“I don’t know how.”
“You haven’t tried.”
My nerves jolted at the thought of being incapable. At the thought of him watching me fail. I pulled a breath deep into my chest.
“Breathe out,” he said, soft as mist. He pressed his hand against my stomach, the gesture both commanding and supportive at once. “Focus.Try.”
Focusing would be a feat with his body pressed against mine. He was solid, unflinching, and I flexed my sore muscles so as to keep myself from pressing into him. I’d staved off the exhaustion of the last few days as best as I could, but now, surrounded by the night and Theodore’s body, all I wanted to do was give in.
His hand on my stomach flared with his warm power, and the hum in my stomach started. I couldn’t tell if he’d coaxed it forth, or if he’d simply helped me focus my distracted attention.
Once I felt it, I had to fight to keep my hold on it. My heart sped as I focused my gaze on the thread-thin vine. Teeth clamped, I beckoned it toward me with a clear and singular thought. It didn’tmove. Theodore held me tighter. Again, I sent a command, aplea.Again and again, and Theodore remained a steady, quiet support at my back as I tried. Finally, as my emotion began to swell, my arm tingled, my palm turned hot, and the little green coil stretched, agonizingly slowly toward my finger.
It tickled as it slithered around me like a tiny serpent.
I pulled in a stunned breath.
“Look at you,” Theodore crooned.
I turned in his arms and gazed up with a smile. We were heat and racing hearts. My senses tangled into an impenetrable mass—every one of them filled with him. I let my head fall back against his shoulder. “I did it.”
His hand left my wrist, moved to my hip, and he looked down at me with wonderment. It struck me that my fears, my unease, felt as far from me as they ever had.
He lowered his nose to touch the end of mine. “You did.”
Slowly, I rose up onto my toes. I could just feel the heat of his lips near my own when a curdling scream shredded the night’s quiet.
We jolted, jerked free of each other’s hold. The wailing sob ceased, only to start again a breath later. Theodore gave me a final look, eyes wide with alarm, before he rushed toward the horses and untied them. Quickly, he helped me into my saddle, took to his own mount, and then raced off toward the line of sea grass and trees that barricaded us from the beach.
“Keep close,” he commanded, before he disappeared through the thicket of tall stalks. He was moving toward the keen, toward the danger, and I couldn’t get my horse to keep up.
“Imogen,” Theodore called, just as my stomach twisted with sickness. Finally, my horse moved into a canter and through the grass. But it wasn’t fast enough. Nausea wrenched my gut.
We were on a long, flat stretch of beach. In the distance, a clusterof little grass-roofed huts sat in a wide circle. Torches dotted the spaces between them, flickering in the wind.
Theodore sped down the wet sand, his horse at a gallop. He was closing in on a huddle of villagers that stood just out of reach of the waves. Their attention clung to something at their center, though I was too far away to make out what.
I drew nearer and shivered as their faces came clear. Every one of them wore the same look of horror. Amid them, a woman—a Siren—lay on her stomach, face toward the water, hand outstretched, screaming. Her low-backed dress was clinging wet, her brown hair plastered to her face. Dark blood gushed from the exposed, muscly root of her right wing. It hung on by only a few threads of sinew. The flesh was shredded, as if it had been gouged with a saw-toothed blade.
Theodore was already off his horse, rushing to the Siren’s side, by the time I pulled on my mare’s reins. I fell to the sand as I dismounted, my knees too weak to hold me up.
“Imogen.” Theodore came back toward me, awash with concern.
“I’m fine.Go.”
He seemed unsure about leaving me before he finally raced to the Siren and knelt. “A nekgya?” he asked as he set his hands into the gore at her back. Inexorable purpose bent his face.
I made it to Theodore’s side just as he took the dagger from his hip. “I have to remove the wing.”
The Siren’s outstretched hand shook. I knelt in front of her, grabbed it and held tight. “He’ll take care of you.”
Theodore was covered to his elbows in slick, red viscera. He held the dagger in a firm grip and set it to the base of her wing. I looked away, into the Siren’s terror-wide eyes. She shook her head and said through quivering lips, “My daughter.”
“Your daughter?” Her hand was damp and shaking. “Where?”
When her wet eyes strayed to the water behind me I understood. “She’s in the water.”
My gaze shot to Theodore just as he dug the blade’s edge deep into her back. Dark, sweat-soaked locks of hair stuck to his forehead. He moved efficiently, even as the Siren’s screams sliced across the beach.
