Page 77 of Between Salt and Serenades
Maisie led us, and we all wound through tunnels lit only by cracks in the walls that bled candlelight from neighboring caverns. The tunnel was on a steep incline, and the muscles in my legs burned as we ascended. I glanced over to Zellia, who squeezed Rory’s hand as she led him along the dark path, the human’s eyes a poor fit for this environment.
For a moment, my mind slipped to all the dark places I tried desperately to avoid. Thoughts of failure swirled through my mind, images of what would become of my mother if Zellia and I were unable to ever return to her. One wrong move tonight, and that might just be our reality.
When Maisie paused at an opening in the rocks, so did the rest of us. She held a pale finger up to her lips then motioned us forward. One by one, we crept through the opening and funneled out onto a landing overlooking the main cavern. My ears perked up as I heard chanting emanating from below.
Maisie knelt behind a ledge, still wearing nothing but her nightgown as her knees rested on cold stone. Part of me felt bad that we’d pulled the girl out of her bed and hadn’t even given her a second to throw on something more substantial. I forced myself out of any guilt and focused on the task at hand.
Breena and I kneeled next to Maisie, Rory and Zellia hanging back due to the lack of space on the ledge. The three of us peered over the rocks to get a better look at the source of the chants. Sure enough, that decrepit siren and her four puppets gathered around the siphoning pool, their arms raised.
“Our magic is somewhere in that pool,” I said to Maisie, just loud enough that she could hear me over the ominous sound of chanting.
“So is the magic of a lot of other sirens.”
The diluted pool they harvested the magic from was directly under us, so close that I could spit in it.
Breena stuck her head out a little farther over the ledge, peering down at the five sirens below. “How long do we have before they stop their ritual?”
Maisie slowly pushed herself off the ledge, her face cast in shadows as she whispered, “From the looks of it, we only have a few minutes. Whatever your plan is, it’s best to do it fast.”
Breena and I exchanged glances, and Maisie’s lips twitched before dropping into a scowl.
“Please tell me you have a plan. You have a plan. right?”
Zellia’s movements next to us caught my eye, offering me brief respite from Maisie’s disapproving glare. My sister waved us over, so we met her back in the darkness of the tunnel.
“What’s going on down there?” Do you think we could do some damage from up here?”
“If we could get Breena closer to them, she’d be able to smash the runes in the pool, but from up here, the only thing I can think to do is create waves so intense, they crack the stone. Still, there’s a good chance that won’t work.”
Rory blinked several times before saying, “How close are the women to the ledge? Are they directly under it?”
“Most of them are, yes. Why?” Breena asked.
“I might have an idea.” Rory reached into his satchel, dug around pieces of cut rope, and pulled out four glass vials.
“What are those?” Zellia asked, peering down at the vials that glistened in the cave's dim light.
“Payment.” A smirk crept onto the fisherman’s face. “I didn’t mend my neighbor’s dress for free, you know.”
“The old hag gave you those? What do they do?” Breena’s eyes widened with a vicious excitement. Depths, she was so cute when her violent side crawled out.
Rory held up each vial at a time, all of them different colors and viscosities. “In the green vial is acid, the light blue is a transformative potion, the milky one, well, this one is just a laxative…” He trailed off, slipping that one back in his satchel with a sheepish smile. “And the purple one is a hallucinogen.”
I reached forward and ran my nail down the light blue bottle. “Tell me more about this one.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A VILLAINOUS VIAL
Breena all but giggled as she climbed back onto the ledge, the light blue vial in her grasp. When she popped the cork, she did so with a steady hand to avoid getting a single drop of the potent potion on her skin. I couldn’t see the women below, but I knew my little selkie aimed at each one of them strategically before dripping undetectable drops upon their heads.
Just as we all thought she was in the clear, the rock ledge Breena leaned against cracked under her weight and crumbled down to the hybrids. Breena scrambled back, but the chanting below was quickly replaced by shrieks and hisses.
“You!” Tinelle screeched. Alarm prickled across Breena's face, and my body lunged forward before I thought any better of it. The old woman’s head swung to me now that I was in her view, and if her movement had been any sharper, she might’ve broken her own neck.
“And you! Why are a siren and a selkie together, slinking around my cave?” she croaked. I pulled Breena in close to me, using my body to shield her from the elder siren. The woman’s vision shot from us to the pool, her eyes bulging and red, her boney fingers twitching, as if itching to call on her magic.
“We know who you are, Tinelle!” I shouted, my chin raised high despite the women standing far beneath me. “And we know what you’ve been doing with that precious siphoning pool of yours. Your time stealing magic from sirens is over, as is your time destroying our sea.”
