Page 76 of Between Salt and Serenades
Maisie?
Watching her, she wiped salty tears from her eyes and set the brush down on a small, wobbly table. I had to pull the tapestry back a tad more to get a better look at her as she crawled into a straw bed tucked into the corner. The mattress was raised by no more than a few pallets of wood and squeaked under her weight as she climbed under thin sheets.
Grabbing Breena’s hand, I pulled her forward to take my spot in the entryway, hidden behind the thick tapestry. Breena watched for a few moments then turned back to me and whispered. “She’s crying.”
I nodded in response then took a step back, avoiding the water to rejoin Zellia and Rory.
“The hybrid we spoke to the other day is in that room. She won’t remember Zellia and me, but I have a gut feeling she has more information, and she’ll be willing to share it,” I murmured. “Get ready to move in on her. Rory, you got the ropes?”
He said nothing as he pulled the ropes from his satchel and held them up with a grimace.
“Good. Let’s go—quickly.”
We all snuck behind the tapestry together, but I acted first. With my magic, I pulled the water pooling on the floor and flattened it across her mouth to prevent the sound of screaming from alerting the others. Breena held Maisie down long enough for Rory to tie her hands behind her back in a tight fisherman’s knot.
Horror flicked across Maisie’s eyes, but when I sang, “Remember us,” in a hypnotic tone, her expression slackened.
“We’re not here to hurt you, Maisie. In fact, I believe you’ve already been hurt enough. We know the diluted pool harvested our magic, that Isla sent you there to have yours taken too. Why?”
Maisie looked just past her nose to the water still wrapped her mouth like a bandage.
Right.
Straightening my spine, I fixed my piercing gaze on her so she couldn't catch onto the fact that I didn’t know what I was doing. “If you even try to scream, it goes right back on.”
The hybrid nodded her head in desperate agreement, so I let the water covering her mouth slither to the side, staying right on her cheek in case I needed to shut her up again.
“I’ll tell you everything if you promise to get me out of here. Out of these damned caves.”
I looked over my shoulder to see Breena giving me silent approval. “We’ll help you escape. Now, tell us quickly.”
“Full bloods like you rarely come to the caves anymore, so we’ve had to resort to taking turns in the siphoning pool. I-I wasn’t supposed to go again so soon, but Isla caught me talking to you and?—”
“It was a punishment.”
“Yes, and not an uncommon one. Most of us in the caves are young. We grew up on land, and some were even raised within these very walls. Sure, they feed us lavish foods and fill our stomachs with wine, but not all of us have the choice to be here, and the ones who do are the very ones giving out punishments.”
“Like Isla,” Zellia whispered.
“Isla is just a puppet. Her strings, and the three others just like her, are all pulled by a woman named Tinelle. You met her when you first arrived. She, uh, she was the one who did the test on you, to make sure you were both sirens,” she said. When she caught my confused stare, she continued. “Yes, the really old one, but don’t let her looks fool you. I’m sure you both know how powerful elders are. There’s a reason they lead our pods, and Tinelle is no exception.”
“Are they here now?” Breena asked, glancing over her shoulder as if Tinelle herself was breathing down her neck.
“They are. Every evening, they send us off to our rooms and stay in the main cavern to channel magic from the siphoning pool. They should be mid-ritual right about now, so if you’re going to make a move, you better be quick about it.”
The five of us all stared at each other; then, the water still clinging to her cheek slithered away, and Rory cut her free of his ropes. When Maisie sat up in bed and rubbed at her red wrists, Zellia reached forward and closed her eyes. At first, Maisie flinched, but when Zellia blew a soft song onto the hybrid’s irritated skin, she relaxed and watched as the redness faded.
When Zellia was done with her simple healing song, my eyes darted around Maisie’s face as I asked, “Will you come with us?”
Maisie knew her way around these tunnels better than we ever would, and she had firsthand access to how things worked around here: the siphoning pool, the ritual, the leaders.
“You promised to get me out, but if I help you, I need you to get rid of the five sirens keeping us here. I wantallof us to be free. My friends need your help too.”
“You have our word,” I said.
Maisie straightened her spine then lifted herself out of bed. “Well then, I know another way into the main cavern. Follow me.”
When the selkie clan and my pod rejected our requests for help and Breena was wounded, I’d begun to think I’d be facing Tinelle and the other hybrids alone. Now, I crept through secret tunnels with a healthy Breena, the fisherman who captured us,my younger sister, and a hybrid we’d turned to our side. While they weren't all warriors, I was relieved to have them.
