Diablos’ scent gets sharper. “Have you noticed any other differences in your abilities?”
“Portals,” Reed says. ‘Brio opened a portal.”
“Interesting. Hartley, my love, I’m going to play with the fish people.”
“Have fun, bring back cheese on your way home,” Hartley says through the phone.
I’m laughing on the inside, I swear it.
“I actually have another place for you.”
I start to fall, and then Reed lands heavily, holding me tighter, and I realise with disorientation that we are somewhere else. All this jumping is messing with my head.
“It’s not as fancy as the other one, but this is-”
“It’s perfect,” Ronit says stiffly.
“I need you to tell me what happened to them, Ronit. It’s important.”
Ronit sighs. “Deux. Again. He almost killed Brio, and the Healer did what the Healer does and almost killed herself saving him.”
“You guys talk, I’m going to get her somewhere she can rest,” Reed says arrogantly and walks me into the house.
It smells of human chemicals and nothing else, which is a relief, and then I’m being placed on a soft couch that I sink into. Reed kneels on the floor beside me and leans over me so he’s almost got his lips pressed against my cheek.
“Thank you.”
The words are so quiet I almost think I imagine them. But then he repeats them, and this time, his voice trembles with emotion that he’s obviously hidden away.
“All part of the job description,” I say back. My throat is dry and aching now, but before I can say anything, Reed moves back, and Lirin is there with a glass of water.
I drink deeply, but tiredness is creeping up on me. I can’t stop my head from floating, but the cool scents of the Sirens is a comfort that my mind accepts, and no amount of telling it they are my enemy will allow me to stay awake.
In the middle of the night, I wake and realise they are all around me. I’ve got my head in someone’s lap, there is another laying on the floor.
Leaf is curled up around my legs, his tense aura spiking as he scans for danger. Ronit is pacing in the kitchen, and Brio has his head close to me and is lying in the opposite direction as me.
I try to sit up, but Canto’s heavy hand on my neck holds me down.
“You are not recovered yet. Sleep more. The hours until dawn are many.
“No, I-”
“Sleep, Mei, for saving Brio, you will heal with no threat. You will be safe here.”
It’s not the words or the tone that calms me, it’s the way his thumb gently circles the skin on my neck, where no one else can see.
I relax back into his lap and exhale.
His fingers stroke and tease until I’m relaxed and pliant. My dreams are full of music and a small boy with hair as pale as snow, singing with so much joy, I didn’t even know it was possible to have.
In my dreams, he jumps around me, grabbing my hands and asking me to play with him. He smiles at me and sings a song just for me. A song that makes my heart hurt and soar at the same time. When the dream changes, it’s a Siren in black waves, opening his mouth, singing that same song, but this time, he wants me to drown. He doesn’t want me to play, and when his hand grips mine, he drags me down into the icy depths where I can’t hear, or smell, or feel anything but the monstrous pressure.
He sings me to my death.
And I, the foolish Nightmare that I am, gratefully go because he’s singing that beautiful song to me. He’s looking at me. There is no other, just me, and when the shiver swim around us, helping to drag me down, I am so happy.
Happy to die.
