“We can do this,” I counter, my hand laying on top of hers. “Lyre, I promise. Wewilldo it.”
“How? How can we hope to hide when she’s been growing her legion? Every day, more are forced to join, and now that they will have the ability to walk through the Spell andlive? This is more than we ever could have planned for. More thanIcan ask of you—”
“I’ve been meeting with a fae.” The confession comes tumbling out of me, but I don’t panic at what I’ve said. Instead, I feellighter, a weight lifted from my chest.
Lyre’s mouth opens, then shuts, her brows scrunching together. “What?”
I leap into the tale of how Myla and I met, what I’ve been doing in the weeks since that fateful day, and how it is strengthening my hope in our escape. “She hates me, but she’s fulfilling her end of the deal,” I tell her, clutching the silky strands of sea kelp that stuff her bed.
Lyre’s expression doesn’t shift from her initial shock, and when I finish telling her everything related to Myla, I wait through glacial seconds for her to pass judgement on me. But then a smile breaks over her face, her amethyst eyes sparkling as she draws me in for a tight hug.
“You actually fucking obtained alife debtfrom a fae?”
“Does everyone but me know what that is?” I ask, laughing when she draws back and wraps her hands around my shoulders, giving me a gentle shake.
“What is she like?Myla.” She says her name as if its syllables are foreign on her tongue.
I tip my head to the side as I picture her. Her cutting looks and even sharper tongue. The way she makes me feel like I’m impossibly naive. “She’s brutal,” I start, making Lyre frown. “And mean. I’m the spike in her side that she’s forced to live with until the deal is met and she can dig me out. But she’s alsoruthless in a way that is inspiring.” Myla’s anger towards me is as earned as it is frustrating, but I don’t think even she realizes that her curtness draws out a defiance of my own.
“Aria.” Lyre’s voice pulls me from my own head, my heart rapidly beating for an entirely different reason. One I can’t even begin to reconcile with.
“Sorry,” I rush out quickly, clearing my throat. “But we can do this together, Lyre.”
“I have to say, Sister, I underestimated you.”
“It’s alright—”
“No, it isn’t. I’ve tried my best to protect you in all the ways I thought wouldn’t be obvious to our mother. And I know that it still hasn’t been enough.I know that. But despite what you think about yourself, you are so much stronger than you’ve ever given yourself credit for. ThanIhave given you credit for.”
Emotions clog my throat and threaten tears to form in my eyes, but I fend them off as I duck my head. “There is one more thing,” I whisper, earning a surprised chuckle.
“What, are you going to tell me that you’ve struck some sort of deal with the shifters now?”
“Not exactly. This has to do with Nia and the seamount sirens.” The mention of them sobers the moment. Lyre’s spine straightens as her face shifts into a serious expression so quickly, I could almost laugh.
“What about them?”
“Nia found my cave a while ago and has been using its existence to blackmail me. She tasked me with retrieving their confiscated weapons.” I go on to tell her about the note I found earlier, how the threat was clear.It might already be too late.
Lyre’s eyes are sharp, her attention wholly focused on me. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
“I didn’t think there was anything you could do to help me. I also felt like, perhaps, this was my penance for not trying todo more, as Nia said. Our mother drove her own people out to live in squalor, all because of a grudge she’s held for over two hundred years. Nia’s chosen path may not be the most savory, but she isn’t necessarily wrong in what she’s trying to do.”
“And what is that?”
“She wants to remove our mother from the throne.”
Lyre scoffs, running a hand through her lavender braids. “Even if she could somehow manage that with her ragtag team of sirens, who would then be queen? Her? Because you know as well as I do that she isn’t going to ask you or I. She’ll kill Allegra and Sade and likely keep Dyanna only to use as an information pet.”
“Does it matter? As long as our mother is gone?”
“Yes,” she answers curtly, making me startle back. She closes her eyes, moving a hand to cradle her belly. “You have to think long term about something like this. Our mother is horrible byeverystandard, but she is a monster weknow. To help put someone new on the throne, someone who already hates our family, would be just as dangerous. We don’t want to escape one tyrant only to be at the whims of a worse one.”
“So what should I do, then?”
“We get the seamount sirens their weapons.Together. But we use them as a bargaining tool with Nia. She’s holding too much over your head without any realproof. Even if she told Sade or our mother about the cave, there is no way to tie you to it unless you have personal items there.” I shake my head. Everything the cave once contained were items I found. Nothing of it is actuallymine.“We get the weapons, and then we ask for our guaranteed safety through whatever she and her sirens are planning. Safety whether we stay here or continue forward with our plan to leave.”
My apprehension with not only this plan but entangling Lyre in it must show on my face because my sister sighs and reaches over to grab my hand.
