“What’s wrong, Mei?” he asks, and he sounds tired, like I exhaust him. I wish I didn’t make their lives so hard.
“I don’t know what those things are.”
He pauses, and I get the impression that I’ve surprised him. What does he look like? What colour is his skin? Does he have blemishes and markings? What about his eyes? Are they expressive? Does the colour change?
“You don’t need to know what they are, try them, and if you don’t like it, I will find you something new to eat.”
“Is there something else to eat?” I ask, my mind boggling at the idea of having options.
“Yes, there are lots of things to eat in this house. Lirin went out and got groceries.”
“What are groceries?”
Ronit grumbles, and I lean back a bit, unsure what to make of his sudden temper.
“When you want something to eat, how do you get it?” Ronit asks with a carefully neutral voice.
“I follow the smells and eat what the others left behind, or I kill it and eat it.”
“To be fair, that’s how I used to do it, too,” Lirin says with a happy laugh.
“How did you become a Siren, Lirin?” I ask.
He stops laughing, the room gets cold and dangerous. I clutch my roll closer to my chest and get ready to run.
“I guess it’s fair she knows,” Lirin says with a mean laugh. “Ronit was the most capable of war generals. He was told to go out and murder a family of evil spies, but when he got there, they weren’t traitors or spies, just a small family with tiny children. Ronit refused and instead hid them. He went back, told them what he had done, was stripped of all his rankings, publicly tortured, then sentenced to life as a Siren.”
“It’s a sentence?” I ask in a small voice, but he doesn’t hear me.
“Now, Reed is a different case. He thought he fell in love, but instead, the woman sold him out when they were caught. Since Reed was no one, and the woman and her Fae Lord were High Court, Reed got sent to the dungeons to rot for his crimes.”
“But-”
“Canto rose too fast, too aggressively. In short, he was too good. The very people who had trained him up suddenly were terrified he might turn on them. They drugged him, trapped him, and sold him out.”
“Lirin,” I protest.
His voice is aggressive and is rising in volume. I’ve never seen any of the Sirens this upset.
Leaf steps between us, growling violently at Lirin.
“Brio was a musician, all he wanted to do is play. But the Fae, they take what they want, and they took him, trained him all up, but when he refused to play for a particular person, she told everyone he stole from her, and voilà, he’s now got to spend eternity swimming.”
I flinch, no longer even trying to protest.
“Me? I said no. That simple. I did not want to fuck the Fae lady who crept into my bed in the middle of the night. I kicked her out. She tried to blackmail me and threatened my family. When nothing forced me into her bed, she decided she needed to ruin me. My dad interfered, and I was sentenced in his place to teach my family a lesson.”
He stops, breathing hard.
My head is reeling.
“So, you…should not be there?” I ask hesitantly.
“For fuck’s sake, Lirin, let her eat her lunch,” Ronit growls. “So distasteful.”
“No, we should not be there, and that is why we will do anything, whatever it takes, to get out.”
The aggression in his tone is unlike the Lirin I know, but it’s not unexpected, beneath even the most harmless-appearing monsters in Nightmare are some of the most dangerous.
