The two voices clashed so violently that it took a moment for my surroundings to come back into focus. When they did, we were standing in a clearing. At its center stood a gnarled, knotted rowan tree, its trunk split by a deep hollow. From within it, a pair of phosphorescent, lamp-like eyes glared out at us.
Priscilla had led me straight to the hob.
And judging by the way it narrowed its eyes on me, it wasnothappy to see me again.
The feeling was mutual.
I took an instinctive step back, shadows stirring uneasily at my heels, but Priscilla lifted both hands.
“Wait,” she said quickly. “Please... just wait.” It was the plea in her voice that made me falter.
“The shadow demon will not turn on her. I have already tried,” came the haunting voice from within the hollow.
“I have no doubt that you tried your hardest, Ashra,” Priscilla said gently, her tone soothing rather than dismissive. “But let me try this time.”
The hob seemed to roll its eyes, before its glowing gaze narrowed with clear irritation. After a moment, however, it relented. One spindly hand emerged from the hollow, followed by the other, then its monstrous face, its small, hunched body cloaked in that tattered sweater, and finally its bowed legs. It dropped to the forest floor with a softthunk, sending leaves and pine needles scattering.
It hobbled toward Priscilla, then reached beneath the knitted sweater and produced the necklace it had tried to convince me to touch on my first visit to its forest home.
Priscilla held out her hand. The hob hesitated, then let the necklace fall into her palm.
“Thank you, Ashra,” she said quietly.
Her gaze lifted to me as her fingers curled around the shell. “Ambrose, do you remember what my mother said last night? About how sirens take something precious from the ocean and imbue it with their song?”
I nodded.
“This little shell belonged to my grandmother,” Priscilla continued. “I never met her, but it was the only thing of hers my mother kept.” Her jaw tightened slightly. “I stole it when I was achild and hid it in one of the abandoned houses I used to sneak into to get away from her.”
She exhaled slowly before worrying her bottom lip.
“I lied to my mother last night. I’ve always known how to imbue my siren magic into something, even as a child. Every night, I would sneak back to the abandoned house and sing to the shell, filling it with my song. A song to wash away whatever compulsion my mother had wrapped around me that day.”
My throat tightened. What kind of childhood must Priscilla have endured to find comfort in abandoned places and strength in a song meant to wash away.
“My mother brought me here a few months ago,” Priscilla continued quietly. “That’s when I met Ashra. Mother had Ashra under a compulsion—one it fought against with everything it had.” Her fingers curled slightly at her side as she glanced down at the little hob. “I couldn’t interfere while I was staying in the house. Any sign of resistance would have made Mother suspicious. But a few days after I left, I snuck back. I compelled Ashra to come out here, away from the house, and I gave it my grandmother’s shell.”
“And I have remained here ever since,” the hob said, its voice ironhard. “Waiting for Morana to return.”
Priscilla opened her mouth, then closed it again. After a moment, she reached out and rested a hand on Ashra’s shoulder, her head dipping in a slow, helpless nod. The scent of briny grief rolled off her in waves.
Morana.
The name lodged in my chest like a splinter. Was that the witch Isadora had mentioned? The one whose body she’d buried at the edge of the woods?
Where she was going to bury your body, a quiet voice echoed from the back of my mind.
Ice flooded my veins—
—and then the thought slipped away.
Anger flared through me, bleeding into Priscilla’s despair until the two emotions tangled together. I knew I was furious. I knew something was terribly wrong.
I just couldn’t quite remember why.
Priscilla’s gaze settled on me. “I need you to touch the shell, Ambrose,” she said, her voice hurried as her gaze flicked to the pink-streaked morning sky. “And then I need you to go to the house your partner is working at. You have to convince them all to leave.” She lifted the chain from her palm, the shell pendant glinting between us. “Purdy will listen to you,” she added. “Don’t say my name in front of Caitlyn. She’ll think it’s a trap.”
I reached for the necklace, but she pulled it back, clutching it to her chest. Priscilla worried her bottom lip as if she couldn’t quite find the words to say next.
