Page 19 of Siren Problems
And I realize I didn’t crack his shell tonight.
Heletme see inside.
Just for a moment.
And then the tide took it back.
CHAPTER 8
CALDER
The ley current pulls strange today.
Tense. Fractured. Like it’s waiting for a scream.
I stalk the shoreline out of habit more than purpose. The sea’s quiet, but the quiet feels wrong—tight with anticipation. It’s not just the weather, though the clouds have been flirting with a storm all morning. It’s her.
Luna.
She’s down at the old tidepool ruins again.
The ones I warned her not to touch.
And she’s touching something.
I spot her crouched near the edge of a sunken rock altar, elbow-deep in seawater, gloved hand wrapped around something gleaming and half-buried. Her brow’s furrowed, that focused scowl she wears when she’s figuring out a puzzle. The tide creeps in around her boots, but she doesn’t move.
I see the relic before she does.
Silver. Sea-stamped. Edged in siren script.
No.
No, no,no.
“Drop it.”
My voice cuts through the wind like a blade.
Luna startles, whipping around, but she doesn’t let go. “What—Calder?”
I close the distance in a few hard strides. The closer I get, the more the relic pulses. It’s faint—most wouldn’t notice. But Ido. It’s singing to me. Or mayberememberingme.
She holds it up, blinking. “It was just wedged in a tide crevice. The scanner flagged it. Some kind of talisman?”
I reach out and snatch it from her hand.
She gasps. “Hey—what the hell?”
“You shouldn’t have touched this.”
“It’s metal, Calder, not a cursed diary!”
I turn the thing over in my palm. The edge is cracked, but the sigil in the center—my family crest—is still intact. Trident and spiral. Siren royalty, etched in binding iron.
I haven’t seen it since the day they sealed my voice.
And suddenly, the tide isn’t the only thing rising.
