’s eyelids fluttered and then she shot up. “Thessaly!”

Immediately, she embraced me, her eyes filling with tears, and just like Coronis, she wasted no breath suspecting me. My heart thumped hard enough to stagger me. She trusted me, despite the impossibility of reality.

“Tell us what happened, Ava, if you can,” Coronis said.

Ava shook her head, as if blinking away a fog. “One minute, we were enjoying apertivo hour and wondering where you were, and the next, a peculiar noise, like a whisper of a ghost, floated through the town square. That’s the last thing I remember. I looked at Aurick and that was it. I was gone.” She glanced at his empty chair and then to the ground where he lay. She clapped a hand over her mouth in horror, taking in the whole of the square. “Thessaly! Please tell me you can save him, too. I heard your voice and—oh gods, please!”

Swiftly, I bent and began to sing to Aurick. He took a little longer to snap out of his cursed state, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I wasn’t as convincing singing to him about following me home or if he wasn’t as convinced he should be following me. Ava had thrown herself wholeheartedly at my song, but he finally came around, sitting up in shock, Ava’s name on his lips. I sat back on my heels, a bead of sweat drizzling down my forehead. At least I wasn’t cold, but it was clear this process would be tedious and much, much easier if I could find the siren who had done this. Would she begin again? What was her purpose?

Working together, Coronis used her gift of healing to go in front of me, healing minor cuts and bruises on the still-unconscious, while Ava trailed behind her with honey from Mak’s old shop, smearing it on the lips of the fallen to help awaken them. I recalled helping Coronis ease into wakefulness after falling prey to necromancers while watching over Ava’s twin boys at college. That was before the curse reignited, before Thoth awoke. It made my songs a little easier to follow, but only a little.

I had absolutely no connection to any of the tourists, so we started with the locals. Mario woke up roaring and spitting mad, still angry about pineapple it turned out, while Rosemary fussed over Mario, tears running down her face and immediately running to her bakery to turn on the oven and make everyone something warm and comforting. Hopefully zeppoles with chocolate cream.

We worked quickly and diligently to wake the tourists next as Aurick spoke to them soothingly, gathering them around the bistro tables and spinning a tale about earthquakes on the island, just like the ancient days. Mount Vesuvius and all that. I’d seen that eruption from my little rock, though. It wasn’t like this at all. But I didn’t have time to correct him.

I had to sing.

It happened slowly then all at once. The notes of the siren’s chords staggered a little, then cut off. The siren had stopped singing. I had no idea if she was done or simply taking a break, but I didn’t want to wait around to find out. I ran to the nearest doorway, my limbs bent to jump. I was mid-air, I was as bird-like as my lover.

Coronis jerked out her arm, grabbed my elbow, and brought me back to earth. “You can’t just run off and leave me, Thessaly. Where are you going?”

I kissed her once. “To find a siren.”

FOURTEEN

Ilona

The coast spread before us was much greener, less rocky. No more white washed houses or purple asters blooming through cracks in the cliffs, only a long stretch of pristine beach. On either side, I could make out mountain hills and gravel roads, hiking trails and silvery green bushes, a large city on the coast, domed white homes. It was gorgeous; it just wasn’t Greece. And it was impossible. Without having to check my phone, I knew exactly where we were down to the precise degree of latitude and longitude. That knowledge made me more seasick than any hangover.

33.8076° N, 10.8451° E.

Djerba, Tunisia.

Bella looked murderous as she checked her phone’s map. “The land of the lotus-eaters,” she announced. “A week ahead of schedule.”

“What? What do you… Africa?” I stammered, even though I’d already known the answer. But Bella would think me mad if she knew my secret. It should have been a nine day journey by ship. Not even Odysseus had gone so far so fast. I flipped over my watch. It had been a little more than an hour.

“Tunisia.” Bella looked northward, as if expecting something to come out of the sea and gobble us. Scylla, perhaps, with her many heads. Charybdis, the whirlpool. Who knew? Then, she glanced at me.

“Ilona, you’re shaking and very pale. Sit down. I’ll get you something to eat. You’ll declare it’s the nectar of the gods.”

I laughed nervously. “I think we could all use some of the nectar of the gods.”

“Very true.” Bella came back from her suite’s bar area with two glasses and handed one to me, clinking. The drink was a golden color, thick and syrupy. It smelled as divine as advertised. I took a tentative sip, an explosion of spices and sweetness cascading through my mouth.

Before I could say anything, Bella smiled grimly. “Don’t ask. Family recipe. I’d hate to kill you after all we’ve been through.”

“I won’t then. As long as I can keep being friends with your family.”

“That won’t be a problem.”

“Good,” I said, taking another sweet sip. “Because I think we have enough of those as it is. What are we going to do?”

Soon, crew members began making the rounds to assure all guests that, by some miracle, no one had been injured in the storm and to announce that the charter was, unfortunately, over. The storm had wreaked havoc on their navigation systems and engine room. They would help figure out transportation to the nearest airport, but they couldn’t extend discounts or refunds.

People cried and groaned and cheered all around us. As for me, I found that, just as Odysseus’s men after eating the lotus fruit, I had no desire to return home. I was in the world, damn it! Anyway, we were stranded here with a broken ship until transport to the mainland was arranged for hundreds of travelers, not even taking immigration and customs into account. Might as well enjoy it.

“When we get to shore, let’s go check out the local nightlife,” Bella said, her eyes suddenly glowing in mischief and adventure. “I’m not ready to leave, and we still have over a week left of vacation.”

I swirled the drink in my glass, eyeing it with one eye closed. “There isn’t any alcohol in here, right?”

“No. Why do you need some?”

“No, I should probably keep my wits about me for now.” The little slug in my fanny pack made a clear noise of agreement, and for a split second, I could have sworn Bella turned her head towards the sound. “No, it’s just… Africa. Wow.”

“You’re certainly not in Kansas City anymore.”

I laughed, the ball of nerves deep in my chest unspooling little by little. Bella should bottle this drink and sell it. She’d be rich. Or, richer than she already was. Suddenly, I was very curious.

“Tell me about yourself,” I said, splaying out on her bed. “Where did you grow up?”

Bella gave me a side-eye. “Not America. I moved around a lot as a kid and teenager.”

“Ah, accounts for the slight, unidentifiable accent,” I said. “You probably were so mixed up as a kid!”

“Oh yes. I couldn’t even begin to identify home. Probably somewhere around here.”

“The Mediterranean?” I asked, as a knock sounded at the door.

Bella went to answer it, nodding as she went. “Basically.”

Adrian fell through the door looking a bit worse for the wear. Somehow, he’d gotten separated from us during the freak Medicane storm and was pretty shaken up. “Was not expecting that, eh?” he kept saying, running his hand through his surfer boy hair. It was still wet with rain, and he shook it out like a dog. “Whew! If that won’t wake you up, I don’t know what will!”

“Are you talking about the storm or the spray from your hair?” Bella asked.

“Sorry about that,” Adrian said, pulling a towel from the rack and offering it to her. “So, ladies. What now?”

“We were just discussing where we should go,” Bella said. “I vote we stay around here for a while. Or, at the very least, not go home. You took vacation from your job, I presume, Ilona. Right?”

My cheeks reddened as I thought about all of the rejections in my inbox, and I tried to hide it with another gulp of the golden nectar. It was nearly gone, though, so decadently delicious that I hadn’t noticed I’d almost consumed it all in only a few minutes. “Um, my ex-husband gave me a nice settlement in the divorce. This is my gift to myself, actually. I think I’ll have to begin looking for something stable when I go home, however. While a nice settlement, it in no way can support me and my retirement indefinitely. Which, I think, is exactly how John wanted it. He gave just enough money to assuage his conscience, but not enough to take away from his new life.”

“Why? You two shared a life together before anyone else. Surely that means something. Did you part on awful terms?”

I shrugged, swirling the last few drops in my glass. “No. I just couldn’t give him children, and he had said he was fine with it, but when push came to shove, he wasn’t. He got his mistress pregnant and that was that. I was out, she was in. Simple, really.”

“Men,” said Adrian in a comically derisive way. It made me snort with laughter, and then we all were cathartically reeling with it. We’d traveled nine days in one hour and survived! Life was being lived!

“You’re right,” I said, standing up decisively. “Let’s go party tonight.”

“I thought you had a hangover,” Bella said, her eyebrows raised.

“This stuff is like an IV full of vitamins,” I told her seriously. “I feel amazing. Although, I do hereby swear to drink a glass of water after every glass of wine tonight.”

“So sayeth we all,” intoned Adrian.

We wobbled off the boat, our sea legs shaky from the storm, and headed into town with all of our luggage in tow. To be honest, now that I was on land, I wasn’t even sure what city it was. It seemed my sudden geographical knowledge only extended to the water.

Bella and Adrian left me at a café in the city center before sauntering off to find hotel arrangements. After all that had happened, it felt good to be alone for a moment to gather my thoughts, except⁠—

“Demon, what are you doing?” Germanicus demanded, popping out of my fanny pack and slithering up my arm indecently fast for a slug. “We must go to Nibiru. That storm was no mistake. Something wants you somewhere specific. We should definitely flee before it gets us first.”

“No one has ever wanted me anywhere except for my mother. She always demanded that I stay home. But she’s gone, so it’s just me.” I paused. “Wait, did I just answer a demon? Never mind. Don’t answer that.”

“Why?”

“Because I doubt a real demon slug⁠—”

“Daemon.”

“Even a delusional demon slug, mind you, would be truthful. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to find my friends. I’m on a strange continent with literally zero idea where to go or what to do. I barely had the courage to go to the squatty potty by myself. I cannot get lost.”

“You are already so lost,” the demon slug said. “I don’t know who these people are, but they smell weird.”

“They smell weird,” I repeated.

“Yes. I would say ancient, but they’re not. They’re not ancient at all. They’re from the here and now, but there’s something ancient there. I just can’t make heads or tails of it.”

“I’d hope not. They’re younger than me by a decade from the looks of it. Thirties, I’d say. Oh, there they are now.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Germanicus sputtered as I plopped a napkin over his head and shoved him down.

Bella hooked her arm through mine, and through town we went, stopping at shops and haggling with merchants over beautiful Bedouin silver jewelry and other pieces. Apparently, Berber was one of the languages Bella spoke, because she sounded like a native. A beautiful, pink sandstone fort surrounded by old cannons and palm trees stood at the top of the island, but we didn’t stop to explore it. I liked the mystery of it better than anything, although I noticed sawed off Roman statues and togas arranged on another side. How interesting.

We ate just as well in Djerba as we did in Greece and Turkey. Grilled fish pulled right from the waters, couscous, mixed vegetables, and green and red condiments with plenty of zing and spice. While it was technically legal to drink in Tunisia, it was still frowned upon by many locals, so we gathered up a few bottles of nice wine and headed back to our rooms.

Adrian hooked up his computer to the internet and began deejaying pop music even though it was still early in the evening, but hey. We were on vacation. He and Bella started to dance and beckoned for me to join. I tried to wave them off, but Bella insisted. “How about some karaoke?’’ she suggested, throwing me a round hairbrush as an impromptu microphone.

I was happily dizzy from the wine, but not inebriated by any stretch of the imagination after such a big dinner, and I definitely had no plans to embarrass myself. “Actually, I have a terrible voice. My mom used to tell me it could kill anything in a ten mile radius. Even a weed.”

“That can’t be true. And I’m sorry, but your mom sounds like a terrible person. Who would say that to anyone, let alone their kid?”

I reddened again. I felt some sort of betrayal mentioning my mom, even if the things she said and did were off-color to most. She was, still, my mother. And I knew she had loved me in her own peculiar way. She had no other family except for me. She couldn’t even tell me who my father was, insisting she didn’t know, which sounded ominous. We were all each other had until John had come into my life, and I had started to fade from hers–except for Sunday morning tea time. She always came by and brewed me a special pot of tea, every single Sunday morning without fail.

I swallowed the hard lump in my throat. Mourning her was so very complicated.

“You’re right. I’ll sing. But don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I told them, half-seriously. They took it as a joke, laughing and turning up the music.

My foot started tapping out the beat first. Don’t Stop Believing by Journey. But I still couldn’t bring myself to sing.

“Start out mouthing the words,” Bella suggested.

I nodded, gripping the microphone harder. Germanicus was frantically trying to get my attention, but I ignored him. I was having fun, and it was just a song. When had a song shaken the world?

Adrian gave me an encouraging nod, and I took one last deep breath. Then, I let loose. “Don’t stop believin’,” I belted out. “Hold on to that feelin’.”

And it felt good. No, it felt better than good. It felt better than anything I had done since hitting the buy button on the cruise website. For hours, we sang and danced and drank. We hit all the hits. I Will Survive, Livin’ on a Prayer, Purple Rain. I had never been so happy in my life. I had never had friends like this in my life.

So, when the woman appeared on the balcony of our hotel room, lightly balancing on her hands and feet, I thought maybe I was hallucinating. Her bright blue hair and electric purple eyes didn’t help.

Weirdly enough, despite the overwhelming sense of joy in the room, she was glaring.

At me.

FIFTEEN

Ilona

The woman crouched on top of the railing like a wild beast seemed impossible. From the lethal lines of her body to the preternatural way she watched me, as if expecting me to attack her, she looked more like a big budget movie star on screen than a woman made of flesh and blood in front of me.

I turned to Bella, the one who had seen the world and knew how to handle an emergency–and this certainly felt like an emergency–but Bella was gone. I didn’t see Adrian, either. Surely I hadn’t made them both up? Surely I wasn’t truly hallucinating? Surly they hadn’t… abandoned me?

You were talking to a slug earlier today, I reminded myself.

Okay, so maybe I was hallucinating.

The woman with the wild hair spoke, but the words didn’t make sense. “You are an impossibility,” she said stiffly. “You must come with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I managed to say, rather steadily, too. Me, the impossibility! She was basically a glitch in the matrix!

The woman flipped over the ledge, landing as light as I imagined a feral mountain cat would. Her neon hair was wet, as if she’d swum here, and droplets of water splashed on the wooden floor, forming a ring around her body.

“Don’t come any closer!” I shouted, wondering how I could possibly get away from her. Even if I made it into the hallway, big if, where would I go? She looked fast. Unnaturally fast. Like a predator designed to hunt humans. How was that possible? Did such a thing even exist?

For now, my vague threats stilled her. The woman held up her hands, as if that would scare me less coming from her.

“You do not belong here,” she said slowly. “It is too dangerous.”

Her words were a gut punch. It was like listening to my mother tell me all the ways I didn’t fit in, how the world would swallow me up. Oddly, even her cadence and mannerisms were similar. I blinked. Could they be related? “I don’t know how you got here,” I said, “but don’t come any closer.”

Germanicus chose that moment to wake up from his sluggish sleep. I could feel him yawn and grumble something about slug’s teeth. I’d taken to keeping my fanny pack secured around my waist, even at night in my bed, since it held all of my most important documents, emergency funds, and now, my most important demon slug. Maybe he, the other impossible thing in my life, knew what was going on. The thought nearly made me laugh.

The woman cocked her head, her eyes staring at my waist, her eyebrows furrowed like she was confused and couldn’t quite figure it out. Join the club, lady.

“Another demon!” Germanicus shouted in my head. Then paused, stretching out his slug body. “Wait. She smells… really weird, too. Hold on⁠—”

I heard a series of grunts. “Is it sniffing?” I thought to myself. “Is that what it’s doing?”

“Yes, I’m sniffing. Give me a second. I said hold on.”

“Wait? You heard that?”

“Of course, I can hear all your thoughts. Those ones about Adrian that first night… Whew! Got me all hot and slimy.”

“Okay, okay. That’s enough.”

I could feel the demon slug go through an odd series of pirouettes against my belly. It scrunched and vibrated and twisted. Then it went still. “Yeah, she smells really weird.”

“That’s all you got after all that?”

“I’ve never smelled anything like it before. A demon, but she doesn’t stink of Nibiru. She smells like… garlic and espresso and, even more impossible, the ancient gods.”

“Where did you get that?” the woman asked, pointing at my waste.

“At the store,” I said, somewhat defensively. “It’s a fanny pack.”

“It’s not a fanny pack. Can you hear it talk inside your head?”

“What? No. Why would you say that?”

As if this day couldn’t get any weirder, Bella suddenly appeared. It was as if she were gone one minute and then standing right next to me. The strange woman hissed and fell backwards, scuttling like a crab to the railing of the balcony. If this was still a ship in the ocean, I had a feeling she would have flung herself backwards in a perfect swan dive. Instead, she glared at me again, beseechingly almost. I felt moved. Just not moved enough to actually move.

She braced herself against the top of the doorway, balancing like an acrobat. “You are choosing wrong, siren sister. You are being impulsive. Come to Aradia, come meet your kind.”

“What do you mean by ‘my kind’?” I demanded, but the woman was already gone, and I couldn’t even begin to explain how.

Bella’s face stormed with rage. Then, she took a deep, calming breath and said, “Well, Ilona, you better sit down for this.”

SIXTEEN

Thessaly

When I returned to Aradia, Coronis was waiting with three mugs at her table. The kettle was on to boil, and tea bags full of fragrant lavender and lemony chamomile sat ready to be brewed. The usually active square outside of Coronis’s window was quiet despite the fact it was eight in the evening, dinner hour. I guessed falling asleep in one’s apertivo drink had spooked the tourists.

“How did you know I’d come here first?” I asked. “I have guests at Villa Venus that probably need me.”

“Oh, darling. They absolutely need you. But let’s face it; being an innkeeper is not your calling in life. Aurick is taking care of them. Sit and relax. Tell me what happened. Did you not find your siren?” Coronis looked over my shoulder as if expecting another demon to drop from her roof and join us for tea.

“I found her.”

Coronis smiled expectantly. “Lovely! Did she realize what she was doing?”

“She was clueless.”

“Clueless,” Coronis repeated.

I nodded, grabbing an amaretti cookie. Rosemary baked them especially for her oldest friend once a week and personally delivered them. The cookie was soft and full of almond flavor, crinkled and sugared on top. “Did Rosemary make zeppoles yet?”

“Focus, darling. Where is the siren?” Coronis asked.

“She refused to come.”

Coronis lost all sense of her usual cool, calm collectedness. “Thessaly! What happened? What did you say?”

“I told her she was an impossibility, and I asked her to come with me.”

“Oh, dear.”

I stared at her, waiting for more, like an explanation as to why Coronis looked frustrated. When none came, I continued. “Enyo was there. The daughter of Ares has reached her first. She is in her ear. And… something else. It felt like Tiberius.”

“Tiberius! You mean a daemon? Why would a daemon attach itself to a siren? No offense, darling, but they are the conduits between the archons and the gods. Not for beings like us. With Nonna and Culsans gone from our world, there are no more archons or daemons.”

I lifted my shoulders once. “We could ask Tiberius.”

Coronis snapped her fingers. “Yes, let’s. Ava has not yet left to see Mak at the Council. We should loop her into this update as well. She might know better. And be gentle. She’s feeling very down about going under the curse.”

Skipping over to the villa was as easy as jumping in a doorway, although I had to make sure that I didn’t land in the kitchen or in front of guests. I chose the back room where Aurick had spent most of his first year-long stay in a mummified coma. Luckily, he no longer used it.

I found Tiberius snoozing in a bowl of half-cracked walnuts. His whiskers twitched and his paws tapped at the air as they raced toward something in his dream state. I poked his soft belly with my finger, and the small rodent sneezed before jumping in the air.

“Thessaly,” he wheezed, rubbing his belly with a paw. It was quite large, not yet having dropped his hibernation weight. Why he felt the need to gorge for hibernation when he didn’t actually hibernate was another story. “Never wake a sleeping chipmunk,” he said seriously.

“You’re not a real chipmunk. You’re a daemon.”

He waved my true statements away. “You know how I feel about this body. Now, what do you want?”

“I think I found another one of you.”

“Chipmunks?”

“No, daemons. This one looked like a slug.”

Tiberius immediately stopped flipping through walnut shells and stared at me. “You… sorry, what?”

“It looked like a slug and was riding in the waist bag of a siren. Do you know why it would do such a thing?”

“First of all, what in the bushy tail is a waist bag?”

“You know. The bag you clip around your waist. The tourists wear them sometimes.”

“You mean a fanny pack. Don’t you? And you’re trying to tell me that a daemon in the shape of a slug is riding around in a siren’s fanny pack. Ava! Ava, get back here now!”

“Ava?” I called. The rodent was right. It was probably for the best that she was here.

Coronis appeared at the door of the villa next, having flown in via crow form. She flapped her arms and hopped over the threshold. “She’s still talking to the tourists in town, but she’ll meet us here. She’s on her way now.”

A few minutes later, Ava and Aurick arrived on her lime green Vespa, ditching the helmets and running inside. “Thessaly! Catch us up,” Ava said, slightly out of breath.

While she was in a human form, having killed her godly body when she killed Thoth, she had all five parts of her godly soul still intact, making her immortal as far as we knew and in possession of some serious godly powers. Aurick, being a mummy and used to sleep, looked like he could use a nap, but he didn’t appreciate the last time I informed him of that, so I thought it wise not to mention it.

“There’s another siren and maybe even another daemon, and they’re together. And Enyo, Daughter of Ares. All together,” I tried to clarify.

Coronis’s hand flew to her mouth as her jaw dropped open, and suddenly there were long tendrils of houseplants growing and inching along the panes of the window where they hung. Ava’s mother magic. Despite the severity of the situation, I suddenly felt a calmness wash over me like high tide, no doubt coming from her.

“Why would a daemon and a siren travel together, and why would the siren sing Aradia to sleep? And why travel with Enyo? And how can this siren sing?”

“Those are a lot of questions,” I said. “If it makes you feel any better, the siren couldn’t answer them, either.”

“You found her,” Ava breathed. “What did she say?”

“She was very confused. Kept calling Enyo by the name of Bella. Honestly, she seemed like she didn’t realize she was a siren with powers, although she definitely knew about the slug. Tiberius, why would a daemon go to a demon? I thought all daemons were with their archons in Nibiru. Well, except for you and Nonna.”

I saw a look of wistful sadness ripple through Ava at the mention of her mentor, her first friend on Aradia. I wanted to tell her we didn’t have time for things like emotions. A siren was walking around earth with her voice and no notion of who she was or what she could do, and she was at the mercy of an angry, petulant demigoddess.

I guessed Ava knew we didn’t have time for sadness or sorrow or wistfulness, but she couldn’t help her human side, and I’d found out quickly that humans had to be allowed their emotions, otherwise they became quite unruly. Still, I cleared my throat, feeling it my duty to nudge the humans along.

Tiberius burrowed into Ava’s hair, settling onto her shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe it came with Enyo. While most daemons stuck with the archons, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that one called a demigod their friend and confidante, especially as the pillars were collapsing and choices had to be made.”

Impassively, to help cool emotions, I said, “She wasn’t singing to harm anyone.”

“How do you know?”

“She was laughing. Funny laughs, not murderous revenge laughs. I recognize those sorts of laughs from you.”

“Okay,” Ava said, her face softening. “What else?”

“She was carpooling.”

“So she was in a car?” Aurick asked.

“What? No. She was singing the words of songs for fun. Like the tourist do after they drink too much.”

“Oh, darling. You mean karaoke-ing, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “But the point is, she is a sister of mine, whether she knows it or not, and she is being used by Enyo. She needs our help.”

Ava started pacing. “I should have known the daughter of Ares wouldn’t give up, just because I threatened her in the moment. All I did was force her into hiding. I didn’t give her real change or a real opportunity,” she fretted. “This is my fault.”

“It’s easy to take the blame, so let’s not take the easy way,” Coronis said. I glowed at her logic. She was so reasonable. Unlike my mother Acantha who had never seen a shred of evidence that made her embrace reason. It was so un-siren like.

“So it stands to reason that this siren is not cursed. We don’t know why or how, but that hardly matters right now. She can sing, and the demigods who opposed us before are clearly up to something again.”

“We don’t know that,” Aurick said. “Maybe they’re just simply vacationing.”

Coronis blew air from her cheeks and shook her head. “I highly doubt that. While we were in Nibiru, we spoke with Dido, Cat, and Manu. There’s been a serious uptick in shady shade behavior at the pillars.”

Ava snort laughed and clapped a hand to her mouth. “Sorry. Shady shades sounds like a rap song.”

“What is a rap song? Sirens don’t have that.”

“It’s where you… Never mind,” Ava said hastily. “Tell me about this new behavior.”

Coronis flapped her arms. “They’re getting high off of the poppy pods near Hypnos’s Cave.”

“Excuse me, did you say ‘high’?” Aurick asked.

“As a kite,” Coronis confirmed.

“Can they? Get high, I mean.”

“We’re not sure. But we think they’re conversing with necromancers while in their induced trance state.”

“That is odd,” Ava admitted. “It can’t be a coincidence can it?”

“I doubt it, but what does it mean if this new siren is immune to the curse and in Enyo’s possession?” Coronis asked.

Ava’s face turned hard, and her godly energy sizzled beneath the surface. “It means they’ve got a plan, and they’re already putting it into motion.”

SEVENTEEN

Ilona

I sat down. To be honest, my legs were incapable of holding me steady at this point anyway.

“What just happened?” I asked, my voice as shaky as my legs. “Who was that woman? And where did Adrian go?”

Bella’s grim look, so totally devoid of the fun and spontaneity of singing wildly in a new country only minutes ago, made my stomach flip over. Then, just to prove its point, it flopped around near the ground for a bit.

“My name isn’t Bella. It’s Enyo,” she began. “And like you, I am not what I seem.”

“I’m a middle aged woman from Missouri. Nothing mysterious there.”

“Sorry, but you are not a MILF.”

“What? That’s rude, especially to say to someone who recently got divorced because they couldn’t give their husband a child.”

“What? No. MILF, as in Maevii Igneus Laceratrix Faex.”

I stared. Not sure if I should still be offended or not. Of all the things I had heard in the past twenty-four hours, that might have been the strangest.

“It’s Latin, and it’s a term we use for non magical people. Not exactly a nice term, either, but it doesn’t apply to you. There is more to you than you know.”

“Like a secret well of strength or a golden aura that only you can see?” I asked, hoping this conversation was about to take a more sane turn.

“Like, you’re actually a siren.”

I stared blankly.

“As in the singing women from Greek mythology,” Bella continued, “who drowned men who strayed too far from land. They used to have wings and fly and all that, but, well. You know. Hera had the nine muses pluck them.”

I laughed nervously, wishing I had a well-timed joke to round it all out. At least she hadn’t said I was a demon, like my pet slug kept insisting.

“They’re a kind of demon,” Bella said. “But not as you imagine a demon to be. Probably not, in any case.”

I almost fainted at that.

Bella—Enyo—drew out a hat from under her shirt. “This is the Helm of Darkness, an original artifact from the time of the gods.”

I stared at this woman, my friend who’d stuck by my side for so many traumatic things in such a short period of time, and on her own vacation no less. Talking nonsense to me, like my slug. “The gods,” I said.

“Specifically, the Greek gods. This was the magical implement of Hades, god of the Underworld. It renders the wearer invisible.”

“Invisible.”

Enyo put it on and simply vanished. I shot to my feet, my heart pounding through my fingertips. It was one thing to think something strange had happened and quite another to see it happening right in front of my face.

Enyo appeared again, the hat hovering above her scalp as if she had just taken it off. She stood closer now, right there, close enough to reach out and touch.

“Does Adrian know?” I whispered, my mouth dry.

“Adrian knows. He is also not what he seems.” Enyo tilted her head, watching me. “Come. Follow me.”

Enyo went to the balcony and spread out her arm. “Look at the town. Nothing stirs. Everyone is asleep.”

I looked around Djerba. Lights were on, but people had fallen asleep where they stood, slumped against lamp posts or directly on the ground. Motor bikes had crashed into buildings, and street food burned on grills, the smoke acrid in the air.

“Oh my god,” I said, covering my mouth. “We have to help them! Someone could be seriously injured down there.”

“Some probably are.”

I turned on my heel, staring at her. “What are we doing here then? We have to go help them!”

“Now that you’ve stopped singing, they will begin to awaken. Most will be fine.”

“What are you saying? That I did that?”

“Yes, the power of your voice put them all to sleep.”

“No,” I whispered. “That’s not possible. It’s some mass hysteria or delusion. Or just a single delusion—mine.”

“Ilona, you could make people do whatever you want, fall in love, commit crimes, kill themselves.”

I couldn’t help but let out a scoff. “If that were true, John would still love me. I couldn’t even keep my husband faithful to me.”

“You could have. I think deep down you knew he wasn’t worthy of you and didn’t try. The siren instinct is too strong.”

I looked down. Smoke trailed through the street, shrouding the sleeping citizens in a haze. This wasn’t a small, single delusion. This was real. “I’m going down there,” I said resolutely, even though I felt like throwing up.

Enyo watched me as if unsure why I would insist on such a thing. As if confused.

“Are you going to stand there, or are you coming with me? People are injured and you speak the language!”

She shrugged. “Let’s go then. We will help them.”

Following Enyo out the door, I glanced once more around the hotel room, knowing deep in my bones my life could never go back to the way it was. Germanicus was still riding in my fanny pack, but keeping his own council. Apparently, he didn’t want to make an appearance in front of Enyo.

I could feel him shifting around, mumbling a little. Somehow, he’d known I was a siren, too. Now that I thought about it, he had tried to warn me not to sing. I wondered how that was possible, but I didn’t wonder for long.

As people came to, the moans and shouts started. People threw bottles of water on flames and smothered them with the shirts off their backs. A few were bleeding from their hairline where they’d fallen, and others had darkening bruises in various places, but only one older man looked more seriously injured, trapped beneath a motorbike that had fallen on his leg.

There were calls for help, and I rushed over to the bike. Three of us lifted it and tossed it to the side, while others called for emergency services. Unfortunately, everyone in a fifty mile radius was calling for emergency services.

I spun in a sort of circle, unable to take it all in. This felt apocalyptic. Hot tears pricked at my eyes, and I let them fall. How could I have done this? What else would I do if left unchecked?

Maybe I should have gone with that woman and let her dispense whatever justice she saw fit. If she was a siren, too—no. I couldn’t go with her. I would turn even more monstrous. I refused to be a siren from mythology, luring men to their deaths, forcing people to do what I wanted with the seduction of my voice. I had to stay put and help. I had to clean up my messes.

Enyo whispered in my ear. “You could make that man not feel his pain with a simple song. No one would know. A little hum, just for him while he waits. Your gift doesn’t have to be evil. It can be whatever you want it to be.”

I snapped my head around to take her in. She stood at least a foot taller than my five feet six inches, and her skin faintly glowed with vitality. In no world would I have assumed she was a demigoddess, but once the word was in my mind, there was no way to see her otherwise. She wasn’t human. And she wanted me to be like her. Except, Ares was a god of war. And she wanted me to help. Perhaps she was the only one in the world who understood how hard it was to fight against your born nature and become something better. Something helpful.

“A little hum. He’s in pain, Ilona.”

“That doesn’t solve the problem,” I replied, panicking at the thought of singing again.

“It’s exactly what any paramedic would do until he could be treated. Give pain medication. Correct? This is just a bit more… natural.”

I swallowed. A little hum. Simple. “Do I need to touch him or anything?” I whispered.

“No. You did all this without touching anyone, and you don’t have the power to heal. Only to help. Just hum, Ilona, and think about taking away his pain.”

“What will I do? Make him unconscious again?”

“You can make him think of anything else. Make him believe he’s not in pain. Make him lie still and wait.”

“That sounds like a vegetable.”

“Whatever helps you to visualize,” Enyo said. “Close your eyes and focus.”

I obeyed. What else could I do? I couldn’t take his moans or the way his leg unnaturally twisted at the knee to the left. So I sang under my breath, a song of healing. Okay, fine. It was a Lady Gaga song from the A Star is Born soundtrack, “Heal Me.” So sue me. It still worked. The man’s eyes lightly glazed over as he focused on the person in front of him holding his hand, speaking rapidly to him.

“What is he saying?” I asked Enyo when I finished the chorus.

“To hold on. An ambulance is coming.”

I lifted my chin, hopeful. “Is one?”

“I’m sure it is,” Enyo said, turning around and guiding me back to the hotel. Sing a little song, prevail calm while they wait.”

“Why? What are we going to do?”

Enyo smiled and somehow showed all of her teeth. “We are going to Atlantis.”

EIGHTEEN

Ilona

“I’m cursed!” I moaned.

We were back in Enyo’s room–or was it Bella–where she was hurriedly packing her belongings in a compact backpack, expertly squeezing out all of the air as if she had done it a thousand times. I swore I saw the pointed edge of a full-length sword tucked within, but that was impossible, and I was fresh out of impossible things for the day.

“Actually, you’re the only siren in the world that isn’t cursed. Congratulations,” Enyo deadpanned.

“I didn’t mean cursed in a literal way. Wait, what?” This seemed like important information.

“Oh yeah, the one you saw, totally cursed by Poseidon. She has to sit on a rock all day.”

“A rock?”

“Yeah, although I think she’s found a sub-clause or something. Anyway, all the other sirens are cursed, too. None of them are allowed to sing. You are the only one left.”

My mouth was permanently in an unhinged position, much like my mind. “Like, they can’t karaoke?"

“Or lure sailors to their death or cause a mass extinction event. So, basically, yeah.”

“That would’ve been good to know a few hours ago.”

“Also,” Enyo continued, “we think your mom was poisoning you to keep you ignorant of your powers. But she died because she was too far away from the ocean for too long and refused to return, and your powers were allowed to re-bloom in the wake of her death.”

“My mother was a lot of things,” I began heatedly, “but poisoning me is a bit much.”

Yet, even as I spoke in her defense, I pictured the tea she always made for me, even after I left. It was briny and thin, and she claimed it was for my health. I’d been drinking it every Sunday for as long as I could remember. Longer, even. Until I stopped. On this trip.

I thought of how officials had found her car floating in the Missouri River, hours from our home. They hadn’t recovered her body. She had clearly needed to be by some sort of water, even at the end, even if wasn’t the salted ocean.

“Oh, she was probably doing it out of her own fears for her own crimes, that someone would discover her secret. You could never know what you were.”

My mother had a secret? Which is what? And who would she possibly be keeping it from?

“Your mother had a very illegal thing in our world.”

“What? She was anti-gun, anti-drug, anti-any rule breaking. I can’t remember her even getting a parking ticket, let alone smuggling or hoarding illegal things. You know what? She didn’t even eat poppy seed bagels, just in case there was a random drug test.”

“She had you.”

Enyo hadn’t blinked, and I was beginning to become unnerved.

“Sirens can only mate a thousand years, and even then, it requires a divine mating ritual. Without it, conceiving a siren is impossible, Yet, she had you out of Nibiru, out of time, out of the authority of all of the sirens, and even all of the gods.”

At this point, I wasn’t sure if she’d drunk the Kool-Aid or I had. Luckily, Enyo didn’t really need me to contribute to the one-sided conversation.

“You will need to drink from the lake of memories, but it is a delicate matter as the mother of muses keeps the lake of memories, and she hates sirens. Also, it’s in Nibiru.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that word?”

“Who’s everyone?” Enyo asked, confused but suspicious with her eyes narrowed.

I panicked and threw up my arms, flailing around. If Germanicus didn’t want to announce himself yet, far be it from me to force him. “I don’t know! I’m freaking out! I am so confused I barely not what to call you!” And my freak-out was one thousand percent genuine.

Enyo softened. “Well I’m saying it, because you should know your home.”

“My what?”

“Where all sirens and other demons reside.”

“Is it nice?”

“Depends. Most people call it the underworld.”

I stood up, flailing my arms more, my freak-out still a thousand percent genuine. “I’m from the underworld? Does that mean I’m dead?”

“No. Just a siren, who inhabits the same world as the dead.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t help.” And yet, it was slowly dawning on me that Enyo knew exactly who I was when I met her on this cruise as Bella, and she’d pretended to be normal. Whatever that meant.

“You don’t really really live together. The dead kind of do their own thing.”

I rubbed my temples. “How did you find me? You knew who I was when I met you and you didn’t tell me. Instead, you pretended to be a normal woman and my friend, and the whole time it was just a lie!”

“I’ve been a normal woman before.”

“When?”

“For a few years in the middle ages. Had to lay low, you know.”

“What? No, I don’t know. But that doesn’t count!” I shouted.

Her gaze held a glint of pity and a bit of sympathy. “Fine. Would you have believed me? Before the storm tried to kill you, before we were blown off course, before a siren came to take you away and jail you. Would you have believed me if I told you I was the daughter of a god and you were a siren destined to hate men and kill with your voice alone?”

The noises in the back of my throat weren’t exactly scoffs, but they were close. I mean, maybe? Probably not? Possibly? No, probably not.

“But you wanted to know how I found you. Of course, Poseidon told us where to find you. How to bring you into the light. It is a bit more complicated than that, as communing with the old gods is quite difficult, but we have people that can accomplish this.”

“How exactly?”

“It involves a trance. Also, they have to be dead.”

For the fiftieth time that day, it seemed, I said the only word that seemed appropriate. “What?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in on the way.”

My head was reeling, and I wanted to be back in my condo in Kansas City, snug in my bed, and falling asleep to the glow of my fish tank. “To do what?”

“Excuse me?”

“To do what?” I repeated. “What exactly is the point of ‘bringing me into the light’? I was totally fine-ish being in the dark. In fact, I wouldn’t mind going back. I’m not afraid of the boogeyman.”

“That, I’m afraid, is impossible.”

“To go back into the dark?”

“Yes, also the boogeyman is afraid of you.”

“Um—”

“A shelled shrimp cannot re-grow its skin, and a siren cannot renounce her heritage. You are a demon. After all these years, you were finally found. You have the opportunity to know your true home. You have the opportunity to help us bring back hope. Monsters are in the deep waters, and you can either be afraid of them or you can be one of them.”

“Monsters?”

“Yes.”

Unfortunately, that part I believed. “This is what bringing back hope looks like?” I demanded, sweeping my arm around the smoke-filled street. “I could have seriously injured someone. A lot of someones! It pains me to say this, but my mother was right. I should never have left Missouri, and I should never sing, ever again. Especially if my voice can do all of those… things.”

Enyo’s eyes blazed. Her body was hard lines that made me stagger back and realize a daughter of Ares was a woman of war. I could tell she wanted to shake me, hoping some sense would find its way into me.

“Ilona! Don’t be blinded by your acquired humanity. You are a demon. You can choose what that means for you, but in the meantime, don’t ignore it. The truth can never be put aside. It will always come out.”

“I don’t know what that means?”

“I want you to make an informed decision about the life you want to lead. The other sirens have been sterilized, brainwashed into believing their curse is the only way to live. You have fully awakened. Embrace your new life and see all that it has to offer.”

“In Atlantis?” I said, my voice incredulous but certainly edging on hysteria. I could feel panic rising in my veins. My acquired humanity? It wasn’t acquired, it was real. I was real. I was a real human with real human emotions such as fear. Lots of eye-popping fear.

“Yes.”

“But Atlantis isn’t real,” I said shakily, one last ditch attempt to grasp at my old life. But even Enyo didn’t bother correcting me. We both knew I was out of my depths.

“We must find Poseidon’s trident,” she continued. “We have intel that it is hidden in Atlantis, but only a siren can lead us there. Beware. The other siren that tried to kidnap you is also searching for it. She murdered a prince and his betrothed in cold blood centuries ago.”

“I thought she looked scary.”

“Oh, she is. She’s the reason all the other sirens are cursed. Poseidon took their voices and punished her. That’s why she is always looking for revenge.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“I will keep you safe, but we can’t let her get so close to us again. She will sing, and she will hypnotize you if she does. She is cruel and her cruelty is all she has left.”

“How can she sing if I’m the only siren not cursed?”

Enyo was already done flinging things into her bag and hoisting it on her shoulder. “Oh, she was cursed by Poseidon as well, except her curse was to be the only siren with the ability to sing.”

“That’s an odd punishment.”

“The gods are cruel. She has been hated by her kind ever since.”

“Actually, that makes sense.”

“Also, don’t forget, she was chained to a rock.”

“How is she free again?”

“It’s a long story, but the rock will always call to her until she can break Poseidon’s curse. And that is why you, Ilona, are so very, very curious to her. And to me.”

“And to me,” I grumbled. “What happens if she finds me again?”

“I think that is something neither of us want to find out.”

“What about Adrian? Is he going to Atlantis?”

“Yes. He will go.”

“Wait. Just to clarify, did you say underworld? Like Cerberus and Hades and Persephone?”

“The gods are locked away in another part of existence.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“For simplicity’s sake, let us call it the underworld, because it is where dead things are, although its true name is Nibiru. I can explain the three portions of the world on our way. I promise.”

I swallowed hard. It seemed as if my destiny lay with Enyo. She sensed I needed more than pity. I needed a friend.

“I promise I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, her bag hoisted, but her voice more gentle than I’d heard it before. “I want to help you. And I am sorry your first encounter with your own kind was with her. You hold in your hands the power to save the rest of your people, though. You can help free the gods and break the sirens’ curse. She had the opportunity and she rejected it. She does not want to free her people. She enjoys being the only siren with a song. She will try to stop you at all costs.”

“What’s her name?”

Enyo’s eyes gleamed. “Thessaly.”

NINETEEN

Thessaly

Coronis brushed a kiss across my forehead. I assumed because we were in front of people. She liked to keep her private life private. Ava and Aurick didn’t appear to have the same concerns. At one point during their lengthy goodbye, I could see Aurick’s tonsils. I vaguely wondered if I had tonsils. I couldn’t recall. The first savants who tried to study siren biology ended up floating face down in the nearest body of water, which had happened to be a toilet. Not many tried after that.

“Are you ready?” I asked. “Or do you need to keep sucking on Aurick’s face a bit longer?”

Ava ignored me, or maybe that was her way of saying she needed to keep sucking Aurick’s face a bit longer.

Tiberius fluffed his tail, chittering a bit. “Ava, I had an idea.” When that didn’t work either, he hopped on her shoulder and bit her ear.

There was a distinct sucking sound as Ava finally detached herself from Aurick. “Ow! What was that for?”

“All of us. Also, I have something I need to say.”

Tiberius flicked his tail, the end of it catching in Ava’s curls. I considered telling her that the daemon was starting to embrace being a rodent so much that she may want to check for fleas, but I did not.

“Would you like to come, Tiberius?”

“I would actually. And after the council, I thought it might be a good idea to see some of the other magical enclaves.”

“Selkies in Scotland?” Coronis asked, and I detected a note of wistfulness in her voice. Rosemary and Coronis once had what they called a ‘party’ there.

“Not for a million hazelnuts,” he said, cracking a nut between his paws and dipping it in an abandoned glass of chianti before sucking it down. “They can get their own fur. They’re not having mine. I’ve already told you, I’m attached to this form.”

“Is it fur or leather hides they hold so dear?”

“If you have to ask, does it matter?” Tiberius answered darkly.

“The selkies are very tame these days, and they did help us during the Battle of Aradia,” Coronis pointed out.

He made a chittering noise that sounded derisive in rodent tongue. “The least they could do. All supernaturals were threatened by Thoth.”

Aurick cupped Ava’s chin with a hand and kissed her forehead. “Be safe. I’ll take care of Aradia and Villa Venus.”

Technically, those were my tourists staying at the villa, although remembering their arrival and departure dates was beyond me. I’d just… stopped thinking about them. “Thank you, Aurick,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it, Thessaly. Go find out about this siren,” he said seriously, and, if I wasn’t mistaken, with more than a bit of relief. “Mak and the Council need to know what’s going on, and I have no problem holding down the fort.”

When it was obvious Ava was going in for another long goodbye kiss, I told her, “I’ll meet you in St. Louis,” and flipped up to the lintel. My liminal space. My safe spot. A space any sane MILF knew to fear.

“Thessaly—”

But I was already gone, sucked up into the space between places where I felt both embraced and terrified. It made my teeth chatter like clattering bones, a deep sort of cold that one would find happily at the bottom of the ocean, but which I found I no longer wanted. I hated the cold, but I must endure it.

When I tumbled out of the shadows of the Arch, Ava was already there. She raised an eyebrow. “You look unsettled. Did something happen?”

“Cold,” I said.

She nodded knowingly. She had gifted me her Villa Venus robe after I climbed off my rock for the first time in centuries, and she knew my issues with the cold better than anyone, even Coronis. I wished it was acceptable to wear the fluffy robe all of the time, but alas, I had been informed it was not. Mortals had too many rules for such short lives. Or, perhaps, that was why they had so many. It distracted them from the shortness of their existence. They could worry about rules and rule breakers and punishments for rule breakers instead of the frighteningly easy way their necks snapped or how quickly they could drown in shallow waters or the odd way their hearts simply seized up and stopped beating.

“I used to get remnants of my past lives when I astral jumped,” she said. “And even after Tiberius figured out how to mute them, I get assaulted by the emptiness. The vortex… it draws you in. Makes you think the worst of yourself. Even if it’s not true, or, at least, not the whole truth, it makes you feel as if the worst parts are the only parts.”

“I know what you’re doing.”

Ava lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Thank you.”

She smiled. “Oh, you silly siren. You’re the best demon I know, and trust me, you’re not the only demon I know.”

Tiberius grunted in her shirt pocket, although he seemed to be asleep after helping her get here. Ava glanced around the empty fairgrounds where a tall structure stood gleaming, sunshine hitting the metal and forcing me to squint. I could feel the river’s call only five hundred feet away, although it was much more muted than a salt water’s sweet song. More of a murmur.

“Will you go visit your boys while you’re here?” I asked.

“I wish I could, but even if they understood magic, which they don’t, and I’d rather it stay that way, it’s not a good idea.”

“Why not? They are your progeny. They came from your body.”

“Yes, but they have their own lives now.”

“Okay.”

“And even a normal MILF mom dropping in unannounced to her college boys’ dorm would be highly unappreciated.” For a second, her mouth made a straight line as if trying to hold back a laugh. “And there’s not a soul in the world who would get the double entendre of that joke, but that’s okay. I get the joke.”

“Okay.”

Ava sighed. “Come on, demon. Let’s go.”

“Okay.”

I let Ava march ahead, much more at home both in St. Louis and at the council’s headquarters. She’d learned from Manu and then Aurick how to swirl her fingers across the cold metal, revealing hieroglyphs, runes, and cuneiform to evoke our acceptance. Mak had granted her access whenever she needed it, and within moments, we were falling through infinite space–the only way in. Another voyage through the void.

Ava managed to land with only a stumble, but I emerged in the fetal position on the floor of the hall. I was so cold, my skin broke out in seagull bumps, or whatever she called them.

“Oh, Thessaly, you’re like one big goosebump again,” Ava said, rubbing her hands up and down my arms. “Here, let me warm you up.” A blast of her mother magic enveloped me like a hug, leaving warmth wherever her hands trailed down my skin.

I shivered one last time. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Let’s find Mak. He’s probably on an espresso break. Around here, it’s almost lunchtime.”

“Okay.”

The air prickled with magic in this space as Ava lit a reed torch. The flames danced to life, and the great black marble columns shot through with gold veins rippled into view. The sky was as deep and infinite as the ocean, black and unknowable, and it comforted me.

We traversed the long hall with doors on either side marking our passage, each one protected with powerful wards, usually because something scary lived inside. “Should we just open a door and see what pops out?” Ava whispered.

“No.”

Ava nudged me. “Let’s live a little on the way back. I’ve always wondered what was behind all of these doors.”

“Didn’t you get stuck in a labyrinth with the mummy Mestjet last time?”

Ava had a finger out inches from a grassy door, like she was tempted to touch the soft blades and smell the tiny pink flowers sprouting along the top and trailing down the sides. “Yes and no.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Well, yes, I spent some time in a labyrinth with a mummy, but technically, it didn’t actually exist. It was an astral illusion Culsans had created.”

I grunted. “Fine. That kind of makes sense.”

“So I’m game to try any of these! I’ve always wondered about that hobbit comment Manu made...” Her voice was wistful.

“We need to find Mak and tell him about the shades.”

Ava sighed and clenched her hand. “Oh fine. Duty first. Hobbits second.”

She kissed her fist and bumped it against the top of a black onyx lintel, exactly as Aurick and Manu used to do. “Follow me,” she said, and we emerged from the hallway to the chamber room where the Council of Beings met.

In the center, chairs had been arranged in a semi-circle and on them sat the new council members, the elections having swept the previous ones from their cushioned places. Bruno, the old, windbag vampire, had been replaced by the most stereotypical vampire I’d ever seen, chiseled from stone with straight edged hair that tousled over his forehead. His eyebrows looked like two bushes, while his eyelashes were a thick fringe, the envy of every woman everywhere. So, Coronis tells me. Mestjet was gone, replaced by an Egyptian mummy straight from the newly discovered tomb (minus its mummy) at Abydos, and the bone chair had disappeared completely, Mak having gotten rid of it the moment Ava single-handily ousted Bruno from the Council. The garden gnome, unfortunately, was still here.

Makron, son of Makris, stood as we entered. Instead of the long, hooded black robe that Bruno preferred as the head of the Council, he chose to wear fitted Italian shirts and perfectly creased pants with Italian leather shoes.

Ava whispered, “I seriously doubt anyone in St. Louis understands what they were seeing when he strolls through Lafayette Square.”

I seriously doubted any of it, but here we were.

Mak was a healer, of course, but he was also a warrior, like his great-grandsire, Apollo. He wasn’t one to mess with, which was why Ava immediately went in for a very human-like hug, ignoring all appropriate protocol and decorum for one of his stature as the head Council member now.

“Mak!” she said happily, pulling away to arms’ length to smile at him. “I wish I could have brought you cornettos from Rosemary’s Bakery, but there was no time to make them fresh, and they’re not worth having if they’re not fresh.”

“I agree. There is precious little time. I got Aurick’s message about convening the Council. What’s this about a new siren?” I noticed his eyes dilate when he looked toward me and his pulse increase. Still scared.

“Thessaly, why don’t you explain?” Ava nodded encouragingly, as if she hadn’t noticed all of the creatures in the room suddenly go on high alert.

“There world is in danger, and you guys aren’t doing anything about any of it because you’re useless.” My voice rang in the loud chamber of the Council room and died. Mouths were open. Ava swallowed uncomfortably.

“Why don’t you start with specific details,” she suggested. “Like the siren you encountered in Djerba.”

“A siren? In this realm? Impossible,” sniffed a wrinkled-sounding voice. “Besides this one with special dispensation, they’re all in Nibiru.”

“Many impossible things happened this last year, Boris,” Ava said smoothly. I could smell her anger rising as it usually did when she spoke to necromancers. “Like two archons right here in this exact room and a god under a basilica in Aradia.”

“And your own body in Rome? Although maybe it doesn’t count if you conveniently got rid of that one, too, as you claim you did.” That voice came from the garden gnome, always a sucker for alliteration.

“I have already answered to the Council for what transpired during and directly after the Battle of Aradia,” Ava said.

“And yet, you still have never accounted for the magicked scythe of Ouranos that slayed Thoth’s godly soul,” said the necromancer with serpentine s-sounds.

I opened my mouth and let a strain of a song escape, one to quiet and sway those weak minded, which accounted for basically all the annoying council members. “Enough,” I said, having a captive audience. “Shades are ingesting poppies in the cave of Hypnos, and the daughter of Ares has an unknown siren in her grasp. And you want to argue about what Ava may or may not have done with the weapon she used to save our world from the gods? I think you should focus on the real problems. Necromancers are behind this, so perhaps it is Boris who should answer for that.”

The council members flinched when I opened my mouth again, but I didn’t sing. I spat on the ground and walked away, waiting in the hall until Ava finished the meeting.

Five minutes later, Ava arrived, her face full of reproach. “You promised not to use your singing voice, Thessaly.”

“I promised, but I didn’t swear a blood oath. And I had my fingers crossed at the time.”

Ava blinked. “Wait. Are you making a joke or are you being serious, because I can’t tell the difference.”

I shrugged.

“Well, they’re spooked, but they listened, so I guess it worked,” Ava admitted. “But please don’t do it again.”

“I don’t have to. They know what they need to know.”

Ava slowly shook her head and muttered something about sirens so help me God, but I let her vent.

“Are they going to do anything?” I asked. It was the one thing I couldn’t tell from their shocked faces.

“Mak is sending a team to Nibiru to investigate the poppy situation. There’s speculation about rogue necromancers conducting a black market trade in poppies. Opium made from poppies in Nibiru would be much stronger there and more suitable for hallucinogens for supernaturals, although something so mundane as drugs and money doesn’t seem quite right. Maybe it’s because of everything epic that just happened, but drugs and money? There’s got to be something else going on. Don’t you think, Thessaly? You were there. What did you feel?”

I nodded, picturing the milky-eyed woman who disintegrated before my eyes. “Yes. It goes beyond simple greed, even if it involves humans, who are naturally greedy.”

“I’m human, Thessaly.”

“And goddess.”

“Which you think even less of.”

“And yet still I appreciate you.”

Ava rolled her eyes, which she does a lot around me and which, she told me, is a sign of affection. “Boris volunteered to head it up, since he’s the resident necromancer council member and any rogue necromancers fall under his jurisdiction. Obviously, I’m going to tell him I don’t think it’s such a good idea, but I couldn’t very well do it right in front of the whole Council.”

“Why?”

“Because it would embarrass him, and… Never mind. I’ll talk to him later.”

“He is weak-minded. I could sing to him.”

Ava shot me a look. “We literally just talked about this.” She paused for a moment. “But I don’t hate that idea.”

“I will go sing. Boris will do as we want.”

Ava stared at me for a moment, and I could nearly see the war playing out in her mind, but she finally grimaced and shook her head. “No. We can’t. Boris is a council member, legitimately chosen after I already unilaterally swept aside the old council. I can’t very well go about removing and manipulating members at will. That would be undemocratic and very god-like. A moniker I’m trying to avoid.”

“But I could.”

She shot me a look. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Sirens are supposed to be tempting.”

Ava shook her head again, as if she were the one trying to convince herself, but she held firm. “Come on. Let Mak do his thing. Tiberius, wake up. We’re done at the council. Ready to go home? Or do we have time to look at hobbits?”

“No, hobbits,” I said, quickly running through the scenarios in my mind. I needed to come up with a plan before the furball could say anything. “I don’t trust the council.”

“What? Even with Mak at the helm?”

“It helps, but it’s so small and secretive. We should get as many supernaturals aware of the necromancer situation as soon as possible. That way, they’ll have no choice but to act.”

“That actually makes sense,” Ava said, and I could sense something in her voice, surprise perhaps.

“They are communing with the dead using new methods when the old ones worked for them just fine. That should concern us all, so we should continue on our quest and visit the other magical enclaves.”

Tiberius poked his head out of Ava’s breast pocket and stared at me suspiciously. “We’re not on a quest.” Then he let out a wide yawn. “Besides jumping takes so much work without archons here to help.”

Ava nodded sympathetically and ran a finger down his head and tapped his nose. “I know. You did great.”

“Okay, so you’re small and weak, but that doesn’t have to stop us. We will use the tomb entrance, then,” I said decisively.

“What tomb entrance?” Ava asked.

Tiberius’s tailed flickered with annoyance, but he explained, “Each magical enclave is anchored between Nibiru and our world with a lost tomb.”

“It is? Where’s Aradia’s?”

“Nonna blocked off access to Aradia while she waited for the Wandering Goddess. She didn’t want any other supernatural interference, but the rest are connected via a sort of superhighway.”

“So we’re looking for a tomb inside of the Arch?” she asked.

“We’re looking for a room of tombs inside of the Arch,” Tiberius corrected. “Even I’m not positive what Nonna did to Aradia’s, but Mak is working on getting it re-opened. Although to be honest, I don’t necessarily find that a good thing. Do we really need more satyrs and supernaturals running around the island? Isn’t Spyro enough?”

I turned a corner and took a descending hallway that led into the depths despite the cold, stopping before a large, stone door. I had never been there before, but my gait was sure. I could feel the pull of Nibiru on the other side.

Ava knocked, and the stone rolled aside, revealing a round room. Along the walls, arranged in a regular pattern, stood more doors, each different, each representing the time and culture in which they had been created. I stood in front of the closest one.

“Whose tomb is this?” Ava’s asked.

“Boudica’s, I think,” Tiberius said, sniffing the wood. “Her people hid her up north off of the Scottish Coast to keep her safe from the Romanized Anglicans. Hey, I thought I said no selkies.”

I shrugged. “It’s here. Why not.”

“Well, you wouldn’t mind. Selkies like water. But I mind. I mind a lot. Chipmunks don’t take baths.”

“You’re not a real chipmunk.”

Tiberius chittered angrily, but even Ava looked a little worried at that. “How long are you supposed to be in the same form?”

“Not this long,” I muttered. “It’s been centuries, and I think he has fleas.”

Ava shuddered, “Tell me you don’t have fleas, Tiberius.”

“I don’t have fleas!”

“Are you only telling me this because I said ‘tell me this’?” she asked. “Or are you a thousand percent sure you don’t have fleas?”

“I don’t have fleas!”

While they conversed about fleas, I ushered us through the door of Boudica’s lost tomb. Unlike the other tombs in the room, this one wasn’t an elaborate stone sarcophagus or beautifully painted urn or even a Viking warrior ship.

It was a sparse wooden box.

“Allow me,” I said graciously, my heart pounding. I shifted the lid wide enough to slip through and let Ava and Tiberius go first, but she stopped with one leg over the side of the box. The tomb was more elaborate inside, and it included an iron and wood chariot, part of the traditional Celtic burial practices. There was a silver torc and a variety of daggers and weapons and even a jar filled with what smelled like blue woad for face paint. At the back of the wooden box—larger, obviously, on the inside than the outside, just like the Arch itself—was a set of stairs.

“Head for the stairs,” I grunted, shifting the lid a little more, and pretending like it was really heavy.

Ava took a few tentative steps before spinning around. “Wait, aren’t you coming with us?” she asked.

“I just thought of something I need to do.”

Ava stared at me, studying my face. Her grimace told me she didn’t like what she found. “What exactly do you⁠—”

But whatever question that beautiful goddess had went with her to Scotland because I gave her a great big kick with my foot and slammed the tomb lid shut as she fell through the portal, screaming.

Then, I turned around and headed back up to the surface. Let Ava keep her morals. I had a necromancer to woo with song and dance.

Chapter Twenty

Rome, Italy

The Great Flood

December, 1598

Rome on Christmas Eve meant the smell of bonfires and roasting fish. Intricate nativity scenes decorated the square. Throngs of believers studied them as they waited for Midnight Mass. It meant life and renewal and celebration.

The people took their pope and their priests and their dead god very seriously, and I wanted to be wrapped up in their oblations. Although I felt separate, I loved them, and I never ceased to love watching people, like the way their eyes only came in a few colors, but how they had so much variation in those few colors. Or the way the vegetable dealer would always try to cheat you a few onions by putting his thumb on the scale or how the fish monger smelled worse than his rotting fish, but always kindly gave me the shells he had collected for no reason other than he thought I would think they were pretty and that I ‘smelled like the ocean’.

My mother thought it was odd that I was so easily amazed, that I was odd. Odd enough for her to tell everyone in our little Roman neighborhood near the Piazza della Trinità that I was a mute and then forbid me to speak to anyone. I merely walked through the market, to the church, and back again behind her every day. Even though I was twenty, a woman in everyone else’s eyes, she made it clear I would never leave her side, so I found my joy in the little things around me.

I’d always adored pomp and circumstance, the grandeur of the tall domes and buildings, and the city was like a palimpsest; I desired to uncover its lost secrets, peeling one layer back at a time. I found myself in basilicas more and more often, slipping away from my mother in the market. She would inevitably find me on my knees in some smoky, incense-flooded church and drag me out by my dress.

My mother had no feelings on the matter of God or gods, but she never had feelings on any matter except for me. Sometimes I wondered if she had simply exhausted all her feelings on me and was left with nothing for anything or anyone else.

And the only thing she cared about when it came to me wasn’t actually about me. It was about my voice. Specifically, my singing voice. I was not to engage it, ever. I was to keep my head down and my hood up and my eyes on earthly matters. I was to be normal. As much as a girl who refused to talk could be called normal.

But it was Christmas Eve, and I had slipped away from my mother. The bells rang, signaling the beginning of Midnight Mass, and I planned to be there. I would not speak, I would sit in the corner and maybe hum. Humming was not speaking. Or maybe I would sing, and they would call it a Christmas miracle, but I would not speak. I would only nod and smile and then maybe things would be different.

I buried my head in a scarf to hide my face, to buy me more time, and slid into the last pew. It was wooden and warm beneath my touch. Faces turned toward me, familiar ones. The vegetable dealer. The fishmonger. The silk seller.

Candles blazed, each one a prayer, a beseeching. Incense wafted through the air, the smoke mingling with the smell of humanity. The priest stood in front in embroidered finery, his head bowed as he spoke. Behind him, the Christ figure suffered on the cross, a direct contrast to the Christmas joy all around, a celebration of his birth. The beauty of the two–death and birth, in that order–struck me as poignant.

When the organ began, my heart swelled. The sound rose in the great belly of the instrument, vibrating the walls and my chest. The song rose to meet the curve of the dome, clattered off the stone, and caressed the stained glass. It was everything at once; it was joy and sadness, dreams and reality, the suffering present and the hope for a better future.

My chest rose and fell with the notes, and when the voices joined, I found myself on my feet, unable to sit. My heart yearned to participate, to put all of my being into song, to transform my essence into air and vibrations. It felt so natural and powerful. How could I not join?

And so I did.

I opened my mouth, my jaw cracking from lack of use. The first words stuck in my dusty throat, half choked. But soon, my body unlocked, and the song poured forth.

I turned my head towards the heavens and sang of sorrow and redemption, of loss and recovery, the song of my neighbors. The song I had learned by observing them.

Only, they no longer sang. Their voices had gone silent. No, not quite silent. I could hear a wailing beneath my own voice. It grew in intensity. Tears, gnashing of teeth, the priest would’ve called it. But I could not stop singing, not even to look.

A hand grabbed my shoulder, snapping me from my trance. Mother had found me, and she was furious. “You must come with me. What were you thinking?” she berated me, her face a terrifying scowl. “I can’t understand why you would do this.”

I looked around at those I loved, weeping on the floor, tearing at their clothes, clawing at their eyes. The priest had shed his robes and stood confessing his sins and some were monstrous indeed.

Their reaction was nothing compared to the sky’s. Dark clouds gathered and lighting battered the town, although any small fires were put out instantly by the pelting rain. The waters rose, and the wind grew stronger. The deluge began, and the screams were gurgled.

As if the song had unlocked a hidden piece of me, I began to remember. I remembered the wind. I remembered my life in a fortress. I remembered the face of the god who loved me. I remembered hazily other moments behind me that stretched hundreds of years and yet, I knew I was twenty. And for whatever reason, my mother would never tell me who I was or why. Or what I was.

Instead, my mother told me I killed three percent of the population of my beloved city that night. I wouldn’t have known. This time, I took the vial gratefully, just to embrace oblivion.

TWENTY-ONE

Ilona

I couldn’t explain why I kept the existence of Germanicus from Enyo. If anyone in the entire universe were to believe me, it would be her. I mean, a giant slug that could talk? Inside my head? Come on. That was weird.

And Enyo was weird. The way she pared her nails with a dagger was starting to make sense, though, I had to admit.

The other weird thing? How vivid my dreams were starting to get. I kept trying to shake off the feeling of being hunted, of hiding, of looming threats over my head. There was another impending storm on my horizon, and I wasn’t sure I was speaking entirely in metaphors. Ever since Kansas City, storms seemed to have it out for me, and here we were about to leave precious land again.

Enyo and I stood on the deck of the sailboat she had chartered. At least, I assumed she had chartered a boat. I certainly didn’t know how to sail a vessel. I didn’t even know how to swim. Yet, it was only the two of us–no captain–so I wasn’t sure who was going to drive the boat.

I trusted Enyo, but she’d also told me I’d be a duckling to the water the moment I touched the surface, so I had some doubts. After four decades of my mother’s deathly “fear” of water, she’d convinced me that there was no safe amount. Most drownings occurred in the shallow end, and dry drowning could happen long after you left a pool, so I’d stayed firmly on land, letting her hysteria become my own.

“Don’t be frightened of the mad siren,” Enyo said.

“Oh sure. Don’t be afraid of the mad siren. That’s what everyone says when you attach a scary adjective in front of a scarier noun. It’s fine! She’s just a little crazy and even more demonic. No worries!”

Enyo detached the mooring ropes, and the small vessel we were supposed to call home for the next couple of days, drifted from the shore. We were on our way to find a mythical, lost, sunken city.

Atlantis.

“Thessaly is a thorn in our side, but she is only one barb on a diseased plant of thorns. It is the people she calls family whom you should fear the most.” Enyo pulled down her shirt and pointed to a silvery scar across her collarbone. “They bound me with vines of flowers and thorns, and they let me bleed while they decimated my people, simple demons, like you, who were merely fighting for a better life.”

I swallowed hard. “What do you mean by fighting? Like a battle? In a war?”

She nodded, her eyes flint and stone. “Supernaturals banished the gods a thousand years ago to a place called the Axis Mundi.”

“I’m sorry, did you say the gods?”

“Yes. There were four pillars that held up the heavens, and by smashing all four of them, the realm of the gods was shut off completely.”

“From us and our realm?” I asked slowly, trying to keep up.

“Yes. It’s why the old stories have so much interaction with the gods and why it tapered off in the Dark Ages. There were still tales of odd things, unicorns and wyverns and witches, but even those teetered out as my people–our people–also faded.”

“Our people?”

“Yes. My friends and I will do everything in our power to bring the gods back. Thessaly and her friends are trying to stop it. They want to be the sole holders of all the power on their little island. Never forget that.”

“So, they’re bad.”

“Yes. They have decided for the world that the gods no longer belong here. But why? Who gives them such power? When the gods ruled, our earth was safe. It was not dying. The earth is screaming now for help. All of those golden ages you’ve read about only happened when the gods were in charge. That’s why we need them back.”

“Okay. Where do I come in?” I asked. Unease filtered through my body at the thought of battles and gods. I frankly didn’t want anything to do with either. Even if I believed Enyo that Thessaly and her friends were power hungry, striving to keep it all for themselves, I struggled with wanting to get involved. I didn’t even want to admit to having a talking slug in my fanny pack, let alone the idea that I belonged to a magical community.

So far, I’d sang and weird things had happened. Sure. But what of it? Was that it? I grew up on a healthy, albeit illicit, diet of witchy shows. I’d snuck episodes of Charmed, Buffy, and danced to Practical Magic whenever I could, hiding it from my mother who never would have approved. And suddenly, someone was telling me I could magically sing? What about the spells, the brooms, the grimoire? Where were my scrying crystals or my wand? I guess in this scenario, I was technically the demon, but I had zero plans to go attack witches. At least I was starting to have a sisterhood with Enyo. That was something.

Although, since becoming Enyo, Bella had become a little scary. “You will help us prop up one of the pillars to Axis Mundi,” she said, part description, part command. “As a siren, you have access to the mist world between our world and the gods. We call it Nibiru. That is where Atlantis also resides.”

“So… You’re being serious about going to Atlantis.”

“Of course. You have access to powers that will help us enter Atlantis and find a magical god-object left behind. This object will help us prop up the columns and re-open the realm of the gods.”

“You know, I can barely open a pickle jar on my own. That was quite a devastating discovery after my husband left. Very deflating. I had to ask my neighbor to help me. So, I highly doubt I’ll be able to prop up anything, let alone open a portal to the gods.”

“Don’t ramble. Be confident.”

“Okay.”

“Once the gods return, you will free the sirens of their curse. They will welcome you home with open arms for breaking it, and they will wash away the taint of your mother’s sin for having you outside of the divine rites.”

“How will I break the curse?” I asked.

“It can only be broken by the god who set it. When the gods return, Poseidon will be among them. He cursed the sirens. He will un-curse them.”

“Just by me asking politely?” I asked dubiously. “I thought the gods marched to the beat of their own drum and didn’t take requests from anyone. They sort of used mortals like Barbie dolls and made them kiss and have love triangles and get ready to go to a grand ball where a huge fight breaks out and then one flings itself off of a three-foot doll house. The rest turn the ball into a funeral, but then the Barbie comes back alive and pregnant a day later.”

Enyo frowned. “That was oddly specific.”

“My mom watched a lot of soap operas, and I was a lonely kid…”

Suddenly a figure swiveled around the captain’s chair and stood, blocking out the sun. Whoever it was hadn’t been there a second ago, and it was hard to see past the shadows, but I’d recognize his voice anywhere. “As Poseidon’s favorite son, trust me. I’ll get him to agree.”

“Adrian!” My mind whirled like a hot tub full of foam. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, let alone hearing. Adrian was standing on the deck of the sailboat, checking the ropes of the tightly wound sailcloth. He stepped out of the direct path of the sun, and I could see his prominent cheekbones, thick fringe of blonde hair, and wide grin that showcased his perfectly aligned white teeth.

“You’re the son of Poseidon?” I asked dumbly.

“The favorite son of Poseidon,” he modified with a wink. I could feel my cheeks grow warm. No wonder he was charming and made everyone in a five mile radius swoon—he had literal god blood in his veins.

Wait, did I actually believe that?

“Welcome aboard the Orpheus.” He gave me a warm hug, and electricity zinged at our touch. If possible, my face got even redder. I probably looked more like a lobster than a lady at that point, but Adrian kissed both of my cheeks anyway in greeting.

“Welcome to the other side,” he said with a wink. “How does it feel to fully embrace who you always were?”

“I’m not sure I’ve embraced anything yet. In fact, my stomach is already feeling a little upset. This boat is a lot smaller than the cruise ship we were on. The water feels a lot… closer.”

Adrian laughed. “Yes, you could say that. But don’t you feel powerful next to it?” He leaned in, his hand across one side of his mouth as if to share a secret between us. “We are the sea. Of the godly pantheon, we are the most powerful. Who could deny the ocean? No one. Not even Zeus, and it always upset him to know that if Poseidon wanted, he could rule heaven and earth. All you have to do during a lightning storm is go inside. But where do you hide from the ocean?”

“Uh, on land?” Enyo called, but Adrian ignored her.

“Think about it. Once you commit yourself to the waters, you can only pray to the gods for calm—or for salvation. And the gods are gone.”

“I don’t think this pep talk is as comforting as you think it is,” I said seriously, looking over his shoulder at the currently placid sea. “I mean, we are about to go in a tiny boat out in the middle of it.”

Adrian grinned. “Ah, but you’re with me.”

Enyo scowled and called from the bow, “Are you two done flirting about the water? It’s just wet and cold. Now war… that’s a spectacle worthy of song. It is better to allow yourself to be swept up in it and hope to come out the other side. War is the most powerful of the pantheon.”

“Here we go again,” Adrian whispered, and the way he said it with a playful eye roll made me giggle. Perhaps this was the beginning of the other side—and my life on it. The savior of the sirens. I could get used to that. Even if it meant admitting that I was a siren, which I wasn’t totally ready to do yet.

“Let me give you a tour,” Adrian said, hoisting my bag. I felt Germanicus shuffle around in my fanny pack, but I subtly put a hand on it to help him calm down.

“Sure. Sounds good.”

He pointed out the galley, the captain’s quarters, and the crew bunks—bunk beds included—but insisted that I take the captain’s quarters since it was my first time on a small vessel. “It’s more spacious, and you get your own bathroom. Enyo and I will have no problem sharing, right, Daughter of Ares?”

Enyo snorted and began unpacking on the top bunk in their shared room the size of my linen closet back home. “Dibs.” Besides the Helm of Darkness, she also had a bronze cuirass that had somehow fit in her luggage. It looked authentically Greek with images of men fighting with greaves and breastplates and spears and shields. Family heirloom?

“What sort of magical objects are left from the gods?” I asked.

“All sorts. More than you’d realize.”

“Like Zeus’s thunderbolt? That would be crazy. Too crazy,” I said. Then lifted an eyebrow when they said nothing. “Right? Too crazy?”

“Correct. Zeus kept it with him in Axis Mundi.”

“Oh right. Not too crazy to exist, just too crazy to be here on earth.”

Adrian speared me with his sea foam eyes. “Things just as powerful still remain here on earth.”

“Like what?”

“Like my father’s trident. That, my father did not take with him.”

“Where is it?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Adrian said, a smile playing across his lips. “Atlantis.”

TWENTY-TWO

Ilona

The captain’s quarter was nice, but Germanicus was not impressed. He elongated and shrunk, elongated and shrunk, never actually moving, but complaining the whole time anyway.

“Another boat? Really, Ilona. What were you thinking?”

“Not much, to be honest. I was mostly freaked out about the singing and the street fires, but it’s fine. I trust Enyo.”

Germanicus scoffed and left a slimy trail up my forearm. “The self-proclaimed best pantheon of power, the daughter of a literal war god, that’s who you chose to trust?”

“And here you are, trusting me,” I said, flicking him off. “What does that say about you?”

“That I’ve been out of the game for too long,” he muttered, persistently squelching back up my arm.

“What does a daemon do, anyway? You haven’t really been forthcoming, except to say you want me to go back home, which is what we’re doing, by the way. That’s where Atlantis is, you know. But why? What’s in it for you?”

“Me? Wow, suspicious much? Do I have to want something? Can’t I be altruistically awesome?”

I crossed my arms, bringing him up to eye level. “No. You can’t be altruistically awesome.”

“Oh, I see how it is. Enyo can be awesome, even though she’s a war mongering death goddess, but me, a slug, can’t.”

“I thought you said slugs had the most teeth in the world. You acted like you were proud of it. And if I’m remembering correctly, you didn’t even know the name of the awesome creature you were inhabiting until I told you.”

“I could chew through anything with these, even my enemy’s heads. They should beware.”

“Sounds a bit like war mongering to me. Or, at least, itching for a fight. A tiny fight, but still. Definitely war mongering.”

“I like knowing that I look tiny and unassuming but could defend myself if need be,” he said. “Now, do you want to know about daemons or not?”

I set him back in a cup of water where he half-plopped out, and I swear it looked like he had tiny elbows hanging over the rim of the glass. “Go ahead. Tell me everything I don’t know. I’m going to finish unpacking.”

“You’re extremely lucky you know,” he began. “Meeting a creature like me.”

“And I feel extremely lucky with a slug for a roommate,” I said, wiping my slimy arms off next.

Germanicus didn’t take the bait. “Before the gods were permanently banished, they didn’t come to earth that often, but they still wanted to know what was happening. So, they relied on noble beings called archons. Their names mean Rulers of the Realms.”

“Sounds like Tolkien.”

Germanicus crossed his antennae. “Are you wanting to learn about your world or not?”

“Fine. Go ahead. Enlighten me.”

“Direct contact between gods and mortals was always tricky, as you can imagine, and it happened infrequently. Archons functioned as intermediaries since they easily traveled between the three realms.”

“So, they functioned like glorified errand boys between the gods and mortals.”

“No, that’s ridiculous. More like gifted translators. But even as fluid as the archons were, they still needed help. Traversing the void is… complicated.”

“Let me guess. That’s where you came in.”

“Every archon had a daemon to help them not lose their minds while inhabiting the void.”

“So where’s your archon? How’d you get stuck with me? Apparently, literally,” I said, making a blergh face as I threw the paper towel of his slime in the trash. Having my own bathroom on the ship was going to be essential with this guy literally sticking around.

“Can we focus on you?” he asked irritably. “I’m here to help you traverse the realms and get to Nibiru. It’s a great honor. Daemons are only ever attached to archons, and the archons are all gone, so you get the luck and the daemon.”

I stopped neatly folding my underwear. “The archons are all gone? How long have you been alone?”

Germanicus sunk down into the cup of water. I saw a few bubbles rise to the surface.

Sighing, I picked him up between my thumb and forefinger and set him, wetly, back on my arm. “Germanicus, how long?”

“Since the Archons Wars when the archons sided with the gods against the supernatural world and were banished for their choice. Happy?”

“How long?” I asked again, more gently.

“789.”

He said it stiffly and tried to shuffle away, but I wouldn’t let him. “What’s that, like a joke? I know the answer. Ten is afraid of seven because seven ate nine.”

“No. It’s the year 789. The year my archon was captured.”

My mouth hung open limply. “Germanicus! Are you serious? You’ve been alone since before the Renaissance. Since before the Black Plague. Since before sliced bread! Wait, I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. I hardly questioned anything you just told me. I totally believed you. Actually, I still believe you, present tense.”

“Wonderful. Now, can we get to Nibiru? You have family there, and as we’ve established, I’ve got nothing but time.”

Tears prickled at the inside corners of my eyes. He was lonely. He’d rather ride around in my stuffy fanny pack all day simply to have someone to talk to at night. I was infinitely sad for him, my little demon slug. Nothing but time. That gutted me.

“What about what Enyo and Adrian want? To find the trident. To bring back the gods. Would you find your archon then?”

Germanicus was quiet for a moment. Finally, he said, “I’m not sure what I think about it. Maybe it wouldn’t be terrible. The way Enyo explained it wasn’t too far off the mark. The gods could do a lot of good things, like set the world right and fight climate change. But the way they would go about doing it…”

“But could you find your archon and be reunited?”

Germanicus didn’t answer that one. “Ilona, mortals are irrelevant collateral damage where the gods are concerned. The gods will clean up the earth, but they might do it with fire and water, and they won’t care who’s in the way. It could be apocalyptic. It probably would be apocalyptic.”

Sticking my head out of my door really quick, I looked both ways down the hallway, listening for Enyo and Adrian. I heard and saw nothing. Quietly, I closed the door and mouthed to the slug, “Are you saying we shouldn’t find the trident?”

He whispered in my head, “I’m saying we should think about it.”

I sighed. “Come on, let’s go figure it out. Maybe they want them back for wholesome reasons.”

Germanicus puffed out what I assumed were his cheeks. “Right. Because gods and the offspring of gods were so well-known for their family-friendly vibes.”

Adrian and Enyo were on deck, talking about Atlantis when I found them, Germanicus safely tucked away in my fanny pack. The boat wasn’t large—a 60 foot Bluewater cruiser, according to Adrian, although that meant nothing to me.

“Tell me more about Atlantis,” I said wistfully, the idea of an adventure already zinging through my body. Sure, I felt terrified and apprehensive and wondered if I was doing the right thing, but this was living. This was certainly not ladies who lunch or board meetings for charities. It wasn’t even wandering through the aquarium after hours, which I loved. This was brine on my cheeks and wind in my hair. I rubbed my hands through my locks, feeling the strands already thickening with the salt water. “Everything I know comes from ridiculous alien documentaries or Disney movies. Tell me the real story.”

Adrian navigated with the ease of someone born on the water, which he might have been. It was shocking to me that anyone could just sail a boat and circumnavigate the world if they wanted to. Of all the things I’d encountered since my trip began, and it had been a lot, this felt the most unreal to me. It felt like being truly free to explore, to go on grand adventures, and how could that be my life after so many years of unknowing captivity.

“The real story, as you say, is much more straightforward than humans have collectively written down,” Adrian said. He sat down a plate of anchovies on toast drizzled with olive oil and flaky sea salt while Enyo popped open a bottle of Cretan wine and poured each of us a glass, content to watch the horizon line and soak up the last rays of the day’s sun.

She added, “People say Plato made it up as a foil for Athens in his Dialogues. Atlantis nêsos, the island of Atlas, was a wicked, power hungry city destroyed by the gods. Athens would go the same route if they didn’t learn from Atlantis’s mistakes.”

“But you’re telling me that Atlantis was a real place.”

“Very real. It was a great city once, one of the rare places on earth where the gods visited.”

“Why?”

“Because of its beauty and grace… and its temples,” Adrian said. “The gods aren’t too different from humans. They love to be adored.”

I devoured a toast and tossed back a few briny olives. I loved the Mediterranean. The diet, the food, the water, everything. It was divine. My blood sang in my veins here. “But it’s no longer in our world… I guess I’m still not really following all this stuff about two other worlds.”

“Think of it like trench warfare in World War I,” Enyo said.

“Okay, that’s weird, but you are the daughter of a war goddess.”

“Exactly. On one side are the humans.”

“Which side?”

“It doesn’t matter. On the other side are the gods. They have to stay separate or battle may ensue, which is why you have the zone in the middle full of mines.”

“That’s Nibiru? Where we’re going?” I asked, not feeling any better about our journey.

Adrian smiled his golden smile. “I don’t know if that metaphor is helping, Enyo. Let me try.”

She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. It’s like a coral reef.”

“Ooooh, that’s good,” Adrian said. “The deep sea on one side, the shallower waters on the other, and a protected place in the middle keeping them apart.”

“Okay. Maybe we should forget the analogies,” I said. “They’re not really helping.”

Enyo shrugged. “In any case, Nibiru is the in between, the realm between Earth and Axis Mundi.”

“And it’s also the home of the demons and the dead?” I asked, my stomach burning uncomfortably at these words.

“Yes, and we can’t easily access Nibiru, but we must. Atlantis is dead, and so it belongs there where dead things are. It’s where ghosts and shades reside and even the Library of Alexandria.”

“Only gods can access Axis Mundi?” I asked, curious to know if Germanicus’s story checked out.

“Not necessarily. There are beings called archons that traveled between the three realms, but even they used the help of smaller creatures called daemons. Daemons and archons were both banished with the gods to Axis Mundi.”

Okay, so that checked out. Was that good or bad? Hard to tell.

“How are we going to get to this Nibiru?” I asked, attempting to distract them with more questions and maybe jazz hands so they wouldn’t notice my face turning its tell-tale red at the mention of daemons.

“Good question. Demons can travel there, so you will have no problem getting to Nibiru.”

“Because I’m a demon,” I said, more trying to get used to the sound of it than for confirmation.

“Yes. As for us, there are only a few passageways in our realm that open to it, and we’re headed for one right now.”

“Oh! Where is it?”

“This one is off the coast of France. It was for Brunhilda, a dark but effective queen from the sixth century. Her tomb is lost to mortals, but we have it.”

“I think the mortals have like two pieces of the stone lid or something,” Adrian said.

“Does it matter?” Enyo scowled, but something had caught my eye.

“Do you see that?” I asked, using my hand as a visor.

Enyo frowned and looked to where I was watching the horizon line. “More dolphins? They always follow Adrian. He can’t shake them.”

“No, not more dolphins. It looks like a storm is brewing.” I pointed off our starboard bow at the gathering thunderheads. Moments later, a blast of cold air hit us, the storm formally announcing itself and whipping the sea into sharp, jagged peaks.

Adrian frowned, his green eyes going storm-like themselves as he excused himself and dashed to the glass room on the deck where all of the important technological instruments were protected from the elements.

“Us, too,” Enyo said. “We can’t stay out here. It’s too exposed.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling suddenly very woozy and seasick. The Cretan wine was strong and the boat was swaying, even though our sails weren’t up. The wind had been non-existent a minute ago, but now it was too strong to sail. Like stepping into a tornado simulator, it went from calm to chaotic in the time it takes to insert a quarter, wind whipping anything not bolted down directly into the water. Enyo grabbed a hold of my bicep and helped me across the deck, our clothes and hair billowing, yanking on us, pulling us back.

“The storm wants me,” I said, trying to hold onto anything bolted down as the swells deepened and threw our sailboat like a toy. “It’s wanted me since Kansas City. I can feel it.”

Adrian looked disturbed at that.

I had the sudden, insistent thought that Enyo and Adrian might try to throw me overboard, like some archaic sacrifice to placate the angry gods. I wanted to scream, but the gods are gone! You told me that! Please let me stay, I beg you. I can’t swim. Really, I can’t. I never learned how.

“How many other demigods are running around out here?” I asked.

“Less than you’d think.”

“I didn’t think there were any until recently.”

“Okay, more than you’d think then.”

“Any storm ones?”

Adrian and Enyo did that thing where they exchanged knowing looks. “Zeus is the god of storms, but he even asked for permission to use the winds from one man.”

“A man?” I screamed as the boat heaved up and landed down on the thrashing waves, my stomach staying up a little longer than my body had. Just in time, I grabbed a bag and threw up in it.

“Yes. A man who restrained the winds.”

“This storm does seem supernatural,” Enyo said finally. “I don’t like it, Son of Poseidon. Can’t you do something?”

Adrian was doing his best to navigate, the wheel spinning crazily. Every dial on the motherboard spun wildly. The compass was so confused, the arrow flew off the center pin and skyrocketed across the room, gone in an instant. I had a sickening feeling that’s what people would say of our boat. Gone in an instant.

Enyo went white, her eyes wide and panicked. At no point during our friendship had I seen her scared, but she looked now as if she’d seen the end of the world–and not even a cockroach survived it.

Something huge loomed over us. For a second, I thought the storm had pulled us back to shore, and we now stood in the shadow of a skyscraper. Then, I realized it was the biggest wave I’d ever seen. A wall of water fifty feet high.

“Hold on!” Adrian shouted as Enyo and I both screamed. Then the wave crashed into us and everything went dark.

TWENTY-THREE

Thessaly

The Arch was bustling with supernaturals, and it wasn’t difficult to slip through unnoticed as I searched for the scent of the necromancer. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do to him yet, only that I should do something. I knew what I’d seen in that memory. They were killing humans and possessing them to eat Nibiru-strength poppies. It would be great if it was rogue necromancer. At least, it would be better than the alternative: a conspiracy at the highest levels. Ava would probably say the truth was somewhere in the middle, but I’d rather be certain, and I knew just the man who could help me.

I could sense the necromancer. He was in the men’s bathroom. Perfect.

Slipping into the shadows, I sang a song of patience to anyone trying to get into the bathroom. Have patience. Your bladder is fine. Go away. Pee in a can if you really need to.

That sort of thing.

Then, I jumped inside and sealed the door. Like all necromancers, Boris had a snake tattoo, its head with fangs bared covering his thumb, the rest of it curling up his wrist. He’d been at the necromancer game for a very long time. There were rumors he’d been part of a death cult in the 1700s that sought to extend their members’ lives at the cost of others. But whenever I mentioned it, Boris would brandish a birth certificate from 1939, as if that proved anything. Most supernaturals could falsify a document in their sleep.

I considered opening with pleasantries, but decided to cut to the quick. Somersaulting over the lintel and behind the row of urinals, I sang and I sang, telling Boris I wanted to know everything about the poppies, willing him to give me what I wanted. I could make him fall in love or make him throw himself off of a cliff, but I couldn’t read his mind. The powers of sirens were finicky in that way. He could command an army of ghosts and raise the dead to outnumber the living if he chose, or he could merely commune with them. The choice was his. I could command a prince to touch me and tell me he loved me, or I could make him kill his lover and then himself. But I couldn’t make him truly love me.

Boris resisted at first. He turned around, his manhood flopping out of his hands, all wrinkled and shriveled, and there was no way this guy had been around for less than a hundred years. Death cults were probably the least of his crimes. His robes flapped about his arms showing spikes of snake and flower tattoos, no doubt the types involved in chthonic rituals.

“You. Demon.” His voice came out in a squeak since he was fighting my song.

Hm. He was stronger of mind than I had thought. I sang more forcefully, pushing the air out of my lungs until my chest hurt, fighting him physically as well as psychically, since the stupid man insisted on leaping at my face. He got his hand around my mouth, and I was forced to stop singing for a moment to bite his fingers, my teeth suddenly sharp and pointed. His blood was rancid and old in my mouth. I sputtered, nearly choking on its blackness, but he swore and backed off, allowing me to wipe the black blood from my lips and continue singing, finally securing a good grip on his mind.

“Sing, O Necromantic Muse, of what you do and where you go. Tell me, O Dark One, who you speak to and what you say. Hold nothing back, and give me a show.”

Finally, Boris cracked. His yellow-tinged eyes went slack as the hatred seeped out of them, and he went limp in my arms. I thought about catching him before he cracked his head on a urinal, but then his sad manhood might accidentally touch me and that was a fate worse than the Muses plucking my feathers. No thank you.

I did, however, wince at the noise his head made when it hit the porcelain. That sounded painful, but luckily for him, he wouldn’t know what hit him. He was under my thrall for now. I just had to make sure the tether was good and tight until I got the information I needed.

“Good boy,” I whispered, patting his shaved head. “Good boy.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Thessaly

“Thessaly! You pushed me! And I distinctly heard you laugh while you did it.”

Tiberius chittered nervously. “That was me. She scared me. I laugh when I’m scared. Nonna said it was cute.”

Ava frowned, but I cut in.

“I did push you, but it was for the good of Aradia,” I said bluntly.

After I let Boris drift out of the men’s bathroom, a little dazed and with a large goose egg on his head, I’d returned to Boudica’s lost tomb and followed my friends down the stairs. I popped out into a misty and monochromatic landscape, not unlike Nibiru. Except here, there was an angry goddess, bristling with energy.

Ava stood with her hands on her hips in the middle of a few rocky crags overlooking the ocean, smack in the middle of the Scottish Highlands, and she didn’t want to even take in the view? She’d rather stay mad at me? Humans. They were such odd creatures, run by emotions.

“What did you do?” she asked, her voice severe. I imagined her pups cowered when she used that voice on them. I nearly did, but then I reminded myself I was a demon and demons didn’t cower.

“Perhaps plausible deniability is a good thing here,” Tiberius said slowly. “The less we know, the less we tell.”

The rodent was on my side for once. “Good idea, Tiberius. Maybe I simply went to the famous St. Louis Zoo. It’s free, you know.”

Ava narrowed her eyes. “You only know that because I told you.”

“I said maybe. Let’s go find the selkies,” I suggested.

We all knew I’d gone back to have a chat with Boris, but what exactly had happened during that chat remained a mystery. Had I sang? Had I not? Had I taken him to see the monkeys?

“Fine,” she caved, dropping her arms. “For Aradia.”

I stared back at her, my face impassive, which was an easy thing for me, but also a good thing, since I caught Ava swiveling her head back around every few minutes, as if to catch me off-guard. I’d grown up with Acantha, however. Nothing could catch me off-guard.

A moment later, I was hanging upside down by my ankles, dangling in someone else’s skin.

Selkies.

A strange creature, a kind of shifter actually, that could shed its skin as it emerged from the water and become human. Often, it carried its skin around like a coat, and it usually came in the same color as their human hair. Weird and gross if you asked me, but sirens were renowned for our lustrous, beautiful hair. It’s really impossible to compare any creature’s hair to ours and a fool’s errand to try.

Based on the squawking from Tiberius and Ava, they had also been taken off-guard, and although it would have taken Ava point two seconds to get free, it would have probably been chaotic and dangerous–for the selkies. Not the welcome we were looking to cultivate.

“The blood is rushing to my head,” she muttered, her arms crossed with annoyance at me even while upside down.

The skins were set like a trap under a rowan branch, which we’d walked right into. Probably because I was too busy avoiding Ava’s questions to notice. “They’re watching,” I said.

Tiberius clamored to the sole of Ava’s shoe, chittering and swishing his tail, his panic at the selkies palpable, but as far as I knew, they were rather harmless. Sure, some of the males liked to sink small ships, but we were firmly on land. I’d heard of a group of selkies take to pirating. But sirens dealt with far worse than pirates in our time, and I feared nothing of their kind. Of course, I wasn’t a chipmunk.

The selkies gathered around us, curiosity evident in their eyes. Overall, they were a drab looking group. In human form, they wouldn’t stand out in an empty room, let alone a crowded café. Their hair was various shades of brown and gray, and their skin looked clammy, not at all like a siren’s shining, luminescent skin or our brightly colored hair.

Glittering lochs decorated the landscape around us, and I could hear a waterfall somewhere to the north. The North Atlantic was thirty-three miles to the west and the Moray Firth forty-two miles north and east. But the selkies had had no trouble at all locating us, probably the moment I shoved Ava through the tomb. And they’d gotten here quickly to intercept us, no doubt using the system of lochs to do so.

Ava, used to taking charge, began. “We have both information that could keep you safe and a request.”

“State your information first, and that will decide if we will hear your request.”

“Put us down and we will. We mean you no harm.”

There was a honking noise as the selkies laughed together. One poked at me with a stick and set me swinging.

“A siren away from the ocean? Will you sing to us? Will you try to curse us as well?”

“Coronis of the corvids is my lover. She sent me here with good tidings, but I have not seen fit to give them yet.”

After a stunned silence, the selkies began to converse with varying levels of excitement. It sounded like clicks and trills, whistles and creaking doors. There was pointing and tugging. A large male strode forward amidst the chatter. He slung his skin around his shoulders like a fur coat, probably not willing to give it up as a trap. Without their skins, selkies could never return to the water. And like sirens, they would die without returning to the water. If most selkie women were petite and seal-like in the water and nearly as graceful on land, this man had more in common with a walrus, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had some bull in him. His feet pounded the heather and rocky outcropping of the Highland, and he moved as if he had seen war.

With a swift downward motion of his index finger, he split open the selkie skin holding me tight. I rolled to a standing position, glaring, and jabbed my finger at my still-hanging friend. “This is Ava Falcetti, the Wandering Goddess, Tefnut of Egypt, Eye of Ra, She-Wolf of Rome, mother of Josh and Jacob. She could smite all of you from within your own skin, and she chooses not to. Would you leave her thus and risk her wrath?”

Ava, meanwhile, merely smiled upside down, and I got the impression she was trying to wave despite being stuck tight as a fly in a silken spiderweb. “Hi. It’s very nice to meet you. I think I might have met some of you at the Battle of Aradia. Thanks again for coming with the cavalry. Lovely home you have here. Little chilly. I can see why you like the furs.”

“We are not associated with the tribe of selkies that answered your call,” the male said, but he also released Ava quickly and with a dash of deference that probably did not come natural to him.

Despite being all of her goddess gifts, her human body wasn’t as adroit physically as a supernatural body, and she clunked to the rocky ground. She came up swearing and rubbing her shoulder. Her smile had soured, but she shook her head and tried to bring it back. “Like I said, we’re here to help you. There have been frightening reports of strange shade activity in Nibiru, as well as other incidents, and we mean to warn the supernatural community.”

The male raised an eyebrow. “I am Angus, and I will tell you now, we do not interfere with the supernatural world.”

“Well that might be too bad,” Ava said, “since the supernatural world doesn’t really care who it messes with sometimes. Including the necromancers who are killing mortals to possess them in Nibiru as shades. That might not concern you, which I understand since it’s only mortals and all.” Ava let her next words hang in the air. “For now.”

There was more nervous chitter-chatter at that, and I could see babies strapped to the backs of women, their thumbs in their mouths and eyes wide. Ava cooed at one, unable to stop her maternal instincts from kicking into overdrive, but the mother swiftly pulled back, disappearing behind a wave of selkies that formed a giant wall in front of her. Ava meekly held up her hands.

“What would you have us do?” Angus asked angrily. “We are a herd. We’re not here to make war. We do not heed the call. We reject the call. We do not sail the seas looking for fun. We keep to ourselves, and that is how we’d like to continue.”

“Definitely not the party ones,” Tiberius muttered to me.

I nodded. Definitely not.

“Nothing,” Ava said soothingly. “We are not asking anything of you. We merely are spreading the word to be on the lookout for necromancers. That’s not to say they’re all bad—no, seriously. I knew a very good man who happened to be a necromancer. I mean, sure, he made some bad choices and tried to possess my body so he could put his dead wife’s soul inside it, but he was a good man. In the end.”

I tuned out after that. Ava could always be counted on to talk for the both of us, and I rarely needed to add much. I could not tell if it was working on the selkies, but I rarely could. By the finger pointing and downturned mouths, it didn’t look great. But sometimes Ava and Aurick had odd looks on their face, too, and they try to mate soon after, even when she was not in heat, so I wasn’t sure if this was one of those times or not. I was anxious to keep searching for the silent siren, clearly coached by Enyo to keep quiet so I could not follow. Where were they headed? For what purpose?

“I understand you do not sail like some of your selkie brethren. Do you have contact with them?”

There were furtive glances until one smaller selkie woman was pushed forward. She tried digging in her heels to stall her progression, clawing at the woman determined to bring her forth, but the smaller selkie—barely out of her teen years by the look of it—was no match for what was clearly her mother.

“Go on, then. Tell them about your boyfriend,” the woman said in a deep, Scottish brogue.

The young woman glared. “I told you we broke up. No one wants to date anyone from our herd! And for good reason!”

“Spare me,” her mother said, pointing at Ava. “And tell it to them.”

“Fine!” She threw up her hands. “Rory sails. He was part of the crew that heeded Coronis’s call to battle for Aradia.” Here, the girl had to stop and collect herself for a moment, no doubt behaving more human-like on land without her selkie skin to give her supernatural strength. Human emotions were quite inconvenient. She was probably imagining him bravely on the deck of a selkie ship with the seal banners blowing, brandishing a sword, when in reality, he was probably running around like everyone else, scared of Enyo’s battalions. But I saw no reason to ‘burst her bubble’ as Ava liked to tell me.

“Before he broke up with me—” and here, she paused yet again to turn around and throw a glare at her mother, “—he told me Charybdis had awoken.”

“Charybdis awakens once a century to eat,” I scoffed. “That’s not new. Then she goes back to slumber.”

“No! The fanged whirlpool is still awake,” the girl said this with a hushed tone. “She’s as she was when Jason and Odysseus sailed the seas. She’s hunting.”

“She can’t hunt,” I pointed out. “She can’t even move. She sits there and waits for unlucky sailors to get too close.”

Ava flapped at me to be quiet. “What else did Rory say?” she asked gently. At the name of her beloved in another woman’s mouth, the girl burst into tears. Her mother rolled her eyes and sighed, but she took her daughter by the shoulders and informed us that it was enough. The interrogation was over. “That’s all we ken. We may be isolated, but dinnae think that we are dumb. Things are stirring up, more and more ever since yer decisive little battle.”

Ava frowned. “It was decisive.”

“For now,” the woman spat her words back at her.

The male selkie stepped in. “As you said. Odd things. Now make your request and be on your way,” Angus said.

“If you hear about a siren or witness her near your coasts, please get word to me. She doesn’t understand who she is or even what a siren is. She could get hurt—or hurt others. Be well.”

Ava and I turned to leave, everyone a little bit on guard still. Tiberius’s whiskers were trembling as he crawled out of Ava’s pocket.

“Whew. So that was a wild selkie tribe. Nope. No thank you. Never again.”

“They must have traveled at shocking speeds to intercept us out here. I get the feeling nobody comes through Boudica’s tomb anymore.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Or what?” Ava asked, looking thoughtful.

“Or maybe they responded so quickly because they’re scared.”

“More scared than usual?” Tiberius asked, now comfort-grooming behind his little ears.

“Yeah, they seemed a little too prepared.”

“You mean… they were prepared because others have come through before us? Like necromancers?”

I shrugged. “It’s possible.”

Ava rubbed her chin, a gesture that meant her brain was working hard, which it was. I could practically feel her neurons consuming enormous quantities of energy. “I don’t think they would have lied to us about that,” she finally said. “They don’t want necromancers roaming Scotland, looking for mortals for their black market trade any more than we do.”

We all swiveled. Someone followed behind us, and it was not whom I expected to see in the least. It was the mother of the young woman, her face full of hard lines and no-nonsense. With her limp brown hair, it made her look especially severe. “Wait. I’ve got something to say.”

Ava nodded once. “We’re listening.”

“Rory also told my girl that the winds were wreaking havoc.”

“What does that mean? Like tornadoes?” Ava asked. “Those are usually around my hometown in St. Louis. I didn’t know tornadoes were all that serious in Europe.”

“No. The sea winds by Charybdis,” the selkie woman said, staring at Ava as if she might be delusional. “I thought you were an Egyptian goddess, but you seem more American than ancient.”

Ava blushed. “This reincarnation is strong,” she said sheepishly.

It was obvious I would have to steer everyone back on the right shipping lanes. “Are you implying monsters that have been slumbering since the Archon Wars are waking up?”

“I dinnae imply a thing. I told it to ya, straight and simple, or so I thought. The other side is out there looking for weapons left behind by the gods and yer not. Our tribe keeps to our own, but you should think a wee bit more about your strategy.”

“More god-weapons?” Ava asked, aghast.

“Innumerably more… or maybe only a few. No one kens, do they?”

Ava turned to me. “Enyo had the Helm of Hades at the battle. We have to assume she still has it. How unsettling. She could be listening and sneaking around at any moment, and with that on, we’d never know.”

What Ava was saying was interesting; terrifying, actually. I should’ve been paying attention, but I was feeling the tether I’d put on Boris pull taut. He was up to something.

“Be right back,” I said and was gone, but not before I got to see another mad Ava face.

“Thessaly, don’t you dare⁠—”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Salem, Massachusetts

The Naming of Witches

August, 1691

A hoop and a stick, nine little girls running and laughing, their dresses flying. I was down the forest road, not straying off the path, just as I promised. My mother rarely let me out of her sight, but I was twenty. I craved a bit of independence.

Tied to her apron strings, I could hear them whisper whenever my mother and I went to the village to sell our tinctures, which only occurred once a month as it was. Spinsters, they whispered. Odd ducks. Like a donkey on a rope.

I tried telling her the infrequent trips to the village, only to sell our wares from our hut in the woods and then leave, never buying nor conversing, was what put us in danger, made us strange, marked us as different and dangerous. She insisted it insulated us, kept us safe. We never agreed, my mother and I. Not on breakfast, not on village trips, not on life. Neither hers nor mine.

The girls stopped running and stared. Started to whisper. I closed my eyes tight and tried to focus on the plants I was gathering in my apron. Red-veined sorrel for digestion. Dandelions for reducing sugar crystals in the blood. Violets for a cough. I would come back later for stinging nettles, I would bring gloves.

The pointed fingers felt longer, more accusatory the longer I ignored them. Not just a few, but nine. Nine pointed fingers, all of them straight at me. I wanted to burst into tears, to melt into the ground and disappear, to transform into someone else, someone who didn’t get pointed out everywhere she went.

“Odd.”

“Strange.”

“Witch.”

I tried to tune it out, but that last word was dangerous. I hummed instead. Mother hated when I made noises of any kind, and she absolutely forbid any singing. She tolerated spoken word. She preferred if it was stilted, the sentences short and the voice flat, but would riot if she heard me hum.

The girls began to scream. One of them started to convulse, her body twisting in and out, her eyes rolled back in her head. The others quickly succumbed as well. A ring of girls thrashing, their fingers, no longer pointing, curled into their palms in pain and terror. Birds fell from the sky and landed, feet up, their wings beating weakly against the ground. In the distance, dogs began to howl, then bark and snarl.

I felt a heavy hand on my bicep and whirled away, the noise draining from my mouth and dying in my throat. It was my mother, her face furious. She slapped me across the mouth and I fell to the dirt, all of my foraged findings tumbling from my apron as I tried to catch myself. I landed hard on my elbow. The pain was sharp and bright, but I saw the girls’ convulsions slowly dying down.

They began to point again, this time screaming in unison, “Witches! Witches! The devil has taken them! The devil tried to take me, too!”

My mother was already dragging me away before I could defend us. “We must run. Drink this,” my mother ordered, not even stopping at our hut to gather our meager things or pull the lock string in through the door. She pulled out a vial and handed it to me. The liquid was clear like water. It even smelled like the sweet spring water we loved to collect from a secret spot no one else seemed to know about.

“What is it?” I asked.

“The time for questions is over. Drink it. You have started something you cannot begin to comprehend.”

“Because you won’t tell me! You force this upon me instead of simply answering a question.”

“My answers would make you wish you were dead and that will never happen. It is a burden I carry for you, to always remember, and a gift to give you this sweet ignorance.” She shook the vial at me. “Now drink!”

As she spoke, my brain began to unlock puzzle pieces and I remembered sadness and water and so much screaming. Centuries of blissful ignorance. I drank, a certain fuzziness suffusing my limbs and making them as heavy as sand…

TWENTY-SIX

Ilona

I had strange dreams. They’d been occurring more and more frequently since my mother had died, but this one had been particularly vivid. Fire and destruction. An ancient city in ruins. Me at the center? But the flames of the city quickly faded from my mind when I swallowed my first mouthful of saltwater. The Orpheus! It had capsized.

Adrift on a plank in the ocean, my feet kicking helplessly against the currents, I tried to keep my head above water. A foaming whirlpool, spikes of wood—teeth?—no, wood. It must have been wreckage from the Orpheus, swirling and skyrocketing into the air in a waterspout born from the storm.

There was no lightning, no thunder, hardly any clouds, but there was wind. The winds were so strong, snatching at me, tearing at me, grasping for me, I could have sworn they were sentient.

I couldn’t scream, couldn’t call for help. Seawater poured over me, and I could only cling to my board, hopeful that Germanicus was fine in my zipped up fanny pack.

Terror consumed me; my own and that of my mother’s instilled in me through years of warnings. Why had I not listened? I kicked off my shoes to keep them from weighing me down, pulling me farther into the deep where only death waited.

Slithering water beasts breached the surface and dove back under, circling me like sharks. Mythical, my mind screamed. Not real. You’re delusional. You swallowed too much seawater. You’re hallucinating.

One brushed against my ankle, its scales scratching my skin. Quickly I pulled it out of the water in case I was bleeding. The last thing I needed was a mythical beast feeding frenzy with me on the menu.

I squeezed my eyes shut and pleaded, Ignore the pain in your ankle. You’re hallucinating.

The wind grew angrier. The water churned and swirled. The mouth of the whirlpool opened wider, getting closer and closer to my plank, threatening to pull me in.

“No, no, no,” I screamed, but it didn’t matter. I was swirling now, the worst roller coaster in the world. A giant drop to the depths of the sea. To make matters worse, the hallucinatory mythical creatures began to leap over my head, their joy apparent at my demise. “Go away figments of my imagination,” I screamed. “You are not eating my body!”

Those were the last words that left my mouth before my plank flipped over, and I went under.

When I woke the second time, I fully expected to be aboard the Orpheus in my quarters, comfortably tucked in my bed with Germanicus pressed against my cheek in his new sleeping spot, this terrible dream fading with the new day. Instead, my skin itched, my face felt exposed to the elements, and my eyelids were crusted shut.

I rubbed at them, my hands scrubbing over my whole body. It took a few blinking moments to realize I was completely covered in actual sand and lying on a beach. I tried to sit up on my elbows, but my whole body felt as if I’d spent the night tumble drying on low. With a loud groan, I fell back down, the hard packed sand beneath me making me groan louder.

“Ilona?” came a squeaky voice.

“Germanicus!” I managed to sit up and unzip my fanny pack. Out spilled sea water and a small green tuft of plant material. It flopped grotesquely until it sat up straight, I think. It was hard to tell since it was just a green blob. “Germanicus?” I asked uncertainly, poking the blob with a fingertip.

“It’s me. The salt water started to burn my slug form so I had to quickly take a new one. What am I? I didn’t even look, I just reacted.”

“You’re… algae. If I was forced to guess.”

“Algae? Like the single-celled plant?”

“Yeah. You’re still slimy, if that makes you feel better.”

The green blob flopped once. “It does not.”

“What should we do?” I looked around the empty beach. “It looks like the storm was real, and we washed up on a deserted island. I’m really not in Kansas City anymore.”

“Give me a second. I’m going to change form. Quick question: do you prefer mammalian or avian or reptilian?”

“Oh! I get to help choose?”

The green blob made a scoffing noise. “I didn’t say that.”

“I think you basically did,” I said, petting him. “You care about me and what I’m thinking. Just admit it.”

“No. I’m going to become a Komodo dragon to annoy you. They’re venomous, right?”

“I have no idea. How about a hedgehog? Because sometimes you’re sweet and sometimes you’re prickly.”

“How about an elephant and then I’ll sit on you when you get annoying?”

“How about a mealworm and then I’ll feed you to a real hedgehog when you get annoying?”

A new voice interrupted Germanicus’s next retort. “A demon and a daemon traveling together. How very interesting.”

Germanicus and I both froze. The woman stood behind us, having snuck up on us, either completely silently or by simply taking advantage of our banter. Slowly, I turned around and took her in.

The most beautiful woman in the world stood only steps from me, her eyes luminous and large, her hair pulled back by a gold band of silk ribbon, her long, black curls barely restrained by the fabric. Her white dress flowed, despite the fact there was no breeze. Her voice was melody itself, and if anyone should be able to sing for their supper, it was her and not me.

“Well, siren. Are you going to stay on my beach forever or would you like to follow me?”

And I really had no answer.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Ilona

If I thought the nightmare was over, it wasn’t. The storm had gone, the wind now warm and gentle, but the disturbingly pretty woman was still here. Staring. Deeply curious.

“You who shouldn’t exist,” she said.

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

The woman in gossamer white frowned at my answer, as if I was the one who had said something inappropriate. “Come now. You knew this. You aren’t supposed to be alive, and it’s making you ambivalent to life itself. I can smell your fear and disengagement. You don’t know whether to walk out there with weighted rocks or spin in the light. Should you be pleased you are here despite it all or horrified? Well, have I hit the mark?”

I had no answer. I could only blink.

“It is a great question, and if you really, truly thought about it, you wouldn’t like the answer.”

I swallowed. “Who are you?”

The woman stared. Her heart-shaped face was too beautiful for words, the widow’s peak abbreviated by the slicked-back look of the silk ribbon.

“I heard you claimed you knew nothing.”

I blinked again, but when I opened my eyes, she was a thousand steps in front of me, her figure disappearing on the horizon, her footprints already evaporating in the sand. How was I supposed to follow that?

Everywhere I looked, it was sand and water and forest. I wasn’t sure where to head. I couldn’t go home. Kansas City was never so far. Home was never so far.

I could follow where I thought she went. I could try.

A subversive thought gripped me. I could follow. Or I could… flee. Kansas City was far, but I could try. I didn’t have to be a siren. I could be me. Whomever I wanted to be. I could figure it out. Me and my alimony.

The ocean called, it sang, it beckoned.

Worse, it begged.

So badly, I wanted to answer. So badly, I wanted to put my toes in the water, to feel the salt, the density, the power.

I couldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t. I knew if I fled, I would betray myself. I would betray the call I’d felt, the pull, the yearning. My mother had denied herself her entire adult life—or, at least, the life she’d led with me. She’d hidden us out of fear, and I could forgive her for so many things I’d never understood, so many things I hadn’t realized. She was doing the best she could, but I couldn’t forgive the fact she’d hidden the ocean from me.

I couldn’t forgive her. Not yet. Not when I hadn’t even been given the choice.

My knees hit the sand. I couldn’t. The ocean was my calling, my life, my world. I’d gotten a salt water fish tank because I had to touch the water. The thought was embarrassing—I was so starved of salt water, I’d gotten an angel fish! How pathetic.

So, I stood up, and I followed. Now that I’d made my decision, I somehow knew the way. Somehow, I also knew who she was. She was Calypso the nymph, and this was her island, Ogygia. According to the legend, Odysseus had spent seven years here, but the word legend held a different meaning these days.

I crossed the beach and made my way through a small path that cut through the reeds to a lovely home overlooking the sea. There was no door, simply a diaphanous cloth blowing in the breeze. Gently, I pushed it aside with the back of my hand and entered.

Calypso went about her business, picking up, making dinner, doing her daily tasks as if nothing extraordinary had happened, and I guess, nothing had. I was here, but did it matter? I was no god, I was no immortal, I was a siren. And I was only half a siren at that, apparently. Or as far as Enyo knew. Calypso had seen more than me wash up on her shores. She had played hostess and temptress; there wasn’t any other options for a woman of her status.

“You have no right to be a victim,” she said, as she stirred her pot. “You have no right to be a savior. You have no right to be anything but yourself. And you refuse to be that, so what right do you have to be upset about anything?”

I opened my mouth to protest, to point out that I hadn’t known, that I’d had the truth hidden from me, but had I? Had I not taken the vial willingly from my mother more than once to hide who I was, to forget?

She threw me a quilt. I caught it off-handed, the edge touching the ground before I could pull it up. “There’s a block by the front windows, and if you’re very quiet, the birds will pass food beak to beak before daybreak. Sometimes, if I’m truly quiet, I can even hear the wind.”

“Okay,” I said. Immortality probably looked different on everyone. On Calypso, it looked a little like a hermit who had spent too much time alone in their own world. “That’s interesting.”

I stole a glance at Germanicus, who shrugged back. Or at least, I think he did. It was hard to tell with algae. Really hard. I flicked him a little with my nail, and the algae went limp in my hand.

“Germanicus?”

No response, not even a jiggle.

“Seriously, Germanicus, you’re starting to scare me.”

“Why’s that?” I heard against my ear, and I jumped. A lizard scrambled down my shoulders, and I screamed, throwing it to the ground.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” the lizard said, his tiny arms extended. “I just got this body. I don’t want to find another.”

“Is that you?” I asked, my fingers itching for a frying pan.

“Of course, it’s me.”

“I knew that.”

“You obviously did not.” He licked his eye with his tongue. “But it’s all I could find around here, you murderous wench.”

“Well, it’s not a snail, but at least you have a face.”

“It’s good to have teeth again, too,” he said, licking the teeny, tiny, sharp, white teeth in his mouth next.

Calypso cleared her throat, and we turned to face her. “You have a daemon, you have used your voice and seen its power, yet you still do not believe. Not deep down.”

“Well, I could be hallucinating. Alcohol, new food, all the travel. They’ve got to be affecting me. I would be crazy to think this wasn’t crazy.”

“There is that option.”

“It’s kind of the only option.”

“Like I said, you still do not believe. Not deep down. Which is why you must make a choice. That is why you’re here.”

My eyebrows frowned. “I’m here because our ship was destroyed.”

She shook her head. “You were always meant to be here.”

“Are you talking about fate?”

“No, but there are powerful forces at work. Bigger than you, bigger than me. They have brought you here, to make a choice now that your eyes are open. Only by embracing your true self can you find your fate.” Calypso handed me a pair of leather sandals with wings etched into the side. Real feathers, gray and soft, sprouted along the edge of their soles. I looked up at her, questioning.

“These shoes will take you anywhere, to your friends, to the gods, even back home to forget. The choice is yours.”

I looked closer at the shoes, and for a second, I thought I saw the feathers settle and adjust themselves, like a bird roosting for the night. I nearly dropped them. “These can’t be⁠—"

“I won’t keep you. Be gone with your prize and do as you want.” Calypso walked forward only two steps but was already a thousand feet away.

“Wait!” I shouted. “I thought that’s exactly what you did. Kept Odysseus for seven years until Hermes made you give him up.”

Calypso’s look over her shoulder was fierce. It could have supercharged a volcano, and it certainly could have burned me from this distance if she willed it. Instead, she said nothing, simply turning and vanishing into the mist, but I got the hint. I was no Odysseus.

Honestly? Fair enough. I didn’t even think I could swim, and I was apparently born with inner gills.

“I guess we try flying,” I said to Germanicus. “I don’t relish the idea of swimming out into open waters. Siren or not.”

“Sure. Strap those bad boys on. They’ll probably listen to you, just like they listened to a god.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sort of sounds like you’re unconvinced I can fly these things.”

Germanicus said nothing.

“I said, correct me if I’m wrong.”

He waited, silent.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re the worst. How about turning back into that algae blob again?”

“Just put on the sandals, and we’ll see what happens.”

We walked down to the beach, and I put on the shoes of the messenger god, Hermes. For a second, I understood what Calypso was saying. It was so quiet, I could hear the wind. I mean actually hear the wind, and not just the way it whistled through the trees. The true noise of the wind, and it sounded like whispers.

A chill went through my blood, and I stood, a little unsteadily, wondering if I had the courage to continue this ridiculous journey. Where would I go? Home? To find Enyo? To find the gods?

I sighed. I couldn’t even find myself. Only one thing was certain. I could not stay on an island lost to the world with an immortal goddess.

I had to go.

Stuffing the lizard into my fanny pack, I zipped it shut and prepared myself. I pictured myself back in Kansas City, alone and sad, pretending none of this ever existed. I would miss the ocean and my friends. I would miss the adventure and world of possibilities that had suddenly opened to me. But I would be safe.

Would I really give them up because I was… scared? That’s what it came down to, my voice, the gods, the realm of the dead. They scared me because they were different, because I was different, but why did that matter? I was different and that made me special.

“Germanicus?”

“Yes?”

“I have made my choice.”

“And?”

“I’ve decided that you are real.”

“Honestly, I thought you were going to say something more interesting.”

“I’m serious. It’s time I embrace the truth. No more wondering if I’m seeing things or going crazy. It’s time I become who I am. Thanks for being there with me.” I felt two tiny paws press against my belly and squeeze. A tiny lizard hug. “Now, let’s figure out how to fly these things.”

The salt breeze whipped at my hair, and I let it caress me, trying to feel the voice Calypso said she heard. I held out my arms like a bird, feeling slightly ridiculous but also exhilarated. I was about to find my place in this world.

“I am a siren,” I yelled. “Un-cursed and unknown. Shoes of the gods, take me to my destiny.”

When the wind picked me up and the wings spread wide from my sandals, the first thought was pure victory as I watched the beach recede below me. That lasted about ten seconds before the wind became louder, the voice became stronger, and I remembered the storm that seemed to be chasing me since Kansas City. It had followed me across the Mediterranean and it had chased me to Africa. Now, I had let it find me.

In a swift updraft, the wind took me. It stole my scream, ripping it from my throat before I could even give it a voice, and it kidnapped me into the skies.

Looking back, I swear I saw Calypso’s smile from the shore, but I couldn’t be sure.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Thessaly

Boris did not look so great. In fact, he looked paler than usual, which was saying something. He stood alone in black robes, staring at a spot on the ground. From what I understood, that was weird, weirder than usual for a necromancer.

I approached him in a crouched position, staying low while I tried to figure out where we were in the world. Usually, I’d feel for the ocean’s pull to help me orient, but I couldn’t find it here, too much stone and heavy metal. From what I could gather, we were in an underground bunker.

“What did you see?” I demanded. The tether had pulled taut for a reason. Something of interest had happened. I needed to know what it was.

Silence.

“Boris?”

Silence still. Boris didn’t—or couldn’t?—speak. Actually, he didn’t even move his head.

I looked around, unsure of what was happening. I could feel an odd energy, and not only because he was a necromancer. I could still smell those who had been here in this spot only moments before.

Finally, I followed Boris’s eyes. A memory sat on the ground where he looked, shimmering slightly. An echo of whatever had just happened. How had Boris done that? I don’t know. I didn’t care.

I took the memory.

A mortal man cowered in the center of a circle. Around him stood hooded figures, their heads bowed, their facial features completely covered by black cowls. Their only identifying feature were the black tattoos twisting up their arms, although the man could only see the terminus of the tattoo on their hands before the rest was obscured by the robes. Fanged snakes hissed near the thumb joint.

There was a small opening at the edge of the circle, and he sprang as fast and hard as he could, hoping to catch the hooded figures off-guard. How had he gotten here? One minute, he’d been throwing back a free round of beer. The next, he was in some dark room, perhaps a basement, by the smell.

It was deathly cold, the stone walls barely stopping any chill from seeping into the chamber. Well, he wasn’t staying. He’d fight his way out; he’d been a golden glove boxer in his prime.

He came up swinging again, certain he’d uppercut at least one out of the way, but he hadn’t even been able to land a blow before something invisible threw him to the side, his knees cracking audibly as they broke on the concrete floor.

The hooded figures joined hands and created a tight circle around him. Beginning to blubber, he reached for the bottoms of their robes, but they kicked him off. The hooded figure directly in front of him chanted a few words and black candles sprang to life, one, two, three, four, five, and he realized as he followed their path, he was in the center of a pentagram.

There was chanting, a lot more chanting, and a sharp scent of herbs he would never be able to identify that would chill his blood if he knew what they were. Hensbane, Aconite, Dittany of Crete.

There was a dagger. It flashed silver in the dark candlelight.

He realized his knees didn’t hurt anymore.

But death was just the beginning. He barely had time to stumble through the misty banks of a river and into a field full of ghosts—and was that what he was now, a ghost? How could he be something he didn’t believe in?—before it felt like a fish hook was embedded in his gut.

He cried out, uncertain if the pain was real or imagined, and tried to wiggle off the hook, but it dug in deeper. Did it matter if it was real? It hurt, and he was scared. His babushka had drilled the fear of a fiery afterlife into him if he didn’t shape up, which he hadn’t, of course. Life had been much too fun to worry about what happened after life, but this didn’t seem right. Even if he was murdered, shouldn’t he be walking in pools of fire for his misdeeds? Why were the other ghosts simply drifting around in a field of papery flowers and this hook! He scrabbled at his insubstantial belly, like mist itself, but there was nothing to yank out. It was all in his head.

The hook suddenly jerked, and he lurched forward. Mechanically, he bent at the waist and plucked a red flower from the stem. He crumpled its papery petal in his fist. He brought it to his lips. It had a fresh fragrance, almost like sugar. He opened his mouth and put it on his tongue. He swallowed, and the memory ended.

“Boris, you have not been a good boy. You have been a bad boy. You have not kept a good watch on your people,” I told him seriously. “Letting your necromancers kill?” I lifted up the lolling head of the necromancer and stared into his eyes. The pupils were blown out. I put a small compulsion in my voice, letting a note of strong siren song loose. “Why?”

Suddenly, his head snapped up, and he lunged, his hands going for my throat. I scrabbled backward, but he was fast—too fast. What was happening? Had my song triggered this reaction somehow? Had someone laid a trap for me?

I pulled the moisture from the room and used it, a jet of water shooting from my palms to keep him off-kilter. It felt as if my control on him was being challenged or overridden. I must have been sloppy when I took his free will. Or he had been sloppy, letting others see it. Letting them know he had been compromised.

He had clearly been surprised by the necromancers, unaware that his own kind were doing this. Had they discovered my song stuck in his brain and attached something dangerous to it, knowing I would come back?

I did the only thing I could think of. I ripped my melody from his head, freeing him and turning off the trigger. Boris stared at me, mid-lunge. He blinked, and then he collapsed. In an instant, his body had turned to dust and bones, scattered over a black robe.

My chest was heaving, and I kept my distance, only muttering, “I knew he was older than a hundred.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chicago, Illinois

The Great Chicago Fire

1871

There was a boy. I was twenty and there was a boy.

I had never been kissed, or, at least, I didn’t think I had ever been kissed. Sometimes I thought I remembered something…

But then he kissed me again, and I didn’t think about anything other than the softness of his lips and the way he tucked a piece of my flaming red hair behind my ear while he was kissing me. Was that love? Was I in love? Love was such a tricky thing, but it made me want to shout and sing, and so I did as I walked home where my mother wouldn’t hear.

My mother met me at the door of our wooden house on DeKoven Street. It was dark, and she moved closer to me, and I was suddenly afraid. She leaned in to smell me and then she slapped me, right across my mouth, right where I had felt such sweetness only moments before.

The ferity of her response to a kiss upended my world. My mother and I had never been close. She kept me at arm’s length, away from the soft pieces of her she might have held close to her chest. Was it any wonder I yearned to go where someone would let me in?

“It was just a kiss!” I shouted. “I am a woman! Let me leave and let me live my life alone if you hate me so much.” I was sobbing by this point, my tears the only cool thing in a growing storm of fire.

She grabbed my arm and yanked me around, pointing to the conflagration racing across town, growing stronger and raging by the second. It was an actual storm of fire and it utterly confused me for a moment.

“You stupid girl,” she finally said. “I know what a kiss is and how men use their kisses on women, and I can tell you now that I don’t care that you kissed a boy. I care that you sang.”

I held my throbbing lips and stared at her, the glad notes of the once-happy song now a misery of hundreds, still pulsing in my chest.

“Come. We are leaving.”

I protested as we packed our bags and I protested as she dragged me down the rickety wooden steps and I protested as she shook my arm, telling me to watch what I had wrought when the ashes fell from the sky. They were bitter on my tongue.

“Do you still want to sing, you little siren?” she asked.

I stopped protesting.

When I said I was thirsty, my face full of soot as we continued to flee the flaming city, she handed me a cup of water and I swore it smelled familiar. Like spring water.

But I drank it anyway, hoping to wash the bitter dregs away…

THIRTY

Ilona

The wind was laughing at me, and it wasn’t an eerie rustling of dead leaves and branches. It wasn’t a figment of my overactive and very scared imagination either, which, to be fair, had been giving me stranger and stranger dreams, faster and faster.

No. This was the literal wind, and no one could tell me any different. It had swept me up as I made my decision and took to the air, and it had taken me to this mysterious land where I was alone.

The moment my feet hit the ground, I sat down and ripped off Hermes’s shoes, flinging the leather sandals as far as I could into the woods. My chest heaved, and my hair looked like a wild corona of red around my face. My fingers curled in a fight response. The upside? I could probably scare a grizzly bear, if there were any around.

But all was quiet.

Too quiet.

Unlike Ogygia with Calypso, I found no one on this beach, although calling it a beach was a bit of a stretch, as it was all black rock and gray pebbles big enough to sit in my palms. The woods started much sooner, too, and I couldn’t see farther than a few feet into the dense undergrowth. Gnarled trees grew together, covered with lichen and moss, and vines hung from the canopy, crisscrossing half-fallen logs.

“Germanicus?” I asked, my voice coming out with a tremble. “Are you okay?” I unzipped my fanny pouch and saw the lizard curled in a tight ball, his tail over his nose.

“Is it over?” came the squeak.

“I have no idea, but the wind put us down here. We’re…” Quickly the coordinates came into my mind. “Smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea near the coast of Gibraltar. 35.926906° N, -5.020186° W.”

The little lizard unwrapped his tail and stood on his back legs, putting his front paws over the edge of the zipper to peer out. “That sounds familiar…”

A trade wind breeze, warm and soft, pushed against me, almost as if steering me toward the forest. “I don’t like this,” I said.

“I don’t either. Are you going to put the shoes back on and leave?” he asked.

“I have a feeling the wind will keep bringing me right back. We have no choice but to look around. It’s going to be night soon, and Calypso’s last breakfast feels like a long time ago.”

“So you’re going to make us a shelter and fire and find food? Do you know how to do any of those things? I prefer my greens lightly dressed with oil and vinegar. Don’t douse it.”

“Luckily for you, oil and vinegar isn’t even an option for me to mess up.”

“I take it you don’t know how to do anything to survive.”

“Negative. Do you?”

“Absolutely not.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Let’s get going then.”

My skin crawled the moment we entered the heavy woods, as if a spider was tiptoeing down my spine. The winds calculated my movements, gently guiding me. I felt it, their sentience, their hunger. The winds were herding me deeper. Try as I might to keep the beach in my sightline and explore the edge of the woods, I kept finding myself deeper than I anticipated. The thought terrified me.

“I think we should get the sandals and try to leave,” I whispered to Germanicus, unreasonably afraid the wind would hear me. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe we can leave whenever we want.”

“Sure and maybe that oil and vinegar set will be waiting on a rock with a candlelit dinner.”

I turned back, attempting to reach the beach again, where at least I could see the sky and the water and I could breathe. The winds whistled through the undergrowth, creating a song as it resisted my attempts to turn back. It sounded welcoming almost. Friendly. A potent melody that pulled at my heart. Why in the world was I scared? The wind had saved me and brought me here, to a place that meant me no harm.

“Ilona, look,” said Germanicus.

I had to blink him into focus, transfixed by the beautiful song of the swaying of the trees. His tail was pointing straight at a fortress in a clearing that I would have sworn was not there before. It was half-hidden by low clouds, a wisp of a castle, with spires like wind funnels. The sun moved across the sky, and a thousand crystal bridges glowed with rainbow brilliance. I gasped at the sight, my hand flying to my mouth.

Even Germanicus made a squeaking noise. “It’s so pretty,” he breathed, pulling himself up higher to see. “Like air.”

“Should we knock?” I asked, a little breathless.

His tongue flicked in and out, smelling the wind. “There’s definitely something edible in there. Out here, I’m afraid we’re the only thing on the menu.”

“Point taken. Well, you go first.”

The lizard gave me a pfft and climbed back inside my fanny pack. “Start walking, demon.”

The wind swirled my hair the closer we got, only settling down as I reached the entryway. Tall and spacious, made of crystal and white stone, everything screamed decadence. Fragments of songs echoed through the hall, but I couldn’t place them.

“I don’t think anyone is here,” Germanicus said, speaking inside my head now, keeping a low profile. “It seems completely deserted, and let’s be honest, we can nearly see straight through it.”

I walked slowly through the front, although there were no doors, nothing to bar even a wild animal from walking straight inside. “Hello?” I called a few times. “Hello? Is anyone home?”

The fragments of song grew stronger and more connected. I could get full words and maybe even a verse. I strained to hear it, my head tipped to the echoing chamber of music. Winds rattled through the corridors, warm and cozy. It beckoned me deeper into the fortress of air.

I caught you once in a hush of wind.

Pressed you soft between storm and skin.

You were the song I stole from the gale.

Here I am, waiting to exhale.

By the last line, the voice wasn’t a whisper on the wind, easily mistaken. It was a man’s voice, deep and resonant, as rich as warmed chocolate. By the last word, it was solid and real.

His voice was so familiar, so ridiculously comforting, that my legs went to jelly for a moment, and I nearly lost my balance. His voice was a lover’s caress, rough and demanding, but also gentle enough to lick away any hurt. It occurred to me too late that I knew exactly what it was like to be hurt and healed by this divine being. That I knew him, physically, emotionally, viscerally. And the chill that had gone down my spine on my arrival rolled up and down my body again.

“You’ve come back to me, my little storm-song.”

THIRTY-ONE

Ilona

Everywhere I looked, I saw nothing. Perhaps a wisp of something, but it was there and gone again. But that voice lingered.

“I’m scared,” I told Germanicus, taking his cue and speaking telepathically. “I think we should leave.”

“And go where? Shouldn’t we at least plate ourselves up before going back to the forest? Whatever is going to eat us out there might at least make it quick if we’re nice and plump. Maybe let’s see if there’s a curl of parsley leaf we could stuff down your shirt. Really doll us up for when they decide to flay us.”

“Can’t you hear the songs?” I asked. My skin crawled, and I knew without a doubt it was true, although how, I had no idea. I had been here before.

The music had stopped and the voice was gone, but the mist remained. It began to solidify, enough that even Germanicus could see it.

“Wind wraith.”

My eyes shot to Germanicus. “What?”

“That’s a wind wraith. A not unsubstantial demon despite its insubstantial presence.”

“Thanks for clearing that up. Can it speak?”

“I don’t think so. It’s the wind.”

“But I heard a voice. Male. A voice I know I’ve heard before and forgot.”

Germanicus licked the air again. “Why is it beckoning?”

“Do I follow?”

Germanicus curled himself up at the bottom of my fanny pack. “It’s either that or outside. Honestly, I have no idea which is worse. Follow your gut.”

“My gut is saying I should have never left Kansas City.”

“That ship sailed about three boats ago, sister. You’re in the game, whether you want to play or not. The wind wraith doesn’t seem keen to hurt you. Maybe you should follow it.”

I looked back at the woods, wild and dangerous, and it wasn’t as if leaving helped us escape. The wind would follow. “Fine,” I finally said.

When I took a step toward it, the demon puffed away like smoke, only to reappear at a set of shimmering stairs down the glass hallway. Now that I was studying it, I noticed it had long silver moon hair, an hourglass figure, and petite features. So, maybe this wasn’t the source of the voice?

This game repeated every time I got close, until we finally made it up the winding staircase of a spire, ending in a circular room. My shoulders shook involuntarily as I took in the cerulean blue walls that upon closer examination were actually curved glass. The entire forest and rocky beach lay below, while the sea lapped at the shore as gently as a kitten lapped a bowl of cream.

The wind wraith disappeared entirely, her silver hair the last bright spot lingering before she was gone. Germanicus decided it was safe enough to crawl out of my fanny pack and perched on my shoulder. Still, he remained hidden in my hair as much as he could.

“Could you not twitch your tail so much?” I asked. “Or maybe go back to being a slug or that algae form. Then I’ll plunk you in a cup of seawater and leave you somewhere.”

He flicked his tongue in my ear, making me squeal. “You know what? I’m beat. You explore, okay? I’m going to take a long nap inside the fanny pack.” Clearly, he didn’t hear the whispers on the wind or the uneven refrains of a song, because he was able to fall asleep instantly.

I sighed and went to the balcony. The glass bottom cantilevered over the forest canopy, the drop dizzyingly steep. I couldn’t see the bottom of the forest floor through the leaves, and I knew we were higher up than I’d ever been on my own two legs.

This time, when the wind picked up, it whipped my hair and my clothing, tearing at me and only me. I could taste its hunger on my lips. It picked up so violently, I had to get down my hands and knees and crawl the last few feet back into the round room.

When I was safely back inside, there was a silvery nightgown arranged neatly on the bed. Had that been there before? Next to it appeared a bowl of honeyed figs, then a glass of red wine, and finally, a glass of water. I looked over my shoulder, an odd chill settling somewhere below my navel, but there was nothing there. Nothing, except for marks on the wall. My eyes furrowed and I walked closer, putting my finger to the gouges. It was stone and crystal, yet there were scratches. Deep, deep scratches. Ones marking the days.

In the morning, a wind wraith stood over me. To my enduring credit, I didn’t scream or pee the bed. I thought about it, though.

“Ah! When did you get here?” I asked, panting and rubbing my chest. “Wait.” I looked around, including down. I was wearing the silvery nightgown now. Worse, the figs and wine were gone. “When did I get here?”

The wraith shrugged and disappeared.

“In bed, I presume you mean,” Germanicus said, yawning, his head barely peeking out of the fanny pack. “You went to bed right after me. You did, however, get up half-way through the night and sleep-dance around the room. Have you always been a sleep-dancer and I never noticed or was that new?”

“No, that was new,” I said shortly, already hearing the strains of the broken song again. This palace of air and glass was going to make me go crazier than I already was. I went as close to the balcony as I dared, but it still hovered among the clouds.

“Let’s go find the shoes,” I said in my head to Germanicus, too afraid to let my voice be heard, lest it was carried on the wind.

The lizard, to his credit, nodded once, although he also looked outside, and I could practically hear him thinking how much cozier it was in the creepy castle than in the creepy woods.

It felt good to have a plan, even if we didn’t make it two steps into execution. A deep, rich ringing voice wafted in on a jasmine and citrus scented wind. I froze.

“Storm-song, how did you sleep?”

“Tell me you heard that,” I asked the lizard in my mind.

“I heard that,” he replied, snuggling deeper into his nest.

“I’m not a storm-song or whatever it was you called me,” I shouted out, more boldly than I felt.

That provoked a laugh.

“You’re the same girl I remember. You haven’t changed a bit.”

“I’m not a girl, and I don’t know who or what you are. Show yourself, or are you too cowardly?” I dared.

“Ilona! You’re provoking something!” Germanicus sputtered in my head.

“That’s the idea.”

Across the hall, mist rose from the floor and shot upwards, revealing itself to be a man. A man sculpted like a god, but that couldn’t be true, because the gods were gone. Enyo told me so. He held out his hand for me and was suddenly much closer and much more solid. Also, much, much larger than I anticipated.

Despite their transparent appearance, his hands appeared hardened and rough. I didn’t take them, choosing instead to study his face. His sable hair was shot through with silver and kept short around his ears. His eyes were a cold, shifting gray—a sky before a tornado. He looked sculpted by chaos, crafted through time, but it was his massive, bare chest and abdomen that made every cell in my body curl in response. I was in total fight or flight mode, and a few notes of fear bubbled up in my throat and nervously broke free.

The god-man raised an eyebrow. “Are you singing for me or for you, my little storm-song?”

“I…”

“Remember, I am not affected by your song, true and sweet as it is.”

I almost blurted out that I didn’t remember, I didn’t remember him at all, but I clamped my mouth shut instead. Give this clearly divine being more ammunition? Bad idea. But how was I supposed to fake knowing our past when I couldn’t even conjure his name?

The god-man smiled, but he showed no teeth, barely lifting the corners of his mouth before turning around and walking to the door-less entryway.

“Come, storm-song. I know you’ve missed this place. Otherwise you wouldn’t have returned.”

“I didn’t come here for you,” I told him, edging all of my words in steel. Clearly, I’d left for a reason. “I didn’t come at all, not by choice.”

The god-man turned his head at that. “No? You could have gone anywhere in those shoes, but you chose your destiny.”

I froze. “This isn’t what I meant. This isn’t my destiny.”

A flash of anger crossed his face. Had he honestly thought I’d meant to come here?

“You sure cried a storm when “Mother” came to take you away. Something about loving me forever?”

“I…” Blinking hard, I tried to absorb this new information. Germanicus, meanwhile, was no help, squeaking and quaking in my fanny pack, too afraid to peer out.

“Tell me, storm-song, how did you get away from her? Did you run or did she finally stop caring?” He narrowed his eyes, leaning forward, his hardened chest only inches from my heaving one. “I still smell Lethe on you. Perhaps that is the problem.”

I staggered back a step, but the god-man forcefully strode closer for each step I took, until I was pinned against the wall. The jasmine and citrus scent had an iron tang beneath it, earthy and altogether terrifying. So why was I getting aroused at his proximity? I felt the heat rising between my thighs.

Still, when he reached out to push back a red strand of my hair, I flinched, and it caused him to pause, inches from my cheek. I could see callouses lining the palms of his hands as if he drove wild horses or held the reins of the sun.

“You don’t remember anything about this place, do you?”

I was too off-kilter to answer.

He smiled then, a full smile that showed all of his brilliant white teeth, as white as a summer cloud over the Kansan prairie. “Do you want me to blow the rest of your forgetfulness away?” he asked, reaching up and stroking the curve of my cheek. “I could, you know. I control the winds. Even the gods themselves had to ask for my permission to blow heroes on their way across the water. One little puff and perhaps you would recall. All you have to do is ask.”

“I know who I am,” I said defiantly, turning my cheek out of his grasp. “And you presume too much.” I was still pressed against the wall, the god-man’s hands now on either side of my head as he leaned closer and surveyed me.

“You are as tempting as ever, my little storm-song. So utterly irresistible,” he murmured in my ear, making sure not to touch me again. His breath was a summer breeze on my neck, warm and delicious. I could feel my stomach tighten in response and I hated that I enjoyed the heat flooding my body.

“Did you enjoy staying in your old room?” he asked, pulling away and letting air flow between us. I nearly gasped at the sudden loss of his presence.

“How long will you keep me here?” I snapped instead of answering. I was not in control—of the situation, of my body, of my mind. And I didn’t have the faintest idea how to wrestle any back.

He arched a sable eyebrow. “You wish to leave?”

“I wish to not be a prisoner.”

He flung out his hand, and a violent winter wind erupted down the corridor, shriveling forest growth with frost until a clear path to the ocean appeared, blasted through by the sheer force of his will. And then? He turned his back to me and disappeared.

THIRTY-TWO

Thessaly

When I got back, Ava looked upset. I think. She was scowling with her arms crossed over her chest. The rodent sat on her shoulder with his arms crossed over his chest, too.

“We have to talk about boundaries,” she told me seriously, which I found odd. We talked about boundaries a lot. In fact, sometimes I felt like that was all we talked about. In my day, boundaries were for city lines and farms and gods’ domains. Boundaries were not about me leaving to attend to matters she already told me she didn’t want to know about.

“I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“I changed my mind.”

I crossed my arms, too. Three could play at that game. “Do you remember how you didn’t want me to sing to Boris?”

Ava sighed heavily. “Let me guess. You did.”

“I did.”

Ava pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “And?”

“He’s dead, so you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Her eyes shot open, and Tiberius chittered anxiously. “You killed him? Thessaly!”

“He got caught by the other necromancers. I think. The necromancer community is definitely not on the Council’s side anymore. They’re rogue. Boris wasn’t. My song stuck in his head got him killed when his brethren discovered it, but I am okay with that outcome, because he was evil. He disintegrated immediately upon death.”

“Is that normal?” Ava asked worriedly.

I shook my head. “No. His body was kept alive by taking the lives of others, so when he died, all his years caught up with him at once.”

“Okay. I guess that qualifies as evil.”

“Also, the necromancers are definitely killing people and forcing the subsequent shades to eat Nibiru poppies. Boris didn’t seem to know that until he caught them in the act.”

“Wonderful.”

“What you’re saying is actually the opposite of what you’re feeling, correct?”

Ava was back to pinching her nose, closing her eyes, and nodding. “Yes, very much the opposite.”

Despite the situation, I felt pride. “I knew it.”

“So, let me get this straight. The necromancers have gone rogue, most of them anyway, and they’re getting shades high with supernatural strength opium. Also, we lost our one spy on the inside.”

“Yes.”

“Does the girl gang plus Manu know anything?”

“I have not heard from them.”

“I guess I should go back through Boudica’s tomb to St. Louis and tell Mak. He’ll need to know about Boris and the necromancers, even if we have no new information about what those stupid death mages are actually doing.” She slammed a fist into her other hand and winced. She always forgot how much stronger she was with her divine soul.

A green curling vine began to grow upward between our feet. I pointed to it. “Ava, you’re doing something weird with your mother magic again.”

She furrowed her eyebrows and looked down. “That’s not me. Wait,” she paused, considering. “Nope, not me.”

I plucked a leaf off of the ever growing shrub, now sprouting white flowers. “Myrtle.”

Before Ava could say anything, I pulled up the plant by the roots and blood gushed from the hole. That confirmed it. “Definitely myrtle. Ava, your eyes are large, and they look like they are hurting you by the way they are popping out of your skull.”

“Yes, because blood doesn’t gush out of myrtle.”

“This happened to Aeneas. It’s a portent.”

“Not a good one, I take it,” said Ava, shifting her weight uncomfortably. “I was basically a wolf for a lot of the ancient Greek years. No clue.”

“Yes, Aeneas dug beneath a myrtle bush where a man had been betrayed and left to rot. A ghost came and told him to leave it be, a fellow Trojan fleeing the war, but Aeneas discovered his unburied corpse there and gave him proper funeral rites before leaving the cursed land.”

“Well great for Aeneas, but he and I don’t vibe. He’s the one that did Queen Dido so dirty she stabbed herself on a pyre.” Ava made a strange noise, gathering spittle in the base of her throat from the sounds of it, and spat on the land. “That’s what I have to say to Aeneas.”

“I’m not one hundred percent positive, but I’m pretty sure he drank from the river Lethe and wouldn’t understand what you’re saying, but if I see him in Nibiru, I’ll let him know.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “It’s for show. I don’t mean you have to actually give the message to Aeneas, oh never mind. I don’t know why I bother. Back to the bloody root. What do we do with it? Dig it up and look for corpses? That’s a felony where I’m from.”

“Go talk to Dido. I think she’s sending the portent.”

Exactly as I said it, a ghost appeared, sent by Queen Dido, no doubt. It couldn’t speak, not like Piero and the ghosts of Aradia, not out here in Scotland, away from our island’s strange, magical pull, but it beckoned.

“Definitely Dido,” I said. “Tiberius, after you both get to St. Louis, will you help Ava jump to Nibiru?”

“Can’t I do it on my own?” Ava said, looking with concern at the exhausted rodent. “Even if my body is human, I have all five parts of my soul intact.”

“I don’t know, and we don’t have time to run any tests.”

“I can do it,” the rodent said with pride and a little tail twitch.

“We should have been running experiments,” Ava said with regret.

“Yes, well, you went into heat more frequently than I realized mortal women did and were very occupied with Aurick and⁠—”

“Let’s go.”

“Okay.”

And with that, I flipped into the liminal space between the shore and the sea, and I left this realm for mine.

For Nibiru.

THIRTY-THREE

Ilona

Maybe I should have, but I didn’t leave.

The god-man had said so many things, piqued enough of my curiosity, my very hunger to know myself, that I couldn’t.

That night, I found a silver dress inlaid with pearls and rubies on my bed. Matching ruby earrings and a necklace sparkled next to it.

I didn’t put them on.

Instead, I walked downstairs in my torn and ragged clothes, the ones I had arrived in. My original shoes were at the bottom of the ocean and Hermes’s sandals were somewhere on this island, so I went barefoot. In the crystal room, I found a long banquet table covered in mouthwatering food on silver platters, complimented with jewel-toned wine.

“Hello?” I called.

The god-man did not appear.

“Is this some sort of weird power play?” I demanded. “Because I’m going to eat with or without you.” I plunked down and took a golden triangle of phyllo dough, fried to perfection, and bit into it. Salty cheeses oozed out, and I nearly moaned a little at how good it tasted.

“Those always were your favorite,” said the god-man, although I could not see him. I craned my neck everywhere, but he did not appear. So I ignored him as if he really wasn’t here.

I pulled a beef kebob on a skewer next. It tasted like pomegranate molasses and was sprinkled with salty feta and dill. Perfection. “Mm,” I said loudly, wondering if it was a smart move to provoke my sort-of jailor. I smacked my lips a few times. “What’s next? I had this really fantastic baklava ice cream once at a restaurant in Missouri. Lots of crunchy caramelized nuts and honey. How about that, wind boy?”

There was an odd gurgling noise—a laugh?—and a bowl of ice cream appeared before me with a silver spoon embedded in the top. It was already beginning to melt.

“Are you going to join me?” I asked. “Or just keep me here until I agree I’m in love with you? Because I know what Stockholm Syndrome is, and I’m not susceptible.” I wondered, though, if in fact I wasn’t the tiniest bit pre-disposed. What else would I call staying in a loveless marriage for so long? Fun?

“More for me,” I said when he didn’t appear, licking the spoon to get every last little drop. I took a guzzle of wine next, feeling completely unhinged. I had no idea what my next move was. Escape? To freaking where? “Hope this isn’t poisoned.” I jumped when he actually answered.

“I wouldn’t dare.”

Quickly finding my tongue, I retorted, “Why is that? Because I inspire fear in you?”

“You are fearsome, my little storm song, but no. I adore you too much for the messiness of poison. It’s really quite unpleasant to drink of the River Styx. You know, that’s how they killed Alexander of Macedon. I did not help, in case you were curious.”

I scraped the bowl of honeyed ice cream and let it linger on my tongue, ignoring the bit about Alexander the Great. “Adoration this early in the night. Impressive.”

“What else would you like? Worship? Reverence?” he asked, still not appearing.

“How about a face?”

“I have already revealed myself to you once.”

“How about a way home then?”

“I already told you to leave if you wanted.”

“But you didn’t exactly inspire confidence that you’d let me go easily. In fact, I’d say there was the littlest bit of an icy threat even.”

There was utter silence, and it almost felt like a sudden vacuum. Like all of the air had been sucked out of the room. I gasped for a moment, my own breath catching in my throat.

“Hello?” I called.

Long seconds stretched into minutes. “Fine. Be petulant.” I slipped a few choice morsels inside my fanny pack for Germanicus. “I’m going for a walk,” I called out to the air.

I made my way down the long hall, contemplating my options. Stay and be charming? Find the winged shoes and try to escape? Embrace my siren nature and dive into the sea? I shuddered at that last thought. I didn’t care what anyone told me about my true nature, the sea still terrified me.

I entered the atrium with the exit in sight, and heard something. Footsteps perhaps? Had the god-man come back? He seemed fairly mercurial, as flighty as his breezes.

But when I turned around, it wasn’t him. It was her. Enyo. She’d found me! The sisterhood was real.

“Ilona, there you are!” she whispered, shimmering into view as she removed the odd hat, just as she had in the hotel room in Djerba.

“Enyo! What are… How did you find me?”

She put her fingers to her lips and beckoned me to follow with a look of panic on her face. “The windstorms tipped us off. It wasn’t hard to figure out who was behind them.”

I studied the space around me, wondering if he was eavesdropping even now. Invisibility was not something I thought to expect when I imagined magic, and it was pretty disconcerting. “He’s kind of crazy. How did you get here?”

“Adrian is waiting in another boat off-shore. He couldn’t get any closer, but I was able to trick Aeolus’s wind sentries with my Helm.”

Aeolus? That was the god-man’s name? Master of winds…

“Ilona, seriously.” Enyo looked positively panicked. “We must go now.”

It was too late. His voice was suddenly everywhere, even while he seemed nowhere. It boomed and echoed around us. “Ah, daughter of Ares. Still wielding the Helm of Darkness, I see. You always were so tiresome.”

Enyo’s eyes narrowed, and her full armor flickered around her. “You do not scare me, Aeolus,” she said, but the tremble in her voice told me otherwise and that realization alone made my bravado disappear in an instant.

That was all it took to provoke him. He appeared in his full glory, waving his hand and sending winds that jolted me back a step but spun Enyo completely away from me, face first on the ground. She let out a cry, struggling to stand, bruised by not broken.

“I don’t care how enamored you are with her,” he said, thundering at Enyo. “The siren is mine. She always was. She’s just forgotten. I am here to help her remember, and I will wait as long as it takes. That’s what true love looks like, you war-mongerer.”

I stood shocked at his words. “I’m not yours, and I want to leave.”

Aeolus scoffed, his perfectly wavy hair rustling with an inner breeze that smelled slightly damp and dangerous, like a storm about to strike. “There is no one left in this world for you. None of those demigods could begin to understand our bond. You will come to accept this, and we will live in perfect harmony as we did before.”

“Perfect harmony?” I spat. “I saw the scratch marks in my room. I don’t think it was as perfect as you think.”

“You had nightmares. You always had nightmares. I held you as you thrashed. Let me do so again. I would cast this aspersion out in a second if I didn’t think you’d hate me more, although how you let a daughter of Ares convince you she cares about anything other than herself and war is beyond me. You were always smarter than that.”

“I only have nightmares about the times after I left here,” I said, my memories prickling at me. Yet, my mother still took me away. She knew something I did not.

Aelous dared to move closer, stalking as only a divine being would, forcing even Enyo to retreat a step, her back hunched over her sword and her fingers white around the hilt. “After you left, my little storm-song?”

“That doesn’t mean my time here was great,” I said, stumbling over my words.

“Sit,” Aeolus told us, smiling. Once again, this one didn’t reach his eyes. “Stay a while. I always offer Xenia to anyone that finds me. From Odysseus to even you, Daughter of Ares, you are my guest, and no one can claim I am a bad host.”

“By keeping us here against our will?” she returned, her face a lightning zag of anger.

“Ilona was given the chance to leave. She rejected it. And do you know why she rejected it?”

Enyo’s gaze shifted to me for a second, and I felt the need to defend myself, but Aelous wasn’t done.

“Because she knows who has been true in her life. She knows who loves her. The memory might be clouded by Lethe Water, but it’s still there, calling to her. She feels my thumbprint on her heart. As for you… I dare you to try to escape, Daughter of Ares.”

Despite her fear, Enyo refused to lower her gaze. “I am not as helpless as you believe. Your island is not the only one with secrets.”

Aeolus laughed at this, a deep, hissing laugh. The wind around us whipped up, my hair flapping in my face.

“Look out!” I screamed as a boat dropped inches from where we were standing. The hull cracked, and the sail toppled over.

“Was this your secret escape route?” Aeolus taunted, as a dazed Adrian tumbled over the side and landed with a thud next to us, his arms and legs a jumble caught within the thick ropes used to dock.

“Hey,” he said, trying and failing to give me one of his million dollar smiles.

With that, Aeolus clapped his hands, and the three of us were rudely picked up and whisked away by the wind, back to my old bedroom. “Enjoy your stay,” he called after us.

We landed in a heap, arms and legs entangled. In a panic, I put my hand to my waist. My fanny pack was still there.

“I am a man of the sea,” Adrian said, sitting up and rubbing a goose egg on his head. “I’m not used to so much air travel.” He looked around. “Was this your old bedroom?”

“I think it was more of a prison, but, yeah. I used to live here. I’m certain of it, even if the memories remain fluid and out of reach.”

“I assume they aren’t good memories.”

“I don’t know. I was safe here, but I don’t think I was happy. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been happy.” Enyo and Adrian stared at me, and for a second, I thought I had said something that made them mad. “I’ve enjoyed my time with you, though,” I added.

Both were smiling now, a look of shared recognition on their faces.

“Okay, what is it?” I said.

“You look different,” Adrian said.

“I do?”

“Yes, you’ve embraced your destiny.”

My face scrunched. “I guess I made a choice when I was with Calypso. I could’ve gone home, but I didn’t. I chose to continue the quest.”

“So, you believe you’re a siren. Truly believe it,” he asked.

I nodded. “It’s crazy, I know, but I also know it’s the truth.”

“That’s great,” Enyo said.

“I wouldn’t say that. I’m kind of mixed about being a demon.”

“Sure, but—” here, Enyo started mouthing words, and we all dropped our gaze to her lips. “That means you can get out of here.” She pointed all around, indicating Aeolus was probably listening through the windy corridor.

“How?”

“You’re a siren. All you need is a doorway or a shoreline or… any liminal space, really. Aeolus can’t stop you.”

I shook my head. That didn’t make any sense. Also, “Where would I go?” I mouthed back.

Adrian turned the charm to a thousand, even without using his voice. “You need to get back to Greece. Find Morana. Do you remember our friend from the restaurant at Ismarus?”

I pictured the woman with the shaved head and twisting snake and flower-vine tattoos. She had given me some seriously odd vibes, creepy even. “Yes, I do. I take it she’s not a travel agent, empowering women or however she put it?”

“She is a sort of travel agent, and she’s been known to empower women…” Adrian mouthed, but there wasn’t much conviction behind it.

Enyo waved a hand impatiently. “She’s a necromancer and has been helping us commune with Nibiru.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I must not be good at reading lips. I thought you said necromancer. Like a person who practices death magic?”

Enyo nodded, explaining exactly how Morona practiced her craft. “Besides, you shouldn’t say it like that,” she said. “Your kind come from the land of the dead.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but, really, how do you find a comeback to that?

Enyo continued, her emphatic gestures making up for her lack of voice. “She’s a friend to us and to the gods. She’ll guide you to the rest of our group who understand the good that returning the gods to our world would do. They have more divine implements and can help free us so we can go to Nibiru together.”

I stalled, not wanting to meet Morana on my own. Maybe it was the way Enyo had described her work, now that I knew she spoke to the dead. She helped them ‘figure out exactly where they belong’. It wasn’t like she made them dead. She only spoke to the dead. Or rose the recently dead. Or stuff like that. That was a necromancer’s thing. And meeting up with a friendly-ish necromancer couldn’t be worse than here.

Right?

My heart thudded against my ribs and I panicked. “I can’t go without you. Even if I knew how to travel through a doorway, which I don’t, I have no idea where to find her. There’s got to be some other way.”

The excitement on their faces waned, the realization dawning that I was too green for such a monumental task. “If only there was a way for us to go with you,” Adrian mouthed.

Germanicus finally decided it was his moment to shine. He poked his head out. “What are you guys talking about? How to escape?” He stuck out a little clawed paw. “I’m Ilona’s daemon.”

The shock on Enyo’s and Adrian’s face would have been funny at any other time. “You didn’t tell me you had a daemon,” Enyo mouthed, shushing him. “We could have used that to get to Atlantis all along! He was literally created to travel through the realms.”

“So he tells me. I didn’t realize he could take multiple passengers, though,” I said, slightly hurt that it wasn’t something unique to me.

“He can take Adrian and I!” Enyo continued, excited.

“What about me?” I asked.

Enyo smiled. “I keep telling you. Nibiru is your home. You can return any time you want.”

I looked at Germanicus. My tiny, fragile, scared lizard friend. “Can you really do that?”

He licked his eye and scratched his head. “It’s been a long time, and there’s two of them, and they aren’t archons, but… Yeah, I think I can do it.”

“Are you sure?”

His tongue darted in and out like a nervous tic. “Pretty sure.”

I didn’t like that response, but I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Then a cold wind whipped through the room. Aeolus was coming. He knew, and he wasn’t happy. He must have heard us despite our whispers. Or maybe his wind wraiths were really good at lip reading.

“We need to hurry,” I said, running to the doorway. “What do I do?”

Enyo and Adrian formed a circle around Germanicus, who had his eyes closed and his paws on their feet. “Think of home and follow me,” he said.

“What does that… Whoa!” I screamed, as the world dissipated around me, and I fell through the void.

Chapter Thirty-Four

San Francisco, California

The Earthquake

April, 1906

When I was twenty, I ran away from home.

We had been living in Kansas City, Missouri for as long as I could remember, although every once in a while I could swear I knew what it felt like to have my knees roughened by a stone floor of a cold basilica and could smell the sweet muskiness of frankincense and myrrh burning in a thurible. Or I recalled the exact way a body looked as it contorted from pus-filled black buboes under someone’s arms or how human flesh bubbled when burned. Those were fleeting glimpses, though, that usually when I hummed to myself, which I tried never to do.

There was a reason why my mother never let me out of her sight for long, but the answer to that reason was locked away with her. I tried to be good. I did.

She so desperately needed me and she had given up everything in life to be on this farm with me. Loud noises hurt her deeply. It was some neurological condition that the doctors never quite explained, but we took our hats and our handbags and thanked them all the same on the rare occasions we left our farmhouse and went into town. I tried to be good, I really did. Maybe if my mother allowed me out of the house alone more or simply acted as if she enjoyed my company, it would be different. I thought I would be doing us both a favor by leaving.

I still don’t know how she found me in San Francisco. There was something of the mystical in her, and I felt it in the way she moved through the world, watching as even flowers stretched taller in her presence and birds quieted as she neared. But I screamed at the top of my lungs when she appeared behind me as I drank in the damp air of the bay and held out my arms wide and closed my eyes and she demanded I return and she demanded I drink the water in her hands and I knew, I knew I could not. Not again. And the song-scream burst out of me and it rang so deep and so true that it cracked something in me and raised a prickle of memory and then more. Memories of other times I’d sang came back in bits and pieces, but it wasn’t enough to stop me. I could control it. I wouldn’t kill with my singing. But I had to escape. My own mother forced it on me, that horrid, sweet tasting water, but not before I knew one thing.

I was not always meant to forget. Once, I was supposed to remember. I’d just forgotten how.

THIRTY-FIVE

Thessaly

Queen Dido stood very still, not even her pearls quivering. Cat and Manu stood on either side of her, and everyone looked grim.

“I got your message,” I said, an unfamiliar stab of anxiety passing through me. I felt the urge to cloak myself in song.

The ghost Dido had sent in the bloody roots of the myrtle bush drifted away, reforming into a shade having done his queen’s duty. Dido nodded once.

“We know what the necromancers are doing, and it is worse than we could have imagined.”

“I can imagine some pretty terrible things,” I said. “Tell me what they are up to.”

Manu growled, his mage runes flickering on his shaved skull, even though he could no longer use them as a dead man. “Exactly what you’d think a death mage would do–be real dumb.”

Cat rolled her eyes. “I think we should give them a taste of their own medicine. I studied alchemy in my mortal life. I could mix something up to give the shades so that, when the necromancers attempt to commune again, they will receive a nasty surprise instead.”

“I’m okay with that,” Manu said.

Dido hushed them. “And it may be our best option, however it needs to be discussed with the Council first as it impacts the mortal realm, too.”

“First, tell me exactly what they are doing,” I demanded.

Dido speared me with a glance that could have launched a thousand ships as surely as Helen of Troy did. “The necromancers are using shades to commune with the gods locked away in Axis Mundi.”

“What?” She was right. I would not have imagined that.

“We do not know what information they are receiving, but they are determined to continue, even as we kill them off. It cannot be good, whatever it is. The gods are clearly desperate to regain access to our world.”

“No, it can’t be good,” I said. “Because the necromancers just killed their leader Boris for not being on board with the plan. They’re killing mortals, making them into shades, and sending them straight to the poppy fields to eat the pods and connect to the gods.”

“That requires high level coordination to formulate that plan. This is not a disjointed band of necromancers,” Cat said.

“I agree,” said Manu. “If it wasn’t Boris, they must have a shadow council leader who is directing them.” His head glowed brighter. “That’s definitely worse. They probably used Boris to keep the Council of Beings off their necks and to stay apprised of the Council’s doings. He must have really pissed them off to force their hand and kill him. It risks everything.”

“I think that was my fault, actually,” I said.

“You, Thessaly?” Cat asked, already looking impressed.

“I put a song compulsion in his brain to keep me apprised of his doings. From what I can tell, the other necromancers found it and set a death timer on him when I came back to check on what he’d found. He died instantly.”

“You gave him an ear worm. Good for you,” said Manu.

“That’s what I told Ava.”

“Can we get back to tricking necromancers?” Cat complained. “I’ve already got a few ideas. We could make the poppies like a Trojan horse, excuse the reference, Dido. Put something really nasty in there for them to consume. Instead of communing with the gods, we’ll make them hallucinate women ruling the world. That ought to scare them good.”

Dido tilted her head, considering, while Manu asked, a little petulantly, “Is that our only option?”

“Do you hear that?” I asked, my head cocked to the side, my hand held up for silence. It had stopped and started, stopped and started.

“What is it?” Cat asked, turning her dagger outward, looking everywhere for a threat. A few shades lingered, but with the look on Cat’s face, they quickly drifted away.

I said nothing, still straining to hear the notes, but I didn’t hear it again. “I thought I heard something. Something impossible.”

“What does that mean?”

“I found a siren who should not exist. She can sing and use her powers in the mortal world.”

“How strange. How did she escape the curse?”

I shook my head. “That is the question. Well that, and why did she seem like she had no idea who or what she was?”

“She didn’t?” Dido asked.

“She was singing… pop music, I think it’s called. In Djerba. With Enyo, daughter of Ares. I followed the song and tried to get her to come back with me, but she was frightened. Enyo has already poisoned her against me, and I have no idea how, when she hadn’t even been aware of me until that moment.”

“It sounds like Enyo has learned to be persuasive and more charming than the last time we ran into her. This new siren clearly trusts her.” Dido shook her head. “I don’t like it. I don’t see how it all fits together.”

“There’s no evidence that it does fit together,” I said. “Many things happen all over the world at the same time that may seem connected, but are not.”

“Not in our world,” Manu said grimly. “I don’t like it either.”

“Has the song stopped?” Dido asked.

“It was only a note, not a whole song.”

“What do you plan to do next?” Dido asked.

“I will stick around Nibiru and listen. Perhaps more of the song will be sung. In the meantime, I plan to visit my family.”

Besides needing to negate my own curse, I wondered if Grandmother may have useful information about this siren. Grandmother was the oldest siren I knew. The oldest one in our village. If anyone would know anything, it would be her.

Acantha’s scowl was firmly in place.

“Back again, cursed one?”

“I return every week,” I told her seriously. Why did she always ask this?

Grandmother was stirring fish bone soup over the fire, her chiton looking frayed at the edges. “Hello, Tess,” she said without turning around, as if me coming home was the most normal thing in the world. It comforted me in some small measure, even though there wasn’t much comfort to be had in what was happening.

Quickly, I filled them in on the necromancer situation and the rogue siren. Acantha stared open-mouthed for once. If Grandmother was shocked, she didn’t show it.

“Have you heard of a siren being born outside of the rites?” I asked, hopeful.

“No, my dear. It is impossible. Are you sure she was a siren?”

“She sang true. Truer than even I can. It wasn’t sustained, at least, not for very long, but there were true notes here and there.”

“That is… I hate the word impossible, but I cannot think of another one.”

As if on cue, the note sounded again. “There. Did you hear that?” I asked.

Acantha tilted her head, straining to hear, but she clearly could not. Only Grandmother seemed to react, moving from wonder to fear. Her pupils dilated and then constricted.

“Thessaly, tell me exactly. What did you hear?” Acantha demanded.

“A note. Pure and strong. A true siren.”

Grandmother staggered to her bone rocking chair, sitting and beginning to rock. Despite Ava’s new additions to what were once bone huts in a dry land, Grandmother had insisted on keeping the split skull bowls and this chair. I had never seen her look old until this moment. “I never… it was a myth.”

Acantha gave her a sharp look. “What was, Mother?”

Another ringing note stained the surface of the air again. Only Grandmother and I looked toward its source. Grandmother nodded at me, and I could tell it infuriated Acantha to be left out, but my mother dared not say a word. Not with Grandmother looking so frail, yet so fierce in her conviction.

“I can’t tell you more than this: the ability to sing a true note is the first myth of sirens.”

“A true note?”

Grandmother got to her feet, almost… hobbling. She looked disturbed, her eyes flickering back and forth as if searching for the siren—and answers. “I am old, but you must follow it. Go, Thessaly. Find her. See if this impossible siren can sing true.”

“How will I know?”

“You knew just now, same as I did. You will know it in your bones.”

I stared plaintively at her, apprehension biting at my heels. I felt the urge to run. I knew it was her, that siren I had discovered. “What if she can? What is a true note?”

Grandmother sat down hard and rocked harder. Creak, rock. Creak, rock. She twisted her hands together. “A true note was rumored to be able to do all sorts of things.”

“Tell me, so I know what I’m up against, Grandmother. Please,” I begged, going to my knees and holding her gnarled fingers between mine. Finally, her chair fell silent as she allowed me to grasp her cold hands.

“My beautiful Tess. I couldn’t. The rumors of the true note were just that. Rumors. No one had ever actually heard it, so no one knows its power. It could create true love, some said. It could build up or it could tear down. It might do nothing but give hope. But is hope not the truest thing of all?”

Acantha scowled, snorting in derision, but this time Grandmother did not snap at her to stop being so prickly. She squeezed my hands back, her eyes never leaving my face. “Find her. Bring her home. I could die cursed and happy if I heard a true note in its purest form.”

“Then I won’t do that,” I said plainly.

“Don’t be petulant, Tess. It’s unbecoming of a siren.”

“I’m going to break the curse. Somehow. You don’t need to hear anything truer than that.”

Grandmother only rocked in response. Creak, rock. Creak, rock.

I feathered a kiss on her forehead, feeling her skin cool and crepey beneath my lips. It seemed as though she had aged centuries in mere seconds. I could not bear to look at her, so I said, “Goodbye, Acantha,” and I did not wait for her non-reply.

I dove into the depths of Nibiru, and I followed that damn song.

THIRTY-SIX

Ilona

I landed on my butt. It hurt, but at least I wasn’t falling through the void screaming my head off anymore. To my left was Enyo, Adrian and… Germanicus?

Somehow, he was a slug again. I rushed over and cradled him in my arms, telling him how much I loved him and how great a daemon he was. How brave and how strong.

That’s when I noticed the figures in the distance. They were what people called ghosts in my world, and then they typically fainted rather dramatically at their sight.

Except, I couldn’t be bothered. Not until I knew Germanicus was okay. I put a finger on his slimy head, rubbing a little circle around and around. “Please, Germanicus. Tell me you’re okay. Flop over. Slime on me. Do something!”

“Ugh.”

“Yes! There you go! Proof of life. Perfect. Can you move? Do you want me to find you a glass of water?”

“Just let me sleep,” came his garbled response. “I should… recover. Here in Nibiru.”

“Nibiru,” I breathed. So it was true. We were in another realm of existence.

“Welcome to Atlantis,” Enyo said as I tucked Germanicus in to sleep in my pouch. “Most entries aren’t all that dramatic. Trust me.”

“False,” gasped Adrian, his hair actually askew and sticking up all over the place. “It’s always dramatic, one way or another.”

“And this is why the war pantheon is the best. We can handle a little turbulence.”

They bickered about what was good and what was bad turbulence while I tried to drink in the sight of another dimension.

Ghostly ships rocked in the harbor, moored forever, and forever beating gently against the misty shore, boats on the current of the afterlife. A thick mist hugged the ground, making it hard to tell where the sea ended and the land began. Statues of the Olympian gods stood in a semi-circle a little way inland, twelve of them reaching out toward the land, only one looking toward the sea. He held a stone trident in one hand, identifying himself as Poseidon. Atlantis was, after all, his son’s city. It made sense he was the god to welcome us to it.

Enyo went to her father’s thickly bearded statue, recognizable by the similar cuirass and full armor, lofting a spear in one hand and a round shield in another. She touched her forehead and bowed. Adrian went to his father’s, repeating the gesture. I watched, a sense of awe and profound dread enveloping me in a chill. Atlantis.

Massive fountains that towered twenty feet in the air still poured water. A temple of white marble with gold and pink veins sat in the center of the statues. Braziers with a neon green ghost flame flickering in each one lit the scene. Shades still came to their gods and knelt, offerings upon their arms. It was very awe-inspiring.

“Are you ready?” Enyo asked.

I shrugged, still processing the fact that Aeolus, demigod of wind, was obsessed with me. Or that Atlantis existed and that I was long overdue for my AARP card. I put my hand over my pouch where Germanicus slept. “Does it matter? We’re here.”

“You’re about to change the fate of the sirens for good. You can be a little excited,” Adrian said, throwing me his signature wink as he attempted to smooth his hair, slicking it back every two seconds.

I swallowed uneasily in return.

Figures roamed the city, carrying scrolls, clay jugs, and all sorts of daily life objects, as if they were actually going about daily life. Huge mosaics lined the walkways under our feet, and I had the urge to bend down and grab a gold coin that had clearly been dropped and forgotten.

“What is going on?” I asked in a hushed voice. In any other context, the man walking in white robes next to me, conversing and loudly gesticulating to his companion, would be called a ghost. I felt that should scare me, but I also found I wasn’t as easily scared as even a week ago. More life had happened in this last week than it had in forty mortal years of existence.

“These are shades. Our dead. After death, every shade must drink from the river Lethe and forget their previous life. Some, however, don’t. Some decline or in some way escape this final fate. It’s usually only cowards or those afraid of their crimes, but many scholars were chosen to stay in the library of Alexandria and continue their studies, while a few residents of Atlantis were also allowed to retain their memories.”

Despite my fatigue, another memory stirred in my mind. “Lethe. Aeolus said I smelled of Lethe still. What does that mean?”

Enyo did that thing where she and Adrian had an entire conversation in a single glance. It completely infuriated me at that moment. Germanicus had suffered for them! I deserved to know everything. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Adrian asked in that jovial voice.

“That,” I said, pointing at him. “Act like I’m not capable of handling the truth or worse—that you don’t even want to tell me the truth.”

“Fine,” said Enyo. “You’re right. You deserve the truth. Your memories are coming back, yes?”

I thought of the dreams I’d been having, of Salem and the Great Fire and so many more. “How did you know? I don’t even know… well, yes. I thought they were dreams at first, but… I think they are memories.”

Enyo began walking toward the temple, climbing the pink-veined steps one at a time. Jutting out over us were pediment sculptures of gods fighting monsters, simply stories from myths I would have once said. Until I became a myth.

“You had a caretaker,” she said. “Her name is Mnemosyne, and she is the Titaness of memory. She used to dose you with waters from the Lethe River to keep you… pliable. We told you on the Orpheus she was poisoning you, to keep you ignorant. We have not lied, we just didn’t want to inundate you with too much too soon.”

“Why?”

“Because she was selfish. Watching over a little siren was never in her wheelhouse, and she wasn’t happy about it. She dosed you deeply whenever you asked too many questions, got to be too… much. Until one day, she stopped altogether and disappeared.”

I thought of all the special teas I’d had growing up. It was the one time my mother wasn’t distant with me. It was the one time she was reliably there. We’d sit at the kitchen table and dunk a biscuit or cookie or biscotti, and she’d say, “Drink up, Ilona. We don’t know what fate has in store for us, but we can store fate in us.”

I thought again about the police officer coming to my house to tell me they had found my mother’s car in the Missouri River near Columbia, hours from Kansas City. I recalled how they said they hadn’t found her body, but she was presumed dead. How they told me to begin to grieve. To not hope for the best.

“My mother didn’t randomly stop. She died. Remember?”

Adrian shifted uncomfortably, but Enyo didn’t back down from my accusing gaze. “She was not your mother. She was your caretaker. I’m not exactly sure what happened before she got you or how Aeolus is involved, but she didn’t die. She can’t be killed. She’s immortal. She simply left you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. Mother-daughter relationships were always complicated. Ours was clearly more complex than most, but to think she would just abandon me…

“We’re sorry, Ilona,” Adrian added. “And we’re sorry we knew all about you before we even met you. My father told me where to find you, and so I did.”

“Once again, why?”

“He wants you brought into the light. He wants you to regain your memories. In exchange for our help putting the realms back as they were and freeing the gods, he will end the sirens’ curse. He wants the sirens’ curse to end, but he can’t do that where he is. He’s locked up, and it’s been centuries. You, however, are the key. Whatever the gods did before, I believe they’ve done their time just as he believes the sirens have done theirs. It’s now up to us to free them.”

I stared at them, trying to make sense of it all. How could I have lived for so long without remembering? What else had I forgotten? “When you told me the truth, or what I thought was the truth on that boat, on the Orpheus, I was ready to help bring the gods back. But what else aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing,” Enyo said quickly. “We’ve spoken the truth as much as your Lethe-soaked brain would allow us. You thought your mom was dead, and so we stuck to that narrative while adding as much new information as we thought you could take. She was poisoning you with Lethe water, and she did despise you.”

Adrian chimed in here, looking thoughtful. “The muses, her children, are the natural enemies of sirens, so I’ve always wondered why or how she became your caretaker. Doesn’t make any sense.”

For a second, I wondered about the nine board members, all women, all oddly named, all oddly dressed, all oddly out for me. They couldn’t be… could they? I shook my head, flinging out the troublesome board and focusing on the troublesome people in front of me. “I’m not asking about falsehoods. I’m asking about omissions. Anything else I should know?”

Enyo shrugged. “Yes, we had not told you everything. Your mind never would’ve comprehended it if we did. But it will, and there is no advantage to us to lie. Your memories are already coming back. You would know soon enough if we were not telling the truth.”

I consider this. She had a point. Why lie to someone who would eventually know that you were lying?

“I thought you might confide in me soon enough,” Enyo continued, “and I hated to pry. You’d been through a lot. Honestly, on the scale of telling the whole truth and keeping your life’s secrets from you, all we did was not mention that we knew your ‘mother’ and then that she was actually alive and well. Would you have believed us had we told her she was the Titaness of memory and that she kind of hates you?”

“No,” I answered honestly.

“We told you what we could—that Poseidon asked us to find you so you could help us find his trident—and already, that must have sounded crazy to you.”

I glared at them, feeling strangely empowered ever since going to Aeolus’s fortress and coming out the other side. “Fine. Then what are we going to do next? How did Poseidon say I was supposed to find his trident?”

Enyo’s eyes gleamed in the ghostly green of the brazier. “You’re going to sing, Ilona. You’re going to sing with every fiber of your being.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

Ilona

I stared at Enyo and Adrian, who didn’t look fazed at all to be standing in a different realm of existence with dead people in a lost city—arguably the most famous lost city in the history of the world—asking me to simply sing a song.

“I’m just supposed to belt out the Top 40? Or does the trident prefer classical music? What exactly is classical music to a trident of Poseidon?” I quipped. “Surely not Mozart.”

“It can be Row, Row, Row Your Boat, if you’d like. You simply need to sing with your heart. You’re an uncursed siren; you have the true song inside of you. That will be enough,” said Adrian.

I cracked my knuckles nervously and looked around the temple. Niches carved into the walls still contained their statues and were painted in brilliant, neon colors, a sharp contrast to the mist of Nibiru.

“I sing a true song, and we get the trident.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll use it to help prop this pillar.”

“That’s the hope.”

I cleared my throat and let out a note—only for Enyo to clap a hand over my mouth, her eyes large and scared as they darted over my shoulder, completely creeping me out.

“What? What is it?” I demanded.

“Not yet, not here. We have to get to the pillar first. Once the trident comes to the sound of your voice, we’ll need to move quickly to prop it up.”

“Why does it seem like you’re expecting to see monsters crawl out of the corners?” I laughed nervously, the sound bouncing off the ruined temple walls.

“Don’t worry about monsters. Nibiru is the demon realm, but I am the daughter of Ares. I will worry about all things scary.”

“And I’ll worry about how our hair looks when we meet the gods,” said Adrian, winking to break up the tension. His hair was back to perfection, so I believed him. I bet it’d been his hair tonic that had fixed my burnt ends on the cruise ship, but now was not the time to dwell.

“So there are definitely monsters,” I said slowly.

“There are definitely monsters. Some even look and act human.”

“Like me?” I asked.

Enyo shrugged. “Yes. Like you.”

Atlantis got smaller and more archaic the deeper we traveled. It also got harder to walk through the mist, now thickly pooling at our ankles like oil.

Bioluminescent algae bloomed along the wreckage, the flotsam and jetsam of a sunken Atlantis. Silt and rimes of salt grew on every surface. There were drachmas, gold coins the size of hubcaps, and bleached out skeletons of old coral reefs. Still, we trudged.

“Is that…” A large, stone-gray pillar lay on its side like a lightning-cracked log covered in desiccated remains of morning glory flowers that had once opened at dawn to greet the day, but were now brittle; they broke with a whisper of a fingertip, still coiled around the marble, held in place by barnacles and coral.

Enyo touched one of the heart-shaped leaves, only to watch it crumble into ash. She curled her fingers into a fist, a savage look on her face. She no longer reminded me of a CEO boss babe, but a true demigoddess—one that could fight to the death if it came to it. “This is the Eastern-most Pillar, once held aloft by Hyperion, god of Dawn. It was luminous with the light of morning itself, pulsing with golden rays. Now it has fallen, along with the gods.”

It felt completely dead now as my hand hovered over it. I could not picture how a simple trident, albeit one with god magic, could do anything other than snap right in half once wedged under it.

“You can raise it. We will help, but you are the one we were told to find. You are the only one who has the power to do it. I don’t claim to understand what the gods say, I only do as I am commanded.” She put her fist over her heart. “Will you help me now and find your true purpose?”

Goosebumps prickled my arms. She should really consider leading armies on battlefields with that sort of speechifying. I guessed it came naturally. “I am ready.”

And I was ready to meet my true destiny. Finally, after centuries of nightmares, what I did and who I was would matter to someone. I almost wished my mother was here to watch. While I felt a certain validation for our frosty relationship, a small part of me still wanted to prove myself to her, prove that I was worthy of love.

“Then sing, siren. Sing.”

“I will sing,” I said, my heart soaring. This was my purpose.

My first note, an F sharp, hit awkwardly. I went up the scale, stopping to get my bearings. Enyo and Adrian nodded encouragingly, but their bodies were wary, attuned like a warrior’s, constantly on the lookout for threats. I didn’t hear anything from Germanicus, clearly still asleep and recovering, but I was still comforted by his presence.

I sang no song I knew. I simply sang, my voice testing the air, but when I hit the notes that sounded true, I felt it deep in my bones, rattling even the teeth in my mouth. It was a lot harder to hit those true notes than I thought, and much easier to sing simply, as a siren, as I did in Djerba.

My lungs were bursting. My ribs pierced my chest as if trying to puncture my skin. I had never sang so fully for so long, but it was working. Something, at least, was working, and it wasn’t just my teeth rattling anymore. The ground beneath us began to shake.

I thought I saw a city through the mist, flickering in and out. It couldn’t have been… it was so divinely perfect, a city of gods. Axis Mundi? I thought we were supposed to be finding a trident! Could I be powerful enough to prop open the pillar on my own?

I kept pushing harder, forcing my voice through my ragged vocal cords, feeling a kinship and connection to that wavering image. The pillar seemed to ache, pulsing very faintly beneath my hands as if trying to wake up. I wanted so desperately to be the one to help it. To be welcomed with open arms. And yes, to belong somewhere and not just anywhere. The world of myths and gods. It seemed almost too good to be true.

A thunk to my left caught my attention. Something had dropped into the lintel of a small niche next to the pillar. “What is that?” I asked.

“A place for the faithful to gather and sleep,” Enyo answered. “When the pillars were upright, this used to be a holy place. Keep singing.”

“No, not the building. That thing.”

Her head turned, and a hiss rent the air. Shades scattered, and I got a good look at what had arrived. It was the siren with electric blue hair and feral eyes. She looked more unhinged than before, like my song provoked her. I faltered, my voice cracking and breaking, the magic reacting to my fear.

Enyo panicked, coming up to grab my shoulders and shake me. “Don’t worry about the siren,” she ordered. “Keep singing. We’re almost there. It’s close.”

“I am worrying about the siren!” I said as she bared her teeth, exactly like a feral creature would, I wanted to point out. Did sirens get rabies?

“I’ll worry about the siren. You worry about the song.”

Haltingly, I trusted Enyo and began again.

Enyo engaged the siren head-on. I could hear the clang of her sword and could feel the siren’s attention diverted so she didn’t lose an arm or a head. How could she keep singing and still battle?

“Sister,” she cried out, and I faltered again at that word, so powerful and foreign. I had never had a sister before, never even had a proper family. “You do not belong with these two. You belong with me and your fellow sirens. We are your home.”

“Do not listen to her,” Adrian said. “Keep singing. We will protect you.”

He began chanting and swirling his hands in opposite directions, as if calling up a whirlpool. What he actually called up was much, much worse. The roar of a wild beast resounded through the temple, rattling the stone temple and terrifying the shades. Okay, and me, too.

I couldn’t imagine what could make such a noise, and honestly, when I saw it, I still could barely imagine it. My brain felt very human, taking its sweet time to process the monster before me, and I still couldn’t come up with a name. Something from the deep, cold, dark, and scary parts of the ocean that had never been mapped before.

The sea beast spilled over the top of the temple, its ropy, sucker-filled arms undulating like plasma in a lava lamp. The siren screeched and began singing louder, somehow, as if this creature unnerved her as well.

Instantly, the beast recoiled, and even I could feel the power of her voice, her counter-song as powerful as mine, if not quite as true. More like how I sang in Djerba when I healed that man. After, of course, I knocked the whole town out and did all the damage in the first place.

Anger filled my chest. I would not let her take this from me, this purpose I’d finally found. I would sing. I let out a flurry of notes that rang up and down the scales, pouring a lifetime of hurt into my voice, its truest version of itself.

The siren’s eyes grew wide. Her own song faltered. She may have been an uncursed siren, but she didn’t have my voice.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Thessaly

I could not stop her with my voice alone.

Somehow, this siren, who hadn’t even known who she was mere days ago, was more powerful than Grandmother. I could not understand it. I even heard bits of the mythical true song. Grandmother said I would know it in my bones, and she was right.

I had to bring her to Grandmother, but that was impossible. I couldn’t stop her from singing. And the rumors were true about the power of the true notes. They were definitely doing something to the pillar. It seemed to almost be healing itself. If this impossible siren could figure out how to string them together and create a song…

I physically shuddered at the possibility.

Enyo attacked, flying at me with a sword, her face twisted in rage. She loved her stupid swords. Blood roared in my ears as loudly as the roiling ocean as I grappled with her, parrying her blows with blasts of water magic and singing compulsions, which meant I had to stop the dueling duet with the powerful siren to focus on not getting a blade to the gut. I kicked her in the chest, and as she stumbled backwards, I invaded her senses with water, trying to drown her from the inside out. I heard her gurgle, grabbing at her chest plate. No doubt it was a gift from her father Ares. Well, even a magical god-implement was no match for me.

“Sister,” I cried out again. The siren might not realize what she was doing. She might still be capable of reasoning. I could get through to her, if I could only speak to her without that gods-forsaken daughter of Ares always around! The siren would understand; the gods could never return. I would live a cursed life to see it so. And she should, too.

I forgot about the other one. The male. He smelled like the sea, of salt and kelp and the rot of decomposing fish. Poseidon’s offspring. Anger roiled in my veins thinking of my own prince of Poseidon. This one was calling something from the far depths of Nibiru. I felt the beast’s cold heart beating in rhythm to its long strokes.

And then, a creature exploded from the waters still circulating through Atlantis.

I knew the oceans of the world, despite having been chained to my rock for centuries, and I knew that this creature had not roamed the earth since before Atlantis was shaken to the ground. Since before man rose the first pyramid from the dusty plateau of the desert. Since long before the Archon Wars. How had a mere son of Poseidon summoned it? He looked worthless with his golden smile and bushy head, yet he had awakened the beast.

The kraken snapped its sharp-beaked maw and whipped its tentacled arms, its angry eyes two black orbs of death. Like some cross between a giant squid and an octopus, it flooded my already, too-cold veins with pure ice.

In the face of such ancient power, I only had one form of defense. My voice. I screeched, and the kraken shrank back at the ear splitting sound, giving me an opening. All around me stood the ruins of an ancient town. Bronze spears from statues long toppled, wooden supports buried in the rubble, shards of marble as long as my body.

I used it all.

In two steps, I stood on top of the beast, my song closer and more powerful now, disorienting its every sense. I pinned one tentacle to the ground and speared another. Then another. The beast shrieked and thrashed, but it couldn’t move.

For now.

My sister-siren was still singing, her true notes coming more frequently as if she was getting the hang of it. Axis Mundi shimmered above us, a myriad of gods watching the scene, ready to join the battle the moment the passage reopened. Most stood in their full glory, ready to terrify and overwhelm. I couldn’t let that happen, but how? It was three against one. Four, if you counted the kraken.

“The cavalry has arrived!” something chittered behind me.

“Tiberius?”

The chipmunk landed in a ta-da pose, his arms spread wide. Then, all his energy and bravado left him. “Sleep now,” he said, curling up into a ball.

Behind him stood Ava, the one I called my true family. My goddess arrived in a whirlpool of water magic and chipmunk fur. She was breathing heavily, but her inner fire burned bright. I could see it in her eyes, and my hope rose.

“How did you find us?” I managed to ask.

“There are only four pillars,” she said, analyzing the situation. “And this one was lighting up like crazy. I swear I smelled something ancient.”

I jerked my head at the kraken, still thrashing from where I’d pinned it. It was only a matter of time before it got loose.

“Ah, I haven’t seen that in a while.” Ava cracked her knuckles. “You talk to the siren. I’ll take care of the beast.”

“And the demigods,” I said, pointing out Enyo and Adrian.

Ava rolled her eyes. “These two are real pains in the butt.”

“The arms too,” I said, rubbing the place where Enyo’s sword had left a mark.

“That doesn’t mean literally have a pain… You know, what. Not the time. I’ll explain later. Go see your sister.”

“Okay, but she doesn’t want to talk to me. She wants to sing, and she has the true song of sirens.”

“The what?”

“The true song, the most powerful of songs. I’m beginning to think it can even repair and prop up the pillar.”

Ava had the same reaction as me to that thought. She shuddered. “You’re her real sister. You know what it’s like to want to belong. Tell her the truth.”

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“We’ll knock her over the head,” Ava said. Then she turned, ready to do ungodly things to the kraken, who was already whimpering in the face of an angry water goddess more ancient than it and forcing Adrian and Enyo to try not to drown.

With the other three occupied, I finally got a chance to speak directly to the singing siren without interference. We stood eye to eye, our hair crackling. She continued to hit notes that rattled my bones, the energy pulsating off of her, but the melody didn’t attack me. It was a healing song, a song of renewal, and it was aimed at the pillar. Already, Axis Mundi looked clearer, as if it were getting closer. More gods had gathered, some from pantheons I didn’t even recognize. Probably more ancient than our written and oral histories.

I studied her. She looked more blue than the last time I saw her. Less human. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? I couldn’t tell.

“Sister,” I began. I knew the word affected her, I could smell the change on her skin when I said it. “You do not have to do this.”

“I do. It is my destiny,” she said. “I must create a world where I belong.”

“But that world already exists. I am a part of it. Now that you know who you are, I will show it to you.”

She paused for a moment, her song dying in her throat. “You do not understand what it means to be ostracized, to never fit in. To never feel at home. You grew up with sirens.”

I laughed at that, a dark, barking laugh. “I am the reason all sirens, except for you, are cursed, the reason they have all lost their songs. Now, the resentment they carry for me has become their most precious possession. Their hatred for me beats in their bodies where our songs used to be. I know what it means to be ostracized. But I know what it means to find your family, too, and you could find it with me. With Ava. With others who know the horrors of the gods and know why we must keep them at bay. Who fought long, bloody wars to get rid of them.”

The impossible siren stared at me, long and hard. I could tell she was measuring my words, trying to make her decision.

“You cannot bring back the gods,” I added. “They will not make a world where you belong. They will destroy everything and remake it for themselves. Whatever those two have promised is full of false hope.”

She took a deep breath. For a second, I thought she was sighing, giving up her dream, but then opened her mouth and began to sing. The whole realm shook as she strung true note after true note, gaining more comfort and power with her voice.

“Ava,” I screamed in a panic. “I need you now!”

No response.

“Ava! Where are you? Help me before the world ends.”

Then I saw her. Miraculously, she appeared directly behind the singing siren, holding the Helm of Darkness. “Whew! That thing is heavier than it looks. Also, it smells of carnage,” she said.

My siren sister turned, her eyes wide with surprise to find the goddess so close. Ava gave her a sad look and then bonked her over the head with the Helm. She crumpled to the ground in a heap, her mouth closed and her voice silent. With the spell broken, the pillar of Hyperion settled back to the ground, and the image of Axis Mundi faded away like cold mist at dawn.

“You were being literal when you said knock her over the head?” I asked.

Ava smiled. “For once, I was, my precious little demon.”

“Okay.”

THIRTY-NINE

Ilona

Something hot woke me. It seeped into my bones like a sauna and invaded my senses. My body felt like it had been hit by a semi truck, but the heat made me begin to sweat, to pant, to moan.

“She’s waking,” a strange male voice said. “Not that I was ever one for the Gordian Knot, but perhaps we should put one on her, just in case.”

Another voice, blurry but familiar, vibrated in my chest. Ava. The supposed goddess. “In my experience, the Knot only breeds resentment. We don’t want to alienate her any further.”

“She committed enough crimes to throw away the sword that would break the Gordian Knot, my love,” came the response, gentle, yet firm. “Perhaps a little caution would be prudent?”

It felt like he was talking about me, but that wasn’t possible. I hadn’t committed any crimes. No, they had. They had stolen my destiny from me! They had taken the one thing I wanted more than anything in my thousand-year life. A purpose. A place to belong. They had blown them away as easily as blowing dandelion seeds into the wind.

The knife of despair twisted deeper in my gut, and I could feel tears prickling in the corners of my eyes. I knew I would never be the same.

Vague forms began to take shape. A man and a woman in front of me, and many more behind them. A woman with short, silver hair perfectly curled in a bob. A very hairy man. A frizzy-haired woman angled protectively under his arm. A town square with a restaurant and outdoor seating under twinkly lights and a fountain. We were back on Earth. An Italian island.

“Mak will be here soon with his archon dagger. We’ll let him decide what to do with her.” Ava approached me much more cautiously than I deserved after seeing what she could do with true god-power. Worse, she had what looked like pity in her eyes. I didn’t need her pity, and I certainly didn’t want it. “Is Ilona your name?” she asked.

I stared defiantly through my gag and binds. Under my breath, I began to hum, hoping I could stun her long enough to break free and run for the sea or maybe a tiny earthquake. I just needed some sort of distraction. She’d probably be able to bring me right back, but it was worth a try.

“Don’t,” the feral siren said, already sensing my song bubbling up in my throat.

I glared at her next. She looked about how I felt, hollow and sad. Dark circles bloomed under her eyes, and her bright hair sat limp and knotted.

Ava sighed. “Take off her gag.”

“Ava!” the man exclaimed.

“Aurick!” she said back. “We only want to talk with her, and she can’t very well do that while gagged.”

She cupped his cheek with her hand, and I could already sense they were lovers. Of course, this goddess had someone. She probably had a million devoted followers at her beck and call, and she clearly didn’t relish the idea of competition. Selfish, just as Enyo had said.

She addressed me again. “Ilona, I’m going to take off your gag. If you start to sing, we’ll have to put it back on, and it’s magically enhanced. It isn’t hurting you, but I know it can’t be fun. I’d rather talk to you, woman to woman.”

With one last glare, I slumped back and nodded. At least I could call for Germanicus and plead my case.

Ava reached up, her hands glowing as she untied the cloth around my face and let it drop to the ground. “Are you okay?” she asked.

I said nothing, my eyes hard. I wanted them to know I was in no hurry to speak to pirates and thugs. “Where are my friends?” I finally asked, my jaw tight and painful from staying shut for so long, or perhaps from keeping it wide and singing for even longer.

Ava looked at Aurick, just as Enyo always looked at Adrian when they were conveying information they didn’t necessarily want me to hear.

“Where are my friends?” I said again, more emphatically.

“We could be your friends,” said the frizzy-haired woman. “I’m Rosemary, and this is my husband Marco⁠—”

“I don’t need fake friends. I had a destiny and a purpose. I was going to save the sirens until this one ruined it, because she’s selfish. She wants all the power and glory for herself. And so do you. You can’t stand the idea of sharing power with other gods, probably because they’re more powerful than you. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re selfish and afraid.”

Ava scratched her head. “Well, I’m certainly afraid of what bringing the gods back would do, but not for me. For my friends, for my world. Gods have always used mortals like playthings, and they would be foaming at the mouth to re-enter our world and do so again. I don’t even want to imagine someone like Zeus let loose upon the world. Thoth was bad enough.”

I felt something slimy crawling up my arm and a flood of relief sluiced through me. “Thank goodness, Germanicus, you’re awake,” I said telepathically. “Can you help me?”

“Of course, the supernaturals are my people. If anyone understands how to talk to them, it’s m⁠—”

“Germanicus? Is that you?”

“Tiberius?” I felt my daemon’s annoyance pulse through our bond. He didn’t like this chipmunk. Not one bit.

“Oh, that’s it,” the chipmunk cried, his tail whipping into a frenzy. “That explains so much. Lock them up. Throw away the key. Swallow it or something.”

Ava stood with her arms crossed. “Tiberius, explain yourself.”

“He’s the worst. The stories I could tell you, but I won’t because we don’t have enough time before he pretends to be my friend and then tells everyone else how needy I am. That’s Germanicus!”

Ava’s brows furrowed. “So, he’s your frenemy?”

“I guess.” The chipmunk sat back on his hunches, darts still shooting out of his eyes, his tail twitching manically.

“Tiberius, we don’t lock people up for being a frenemy.”

For the first time since waking up, I relaxed slightly. Could they really be that awful? They could’ve come up with any excuse to put me away or worse… torture me. Maybe the supernaturals weren’t as bad as I thought. Maybe I had been hasty in my judgement.

“No, we don’t lock people up for that,” said another voice, a man who had just arrived. An important man. I could tell from the way the others deferred to him, even though he smelled like orange blossom honey, musky and sweet. He was dressed in a fitted shirt, perfectly creased pants, and leather loafers. I would never have placed him as a magical creature. “But we do lock them up for being too dangerous and refusing to control one’s power to the detriment of MILFs,” he said, his voice firm.

“Mak,” Ava said, her voice pleading, but he held up a hand and cut her off.

“This isn’t up for discussion. She could destroy the world tomorrow with her voice, and we don’t know where she stands.”

“She won’t do that. I’ll take responsibility for her. I promise.”

“That is not a promise you should make. She’s coming with me until she’s charged. We’ll do it the proper way, Ava. I promise you that.”

As he spoke, the man reached down, a rope tied in intricate knots like two shackles in his hands. Up close, I could see even his skin glowed honey-like and that he was very clearly something other. That did not put me at ease at all. The rope in his hands radiated power and menace, and I felt my skin reacting to its proximity. The closer it got, the more I yearned to be free.

"What is that?" I asked, the panic rising in my chest. I had already lost my friends and my purpose. Now, I was about to lose the rest, and I couldn't take any more loss.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It is necessary for your and our protection."

"It doesn't feel protective. It feels evil." Every part of me screamed to get away from it, to put miles between me and this awful rope. I didn't know its name, but I could feel its effect. Already, my senses dampened, my insides bound.

Then, before I knew it, my mouth was open in an actual scream. Those gathered covered their ears in shock. The windows rattled, and the seas raged in the distance. All around us, the land opened up like a mouth, ready to swallow the town whole.

In the face of my song, the man struggled to secure the knot, to cover the last inch. Louder and louder the pitch rose, the screams of those around me rising to meet my own. Then, just as quickly as it started, it ended. The ropes wrapped around my wrists and my voice cut out, as if someone had stolen my soul.

The man wiped gold-tinted sweat from his forehead and surveyed the damage. "I told you," he said to Ava. "She is too dangerous. She must be contained."

I was up on my feet now, being pulled along helpless, angry and scared. What did that mean? What did they do with people who were too dangerous in the supernatural world?

"Where are you taking her?" Ava asked.

"To St. Louis."

"Not the oubliette, Mak."

I froze on that word. The oubliette, the place where kings left their enemies to be lost and forgotten forever. Was that what they had planned for me? I had already forgotten so much. I couldn't let my entire self be forgotten, too.

"It is the only place strong enough to contain her," the man said, doing something complicated with his hands. The world began to spin, the void cold and impersonal swirling around me, as he led me to my prison. 

But just before the island disappeared, I heard the siren Thessaly promise, “I will follow you."

For a second, I wasn't sure if she spoke to me or the man. Then she added, “I’m going to help you,” and I knew with a weird flutter in my stomach it was for me. 

To be Continued…

Pre-order Mismatched Midlife Magic today for $2.99 and continue the adventure!

Mismatched Midlife Magic is the sixth book in Heloise Hull’s Forty Is Fabulous adventure series. It’s for all those who believe that finding your true powers late in life is a blessing, not a curse—even if it turns out you’re actually cursed. If you like Paranormal Women’s Fiction or Urban Fantasy, you’ll love this series.

Join my newsletter and I’ll send you a FREE novella. Making Midlife Memories: Forty Is Fabulous 1.5 follows Ava as she astral projects with Manu. You’re under NO obligation to stay on my newsletter list, but if you do, I typically send out a newsletter once every month or every other month with new release notices, personal life updates, and sales/giveaways. Make sure you get the novella by immediately adding me to your contacts and marking “not spam/not junk” from your email carrier. FYI: You can also follow me on Amazon for updates.

NOTE: If you don’t read the short story, you won’t miss anything in the main arc of the Forty is Fabulous series. It simply deepens the relationship between Ava and the god in the cave. But if you do choose to read it, please know the novella is grittier than Ava’s story thus far. Be prepared for blood, sex, glory, and even an ancient Roman recipe for honey fritters. If you’re cool with that, then carry on!

Thank you for coming back to Aradia after all these years. Having you continue the journey means the worlds to me. I hope you enjoyed your fifth ticket to our secret Italian escape and are looking forward to continuing Ilona and Thessaly’s stories. If so, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads and Amazon. I know you’re inundated with pleas for this all of the time, but it’s for a good reason, I promise! Your thoughts and words help other readers find new favorites and help me continue to write. They’re extremely important. Read on for my usual author’s note. You didn’t think I’d forget that, did you?

Also by Heloise Hull

Forty is Fabulous: (Under the Tuscan Sun meets Egyptian Curses)

Making Midlife Magic

Making Midlife Madness

Making Midlife Mistakes

Making Midlife Marvels

Messy Midlife Magic

Cozy in Karnak: A Spicy Cozy Mystery Series: (Most Humorous)

Pharaoh-ly Bewitched

Pyramid Scheme

Mummy Dearest

The Hades and Persephone Duet: A Fantasy Romance: (A Dark & Sexy Persephone retelling)

Of Thorns and Bones

Of Flames and Thrones

Adept at Fifty: (Demon-slaying in Southern France)

Chasing Midlife Demons

Slaying Midlife Demons

Crossing Midlife Demons

Dating Midlife Demons

Cursing Midlife Demons

Honeywood Haven: (The Spellshop meets the Bachelorette)

The Queen and the Candle Maker

Knights and Negotiations

Afterword

Welcome back to the girl gang! (Plus Manu.)

I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am for this new journey. If you’ve joined my newsletter and received your free book in this series Making Midlife Memories 1.5, you’ll know that this book came from reader emails pointing out that I did not, in fact, tie up Aradia’s story in a neat bow. I left one teeny thread loose and while I never planned on pulling it, something called to me. A siren song, if you will. So I pulled.

As many of you (rightly) pointed out, Thessaly was still cursed. How in the world was she going to help break the sirens’ curse without the gods ever coming back? That, my friends, is the thread I decided to pull. I hope you’ve enjoyed this first trip back to Aradia and seeing the old characters while meeting the new. It was thrilling to put myself back there and say hello to old friends. I’ve missed Ava! In the three years since Making Midlife Marvels, I’ve thought about her often and enjoyed how much all of you have enjoyed her fabulous journey into her forties. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I hope I’ve done justice to her story.

Now, on to the notes! I know that’s why you’re really here. Yes, animals have been observed doing recreational drugs. One of my favorite instances were wallabies in Australia, walking around in a stupor, making crop circles. https://theworld.org/stories/2016/08/01/stoned-wallabies-blamed-crop-circles-australia

I have all mentions of Aeolus in the Aenid here and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite here as my inspiration for Acantha’s divine rites scene. The historical disasters Ilona caused are all documented and real and, being from Chicago, the Great Fire has a particular soft spot for me. King Alfonso XI of Castile was indeed the only monarch to die of the Black Plague, which I found impressive. One thing I learned in my research about Rome is that the famous Bernini boat fountain from 1627 was inspired by the historic Christmas Eve flood of 1598 when the waters receded and a broken boat was left behind. I had no idea!

I used the approximate location of Glen Affric for the meeting with the selkies in Scotland if you’re curious to visit and in the area. (And if you are ever so lucky, please send me pictures! Pretty please?)

Caterina Sforza did dabble in alchemy! Wasn’t she awesome?

The ancient Greek concept of Xenia is a fascinating tidbit in mythology and history. Basically, it’s hospitality at its finest. Strangers were always welcomed in the home with feasting and a strict, Do Not Kill, code for both guests and hosts. It was a moral obligation to be kind to strangers and offer food and shelter. Guests should return the generosity and also bring stories, news, and world updates when possible.

About the Author

Unlike her namesake of medieval infamy, Heloise doesn’t intend to have her midlife crisis in a nunnery. She’d much rather drink espresso martinis and chant in fairy rings while wearing socially questionable clothing.

In her other pen names, Heloise writes romance, nonfiction, and epic fantasy with tinges of the ancient world all thanks to dual degrees in archaeology and Classics. She splits her time between St. Louis and Chicago with her husband, two kids, one old cat, and one rescue puppy.