Page 71 of Between Salt and Serenades
Scooping up the bathing clothes Isla had left for us, I handed one to Zellia, and we went off in the general direction the woman had pointed us in. From a distance, I watched an unmoving Maisie. She kept looking down into that water until Isla came back over to her. The two of them started bickering, but I couldn’t hear them from where I stood by the dressing screens.
When Zellia and I both came out from behind the screens, our dresses were balled up under our arms. All that remained were cotton swaths of fabric covering the parts of us that our scales did when we were fully transitioned.
“This place has amazing food, but it kind of gives me the creeps,” Zellia muttered before taking a sip of wine. I stole the glass from her, polishing it off. She didn’t even complain—we both required liquid courage.
When we got back over to the diluted pool, Maisie was already inside. She forwent the bathing cloth Zellia and I donned and sat shoulder deep in the water. Zellia and I climbed into the tepid water and settled in next to her.
“I’m happy to see you again so soon,” I said to break the tension. “Why is it that Isla wanted you to join us?”
“And why didn’t you want to?” Zellia tacked on. She moved her palms over the surface of the water, back and forth, before lifting one of her hands and peering at her skin. Her teeth clamped over her bottom lip, and she squinted to get a better look.
“Oh, it’s not your company I didn’t want. I-I was just comfortable where I was, that’s all. I prefer being in my sirenform, you know. Silly since I’m on land, I realize, but you know how things are.”
“I don’t think I do,” I admitted, leaning back onto the stone behind me.
“Well, as I said, it’s nothing you won’t understand soon enough.”
“That’s not ominous or anything,” Zellia uttered under her breath. I jabbed her with my elbow then gave Maisie a friendly smile.
Glancing around the pool, my eyes trailed over the stone ledge and the little etchings carved into it. A curious finger ran over the one closest to me, and I realized it had been a familiar symbol. It may not have been carved into my own spears, but I’d seen it on Xifi’s. I’d once asked him what the symbol meant, and he’d explained it was a rune almost lost to the sirens throughout history. The rune was one of old magic.
It made sense to see the etchings here, I supposed, seeing as the caverns had been around for hundreds of years. There was probably all sorts of magic hidden in the caverns and tunnels that I’d never laid eyes on. My finger dug into the etching, and I wondered why this rune was etched into this particular pool.
Glancing up to see Maisie following my finger, she looked as if the movement was going to make her sick, but when I watched her closely, I realized the sheen on her forehead continued to grow, even as her eyes darted away.
“You’re not a full blood. Why are you really here, Maisie?” I asked.
Her eyes focused on something in the distance, staying off mine and Zellia’s. “The hybrid pools get so busy sometimes.”
“You were just in one.”
“Yes, well, I suppose Isla wanted me to give you a warm welcome. What better way than to keep you company,” she said, pulling her gaze from the cave’s exit to finally look at me. “Inoticed you keep rubbing your finger along that rune. Do you know what it means?”
“Yes. I just don’t understand why it’s in this pool.”
“What does it mean?” Zellia asked. She no longer played with the water, too busy scratching at her irritated palms.
“It’s a type of thievery rune,” I explained. “Xifi used to carve one similar into his spears when the fish first started disappearing. He swore it helped him catch what little remained before the sharks could.”
“Thievery? That’s a rudimentary take on it,” the hybrid said, biting the insides of her cheeks before she could open her mouth again. It wasn't until I noticed the odd stinging in my skin, in my cells, that I started to understand. Maisie’s hesitancy coming into this pool, Isla’s very specifically worded requests, and the odd tightness in Zellia’s face…
“She said it was your turn.”
Maisie’s throat bobbed, and she rubbed her lips together before her bottom lip jutted out. She wouldn’t answer me, but her face said it all. I lifted my hands out of the pool and watched as the water I attempted to pull jiggled then splashed back to the surface, as if it had weighed far too much to make it all the way to my cupped palms.
“Zellia,” I said, my heart quickening. “Talk to me, but don’t use your mouth.”
“W…w…wh…y?”The garbled question rang into my mind, as broken as my own magic. My eyes narrowed in on a very nervous-looking Maisie, and everything I suspected fell into place.
“Not thievery. Harvesting,” I said, my jaw clicking as I did.
Maisie moved to make a run for it, but I slammed my heel on top of her foot, grinding my bone into her precious tendons. She squirmed and hissed, but I stared her dead in the eye, usingevery residual drop of magic I could muster as I sang in a low hum only she could hear.
A horrendous voice left my lips, dark and sticky as I said, “You will forget this entire conversation. Should anyone ask, we enjoyed a peaceful silence as we all relaxed.”
“Sid…” Zellia trailed off. “You did not just?—”
I released a dazed Maisie and grabbed Zellia’s hand, shooting her a warning glare until she fell deadly silent.
