 
### METANOIA

Honnah Patnode

Cover illustration by Natalie Spence

Published by JLB Creatives Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2017 Honnah Patnode

All rights reserved.

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### Metanoia

Honnah Patnode

One: She Who Was Silent

The universe was not a simple thing. Consequently, the universe did not yield to traditional expectations or societal norms. Oftentimes living things failed to recognize such a basic and obvious truth. Sometimes the most ramshackle buildings held the most spectacular secrets, and the most sophisticated structures contained nothing but dusty, bland placeholders existing without any obvious purpose and offering no inspiration or beauty beyond the first glimpse.

The sea was no exception. Glowing rays of midday sunlight drifted lazily through the atmosphere and danced atop the surface of the vast ocean which so effortlessly dominated the surface of planet Earth. They glinted and reflected on the surface as if it were a mirror, glossy and sheer and prone to showing only the superficial parts of itself, even though what lurked beneath was far more enthralling. Beneath the surface, at the heart of a little cove nestled within a small archipelago, there was a whole world teeming with life—a world which had evaded human discovery for centuries and was content to have done so. It was a perception, a stereotype, or, if one were to take particular offense to it, a prejudice that drove them to hide away from the eyes of land-dwellers and remain in the safety of the endless waters. All the people of this hidden community believed humans were greedy, short-sighted, self-serving, and altogether unpleasant creatures who had no regard for any species but their own—well, all but one.

She lay in the very center of the cove, eyes fixated on the ever-changing mosaic of blues and greens that marked the line where her world ended and another began. She had always been fascinated by that border, the fence drawn by nature and biology itself to separate her race from the humans. Many who were older and wiser than she reasoned that this was the Earth's way of preserving the culture beneath the waves, preventing the intrusion and inevitable scuff marks humans would bring with their desire to explore and understand. Even at that exact moment, staring up at it, she was consumed by an unquenchable thirst for the feeling of air upon her skin that would only be alleviated by leaping high above the surface and launching into the world of the humans, if only for a few seconds.

A frown tugged at her lips and she shook her head, resigning herself to tracing nameless patterns onto the sand where her hands rested, splayed out from her body. One of them curled inward to brush through the short locks of hair protruding from her head. The longest strands floated carelessly over her forehead. No part of her hair was long enough to reach past the nape of her neck; it set her apart from her kin in appearance. Most of the members of her species grew out their hair long and thick enough to cover their backs and torsos, but she required seaweed wraps to achieve the same effect. There was a great deal more which divided her from her community, however, far below the thin, brittle veil of vanity.

"Cordelia?"

At once, she curled into a sitting position and crossed her arms over her chest. Her eyes swiveled from the glorious canvas of light and liquid above to focus on Nerissa, who was swimming toward her at impressive speed.

"What are you doing out here? It's the middle of the day! Don't you know that fisherman come here all the time during the day?" Nerissa whispered, eyes wide and filled with a muddled combination of wonder and fear. Snatching Cordelia's wrist as soon as she was close enough to reach it, Nerissa scrutinized her with honey-hued eyes. Cordelia could not help but think of how sweet they looked in the light of day. Her chestnut hair was prettier when floating in bright turquoise waters as well; in the darkness, it was a dull and wholly unexceptional brownish color, but sunlight brought it to life. Cordelia wondered why exactly the pleasures of a sunny day were such a danger when the water was clear without a human in sight. To convey this to Nerissa, she gestured up to the unhindered waves sashaying overhead, but her younger sister did not seem to think the absence of danger was any reason to enjoy the finer pleasantries of the cove. "I don't care if it's empty," Nerissa huffed, tightened her lips, and poised her hands at her sides. "You never know if some human bottom-feeder is going to show up, and what do you think they'd do if they saw you? If they saw _that_?" To prove her point, she aimed a clawed finger at Cordelia's lower half.

When she looked, all Cordelia saw was the shimmering pink scales (the color was very similar, if not identical, to the soft pastel shades that adorned the insides of conch shells) layering one another down the length of her tail, only ending where the appendage fused with the brown, fleshy expanse of her stomach. On her back, a line of scales continued up her spine, accompanied by ridges that jutted like the sails of a ship in the center of her back. One appeared every few inches from the very top portion of her tail to the nape of her neck. The elegant expanse at the end of her tail where it fanned out—similar to the fins of the tropical fish swimming complacently nearby—twitched irritably as she forced herself to tolerate being scolded by a sibling who was younger than she by nearly three years.

Cordelia was careful even if she was curious, but Nerissa was either oblivious or indifferent to this. Cordelia wished she could keep herself in check, sophisticated and intelligent enough to hide herself away just in case a bad human were to be the one to witness her. But, as was typical in her life, something between her lips and lungs betrayed her, and the words would not come. She looked down in shame at the patterns her slender brown fingers had etched into the sand; they were rapidly disappearing as the tides shifted and the water swayed in obedience, following the patterns of the great orbs which chased one another across the horizon day after day, dying and disappearing as if they had never been there at all.

Cordelia's voice was much the same. Yes, she was a siren and could even have been a respectable one, given the perfectly sharpened points of her teeth and the beauty everyone else claimed she had. But a mention of her beauty was always meant as a consolation and was never granted without the prerequisite of mentioning how she was faulty, a broken member of the siren species. Cordelia had been born mute. She had never been able to speak and was even less able to sing. She could only look on in envy as other sirens of her age—nineteen cycles of the sharks coming and going—learned to toss their hair with infamous allure and entice vulnerable sailors into the deep blue sea. She would never be capable of such a thing, and she presumed she would never understand why it had happened to her. Of all the five children her mother had borne, she was the only one to be born with no song inside of her and no means to release it if she ever gained one.

Nerissa seemed to sense the disheartenment that was churning like stormy waters inside her stomach and her stony features softened into something ever so slightly more pleasant. "I know it's boring in the caves, but you know the rules. No one can be out here during the day. It's too risky." Cordelia pointed inquisitively at the younger siren and she giggled. "I'm only out here to get you, 'Lia. Come on, please? Mom is worried sick."

_About me? Or about me exposing us to the humans?_ Cordelia wondered. The difference between the two was palpable, and she feared she already knew the answer—her mother's frequent sidelong glance and tightened lips were more than enough confirmation. With a huff of resignation, she nodded and grudgingly swam in the direction of the submerged caves that burrowed cozily beneath the islands of the cove. Unable to resist the temptation of at least a little fun, she did a flip in the water on the way. What was the superiority of having a tail in favor of legs if one did not use it to one's advantage? Even Nerissa seemed to approve and mimicked the action a few seconds later. Cordelia smiled. Being the youngest of Cordelia's clan, Nerissa was the only one who seemed to share any of Cordelia's inborn playfulness. After exchanging knowing smiles, the two of them ducked into the mouth of the cave wherein resided the rest of their family.

Upon entering, Whistle bounded eagerly toward Nerissa and trilled affectionately when she reached out to welcome him. Whistle was one of the two pet dolphins that resided with Cordelia's family, a spinner dolphin who had favored Nerissa since its formative years. He had a pale, ghastly scar just behind his eye that marred his otherwise perfect blue-and-gray coloration, and no one was quite sure how it got there. The other dolphin was an old, grouchy bottlenose who did not really favor anyone but who had held a grudge against Cordelia since her birth and never missed an opportunity to nip at her. Its name was irrelevant because it never bothered to come when called.

Cordelia had tried once or twice to bring in a dolphin of her own when their migration cycles brought them within a few miles of the cove, one that would be sure to favor her, but every time, she had failed. Dolphins just did not seem to get along with her as amiably as they did with the other sirens. Perhaps she was just incapable of earning favor.

The idea was reinforced when Cordelia's mother swished by in a whirl of faded silver scales; in the dim light of the caves, they never shimmered or glistened. Her eyes were just as dull and uninterested. "Cordelia, you need to learn that the safety of our entire world depends on not being found out by humans. They are only prey at night, Cordelia," she warned. "During the day they are the monsters and, therefore, the ones to be feared."

Cordelia bowed her head. In another life she might have responded in the bitter cadence of rebellion or snark, but that was not the life she had been dealt. Instead, all she could do was avoid the patronizing stare of her mother.

"Besides," Mom tutted disapprovingly. She brushed a stray lock of white hair back into the bun sitting stiffly atop her head, "it's not like you could be anything but a risk even at night. You will never be able to face the danger posed by those who walk on the land. You are not a true siren."

Cordelia's features went stone-cold as her mother's words hit her like a slap to the face. Something deep within her, something that stretched as far down as the trenches that dipped into the earth and were so easy to get lost in, crumbled. It did not snap—if Cordelia was the sort to snap, she surely would have done so years ago. Instead, it was a part of her soul which had been subject to constant damage, the insistent wear and tear of time and discouragement and glances bristling with judgement, which at last broke through, and she found herself shattered.

_Not a true siren_ , her thoughts repeated with an air of sadness. It was only sensible for those who could sing to view her as less than, she supposed, but it did not feel like it was fair. Cordelia was overwhelmed with the urge to yell and scream and throw things against the limestone walls of the cave that now felt more like a prison than a home. Granted, it was not as though she had been forbidden to leave—she was just immensely discouraged and scolded for doing so. Impeded from speaking her mind, she began to retreat to her room after aiming a respectful bow of her head in the direction of her mother.

"Cordelia," Nerissa said softly, snatching Cordelia's wrist a second time before she could part the seaweed curtain which separated her room from the rest of the cave's interior and disappear. "It isn't your fault you can't sing. We know that. Nobody blames you for being like...you know."

Her words did more harm than good. They reminded Cordelia of the feeling of saltwater saturating a fresh wound, making it sting with an odd sensation of heat and anguish scourging the afflicted flesh. The webbed tips of her ears flattened against her head. Her lips tightened and she pulled her wrist gently from the grip of her sister and disappeared behind the curtain that secluded her own little corner of the ocean from everyone else's. She imagined her absence allowed thoughts of her to dissolve from her mother's mind as easily as the seafoam that lapped and frothed at the edges of the shore.

Cordelia's eyes (which were admittedly a bit sore and puffy from holding back the tears that threatened to fall whenever she was reminded of her muteness and its lingering effects on what she was—or rather, what she was supposed to be) surveyed her room with a sense of pride. One may have categorized her self-appreciation as small, perhaps even miniscule, but it was the largest she ever recalled feeling. In the center of the room, jagged black rocks encircled the softest patch of sand to be found in the room, marking the area she had designated as a sleeping area. Conch shells that glowed with their soft pink hues were scattered around the floor, some half-buried in the sand and others sitting confidently atop and not submerging themselves beneath a single grain. Against the far wall was Cordelia's most prized possession. It sat with an aura of flirtatious vanity on a boulder serving as a tabletop. It shimmered and glittered, even more reflective than the surface of the water; this reflective quality was what kept Cordelia so enthralled with and entranced by it as the migrating sharks came and went and came again and time ticked on. Cordelia did not know the word for what it was since it had simply appeared at the edge of the cove's drop-off one day with no explanation or instructions for itself, so she just called it magic. She could only guess that it had come from the human world, and the thought made her heart swell with a sense of adventure she could not begin to explain or quantify.

In the past, it had commanded a certain amount of trepidation from her as she approached, but those days had been abandoned rapidly as Cordelia grew older and wiser and, against the wishes and beliefs of all the other sirens, less afraid of human things. Now, though, she approached the thing with confidence. She might have even felt tittering sparks of enthusiasm, were she not so downtrodden. As she grew closer, the image before her grew more meticulous and refined. After a few moments of careful shifting in position and angle, she managed to find the perfect spot to see the entirety of her reflection swaying before her.

Her throat tightened as she surveyed her own appearance. She truly did look like a siren at the most basic levels; one could argue about her choice of hairstyle, but the fact remained that her ears morphed into fins at their shells, her neck was lined with thin, almost innocuous gills, her teeth were sharpened to fine points prepared to delve mercilessly into prey, and her webbed fingers ended in vicious claws. She also possessed the artfully pleasing looks of someone graceful, eloquent, and refined: her brown skin was supple and soft, her lips were lush, her cheekbones and jawline were edged as if they had been carved that way by a sculptor. But her eyes—they were by far the most extraordinary feature she had. They were a deep, regal shade of purple, wide and large and questioning, and they were always full of wonder, observing everything in sight and deriving endless beauty and inspiration from it all. These proper and admirable qualities should have caused her to excel, to surpass expectations with ease.

Her lips parted slightly and her forehead creased as her hands lifted and found her throat. With thoughtful strokes, her fingers caressed the area she thought voices must come from. _But they don't mean anything_ , she thought, _and all just because I can't speak._ It was pitiful of her and cruel of the universe, she asserted, to resemble what she was meant to be so strikingly and yet never able to measure up.

_Maybe I just haven't tried hard enough._ Cordelia perked up slightly and straightened to her full height and whirled around the room once, picking up as much oxygen from the water as she could. Then she faced the water and willed even the feeblest of sounds to emerge when she opened her mouth. No sound came from her no matter how hard she wished, just the same way it had failed her for years in the past. Defeated, she sank to the ground, folding her tail beneath her and her hands in front of her. Even in her earliest memories, silence had brought her immense grief that evaded any sort of quantification. She remembered her first day under the watchful eye of the instructors who taught young sirens how to survive and thrive—a sort of education system put in place by the community and enacted by several instructors, all of whom were hunters with the most impressive and extensive skillsets of all the sirens in the cove. She remembered the way several girls had attempted to introduce themselves, saying hello and waiting expectantly for her reply, then growing irritable when it never came. Cordelia's wild gestures with her hands never seemed to get the point across. When the rumor she was mute finally did become widespread—much to the shame of her mother and three older sisters—things did not improve as she had been secretly hoping they would. Instead, annoyed glances morphed into confused looks and then into insufferable stares of pity and disproval.

The pity was what she hated the most. It was as if she were some wounded fish floundering just below the surface on the brink of death. It was her utmost wish to be a valued member of her family and, by extension, the rest of the community, perhaps even the rest of the aquatic world! But alas, she was condemned to be a parasite who fed only on what others could provide her, and she offered no contribution of her own.

It struck her all at once how exasperated she was with herself. Wallowing in self-pity was pointless and disgraceful. She knew there were better things she could be doing with her time: reading and writing, for example. She cast a listless glance in the direction of the wall littered with the scrawl used by most of the sirens within a hundred miles. She had carved the words into the wall with a sharp rock, but every cluster of them was abandoned, paragraphs left unfinished because they were all stories of heroic creatures of many sorts who basked in the spotlight of glory and were enamored with the praise of those around them. When writing them, Cordelia felt powerful and ethereal, but toward the end of any story, she found herself compelled to put down the stone and end it while she was ahead. After all, such fanciful tales were fiction anyway. What was the point of resolving them to the point of perfection? Reality was rarely so cleanly stitched together.

Even in the face of an imperfect ending, though, Cordelia found herself aching to pursue a better one than that which she seemed doomed for. Why should she allow something beyond her control to condemn her to a life of complacency she abhorred with every ounce of her existence? Why would she bow her head in respect for misery and prejudice? Why would she, Cordelia, a daughter of the sea, a strong and individual siren with all the complexity and validity as any other, allow one small detail to define her and stop her from achieving the great and the wonderful?

With her mind made up, Cordelia swam impatient circles around the room. She began to formulate a plan. Without doubt or question, she was certain that she would be as successful as any other siren—song or no song.

* * *

The silvery strands of moonlight were not nearly as appealing to Cordelia as the brash presence of sunlight. Perhaps it was a parallel brightness of character (though Cordelia doubted this; as much as she wished to be cheerful and rambunctious at a constant, more often than not the judgement pressing against her on all sides brought her to a melancholy state), or perhaps it was just that the sunlight was somewhat forbidden to her and the moonlight was not. Petty rebellion was childish, but so was Cordelia.

She bit her lip with a feverish, almost eccentric concentration as she slipped out of the caves and into the dim waters of the cove. Moonlight danced to an inaudible ballad atop the water's surface and reflected in phantom-like patterns on the ocean floor and Cordelia's skin. It must have been a clear night sky, Cordelia figured, without a cloud in the sky to obstruct the illumination that lit the world in a much less imposing way than the sun. Cordelia wanted to see it for herself. Though the rules of the sirens suggested against it, tugging obnoxiously at the fraying ends of her thoughts, she pushed better judgement aside and surged to the surface, pushing her head and shoulders above the water and staring straight up as residual rivulets of water slithered down her face and chin.

She could only stay like this for a few seconds, but every miniscule instant was worth catering to the fanciful whim of gazing at the sky. Even if the night was not as enticing to her as the day, she had heard in rumors and stories that stargazing was a human activity. She knew that among humans, such activities were shared among friends, but Cordelia did not have that luxury. Friends had never been, and presently continued not to be, her area of expertise. It was something she told herself often that she had come to terms with.

But when she turned to look on either side of her, in hopes that perhaps someone would be there for her to point out the beauty of the sky above, of course nobody was there. She knew nobody would be there because nobody was ever there. Thus, she settled for staring up at the sky herself and cherishing the view enough for two. Little twinkling balls of light winked down at her; they reminded her of the way light glinted off of her scales in a silvery, metallic sort of way. If she looked hard enough, Cordelia could see the variance in color: some stars were bluer than others, some contained more red, and others were the purest, brightest white one could imagine. At the center of it all was the moon, impossibly bright and enormous, the fair beauty who commanded the tides and brought light even to the darkest times. Though Cordelia's preference remained with the sun, she could admit to a certain degree of respect for the moon and what it symbolized.

Suddenly, with unprecedented swiftness, Cordelia became painfully aware that her precious few seconds had passed, and holding her breath was proving to be incredibly uncomfortable. With the last few remaining fractions of an instant that she had before her lungs would command air and leave no time for any sort of appeal, Cordelia turned her eyes out to the horizon. She was not sure exactly what she hoped to see, but what was there appalled her: a ship.

She needed to breathe. Another second and it felt as though her chest would burst. Simply ceasing the motion of her tail allowed her to sink quickly and silently beneath the gentle, lapping waves, but the moment she had taken her fill of oxygen, she rose above the surface again and squinted in the direction of the vessel she had seen. It was still there. Cordelia found herself sighing in relief; so she had not just imagined the thing out of sheer loneliness and perhaps the slightest traces of desperation. It sat just a few hundred meters away from the mouth of the cove. Trepidation's cautionary whispers caused her to linger in indecision for a moment, but the serenades of promise and hope quickly won out and coaxed her to approach the mouth of the cave for a closer look.

Once she arrived she could see it marginally better, especially if she squinted. It was a tiny boat, obviously designed for a crew of one. It was not often that sirens saw those sorts of ships (humans, it seemed, preferred the companionship of at least one other person when they came out at night to fish or trap or pollute), and Cordelia was no exception. Only twice in her life had she heard of such an isolated vessel so close to the cove, and she had never seen one with her own eyes until that moment.

A wicked, giddy smile crossed her face at once. She could prove with devastating finality that she was just as much a siren as any other and her prey had been foolish enough to come on its own. For once, Cordelia felt as though her luck might be turning after years of maintaining its bitter, nauseatingly unpalatable flavor. A sailor with no one watching out for him, no one to witness what was to happen, was as close to a miracle as Cordelia had seen in her nineteen cycles. The sailor would be vulnerable due to both solitude and the desire to sleep, Cordelia guessed; the darkness seemed to possess some mystical ability that rendered humans sleepy and delayed in their reactions far more than the light. Sirens had no such weakness. They slept whenever they found it necessary and were studying dolphins to learn how to go without ever completely sleeping at all. This gave her an advantage. The feeling of having such a thing swelled in her chest, and she threw all hesitation aside as she dove into the shadowy sea and swam as quickly as she could toward the vessel.

Cordelia knew a few minutes must have passed in the journey from the cove to the lonely ship, but the adrenaline pumping through her veins told her it was just a few meager seconds. After whatever span of time it happened to be, she reached the structure bobbing along with the waves and circled it curiously, running her fingers along its smooth underside. Though the dark impaired her vision slightly, she could make out the chain drifting down toward the ocean floor. This must have been connected to an anchor, which Cordelia knew served to keep the ship from drifting too far from familiar territory.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself, digging her claws as deeply as she could into her palms without drawing blood, for though she did think the sharks that would smell it were beautiful, valuable creatures, humans were terrified of them, and Cordelia did not want her prey to run off. As soon as she felt as ready as she was capable of feeling—would she ever truly be ready for this moment, the moment when she would finally prove that she was not incapable of functioning just as another siren would?—she filled her lungs to the brim with air and poked her head above the surface.

She swiped the salty water from her eyes and instantly saw him. He stood, silhouetted by the moonlight, against the railing of the boat. He appeared to be young and was not heavily built, adorned only by a cloth which curtained the space between his waist and knees. He had no bulging muscles or veins jutting from his flesh; the only part of him that did not appear perhaps a bit smaller than usual was his full head of hair. The tresses were messy and unkempt, brushing past his ears in effortless waves and scraping the nape of his neck, reaching down to just above his shoulders. His gaze was vacant and distant as he angled his face in the direction of open water, seeming to look at nothing in particular. Cordelia searched for any sort of weaponry on him, looking for a fishing pole or a net or anything else used to ensnare dwellers of the sea and take them away. No siren nor fish nor any other sea creature knew what happened to those who were taken by the humans, but it was known that they never returned. Cordelia saw nothing of this nature. Whoever this man was, it would appear he had no intention of capturing anything from the water, at least not today. He was only watching the horizon with no other visible intention whatsoever.

Cordelia's smile grew. An unarmed human was even easier to lure than one who was out on the sea with a purpose. Those who had no personal reason to be in a certain place were especially prone to distraction. Cordelia knew this to be true from her own experience endeavoring to acquire an education; it had become painfully obvious at an early stage that she stood to gain nothing from such teachings if she was not even capable of hunting. It was a bitter perception Cordelia was sure would be rectified to something greater, something wonderful this very night. Extraordinary things were often known to happen to those who seemed to be the least likely candidates for them in the fantastical stories which were passed from one generation to the next in the community. There were tales of heroes and martyrs and warriors in chain mail armor taken from shipwrecks miles below the weaves of the sea, and most of them overcame one disadvantage or another. Cordelia's head was filled with glittering fantasies of her own name being exchanged in the hushed, reverent voices of young sirens still looking for their place in the world. These imaginings fueled her confidence still more, and she slipped beneath the ocean's surface to move to the bow of the ship.

A soft splashing sound was elicited as her hands parted the waters above and she rose elegantly upward until her fingertips got a firm grip on the edge of the boat. A railing served as a boundary between the boat's deck and where it ended, most likely as a precaution for the possibility of falling out. _Humans are such poor swimmers_ , Cordelia thought, frankly amused.

With every ounce of her strength, she hoisted herself up and managed to grasp the lowest bar of the guardrail, effectively pulling herself up. From this angle, she could see the young man's profile outlined by silvery threads of moonlight. His features carved a perpendicular horizon into the sky, leaving a mark that was utterly temporary but would be permanently engraved into Cordelia's mind. She vowed that the sight would be committed to memory—the way his chin rounded off like a half-moon and curved down into his throat, the way his eyes were sunken into his head and overshadowed by bushy eyebrows, the way his shoulders rose and fell and slouched in rhythm with his deep breaths and heavy sighs. She vowed that she would never forget the face of the man who would launch her into the impossible, the great and the wonderful, everything she was destined for.

Having experienced more than enough prelude to this destiny, Cordelia ceased complacent observing and decided in a heartbeat it was most certainly time to enact everything she had been planning from the moment she had sneaked from her family's cave. She released her grip on the railing and fell back into the water, extending her tail as far as possible and ensuring she landed flat on her back to make the loudest splash possible. Even without a voice to aid her, she was sure she could capture his attention.

She bided her time for a few seconds just far enough below the surface that she was certain she would not be accidentally spotted too early. She watched the shifting patterns of the surface and squinted intently at the bow, waiting eagerly for a face to appear and gaze downward with an expression of curiosity and intrigue. Time ticked by. The face never appeared.

Confused, Cordelia surfaced once more. What she saw appalled her. The human had not even moved! It was as if he had not heard her at all, as if she had made no effort to command his interest. Annoyance pricked at Cordelia's skin, and her lips curled into what was very nearly a snarl. Positively indignant, she shifted to float on her back and slammed her tail thrice onto the water, creating a noise she was certain could not be ignored. The cacophonous slapping sounds were thunderous enough to cause a faint ache in her own head—she was not accustomed to causing such ruckus and disarray. Surely the human would hear them and at least be the slightest bit provoked or prompted to look and see what could possibly be causing such a thing. She dove stealthily beneath the waves again and waited, enthusiasm pulsating within her even more strongly than before.

And again, no face appeared to examine what she had done.

Cordelia's heart began to sink. Something like a rock clogged her throat while her intestines tied themselves into a knot. How large must the nerve of this creature have been, to let some unknown creature harass the waters just beyond his vessel and not cast even the most leisurely of glances in the direction of the commotion. Disappointment caused Cordelia's expression to droop. Her smile fell and her eyes lost the sparking, shining, vivacious excitement they had held so easily and so recently.

_Maybe I can't do it_ , she thought sadly. Defeat pushed down on her shoulders, and the swaying motion of her tail came to a halt just so she could drift downward into the seaweed bed that flourished at the bottom of this area of the sea. The green tendrils reached out for her, and she reached out for them, hoping that perhaps they would wrap her in an embrace tight enough that she might never leave, never face the man who had paid her no mind and the community that somehow paid her less than no respect. Of course, this did not happen. The seaweed parted and shivered as soon as the disturbance she caused in the water drew near, and she slipped into the plants. When she hid herself within them and closed her eyes, focusing only on the briny scent, the feeling of long, green ropes swaying peacefully against her and the invigorating chill of the water this far below the surface was almost as though the rest of the sea, or at least the darker parts of it where pain and sorrow came from, which Cordelia mused were not so much parts as they were living creatures, did not exist. What a happy world that would be: a world without judgement or conflict, a world without duress, a world without heartache caused by those who did not care to empathize. But Cordelia knew such a carefree world would also be a world without determination or persistence, and the necessity of those things outweighed the agony caused by the cons of a world that embraced them.

All at once, her heart was overflowing with passion, burning and flickering in flame-like fashion. The tongues of white-hot confidence licked at her insides, charring her bones and causing her muscles to twitch in want of action. She obliged, surging from her position within the grove of seaweed and breeching the surface once again, this time at the stern of the vessel. The human had not moved from his position of leaning all his weight on a guard rail and staring into the empty void that constituted the sky at that hour. Cordelia wondered fleetingly what he saw or imagined he saw. Was there anything to the inaccessible abyss of the sky that she was ignorant of, some trove of answers or grandeur that escaped her in her haste to fall so irrevocably in love with the daylight?

Cordelia shook her head to dispel the thoughts. Whatever he saw did not matter. He would see no more so soon, practically nothing of him mattered aside from his obedience to her whims and wishes. She pondered for a moment whether a riskier approach than mere sound would hold enough merit to warrant its use. At first, she was convinced that abandoning caution was an exercise in self-incrimination and unnecessary danger, but when she remembered the condescending dullness in her mother's eyes and tone, the decision was made without any further consideration. She moved silently through the water, dipping under only to breathe, and ventured out into the area where she guessed the young man's line of sight would be.

Before he saw her, though, she got a glimpse of something she had only seen in limp, lifeless form before. She saw the man's legs.

The odd things took her breath away. Seeing them cast over the shoulder of another siren after a hunt was nothing compared to seeing them in the flesh with her own eyes. She blinked a few times as she processed what she was seeing. Two long appendages stemmed from his waistline, the exact point where her tail began. They reminded her of her own arms, but they were stockier, capable of holding him upright and carrying him along the land. It was at this point that she noticed the other human things about him: the absence of gills on his neck, the soft curvatures of his fingers where hers morphed into tools meant for ripping and tearing, and the gentle dips and hills that made up his ears in the places hers became fins. He was so different and so foreign, an impossible creature whose lungs breathed without the luxury of water and whose form was so different to hers and yet so similar at the same time.

Cordelia only realized she was staring when the human's eyes met her own, wide with a fearful sort of wonder. It dawned on her slowly, like sulfuric ash descending on the world after a volcanic explosion, slowly poisoning and suffocating in an innocuous and yet brutal way, that he saw her more clearly than a man had ever seen a siren before. And then the reality of what was happening hit her like a fist to the gut and left her unable to think or even breathe.

She had succeeded, but only in exposing the entire siren world to a human.

Two: He Who Lived in Silence

Cordelia's whole world shattered when she realized she had failed. Her intent had always been to lure the human, to draw him out to sea and then pull him into the depths. Now, though, fascination and apprehension had quite clearly overridden any sort of blind curiosity. He had been allowed to examine her for just as long as she had been observing him. Shame reared up within her, baring its teeth and snapping at her heartstrings until they snapped apart and she caved in on herself with embarrassment and the endless sense of failure. The secret of the sirens was lost, and it was all because of her, the one who had been broken all along and had now fractured the entire society she had longed to be accepted wholeheartedly into.

_What do I do?_ she thought frantically, her tail flapping frantically underwater to keep her afloat as she stared into the face of the man who had just ruined everything. _No_ , she morosely corrected herself, _I ruined everything. I never should have tried to be something I wasn't made to be._ Though the thoughts were her own, they took a different voice: that of her mother. Tears stung the backs of her eyes. Her irises glowed lavender under the pale, gloomy light cast down by the moon. She almost swam away to take shelter in the cove but abruptly realized such action would only lead the human to the rest of the sirens and endanger everyone further. Anxiously, she resigned herself to watching in horror as he gawked at her. The urge to run away persisted, but Cordelia fought against it. She drew from the depths of herself the courage to piece together the fragments of herself floating aimlessly in the ocean of her heart and face the tribulation she had wrought. If it was to be a horrendous mistake, it was to be _her_ horrendous mistake, and no other soul would take it from her.

The young man's mouth opened as if to speak, but he seemed to think better of it and his lips pursed shut once more. Cordelia's lungs began to ache for breath. She receded into the water just enough that it glided against her gills, providing her with the oxygen she required. The human watched intently with a gaze that made Cordelia feel nauseous. It was as though she were some sort of exhibit, a creature trapped and forced to perform for the prying serpentine eyes that were always watching, always judging, always hungering for more. Her bones rattled within her flesh, but she rolled her shoulders back, scowled, and endeavored to produce a facade of confidence to save face. She ruled the human's halting step backward as evidence that her attempt had worked, if only slightly.

His mouth opened again, and he took a shaking breath. Cordelia's head tilted a few degrees to the right and her brow furrowed inquisitively. _Could he be afraid of me, too?_

Then the legged creature, who had uprooted the entirety of her existence with a stare lasting only a few seconds, spoke. The sounds were harsh, carried by the wind and open air, and none of the syllables made any sense to Cordelia. However, despite this, the tone was surprisingly gentle. Cordelia felt her muscles relax slightly, but her guard remained up and fully intact. His lips moved again, producing more garbled speech in a manner that sounded like a question. The cadence of humans was unintelligible and, to state it bluntly, unappealing to Cordelia. It lacked the melodious, pleasing quality the language of her people was known for. Nevertheless, she flattened her ears and shook her head in hopes of answering the question.

The human nodded thoughtfully, seeming to understand the gesture. He tentatively sank to his knees and leaned forward. Cordelia cowered slightly as he drew nearer, unsure of his intent. She was surprised at how afraid she was of him, when it was she who had the claws and teeth designating her as predator while he strolled through his life unarmed and as prey.

When Cordelia shrank back, he froze and waited. Cordelia submerged her gills for breath, her eyes never leaving the strange creature on the boat. After another few heartbeats passed, he collapsed onto his stomach and slipped under the lowest guard rail protecting him from the sea, and he offered a hand to her.

Cordelia jolted back a few paces in the water. Her eyes flicked from his hand to his face and searched for the meaning of this. An outstretched hand meant friendship and trust when exchanged between sirens and, if the innocent curiosity written all over the human's face was any indication, it must have meant something similar in the culture of the land dwellers. _Doesn't he know I could drag him into the water?_ she thought, somewhat affronted by the friendly extension to her. _What is he thinking? And what am I thinking? I should pull him in. That's what I came to do_.

For whatever reason, the idea was no longer appealing. Though the man should have been her prey, he was offering kindness to her, a kindness that she was undeserving of but, she realized, craved so desperately. Could it be that he was a more benevolent soul than all the sirens who had rejected her for so long? She was inclined to believe that he was. Loneliness did atrocities to a creature's judgement, and Cordelia was no exception. Her dire need for understanding, for compassion, for acceptance betrayed her the moment he reached out for her, palm turned skyward and fingers stretching as far as they could above the serene waters.

She moved toward him as trepidation twisted in her gut. Her tail breached the surface once and she was careful to lower it into the ocean soundlessly, so as not to disturb the eerie sense of peace that had overtaken everything in sight. When he was close enough to touch, she stopped. His eyes bored into her, apparently endeavoring to predict what she might do. Perhaps he was more conscious of what Cordelia was capable of than she expected. _Why, then, is he courting danger so readily?_ Cordelia thought quizzically.

Though the answer to that question evaded her, she felt her hand lift from the water into the cool night air and reach for his. Time slowed to a crawl as two living things, forbidden from one another, examined one another with a desire to understand instead of just observe or, in the most extreme cases, to harm and kill one another. It was a scene that had never been set before in the entirety of Earth's history for as long as either species had records documenting their ways of life, and it was a scene neither of them would forget for as long as their hearts continued to beat and their minds continued to crave the sense of awe that only comes with finding something no one else has ever found and keeping secrets no one else has ever kept. They were everything and nothing at all to each other at once in those precious seconds. Such is the reality of strangers who were born for things great and wonderful and destined to discover such things together.

Their hands touched.

Cordelia gasped and jerked back in surprise, which appeared to startle the human considerably, as well. She had not expected him to feel so warm. His flesh was like sunlight, radiating heat and bristling with the promise of life and euphoria. In the flurry of movement, he had drawn his hand back slightly, so Cordelia had to reach out and pull it back to feel it once more. Without a second thought, she did so and skated her fingertips across the warmth of his palm. She was vaguely aware that the faintest traces of a smile were tugging at her lips. When the human pulled his hand back and she looked up at his face, she realized he was smiling too. His face illuminated like the sunrise when he did, Cordelia noted: his eyes crinkled in the corners, one corner of his mouth lifted just slightly higher than the other to reveal a tooth that was slightly crooked, and every one of his features somehow managed to capture the ethereal qualities of light itself.

The human planted his index finger in the center of his chest and repeated a word a few times. It took a moment for Cordelia to realize he was articulating his own name. "Sage. S-ay-juh, Sage." The harshness of his voice still raked rather unpleasantly against her eardrums, but she was growing more accustomed to it, and it was much easier to understand when he spoke slowly. With crystalline clarity, she was soon repeating the sound in her head, committing it to memory as quickly as she could. After Sage was satisfied he had said his own name a satisfactory number of times, he leaned back on his haunches and looked at her expectantly. Unsure of what else to do, Cordelia simply nodded in hopes of conveying she had absorbed what he had attempted to pass along to her.

Nothing Cordelia felt made sense. She had approached the lonesome little ship with every intention of luring its captain to his demise, and now here she stayed, still as was possible in the formless and ever-changing body of water that sustained her, the desire to succumb to the expectations of her society and even herself fading rapidly until it was nothing more than the remnants of a dream, half-forgotten and phantomlike with no comparison to the vibrancy and sensations reality offered up so readily.

Putting the receding nature of her predatory instincts aside, the fear of exposing the world her ancestors had worked so diligently to form, preserve, and protect was as chilling and poisonous as ever. Her tail whirled irritably back and forth underwater as she determined how she could most effectively communicate the need for secrecy, but nothing she could do felt like enough. After half a minute more, at which point Sage was staring at her with a perplexed expression, Cordelia settled on pressing a finger vertically against her lips and plead with him as best she could with her eyes. With unprecedented quickness, Sage seemed to understand and nodded decisively. He spoke a few more phrases of gibberish, but Cordelia was too busy basking in the relief that the secret of the sirens was safe, at least for the moment, to bother reflecting on their meaning.

Cordelia tore her eyes away from Sage to gaze over at the horizon and was stunned to realize the first pastel traces of morning were bleeding into the darkness enveloping the sky. At the sight of them, she realized the sirens who were out hunting would be returning to the cove, and the sirens who had slept through the night would be awakening. In any case, Cordelia's absence would be found out and most certainly questioned, especially considering how she had been scolded just half a day earlier for venturing beyond the caves during the day. She wasted no time in preparing to dive underwater and swim with all the speed she could muster back to her room and close herself off, most likely to reflect on her failure to accomplish what she had been so certain was all that mattered.

But before she could surge beneath the surface and scurry away, a warmth radiated from her shoulder and she turned to see Sage reaching out and placing his hand there. Cordelia flushed slightly and her ears perked up. Her mind swirled with a muddled mixture of questions, none of which were fully coherent. Sage offered a reassuring smile and explained himself by pointing at his boat and then up at the moon. His expression implied some sort of question. At once, Cordelia understood. _Here, tomorrow night?_

Cordelia imagined this was the sort of question which should be carefully and thoughtfully pondered, considered with utmost precision and the thorough upturning of every metaphoric stone, analyzing any possible outcome of the situation. But Cordelia was nothing if not impulsive, so her response was as immediate as the movement of a minnow when something large drew too close for comfort. With a soft smile to match Sage's, she nodded. Then she slipped into the ocean and vanished.

* * *

Cordelia only dared emerge from her room when she heard the telltale symphony of voices and rustling movements which indicated others in the cave had awakened. When she parted her seaweed curtain and floated into the main area, she saw two of her sisters—the oldest, Indra, and Nerissa—gleefully carrying armfuls of fish. The other two, the twins, who were called Kairi and Kura, two cycles younger than Indra and a single cycle older than Cordelia, were curled up together in the corner where all the sisters save Cordelia slept.

"Good morning, Cordelia," Indra greeted her coolly. Cordelia waved in response. As the eldest sister, Indra never failed to maintain a calm composure on the exterior. She rarely expressed more emotion than was necessary, but she was the only sister who had never patronized Cordelia. She treated Cordelia like every other sister and had never made her feel like her voice made her worth less than the others for as far back as Cordelia could remember. Because of this, Cordelia held Indra in the highest regard.

"We went out hunting, but there was only one ship last night," Nerissa chirped brightly, "and we were pretty sure another siren was there. And it's the unspoken rule that you never take another siren's prey!" She giggled. Cordelia blanched, far too aware of which ship they must have been speaking. "Oh, don't look so worried, 'Lia! Can't you see all the fish we've got? There's plenty for everyone." She pushed one of the scaled creatures into Cordelia's hands and grinned at her. Cordelia made an honest effort to smile back, but she felt sick to her stomach as it dawned on her that she was nearly discovered last night.

With one great motion of her tail, Indra was beside Cordelia and felt her forehead. Her eyes were squinted with concern. "Are you feeling all right? You look like you're not well," she pointed out. Cordelia shrugged. "Well, eat something. It will help you feel better."

"Maybe she just feels guilty for mooching off your hunts all the time," Kairi sneered from the corner. "She never gets anything of her own to eat. And she's never even gotten close to a human." She and Kura tittered with snickers of laughter.

The words stung. Cordelia's lip curled when they were spoken, baring several gleaming teeth, all of which were white as pearls and vicious as a shark's. She cast an icy glance in the direction of the twins, but her annoyance only seemed to add to their amusement.

"And she's just as useless as a human," Kura put in, circling Cordelia like a gull in the sky painting circles on the horizon with its wings around the scent of a dead or dying meal-to-be. "Just as _vulnerable_."

The ridges of Cordelia's spine stood on end and her ears flattened against the sides of her skull. Kura and Kairi, being the middle children, had always felt the need to grasp every thread of attention possible. They had discovered soon after Cordelia's muteness was declared permanent that cruelty toward her was a speedy way to acquire the spotlight they craved, even if it did sometimes come in the form of scolding behind closed doors.

"That's enough," Indra warned. Stifling the last of their giggles, Kura and Kaira glided lazily past and grabbed more fish than it appeared they would be able to stomach. With a huff of indignation, Cordelia took a bite of her own breakfast and glowered at the floor. It was probably best for the moment that she was unable to speak. If she could, she was certain she would rant and rave of how she had gotten closer to a human than any of them ever had and ever would, so close that she had seen the angles and planes that formed his face, so close that she had felt him and all the warmth burning inside of him. Such brashness would only result in being found out, which would undoubtedly result in consequences of unprecedented severity.

_It's just so hard to keep quiet when all they've ever done is humiliate me,_ Cordelia thought bitterly. _One of these days, I'll show them._

She was not entirely sure how she could accomplish that goal at present. After all, she had now agreed to meet Sage in secret, and ulterior motives were not in place, at least, not on her end of the arrangement. As unfortunate as it was, she possessed a genuine desire to see him, the odd creature who was full of sunlight and who had been the first to show Cordelia undeniable, unquestionable kindness. She was drawn to him much in the way one is drawn to the ancient, forgotten crevices of the earth, enticed by the sense of mystery and adventure and the allure of doing something which had never been done in quite the same way before.

But the only way to impress Kura and Kairi, or almost any other siren, for that matter, was to hunt and kill. The only path to good fortune among the species was to bring another creature to its demise, and now Cordelia could not avoid the realization that every man brought down by a siren had most likely been as thoughtful and unique as Sage was. The thought made her stomach turn in a way she was not accustomed to.

"Cordelia?" Nerissa's voice was gentle and her touch was soft as she pulled Cordelia to the side of the cave and away from the other sisters, all of whom were now engaged in an extremely enthusiastic chatting session about something or another. "Like I told you, nobody blames you for being like this," Nerissa continued softly. "I know I was harsh when Mom sent me out to get you yesterday, but I can't blame you for wanting to get out for a while. And I know you're careful..." Her lips twisted with indecision. She cast a glance at the other three sisters, all still cheerfully bantering away about things of questionable importance. Cordelia realized Nerissa was pitying her, the runt of their litter, the one unable to engage in such conversations and as such did not understand their merit whatsoever.

The silence grew too long for Cordelia's liking. She touched Nerissa's shoulder with pressing urgency, prompting her to finish whatever it was she had set out to say.

"Oh...fine. Fine, fine, fine." She threw her hands up into the air. Her gestures indicated exasperation, but her eyes were filled with childish livelihood. "Listen, I'll cover for you today. I'll tell Mom I sent you to pick out sea shells so we can make jewelry and that you promised to stay out of sight. But you have to promise to actually stay out of sight!" She jabbed her index finger harshly into the water mere inches from Cordelia's chest.

Cordelia's expression lightened, and she felt as though she were floating atop the clouds. She nodded hastily, eager to be allowed an indefinite amount of time beyond the cave without her absence being questioned.

Nerissa smiled, clearly satisfied. "I'm glad you're cheering up. I'm only doing this because they're so insufferable sometimes," she whispered, jerking her head in the direction of the twins. She patted Cordelia's arm and nudged her in the direction of the cave's mouth. "Go on! Enjoy your day out. And stay hidden. I don't want to regret this!" Nerissa wagged her finger authoritatively. Cordelia smiled. For the first time in recent memory, the young siren's decisive bossiness was not an annoyance. As it were, Cordelia could not have been more grateful for her sister's insistence. Without wasting another second and risking any further reconsideration, Cordelia slipped from the cave and bounded eagerly into the open sea.

* * *

The first few hours passed without any notable events. Cordelia spent her time swimming along the auburn, coarse rocks that made up the caves and their surrounding stone encasings, never straying more than a few feet into the cove. Nerissa's aid was a rare gem and Cordelia was keen on at least attempting to honor her terms.

Being allowed to escape the confines of the cave cleared Cordelia's head considerably, enough, at least, to open her eyes to the magnitude of what she was partaking in. It had not escaped her that contact with the human, especially to the extreme of physical touch, was a crime against all sirens and everything they stood for. It occurred to her she should have felt ashamed and disgraced by her actions, but her inborn curiosity and fascination got the better of her. She was completely unfazed for the simple reason that her craving to understand overshadowed all inhibitions.

She came to a standstill in the water and traced the flesh of her arm where Sage's world had connected with her own. The skin seemed different somehow, as if it were bound shut by something much more valuable and magical than simple tissues threaded together to hold her in, as if the stuff which stitched her together and set her apart from the rest of the world morphed into something new the second she dared to connect with that which was inexplicably forbidden.

Human skin, though—that was far stranger, far further from the realm of what she could comprehend, than any subtle changes to herself. As the tips of her claws grazed the same spot the cushioned pads of Sage's fingers had touched, she reflected on how much boldness it must have required to reach out over the wide, dangerous expanse of water just to touch another. The presence of such brash, thoughtless, admirable confidence was revealing. It demonstrated that humans were full of passion, candles burning from the inside out, turning the wicks of their timelines to ash and bringing about their own demises just to live to the fullest.

Cordelia regarded that mentality with utmost honor and respect. Sirens were not known for burning passion or the insatiable drive to make their lives unforgettably great and wonderful. Rather, to be a siren was to fit in, to fulfill the duties of the species and carry on the honor of the ancestors who upheld it in generations past. There was no fire in the bellies of those who dwelled in the sea; the children of the water behaved as such in every sense of the word, approaching life with a cool sense of clarity that knew no bounds and had no limits. It struck Cordelia that perhaps she was more like a human than a siren in many ways.

She shook her head in hopes of dispelling the thought as easily as seafoam dissolved upon the sand, but good fortune of such enormity eluded her. Her mind had always been inquisitive, always drawing parallels and connections, always formulating new questions for her to chew on until their flavor went sour. And every difficult question did go sour eventually, because the hardest questions tended to be the ones concealing the most indisputable truths and were, therefore, the most difficult to digest. That which was true was rarely a clean, painless incision upon the veil of lies that made life bearable to the ignorant. Quite the opposite, in fact—the truth was often ugly and never simple.

A small rustling in a nearby patch of seaweed gave Cordelia pause. Ripped from her attempts at philosophy, she cocked her head and meandered a few strokes in the direction of the noise. The seaweed bed strayed from the edges of the cove, and she knew it was a risk and a defiance of Nerissa's orders to venture toward it. She almost turned back and headed home, but the movement grew more determined and the seaweed shook under the duress of whatever was writhing within.

As usual, curiosity got the better of Cordelia, and she quickly swam over to the seaweed bed, pushing herself up to glide effortlessly over it and peer inside without putting herself into too much immediate danger. At first, she saw nothing among the trembling green arms reaching up from the seafloor, but then something emerged from a particularly dense patch of greenery. It moved with unexpected speed, a gray blur darting among the seaweed. It was only a few feet long; Cordelia guessed by its size and its evident confusion it was in its youth, perhaps even within its first few days of life. In its haste, it was impossible for Cordelia to make out exactly what it was, but what she could see clarified the situation more than enough: the small animal was caught by its tail, ensnared by a few tendrils of seaweed. Its panic and incessant pulling had only drawn the binds tighter around itself. Cordelia felt sorry for the poor thing. Abandoned by its mother, there it was, trapped and afraid and alone.

_Come on, little guy, take it easy_ , she pleaded silently. She tentatively sank into the seaweed bed. _You have to relax. You'll never get out of there if you panic. Panic is what the bad things want you to feel so you can't escape._ She knew it could not read her thoughts, but it did seem slightly relieved by her presence. It attempted to swim a circle around her, nearly capturing her in the ropes which held it so firmly in place. She was above it in a flash and managed to catch it midstride, grasping its underbelly with as much strength as she could without harming the frightened beast and using the claws of her other hand to slice neatly through the seaweed clinging to it. Once she was finished, she managed to get a sufficient look at what it was and released it immediately, stunned and mildly afraid. The creature was an infant shark.

As soon as it wiggled from her grasp, it tumbled into the seaweed. Cordelia hurried back to the coppery rocks that lined the edges of the cove and took deep breaths. Few sirens touched sharks and lived to tell the story. The long, majestic tails that propelled the sirens closely resembled those of the shark's prey, and that resemblance had made for plenty of horror stories. When the males sauntered through during the mating season, many of them told fantastical stories of battling the vicious great whites. Cordelia never believed the ones that did not have the scars to prove it. No siren ever escaped a hungry shark unscathed. It was sheer luck that some escaped without serious impediments as well as their lives.

_But this one is just a baby_ , Cordelia thought. The cadence of her mind was cautioned as well as concerned. A silvery, triangular snout emerged from the seaweed. Tiny teeth protruded from the soft gums of its mouth. Cordelia knew they must be far sharper than anything she had encountered before, but the creature was too dull to use its own maw in the interest of freeing itself. Despite all the scary stories, Cordelia did not find herself fearing the creature as much as she should.

Unsure how to call it over, Cordelia swam a few tight circles as the young shark examined the seaweed with extreme care, seemingly curious as to how it had obtained such a tight grip and how it could prevent such a thing from happening again. Throwing all caution to the tide, Cordelia extended one of her hands in its direction.

Upon noticing, the shark paced back and forth in a state of what Cordelia could only describe as contemplation, scrutinizing her with beady eyes that glittered with interest and perhaps just the faintest inklings of fear. Cordelia smiled softly. _It doesn't even know it's supposed to be scary_ , she thought, humored by her epiphany. She inched toward it slightly with newfound confidence and clicked her tongue twice against the roof of her mouth. The shark hovered a few feet away, still in a state of indecision. Cordelia pressed her lips together tightly and hid the sharp points of her teeth. That did the trick; the shark bounded to her and scurried around her, wiggling eagerly as it did so. Cordelia reached out, and it quickly nosed its way into the appendage, silently urging Cordelia to keep petting it.

_I can't keep calling you "it," can I?_ Cordelia thought. She giggled when the shark shook its head, still dedicated to its frantic hustle through every inch of water within a three-foot radius of her. She was conflicted on just what would be the perfect name, but managed to quell the whirlwind of options a bit when she decided it was a girl. _How about Artemis?_ She mused after a hefty amount of consideration. There were stories and legends about Artemis, a huntress of the sea, capable of bringing down ships full of men armed with vicious weapons without so much as lifting a finger. Cordelia had copied parts of the stories to her walls long ago, but the writing had faded considerably since its creation. The shark hastily swam away, leading Cordelia to inexplicably wonder if she was not fond of the name, but all qualms were relieved as soon as the shark doubled back and scurried affectionately into Cordelia's arms.

_Artemis it is. But two clicks will have to do for as long as I can't speak_ , she explained to only the shadows shivering in the corners of her mind. Those shadows were the only company she had to speak with (and not particularly friendly company at that), but they had been there for as long as Cordelia could remember—shifting figures who whispered sentences in a voice that sounded eerily like her own. The shadows were always angry, and they were never pitiful, only cruel or silent. No one had ever bothered to explain it to her, but Cordelia had inferred long ago that such shadows were called negativity. She had always wondered why the ones in her head were so persistent when other sirens seemed not to have them at all.

But when Artemis nestled into the crook of Cordelia's elbow, all negativity was forgotten, and for an impossible moment of time, all shortcomings were forgiven. She patted the shark's snout and squinted up at the surface. Everything was turning from sea-colors to colors reserved especially for the sky: pinks and yellows and reds banished the aqua hues that so effortlessly dominated under the instruction of daylight.

Upon realizing just how late it was getting, Cordelia quickly pushed Artemis from her arms and began speeding in the direction of her family's cave. If she was to meet Sage, she knew she must first hide behind the faithful guise of her curtain and, by extension, convince her sisters and mother of her dedication to spending a restful night curled up on the sand, still and silent as the seashells which so often blanketed themselves in the gritty substance.

She was just about to round the corner which would reveal the mouth of her cave when a harsh nudge to her hip caused her to stop. Upon being noticed, Artemis wriggled with pride and swam circles around Cordelia once again. Cordelia shook her head and frowned, knowing perfectly well it would be impossible to hide a shark from her housemates, even if they were oblivious to many other things. There was a line that could not be crossed when it came to their ignorance, and Cordelia was fairly sure that the presence of a shark was well past that line. However, when Cordelia flicked her tail and moved away, making a point to hold her hands out and convey that Artemis needed to stay put, the shark surged directly past her hands and offered an enormous toothy grin just inches from Cordelia's face.

With a heavy sigh, Cordelia's features fell into an expression of exasperation. _I can only commit so many treasons at a time_ , she silently implored to Artemis. The irony was that harboring a shark, though it was certainly frowned upon, was a smaller crime than affiliation with a human. Yet despite the debatable legality of both practices, Cordelia's own whims and wishes won out against all logic. She supposed it might have been because hope had always been stronger than oppression and prejudice.

She lightly pinched her index finger and thumb around Artemis' dorsal fin and led her to a nearby patch of seaweed. She had noticed it the first time she had passed it because of its exceptional height and density. It was thick enough that the mossy green color was shadowed enough to mimic nocturnal hues.

_You're not going to like this, Artemis_. Even Cordelia's monologue was sheepish, all too aware of the dull stupidity in what she was about to do. In lieu of any other options, the only one remaining would have to do. The trusting little shark swam complacently along with Cordelia and stayed still as she fastened a few seaweed plants to the base of Artemis' tail. As soon as the ropes were tightened, Artemis yanked fearfully at them, clearly not oblivious to the familiarity of the situation. Cordelia reeled back, worried that the startled frenzy might result in an accidental bite, and snatched a passing fish out of the water. Artemis calmed down slightly when Cordelia offered her the morsel. After sniffing its scales with piqued interest, Artemis gobbled down the snack. Then her eyes turned to Cordelia expectantly with an expression that was unmistakably meant to convey the desire for more.

Cordelia patted Artemis' head reassuringly. There would be plenty of food to obliterate soon enough. Unwilling to waste another second of time as the pastel pinks of the sky turned to bloody reds and dusky browns, Cordelia angled herself in the direction of the toxic wasteland she had been trained to call a home. Already playing out each scene of what was to come in resounding, vibrant colors in her mind, she returned to the rocky edges of the cove and began to steel herself for any jabs or questions that may have been waiting for her.

However, upon arriving, it was apparent Cordelia's luck must have taken a turn for the moment. All four of her sisters were hunkered down, curled together in the living space of the cove and speaking to one another in soft, groggy voices. Occasionally, one would emit a few lyrics from a hymn—this late at night, the only songs to be heard were soothing adagio tunes. When Cordelia entered (she was careful to choose a time when the conversation surged to a peak, and she would most likely go unnoticed), most of her sisters ignored her. Only Nerissa locked eyes with her for a few seconds and offered a knowing smile. Cordelia returned it. Her heart swelled with gratitude and relief. If they were all resting together, none of them would be out hunting tonight.

Unfortunately, the dolphins were not as sleepy as the sirens. Upon Cordelia's arrival, Whistle chirped halfheartedly before sauntering past her and exiting the cave in the interest of taking a few breaths. The bottlenose with a sour disposition followed, sniffing suspiciously at Cordelia's hands and attempting to nip at one of them before following Whistle to the surface. It was a wonder the intelligent creatures could not speak, or else Cordelia feared her secret may have been exposed. Whatever the bottlenose had caught the scent of on her hands, he had not been fond of it, which led Cordelia to a mildly distressing conclusion.

Dismissing her worries and squaring her shoulders, Cordelia wandered inconspicuously toward her room and settled down to wait for the house to go silent. Her pursuit of the great and wonderful was horrendously averse to the presence of an audience.

* * *

The strength of the wind that night was peculiarly strong, scooping up the sea's surface to whip up large waves and whipping soaked tendrils of Cordelia's hair against her face whenever she surfaced. Sage's boat had not appeared yet. It was unclear whether the gusty surface was to blame or he had simply chosen not to come. Cordelia's insides shuddered when she dared to wonder if perhaps he was considering betraying her, gathering a group of his people to hunt her and expose the sirens even further. She knew she must act carefully, no matter what the reason transpired as.

Her eyes searched the horizon for any other sirens who may have been within her line of sight. Then she dove beneath the surface and peered through the water as far as she could see. No siren revealed itself to her, but she was not oblivious to the notorious cunning ingrained in her species. She could not deny that a circumspect nature was paramount if her recent habits of rule-breaking were to continue.

Well, so long as Cordelia had time to waste, she supposed it was only logical she go and retrieve Artemis from the patch of seaweed she was concealed within. She sank until her belly touched the sand and inched forward, always keeping her sharp eyesight keen on the movements of the things around her. She could not risk being seen again. It seemed she was alone, save for the silvery fish swimming lackadaisically nearby and the hermit crabs scuttling nervously along the ground, too afraid to step into the shadows or near anything that moved. She saw one leave its bland orange shell for just a few seconds to pick up another, one far more opulent in design with blues and yellows painting regal patterns along its edges.

Willing her focus to return, Cordelia used small, innocuous motions of her tail to propel her until she reached the notorious seaweed. Every atom of the sea was different at night and this was no exception. What once was a physical expression of the ocean's thriving livelihood now mimicked a multitude of specters, dark and mysterious and chilling, reaching their arms from whatever lay beneath the floor of the sea and reaching for someone to pull them out. Cordelia knew these things were just imaginings—the weeds were just weeds, nothing more than innocent plants which fed from the sun and in turn provided for a plethora of other living creatures who lacked the luxury of photosynthesis. However, an imagination was difficult to mute and impossible to silence forever, and when the world in one's head became preferable to the world that truly existed, the urge to disregard ugly truths for clinquant falsities would never fail to take root.

Artemis' triangular nose poked through the curtain of seaweed and sniffed the air inquisitively. Cordelia clicked twice in greeting and the shark, much to Cordelia's surprise, was clever enough to recognize the noise. She hastily receded into the underbrush and cleared the way for Cordelia to enter. Once completely concealed by the multitudinous tendrils, Cordelia became acutely aware the place must not have been terribly unpleasant for Artemis to be caged in; within, it became a fortress of greens and blacks and secrecy. Perhaps these pleasantries were what ensured all was forgiven between the shark and the siren.

Artemis nudged her tail against Cordelia's wrist, and she grinned, impressed. _You are clever, aren't you?_ she thought, undeniably pleased. According to Artemis' wishes, Cordelia presented her sharp claws and tore them through the seaweed holding the shark captive. There had always been a chance she would swim away in indignation at the first opportunity, but Cordelia had gotten the sense that the shark would not do such a thing—that a bond had been formed between the two which would keep Artemis from running off so quickly. _She must be lonely,_ Cordelia mused with a tone of empathy that bordered a tone of misery too closely for comfort. _Her mother abandoned her. Maybe because she's so little._

Artemis bounded around the moment she was free, exploring all the nearby nooks and crannies of the sand as if she had never seen them before. The little shark's optimism knew no limits. _But when you grow up, you're going to be the biggest shark there is. The greatest great white of all,_ Cordelia promised decisively, endearment tugging at her lips and causing her eyes to illuminate with joy. _I'll make sure of it._

It was strange—that much, Cordelia could not deny. To have met two new...what were they? Could she call them friends? Or was she mistaken? She had never been exceedingly bright regarding the complexities of interpersonal relationships. This had all taken place within the span of forty-eight hours, and both of them were, in some way, forbidden to her. But it dawned on her that change was not always a negative thing. In fact, she realized with a start, absentmindedly running her fingers along the lip of a conch shell half-buried in the sand nearby, that this was the most positive she had felt for as long as she could remember.

Upon such a gargantuan and yet, after its revelation, obvious realization, a single question persisted in Cordelia's mind, expressed in the form of emboldened capital letters flashing before her eyes every time she blinked: Why were such good things forbidden? As the answer came to her, Cordelia was reminded of human prisoners thrown from ships with rocks chained to their ankles. They sank quickly with no hope of escape, struggling but aware that all efforts were for naught, lungs bursting with the need to take in something, anything, just to feel alive and well again. Because oftentimes, good things came with the risk of danger, harm, and even bloodshed, all because the best things in life were inevitably the things one must fight for, and fight for with every ounce of strength their feeble bodies had to offer. As Artemis wriggled excitedly and blinked at Cordelia in awe and excitement, seeming intent on accompanying her wherever she went out of sheer fondness, Cordelia decided at once that if the pursuit of what was great and wonderful was to be a fight, she was to become a warrior.

Three: To Speak Without Tongues

Cordelia failed to catch the exact moment of the boat's journey out onto the sea with her own eyes. By the time she saw the little vessel, it had already floated well out from shore. As it sat there, poised, pristinely silhouetted by the moonlight and the rippling surface of the water, it occurred to her it was as if it had never been absent at all. Somehow, the sight of it made it feel permanent, a never-ending monument to the rules she had broken, all amid things as fleeting as whispers: the night itself and the exact pattern of the sky. Such a thing would never appear the exact same way again. Her eyes narrowed as she committed the intricate designs painted amongst the stars by wispy clouds before diving underwater and swimming purposely in the direction of the boat.

The moment she arrived, it became clear Sage had been waiting for her. He leaned over the edge of the boat and stared at the water with fierce intensity, almost as if he were willing something to appear. Cordelia obliged and surfaced, purposely positioning herself within his line of sight. Upon seeing her, the human's expression morphed from one of expectation to one of muted happiness, and he gestured to her in a way that was unfamiliar. With his palm facing her, he motioned his hand back and forth. Cordelia tilted her head, unsure of how to respond. Was this some sort of greeting ritual between humans? If it was, sirens had not adopted the same practice. Even so, she did her best to emulate it in return, waving her hand palm-out in his direction.

Sage seemed satisfied and leaned forward, extending his hand to Cordelia. However, Cordelia had never intended to hold their second interaction in the open water like this. If another siren caught even the faintest glimpse of the boat and recognized it as the one from a previous night, questions would be asked and suspicions would rise. Instead of accepting Sage's hand, Cordelia angled her head in such a way that her features pointed unquestionably toward the shore. She locked eyes with Sage for a single second, silently pleading for his understanding and cooperation, before she vanished beneath the surface and swam several paces in the direction of land. There were a few moments of agonizing stillness—the sort that caused heartbeats to go silent and lungs to contract, leaving one choked with emotion and desperate for some sort of indication the world was still turning, breathing, living.

And then, all at once, everything came alive. The boat's fabric sails cascaded downward and caught the wind. The vessel's bow pointed straight at Cordelia and the wooden ship began to move silently through the water, as silently as the fish below the surface. Cordelia exhaled in relief, eyes still sharply trained in the distance for any spying eyes. She saw none, but sirens were crafty. Much of her faith in this meeting going well was pure luck and the blissful ignorance that came from failing to address the obvious flaws in a plan.

Bringing her attention solely to the task at hand, Cordelia arched her back just above the water, and her tail was soon to follow, breaching the surface and slapping down to cause a triumphant splash. These actions were in the interest of guiding Sage exactly where she needed him to go. Despite being a human and, therefore, as far as Cordelia could guess, disadvantaged in following complex directions that came from gestures and social cues, Sage's comprehension was remarkable. He stayed near to her and was careful not to get so close as to risk scraping against her tail. This was a wise decision, as a well-timed slam of Cordelia's tail into his ship could easily fracture the flimsy wood with which it seemed to be constructed.

The moon had only shifted its position slightly by the time they arrived in a small lagoon which jutted inland. In the earliest and loneliest days of her youth, Cordelia had called this place Cordelia Cove. It was a narcissistic title, certainly, but at a time when she had ownership over little and control over nothing, it was liberating to know that a place of her own existed somewhere far beyond the reach of the suppressing, judgmental society picking her apart from the outside constantly and without reprieve.

That knowledge, of course, was not infallible. After all, it was a meager scrap of perception stitched together in the ramshackle, whirlwind mind of a troubled child. It was not long into the course of her visits to the miniature aquifer when she was found out by Mother. Though her tight-lipped, stone-faced predecessor was a woman of few words, she had exercised no restraint in shrieking at Cordelia that day with as many words and infuriated tones as she had available within her throat. Cordelia remembered far too clearly the moment her mother's raw throat had produced a hoarse voice instead of one containing pure rage. She remembered the way Mother had sneered down her nose as if Cordelia were some despicable, scummy thing and the hoarseness was all her fault. Cordelia remembered thinking that it was all her fault somehow, too.

But if she was going to break the most ancient and unrelenting laws of her people, what was one childhood guideline to her? She squeezed through the lagoon's entrance without giving it so much as a second thought. Artemis was soon to follow, though she seemed keen on keeping her belly as low and close to the sand as possible. Cordelia guessed the colossal, dark shadow cast onto the seafloor by Sage's boat had intimidated the poor thing.

Cordelia moved to the center of the lagoon and submerged her gills after realizing it had been disturbingly long since she had bothered to take a breath. The lagoon had seemed so much larger when she was a child; she could have submerged the entirety of herself within it with surprising ease. Now, though, the only place the entirety of her length, tail to head, would remain underwater was precisely in the center. To move any closer to the edges of the pool was to require hunching down just to breathe.

The boat came to a halt long before it reached the maw of the lagoon. This perplexed Cordelia for a moment before she realized the boat must need a certain amount of water beneath it to stay level and safe. It was much the same for sea creatures, particularly whales, Cordelia noted, who were, by the circumstance of migration patterns, required by nature to pass landmasses. The closer they came to shore, the greater their risk became of being beached and rendered helpless. One had washed up in the cove once and was on the brink of death. Luckily for the beast, the male sirens happened to have travelled in around the same time and somehow managed to haul the thing back into the water, all the while risking their own lives and ducking back every minute or so to take breaths. It had appeared to Cordelia to be the worst fate imaginable for a sea creature.

Cordelia heard a splash of water as the boat's anchor dropped down into the ocean. Shortly after, she was amazed to see Sage leap from the ship's bow into the water. The form of his dive reminded her of the ones the sirens used to move with the most efficiency and speed. It was surprising to witness a human exhibiting such strong swimming techniques, but it was fascinating all the same.

He rose from the surface, ripples dancing circles around him as his fingers grappled with the shore. He pulled himself up from the dark water and knelt in the sand. Droplets of water coated his body like jewels, perched delicately on his shoulders and eyelashes. The moonlight kissed them and they became pearls rolling swiftly down his body as he crawled over to the edge of the lagoon, all the while analyzing the siren before him. Slightly embarrassed, Cordelia readjusted the seaweed wrap enveloping her torso and dove underwater for a few seconds, sweeping up a few desperately needed breaths before returning to the open air and facing the human who had changed everything.

Sage's mouth made unintelligible noises like those he had made before. Cordelia shook her head. Human dialect was like sandpaper. It lacked all refinery and elegance and was filled to the brim with harsh sounds that came from the tongue and teeth instead of the chest and heart. However, communication was necessary between the two of them if any progress was going to be made. Cordelia had no resolution for this problem, but Sage, it would seem, was one step ahead of her.

He motioned for her to watch him closely. He indicated the sand with a pointed finger and then made a gesture in front of him with both of his hands. When Cordelia failed to understand the significance of his actions, he repeated them. After a moment, his intentions transpired. He was assigning a visible sign to a word to communicate it to her.

Cordelia's head buzzed with excitement, and she mimicked his actions at once, pointing enthusiastically at the sandy shore and then emulating the requisite gesture. Sage nodded and grinned at her, seeming oddly proud. Cordelia was surprised at just how proud she felt, too. It felt as though a whole new world, shining and unfamiliar and beautiful, had been revealed to her within the span of just a few instants, and she had no interest in doing anything but absorbing as much information from this unique opportunity as possible. She pointed to the water, piercing the glossy surface a few times with her fingertip, and cast Sage a quizzical look. He responded without missing a beat, taking one of his hands, holding up three fingers, and angling them toward his face. Cordelia nodded and repeated the action.

It became clear, with all the abruptness and searing sky-scraping power of a falling star, that it was going to be an incredibly productive evening.

* * *

A few weeks of nightly meetings passed. Cordelia and Sage were at last able to convey basic sentences to one another. The lesson in gesticulation was simple and clear for its entire duration, save the lesson in conveying "hello" and "goodbye," for the two words shared the same motion in human mannerisms. Nevertheless, despite mild confusion, Cordelia accepted the teaching. The language they now shared was still broken and flawed, but any functionality at all was an improvement to earlier attempts to interact.

They had decided, amidst the frantic assignment of gestures to words, that Sage's name would match the sign meant to identify the short, green stubs which protruded in multitudes from soil. After weighted consideration, Cordelia had gathered up a few tendrils of seaweed and woven them together, figuring that "cord" was the closest she could manage to her name. Thereafter, the names were committed to both of their memories.

Artemis seemed protective of Cordelia; the little shark nearly nipped Sage's foot when he dipped it experimentally in the water. But a reassuring pat to its dorsal fin calmed it, and Sage had been free to do as he pleased thenceforth.

Now, the first inklings of dawn were once again signaling that daylight was on its way, having fulfilled its long and arduous journey below the horizon, and was at last ready to emerge and cascade in warm, pleasant waves down onto the earth below. _Sage_ , Cordelia gesticulated to get his attention _. I must go home. The light is coming_. Admittedly, it was not in as great detail as she might have preferred, but it would have to do.

Sage nodded in understanding. She had delivered this line as a means of farewell before, and Sage had never questioned it. However, today he seemed to be feeling particularly bold and chose to inquire, _Does the light harm you?_

Cordelia was beginning to realize that humans were a curious species; one could even go so far as to claim they were nosy. It was paramount to them—or at least it was to Sage—to understand all new surroundings and stimuli. Sirens were not nearly so prying, but they also were not nearly so interesting. She found herself staring at him when conversation lulled to a halt, tracing all the differences between them with her eyes and resisting the urge to reach out and touch them like she could with Artemis. She had been taught for the entirety of her life that humans were no brighter or valuable than beasts of the sea, unable to think or be reasoned with. But now it was painfully obvious that the opposite was true. Sage was a thinking creature. It was evident in the way his eyes glittered under the moonlight, the way his smile was inviting instead of threatening despite the fact it still included the baring of teeth, and the way he did not seem afraid of her, though she was certain her appearance must be frightening.

_No_ , she told him. _I love the sun, but it is forbidden. My family will ask where I was tonight. I have no explanation because I cannot hunt._

_Why?_ The reply was blunter than Cordelia was accustomed to. The forwardness was refreshing, washing all the passively annoyed aura that oozed from other sirens who would never be so direct, aside from Kairi and Kura, of course. They were uncharacteristically bold for sirens, and Mother had tried several times to scold them into behaving. Nothing seemed to work.

Cordelia did not have a symbol to describe muteness. Just as there were not specific words to explain the rawest pains and deepest pleasures of living in a world where life was merely a prerequisite for death, and yet the creatures who would one day be forced to submit to that gruesome end persevered to value it as something more—no words to adequately encompass the empty, hollow, gnawing ache of loss or the icy, prickling sensation of goosebumps at the sight of something truly important or the burning, searing, agonizing sensation of sadness which had no source but something deep and irreparable within the afflicted—there was not a gesture big enough, wise enough, compassionate enough to express the disability which had drained the color from her world and brought it to a bland, monochromatic interpretation of that which should have been so much more.

As she looked at Sage, it was as if the smoky hazel tones of his eyes brought more color to her own violet ones and allowed her to see—truly see—for what felt like the first time. In lieu of a gesture, she sorrowfully placed a hand to her throat and tapped twice, shaking her head as she did so. She was anticipating a long, uncomfortable exchange of many gestures before Sage received the message she intended to send, but to her surprise and relief, such extensive measures proved unnecessary. Sage's features contorted with understanding tinged with an almost mournful expression.

_That's okay,_ Sage responded, folding his hands in his lap for a moment, seeming to ponder something. After a moment of suspenseful silence with Cordelia watching and waiting expectantly all the while, his hands lifted once more and tapped the sides of his head. Or rather, as Cordelia realized a few seconds later, his ears. I would not hear you.

Immediately, Sage's failure to hear the percussion-like beats of her tail on the water during her attempt to entice him into following her made sense. He had not been ignoring her or simply expressing vague indifference to her efforts. He had been entirely unable to hear her in the first place, or hear anything at all, for that matter.

Cordelia ran a hand through her short hair and grabbed a breath underwater. Was Sage aware that what he considered to be a shortcoming had saved his life and brought about her friendship? It struck her, much in the way she imagined Artemis' teeth sank into her belly, if he had only been able to hear, such a terrible thing would have occurred; she would have killed him. And, according to everything she had ever believed up until the previous day, she should have killed him. That was simply the natural order between sirens and humans. It was a predator-to-prey relationship, filled to the brim with contempt, bloodshed, and disregard for the other side. But thanks to his deafness and her muteness, something unspeakably strange and new had occurred. A friendship had been formed instead of a meal. She wondered if perhaps it was the endless loneliness which had driven her to this point and guessed it probably was, but bringing herself to care was another matter entirely.

It occurred to Cordelia she had been staring, unblinking and unmoving, for a disturbing amount of time. But just as she lifted her hands in the interest of breaking the awkward silence—well, breaking it in a sense, at the very least—Sage broke it himself. _Our meetings are secret?_ he inquired.

_Yes,_ Cordelia told him. _We are taught that humans are not spoken to. Humans are dangerous to the little ones and prey to the adults. I am supposed to stay hidden all the time since I cannot hunt._

_Do you believe I am dangerous?_ Sage asked. It was probably his two-hundredth question of the evening, but Cordelia responded with patience that astounded even herself; childish as she was, patient was not typically an adjective associated with her.

Cordelia thought about it for a moment. _Will you reveal me?_ Her gestures were slow, cautious, and her heart steeled itself for the disappointment of realizing Sage might not be as trustworthy as her fantasies painted him to be.

For the thousandth time, Sage shocked her. _No. You are a secret._

The tips of her ears perked up at the news and she smiled, taking care to keep her lips pressed tightly shut to avoid any sort of threatening subtleties. _Then you are not dangerous, Sage_ , she admitted with an odd sense of pride swirling in her chest.

The daylight was growing fiercer by the minute. What once were faint traces of a newborn day were rapidly morphing into golden streaks like those in a lion's mane, harsh and ferociously bright. Though she adored it, the day was undeniably dangerous, and the longer Cordelia stayed out, the risk of being caught grew ever more enormous.

_I must go,_ she repeated. _Tomorrow? Here?_

Sage indicated his agreement and waved goodbye to Cordelia. She waved back. She felt a sensation quite like that which she felt when befriending Artemis, but this time it was much stronger, deeper, and more heartfelt. She believed this emotion, judging entirely by the warmth and saccharine glee it carried loftily in its wake, must be fondness, and perhaps it was magnified by the fact that—dare she think it, or go as far as to hide the words in the chambers of her heart and commit it there for the rest of her life—it seemed to be returned.

When she exchanged a parting glance with Sage, the juxtaposition of glittering light in his stormy eyes was more than enough to convince her that it must be true: Sage was her friend.

* * *

On her way home after stashing Artemis in a thick patch of seaweed, Cordelia's heart sank when she realized she had lingered in the lagoon for too long. Even below the surface, the sense of dawn radiated from everything as light penetrated the surface and every creature, from the fish near the waves to the mussels rummaging through the sand, reached up as if to grasp just a few specks of its flawless, chimerical magic.

The sirens, of course, were no exception. Those who had not participated in hunts the previous night were notoriously early risers, and Cordelia passed a few of them on her way home as they emerged slightly from the mouths of their caves either to snag a few fish to eat or simply purge the bleariness of sleep from their eyes via the morning's infallible glow. Despite her best efforts to go unnoticed, keeping her eyes fixed on the sand and her face carefully poised away from any large groups, a trio of sirens she had been educated alongside caught sight of her and bounded over. These were the three sirens Cordelia found the most tolerable. They had never been unkind to her. In their formative years, she had certainly sensed an air of pity from them, but it had diminished as Cordelia proved herself to be firmly against the acceptance of blind, halfhearted sympathy. She supposed that they were the closest creatures to friends she had possessed in early life. Their names were Lani, Ondine, and Thala. All three had tails glimmering with striking teal scales. The differences in shade were almost unrecognizable without meticulous and lengthy scrutiny. One might have guessed they were closely related in one way or another, most likely sisters; but the moment one considered the rest of their features, it became abundantly clear that they were not.

Lani was fair-skinned. In fact, she was the palest siren of the community, sporting skin so light it was nearly translucent under the sun and looked eerily gray and lifeless in the dark. Her hair was just as fair and mingled flirtatiously with the light dancing in nameless patterns over it, becoming one with illumination and giving the illusion of tangible and intangible coexisting and breathing as one. She was a frail, feeble thing—her collarbones and shoulder blades clearly protruding from her nimble figure. Her eyes were red, but it was difficult to perceive them as threatening, especially when many other sirens tended to bear hostile resting expressions. Lani's eyes were perpetually gentle and kind, and her lips were always upturned.

Ondine was Lani's direct opposite, dark and somewhat brooding on the surface, though it was clear to any onlooker her soft side was present and accounted for, particularly around her closest friends. Her hair cascaded down in thick, exquisite, dark curls, and her eyes were patchwork with warm, golden, honey-like tints stitched together by browns so impossibly dark they reminded Cordelia of the great abysses scattered like scars throughout the sea. Her body was solid and thick, appearing to have been elaborately carved and buffed from stone. She carried with her an unprecedented sense of strength no other siren was capable of matching. Her mouth was always pulled into some semblance of a snarl unless her eyes were fixed on someone she deemed worth doting on. Cordelia saw a minute portion of herself within Ondine's rigid, coarse nature; after all, she was just as hesitant to cast her affections onto other sirens due to the knowledge they would only pity and patronize her like some wounded, dejected castaway stranded in the deepest portions of the sea. The line dividing their natures was Ondine's willingness, perhaps even her desire, to make others aware of her distaste. In fact, she was notorious for baring her teeth and demonstrating the extent of her strength to anyone who dared to disparage Lani or Thala.

Thala was made up of sweetness and soft rounded edges. Her skin harkened back to the brownish hue that blanketed whale sharks and her nature was just as gentle as the prodigious animals'. Even in her youth, she had been awkward and shy, always tripping over her own words and nervously clasping and unclasping her hands in front of her. Timid and skittish as a minnow, she never strayed far from Ondine. Her hair was a blazing auburn, her eyes an oceanic blue, and freckles dotted her nose and cheekbones in patterns that reminded Cordelia of constellations, joined in some places by pock marks, remnants of the nightmare known as adolescence. She fell somewhere between the other two in body type, harboring little pudges and protrusions of skin around her arms and middle.

It was Thala who caught sight of Cordelia first and, after a small nudge of encouragement from Ondine, crooked her finger and gestured for Cordelia to come over to the edge of the wall. Though they were still as young as she, the triad of girls lacked the petty rebelliousness Cordelia was dominated by and, consequently, were obedient enough to stay near the caves when venturing into the sunlight. With a sigh of resignation, Cordelia swished her tail and joined the small group. It would be suspicious and rude not to, she supposed.

"Cordelia!" Lani constantly spoke as though she were breathless, exhaling her words in hushed whispers which closely resembled the sound of waves lapping at a stony shore. "It's nice to see you. We were just talking about you the other day, weren't we?" Ondine and Thala nodded in concurrence. Cordelia was taken aback, terrified they had seen her incriminating behavior over the last two days. At the sight of her incredulous expression, Lani continued, "No, no, don't look so alarmed! We were only saying it's unacceptable how differently you're treated because of something you can't control."

"We know we didn't try as much as we should have to be friends," Ondine added, "and we're sorry about that. We were hoping maybe we could start again?"

"A-A-After all," Thala uttered, "W-We should stick together. We're all s-s-sisters here." Though she did her best to present a small smile and emulate a friendly disposition, the presence of her stutter was more defined than usual, implying she was quite nervous about speaking to Cordelia. "B-Besides, you and I b-b-both understand what it's like to, to, to not t-t-talk well."

This perplexed Cordelia immensely; in fact, the suddenness of the entire situation struck her like a bolt of lightning and made her hair stand on end. These girls had never shown her unkindness. The most heinous crime they had committed was indifference, and Cordelia did not even blame them for that. Yet here they were, offering their sincerest apologies and extending the hand of companionship to her. Everything felt so out of place to Cordelia. With alarming abruptness, all the things she loathed about her feeble attempts at a valued existence were dissolving with the morning mist as kindness stormed the barricades around her heart on all sides. Despite her confusion, she resolved to accept it and hope this streak of unprecedented good fortune intended to continue.

As Cordelia turned the newness of it all within herself, she was dimly aware of Ondine and Lani quietly disparaging Thala's negative comment about her speech by telling her she had the most beautiful singing voice of all the sirens. This was true; even when the four of them were tiny, dimwitted children still plagued by impish, careless tendencies, it had been clear Thala's cadence was a rare gem. When she sang, her stutter melted away, as if the music inside her was more powerful than any obstacle could be. This fact had been a source of jealousy for some sirens. Even Cordelia had felt the sickening twinges of envy in her youth. She had traded such childish notions long ago in favor of a more rational, accepting view.

"Well, what do you think?" Lani prompted, returning the focus back to Cordelia. "Friends?" She extended her hand. Cordelia nodded and graciously took it. Lani's flesh was even colder than her own. Sirens tended to be incapable of producing a surplus of heat from their bodies, but Lani was so small Cordelia knew it must have been hard for her to produce even enough to be comfortable within her own skin.

All physical coldness aside, the three girls were wholeheartedly warm and flashed Cordelia toothy grins the moment the agreement was made. Thala went as far as to let out a high-pitched yip of excitement, but it must have been involuntary as she appeared to be incredibly embarrassed directly after. Her face flushed as she crossed her arms over her midsection and gazed sheepishly at the ground.

Cordelia smiled slightly and turned to leave, her head already whirling, questioning how she could ever explain her absence now. Before she could escape, Ondine, who looked more thoughtful than usual, snagged her arm and tugged her back with a gentleness Cordelia appreciated greatly. "Hold on," she said chidingly. Cordelia pulled her arm back with a bit of difficulty, though she did her best to keep her expression neutral and free of any implication of hardship, nodding her head in the direction of her cave _. I need to get home,_ she willed them to understand.

"Cordelia, just wait a second," Lani huffed with an odd half-smile.

Cordelia paused. A beat of silence passed. A strange sinking feeling descended into her gut.

Lani took a deep breath. "We know you've been sneaking out."

Four: Camaraderie

The words Lani delivered made Cordelia's blood freeze inside her veins. Every muscle in her body went rigid and stiff. Her limbs went numb, and her insides churned, lurching so violently she felt a shudder quake through her core. She swam backward with mechanical jerking motions, staring at Lani, Ondine, and Thala in horror. So she had been found out.

Truly, she should have been better prepared for this moment. In fact, she should have suspected it the moment the three girls bestowed their affections to her. There was no possible way she could have been careful enough, thorough enough, lucky enough for the awe-inspiring magnificence that had overtaken her life for the past two days.

She braced herself for whatever was to come: prying questions, mortifying threats, perhaps even blackmail, if the trio was desperate for currency or power, and most of all, deliverance to the Chief, the ancient siren who lived through countless generations advising and overseeing the community. The Chief would be the one to chain a sentence of exile, or worse, around Cordelia's neck to make an example of her. It could not be helped; that was simply the way execution of law and justice worked in her society. She had doubtlessly brought the punishment upon herself by pursuing her childish whims and far-flung dreams. What she had done was as ludicrous as attempting to walk, not to mention far more criminal. What had she been thinking, befriending a human!

Ondine and Thala exchanged a glance. Then Thala and Lani traded similar expressions. Cordelia could not read them. The most logical assumption was to assign them dispositions of malicious amusement. It was a cruel practice and an archaic tradition of sirens to toy with prey. Cordelia had never felt so directly victimized by the ways of her people.

The three girls burst into giddy, high-pitched laughter. Thala and Lani attempted to cover their mouths and stifle the sounds with minimal levels of success, but Ondine did not bother to offer such politeness. Cordelia's frigid terror morphed into a viscous, tepid confusion.

"Don't look so serious!" Lani giggled, wrapping an arm around her midsection in a feeble attempt to quell her laughter. Cordelia blinked and scratched her scalp, somewhat dazed at how many directions this conversation was taking. "We won't bust you! We promise!"

"I-I-It's not like, not like w-w-we spied on you or anything," Thala added gently. Cordelia felt herself relaxing slightly as the situation diffused. Banishment would wait until another day, at the very least.

"Though if you are going out to meet a boy, you'll have to tell us about him someday," Ondine teased lightly. "You know, so we know who to beat up if he hurts you. What else are friends for, right?"

_Yes. Friends._ Cordelia mulled over the thought for a few seconds. The paranoia that had manifested within her just moments ago was a testament to how badly she needed them. Perhaps the three of them could at last offer her the stability and companionship she had lacked for so long. The habit of feeling lonesome, even in crowded rooms, might dissipate at last. Guilt gnawed at her insides for mistrusting them so quickly. It was true they had never given her a reason to place confidence in them, but they had also done nothing to betray her trust.

Her mouth had gone strangely dry, and she swallowed hard before giving them a thin-lipped smile and nodding. There was no harm in allowing them to believe she was sneaking off to meet some rogue, handsome, young siren. In fact, allowing their suspicions to culminate on the idea might keep them from asking further questions.

"Speaking of _boys_ ," Lani cooed and shot a pointed look at Thala, who suddenly looked quite embarrassed. Ondine flashed a fond, toothy grin and poked her side, which only seemed to heighten Thala's bashfulness. "Did you hear that the migration cycle is bringing the men here soon?" Cordelia shook her head. "Well, Ondine and I don't really care—they're gross, narcissistic, and they smell, you know," she wrinkled her nose.

"Like fish and sweat." Ondine affirmed brashly. "We've got better things to do."

"Right," Lani straightened to her full height and rolled her shoulders back. Her eyes glimmered with a sense of playfulness that was familiar and comforting to Cordelia. Impish as she was deep down within, it was difficult to find that quality in a siren because it was so heavily admonished. Sirens were creatures of reason and mischief disregarded any sense of logic. "Anyway, the point is that Thala was really hoping to meet one of them." It appeared Thala had nothing to add to the conversation. She was turning such a fierce shade of red Cordelia was beginning to worry for her health.

Cordelia squinted as she endeavored to decipher what Lani's point was. Any shred of understanding evaded her.

"You're so beautiful, Cordelia. We know lots of them will try to court you. We were only wondering if you might point one in Thala's direction, or maybe introduce her?" Lani implored in a sugary voice, surging forth and taking Cordelia's hands in her own. As strange and inexplicable as it was, Cordelia found herself expecting to feel the explosive warmth that radiated from Sage's flesh. Of course, a siren could not hope to give much more than an unsatisfactory impression. A peculiar feeling of absence perched on her shoulders. It was a much lighter yoke than the leaden disapproval of her mother, sisters, community, but a yoke nonetheless. She wondered if this was the feeling of missing someone.

To be left in want of someone was not a sensation Cordelia was accustomed to. Siren communities were so tightly knit, drawn together by shared purpose and necessity for one another, even as an outcast it was impossible to think of another member of the community as gone, out of reach, somewhere beyond one's own capability to obtain. Some of the particularly voluptuous girls sang mournful, yearning sonnets when their lovers abandoned the cove in accordance with the migration cycle, but Cordelia had never loved in that way, the way of instinctual desperation blanketed by blind passion, all packaged in hot breaths and heartbeats and inevitably ending with gelid solitude. But all of this was meaningless; no amount of analyzing her long, proud history of avoiding such a feeling would provide an explanation of the source. Of course, an explanation was not entirely necessary. Cordelia knew the reason, knew it as well and as certainly as she knew the scars inside of her from so many years of tracing them until they reopened, and it could not be denied. She missed him, the human boy with who held the stars in his eyes and buried the sun beneath his skin as if it were some sort of precious, golden secret.

When she looked at Thala's face, she saw a distant sort of reflection, a more innocent version of herself standing before her, one ever so slightly less damaged and cynical. She saw a girlish hope that persisted and refused to die despite tremendous opposition. And Thala had been right: the two of them shared a kinship in their struggles. Though Cordelia had learned always to regard suspicion as safer than trust when it came to the motives of other sirens, this, she had discovered in the earliest days when those who had pretended to care for her revealed themselves in the form of cruel words and heartless, endless rejections, was the way to avoid being hurt. Perhaps it was time to stop running and hiding from the opportunities she secretly longed for. Perhaps, like the tide in the evening, good fortune was slowly seeping over her. It was the first time in Cordelia's life she wished dawn would never come. Besides, even in lieu of the debate to trust or not to trust, the fact of the matter was that it could not hurt to have friends who would not get her banished. Certainly not everything Cordelia did could be illegal.

She smiled sincerely and patted Lani's hand in agreement, offering an amiable nod in Thala's direction. She had little interest in the men to begin with. Lani and Ondine were correct in saying their attempts to exude the most superior degree of masculinity were overwhelming, to say the least. She inwardly decided to do her best to point the most tolerable of them in Thala's direction.

The three girls cheered and pulled Cordelia in for a hug. Ondine's arms wrapped around the entire group and squeezed until Cordelia was almost unable to breathe.

"Th-Th-Thank you," Thala whispered in Cordelia's ear before they all parted.

"We'll swim you home," Ondine offered. "And we'll tell everyone you were looking for fish with us this morning. That way you won't get caught. Think of it as our way of saying thanks."

They made good on their word and cheerfully glided alongside Cordelia as she made her way home. After the delivery of an excuse that was frankly far too well orchestrated, the accusatory anger died down in Mother's eyes, leaving only a blue dissatisfaction in its wake. Ondine even managed to stop the snickers of Kaira and Kura by telling them Cordelia was a fantastic hunter. To hear such things said of her made Cordelia feel guilty because, as fate would have it, she was not a good hunter at all. She was only a friend to the one she should have been hunting. And she was proud of that. It all made her feel ill.

When they determined everything was in order, Lani, Ondine, and Thala left, leaving only disturbed water and a few wayward bubbles where they had once stood. Cordelia would have tried her best not to look smug when passing the twins on her way to her room, but the tensing of their posture the moment Ondine had glanced their way was far too amusing simply to set aside. She vanished behind her curtain of seaweed and curled up for a well-deserved rest.

* * *

"Cordelia, you have to get up." The cool, steely tone startled Cordelia, and she blinked her way to consciousness at once. Her first impression was that Mother must have come to wake her, but a quick glance in the direction of the sound informed her that Indra was speaking. It was uncanny how similar Indra seemed to their mother lately. Though she was still young enough to inhabit the cave, her posture was stiffening to the board-like intensity of Mother's, and her lips were almost always thinned into a chiding grimace. One word for it was maturity; Cordelia preferred the word tragedy. If the men were returning to the cove soon, one could only assume Indra would choose one and find a cave of her own in the interest of rearing children of her own. Her nature was marginally warmer than Mother's, though. Cordelia had always hoped this would result in nieces willing to play and cause trouble with her.

As Cordelia's senses returned to her and grogginess faded from her head like mist atop the water, she rose and shot Indra an irritated glance.

"I know you don't like people in your room," Indra shrugged, "but it was necessary. Mother almost sent the twins in to get you, but their boundless energy has proved itself to be taxing on you. I'm only here in their place. I thought you would prefer it."

Cordelia gnawed on her lower lip. Indra always chose her words and made choices with excruciating care. Consequently, it was impossible to argue with her. Cordelia nodded despite her foul mood and crossed her arms in front of her. It was infuriating to have an older sister who was so infallibly wise. Though Cordelia was typically satisfied with her own intellect, Indra's clear head and seemingly infinite perception made her feel nothing more than foolish.

"The Chief has called a meeting," Indra went on. "I assume it's because the men are coming in soon." Apparently contented now that Cordelia was wide awake and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Indra turned to leave. However, when she reached the curtain dividing Cordelia's room from the remainder of the cave, she paused. Her hand lingered on the fluttering strands of seaweed. "You know," she added thoughtfully, casting a meaningful glance in Cordelia's direction, "you should try to find one you like. You're growing up, Cordelia, and soon it will be your responsibility to uphold the values of our ancestors."

Cordelia sighed and slouched her shoulders. Indra had no idea how far from the values of their ancestors she had strayed. Was it despicable? Yes, and it would more than likely lead to her downfall. Would that stop her? Without a doubt, it would not.

Something flashed in Indra's eyes, and Cordelia was stunned to realize it was puzzlingly similar to glints of self-doubt she had so frequently seen in the face of her reflection. "It is my duty now," Indra was saying when Cordelia shook off her shock. "Perhaps it is not wise to tell you this..." she murmured. The telling strain of confliction tugged at her lips. Cordelia's features softened. If she did not know better, she would guess something was paining her logical sister, the sister who knew all the answers and could always avoid hurting simply by rationalizing everything that happened to her.

As Cordelia tentatively approached her, Indra's half-lidded, analytical eyes came slightly more alive. The resemblance to Mother dissolved and, for the first time, Cordelia was granted a brief view of Indra's authentic, independent self.

"Well, if you insist." There was humor in Indra's voice, but also sadness. "Mother has told me it is time for me to move out. Once the men have arrived, I'm to select one and start a family of my own." Though she was still young, Indra's features were old and worn from the eroding winds of time and change.

_Mother is making Indra leave?_ Cordelia was appalled. She knew Indra would not rebel. Indra was far too strong a believer in the duty, the responsibility, the integrity passed on to them from generations past. She had always been the perfect child, the golden heir of the family, and Cordelia had always admired her for it even though Cordelia herself was quite the opposite. Cordelia could only hope all the sympathy and apology she felt within was evident in her expression.

Indra seemed to understand and patted her arm reassuringly. "I'll be okay. I just needed to tell someone." Her eyes scanned the room for a few seconds. "I like your room. It's secluded. Maybe I'll make a room like it when I..."

Cordelia thought Indra truly had given her best attempt to find the silver lining on the storm cloud. She would have succeeded were it not for the way her throat tightened with emotion and cut off the rest of the sentence, suffocating the sounds she had intended to make and leaving nothing but hallowed silence.

Indra swallowed. "We should go," she concluded, clapping her hands together and straightening her posture. At once, an aura of maturity concealed any feeling, and her eyes returned to their usual glassy look. "We can't keep them waiting." With all the enthusiasm expressed by a sea cucumber, Cordelia followed her out to the meeting.

* * *

The moment Cordelia had joined the scores of sirens milling about at the center of the cove, Lani had bounded over to her excitedly. Her blonde hair looked silvery under the illumination of the moon, which was dutifully climbing the horizon as the sun sank out of view. Ondine and Thala were soon to follow. They were babbling excitedly in speculation of why the meeting had been called and whether the men had already arrived, but Cordelia did not process even the slightest fragment of their conversation. She was distant, lost in the turbulent sea of her own thoughts.

When the Chief appeared, though, Cordelia's attention was snatched up, as were the focuses of all the other sirens. All heads turned in the Chief's direction as she made her way to the center of the crowd, swimming above many sirens as she went. She was old and sported a weathered face, hair as white as a gull's feathers, and a feeble body that trembled and protested whenever she moved too quickly. She had lived for generations, or so all the legend said, to advise and guide and protect. It occurred to Cordelia that her own actions and intentions made her an enemy of the Chief. With some discomfort, she pushed the thought down.

Many hands reached up in a silent, unified effort to touch the Chief. It was said that she had mystical powers which enabled her to heal sirens at will, foresee coming events, and, in the most liberal of fairy tales, smite enemies with nothing more than a thought; but those stories were only fairy tales. The Chief paid no attention to those grasping at empty spaces of water in hopes of gaining her interest, opting to flow like the water itself above them all, superior and untouchable. Her white hair seemed to glow as it enveloped her torso, fraying and splitting at the ends. Even in her old age, she was beautiful, at least in the dimness of the night.

She made her way to the center of the crowd and slowly descended. A wide ring of empty space was cleared for her by the fortunate sirens who just so happened to be positioned at the spot she chose to inhabit. Her ancient eyes, tranquil and resolute, scanned the crowd as she spun slowly in a circle to face the several hundred sirens swaying eagerly around her. In a show of respect, each siren bowed her head and descended to the ground, tucking her tail beneath her and kneeling submissively upon the sand. It was as if a wave went through the crowd as this formality was enacted. Cordelia was not too far from the center and was taken by surprise. She had not seen a meeting called by the Chief for years and had nearly forgotten the practice. A slight pressure at her fingers—Thala's hand squeezing them and tugging her downward, she realized seconds later—Instructed her to drop to the ground.

When the last of the sirens had bowed, the Chief cleared her throat. It reminded Cordelia of the creaking of a shipwrecked vessel's doors when one opened them after remaining a tightly-shut secret for so many years. "You may rise," she croaked in a voice thick with both mysticism and grandmotherly affection. The gathering of sirens did so. "I'm sure many of you were expecting a meeting to be called this evening, and the reason is clear to us all. It is true the migration cycle of our brothers has brought them to the cove at last." A shrill cheer rose from many in the crowd, probably from the sirens who had beaus among the men. "I do have several things to say on this matter. As it happens, the only reason we can conduct this meeting with such ease and comfort is the men's offer to stand guard as we do so. Right now, they are watching over the cove and warding off humans with sharp eyes and even sharper claws." She chuckled. A few sirens laughed with her. Cordelia did not. The notion of a human being harmed had become far less appealing to her over the last several days. "But there is more. As there will be guards all night, you may feel free to stay out as late as you wish and go wherever you please within the bounds of their security. I implore all of you to enjoy this night to the fullest, my daughters. It is a rare and golden opportunity to thrive in the night without fear of being discovered. Furthermore," the Chief's eyes twinkled, "many of you have expressed interest in getting to know some of our visitors on a more personal level, and this will doubtlessly enable you to do so."

A symphony of cheers broke out at the announcement. Hugs were exchanged, squeals tore past the lips of the girls who were far more excited than was necessary, and hands clapped together in praise and approval of the Chief's speech. Though Thala's blush had returned to her cheeks and was flaming with passion, even she emitted a soft exclamation of joy. Ondine and Lani were exchanging playfully exasperated looks with one another and rolling their eyes, but they cheered and clapped with all the rest.

It was all Cordelia could do to avoid groaning aloud. With so many sirens mingling around the cove, sneaking off to see Sage to learn more of his world, as well as excavate more of the language they had built with their bare hands in an entirely literal sense, was out of the question. A sense of withdrawal dizzied her, and she pressed two fingers to her temples to regain her balance. She was now acutely aware of how much she craved her interactions with the strange human, how fond she was of his mannerisms and quirks. He was the first to show her companionship before pity rather than the other way around, not to mention the first who was not inclined to treat her differently in the face of her impediment.

The Chief raised a hand to quell the storm of excitement currently overtaking the crowd. The sirens looked on with interest that was predominantly fake. All of them were far too enthusiastic about what the Chief had already said to care much about what still needed to be verbalized before the gathering was disbanded. Still, the water settled enough, and the voices died down enough, for the Chief to feel confident her voice would be heard.

"I'm pleased with your enthusiasm, daughters," she said. Cordelia noticed the Chief's eyes were not as happy and carefree as they had been moments ago. Even from a distance, Cordelia was certain she could see that dark clouds had gathered in her expression, and the creases in her face had grown deeper. "Unfortunately, not all news can be that which merits celebration. Just as there are triumphs, there are also failures. Just as there are salutations, there are also farewells. Pleasure breeds pain, and that which lifts one up also enhances the danger of falling."

A toxic, somber mood settled on the crowd. Cordelia's breath hitched in her throat. She had never heard such a loud silence before.

The Chief's head bowed slightly as she folded her hands in front of her in resignation. "Sisters, daughters, friends. I am terribly sorry for this, but it must be done. I have foreseen something terrible in the future of our home."

An audible gasp was shared between dozens of sirens. Cordelia glanced at the faces of her friends beside her. All three of them looked as though they had been jostled by a hurricane, everything askew and all emotion mingling with a persistent horror that would not be banished.

"Our beautiful cove...it is in danger, my daughters, and we will perish with it if we remain here for very long."

Panicked whispers began to erupt from the crowd. Cordelia heard several fragments of conversation nearby.

"What?"

"The cove is in danger?"

"How is that possible? We've been safe here for generations. Nothing dangerous ever comes, aside from the sharks. Is it sharks?"

"What if it's the humans?"

Cordelia's breathing became shallow and fearful. Her eyes were wide as she looked around her at all her sisters in species, frenzied and mortified at what was being said. Was it her fault? Had Sage done something traitorous, such as reveal the sirens to the other humans he knew? Had she brought the downfall of her beloved home and all the people she knew and cared for? Was every siren doomed for her mistakes?

"Please, please," the Chief raised her hand once more, "calm down. There is no need for panic. Working ourselves up will only increase the arduousness of dealing with this complication. Already, I have worked out a solution, a path for us to take to survive and continue the long and proud tradition of stewardship over the sea and caring first and foremost for our own kind. Everything is going to be okay."

A tangible silence fell once more. Every heart cried out in unison, _What will we do?_ Even Cordelia's thoughts joined the rest. She steeled herself and did her best to keep her lip from quivering. Blaming herself so rashly was foolish, but it was all she could think to do.

"To survive, we must flee the threat that aims primarily to destroy us."

The words hung in the air. The Chief took a deep breath and waited patiently while hisses of surprise and anxiety whistled past the lips of mortified sirens. Conversations erupted from all sides until almost nothing was intelligible to Cordelia. The only words she could clearly make out were those exchanged between Lani, Ondine, and Thala.

"We have to _what_?" Lani's said incredulously.

"Is she serious?" Ondine seemed unable to respond in any manner beside posing another question.

"L-L-Leave the cove? Our h-home?" Thala said timidly. Her eyes shifted nervously between Lani and Ondine. They eventually came to rest on Cordelia, and it became apparent she was on the verge of tears. "B-But...!" An anguished sound escaped her as she searched Cordelia's face.

"How can she even suggest that? The cove is ours, fair and square!" Ondine growled. She reminded Cordelia of a shark curling protectively around its young one in the face of a threat as she threw a strong arm over Lani and Thala. "She can't just let someone take it from us!"

Cordelia inhaled sharply when the Chief's eyes locked squarely with her own. It was as if the old woman somehow knew her thoughts, her deeds, the epicenter of her heart, soul, and intent. With a pointed clearing of her throat, the Chief regained control of the crowd, but her eyes never left Cordelia's.

"Something terrible is to befall the cove and all its inhabitants, wreaking havoc on those we care for and those we do not." Cordelia shifted uncomfortably and folded her hands behind her back. "A terrible storm is coming, my daughters. This storm threatens everything we have ever known and held dear. We must move quickly, lest we find ourselves caught and held back by the turbulent winds it will bring. Tomorrow, we will leave together, as victorious as we can be in this trying time." A beat of horrid, unbearable silence fell and shattered when the Chief clapped her hands together. "Enjoy this night, dears. Sometimes, the saccharine taste of a single moment must tide one over for a lifetime. I pray you all find a bounty of good things in this evening." At last, her eyes broke contact with Cordelia's and she receded into the crowd, embracing those she was most closely related to.

Cordelia felt as if she were suspended in the air, caught in the gray area between dreams and reality, trapped in a place that was not meant to be real but that she had created all the same. No exhilarated cheers broke out as the Chief departed to her dwelling, vanishing from view within minutes. A somber silence was all that remained, all that seemed to exist, for a brief moment. Cordelia felt it eating away within herself, and she was bizarrely overcome, not with the urge to speak, but to scream, to inflict the gritty, raw, bloodied shreds of her emotion and understanding upon the world in a sound as horrible as the things that drove one to make it. Alas, screaming was not an option.

With a heart she was trying desperately to harden against the world, Cordelia turned from her friends to watch helplessly as the countless faces of the crowd grew long, sad, and tired with realization. Except, she noticed, for the face of her mother. Though her hair looked slightly grayer, Cordelia's mother showed no visible signs of distress. Perhaps she was too tattered within to bother caring much. Cordelia felt an inexplicable envy at the thought. Indra, who was standing beside Mother, was not nearly so dignified. She was running her fingers nervously through her hair and glancing in all directions as though looking hard enough would cause a better solution than the Chief's to transpire.

_Could it all be my fault?_ Cordelia did not realize she had expressed her thought with her hands as well as her mind until Ondine's brow furrowed in confusion and her gaze flickered between Cordelia's hands and eyes. Cordelia winced at her own carelessness. She nearly folded her hands in front of her in an effort to appear unimposing, but in a split-second decision, she ruled against it. Instead, she opted to turn her exterior to ice, refusing to give the slightest indication of her inner turmoil away when she turned and fled in hopes she might be able to make it to the lagoon before the sirens dispersed and mingled and gossiped.

* * *

With a frustrated sigh, Cordelia wormed her way past a dense clump of sirens. She had not been fortunate enough to escape the crowd before it broke up into smaller groups, and even worse, the men had arrived, and many of them were trying to enchant the sirens of the cove with their brawn and exaggerated stories. The superficial, fabricated nature of their claims was obvious to Cordelia but was not so easily identified by the other sirens, it seemed. With growing frustration, she shuffled awkwardly on the outskirts of the cove. She was doing her best to seem inconspicuous, but she could always sense a pair of eyes on her. The prospect of being observed prevented her from making any attempt to leave now. Thus, she resigned to pacing back and forth, waiting for the moment all eyes were averted to something else.

At last, the moment came, and it came by sheer chance. A falling star slashed a trail through the sky above and every siren rose in hopes of seeing another. Gasps and cheers and sighs of content erupted from various groups of sirens. Cordelia sighed as well, but it was purely out of relief. With all focus shifted as far away from her as she might have dreamt, she was able to slip away into the inky darkness of the deep sea in the direction of the lagoon.

On her way, she paused at a patch of seaweed rustling suspiciously; she peered inside. Sure enough, it was the patch wherein she had concealed Artemis. The shark appeared to have grown a few inches in length since the previous day. Cordelia noticed the area around the seaweed was oddly barren in terms of aquatic life. Artemis, it would seem, was eating well, despite her impediment.

Cordelia stopped short. _Impediment._ Of course, her choice to confine Artemis by her tail inhibited the natural order the shark was destined to follow, but she had never likened it to her own shortcomings before. Naturally, Artemis did not appear repulsed by the situation, of that Cordela could be sure, if by nothing else than the eager wriggling with which Artemis always greeted her. But even in Cordelia's earliest years, she had not been bemused by her own muteness. The shame and disgrace came from those around her who made her feel inferior. When she clung to Artemis, was she fostering a child who would grow to be an outcast? Surely she must be. What she had once believed was selfless, familial affection for the scatterbrained creature must have held some subconscious ulterior motive. Cordelia grimaced as Artemis nuzzled against the base of her tail. Now Artemis loved her and surely would not return to the path she had been destined for prior to the intervention of companionship. Cordelia mused that love must be a vicious motivator, willing to blind its victims and blacken their hearts with selfish short-sightedness to have its way.

She thought of Sage, of the way she looked at him, and of the way she had set aside her own instincts to feel...what was it, exactly, she was so incapable of suppressing? Was this love? Or was it merely a naive, childish desire for the world to be as simple as the most fanciful fairy tales? Was there any difference?

In another life, with another body, perhaps in a world where she had been gifted with the ability to speak and see things with more clarity than her shallow mind allowed, Cordelia might have called off her association with Sage then and there. Or wiser still, she might have stopped herself from ever seeing the legged creature as more than a murderous abomination meant to be prey and nothing else, holding the preservation of her own species and environment over the selfish need for companionship. But the life she was living was impossibly, terribly, beautifully different. The Chief's admission that all life was at risk from the coming storm made Cordelia's decision for her: Sage had to be warned.

An unfamiliar voice cleared his throat behind her. Cordelia jolted upright, pushing Artemis down into the seaweed in hopes of hiding her from view. She whirled around to face the one who must have been spying on her for a length of time she could not possibly guess.

The whites of his eyes shone in stark contrast to his skin and the darkened waters around him. After being startled so severely, Cordelia might have perceived him as some sort of frightening threat, but his lanky figure and young features betrayed him. Though his height and dutiful stature were indicative of an age close to her own, awkwardly large ears, thin shoulders, and golden eyes spoke of youth and childishness. Though his chest was sturdy and his tail held just as much power as any other siren's beneath its moonlight-silver scales, he was thin enough for his ribs to jut eerily from his skin and his stomach to curve downward, seeming to have opted out of the soft pouch Cordelia was so familiar with on her own midsection. He seemed to be doing his absolute best to look as much like a warrior as the largest brutes, straightening to his full height as Cordelia's eyes looked him over with more worry than genuine interest. What had his golden eyes seen? How sealed were his lips on the matter of secrets? Would he betray her to the Chief, if the Chief did not already know her transgressions?

"Hey." His voice was oddly low and gruff, as if he were intentionally pushing it down into a baritone pitch. Cordelia only quirked a brow in response and crossed her arms defensively in front of her. "It's, er, not safe for you to be out here by yourself."

Cordelia suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, but she knew exasperation must be evident in her expression. It was typical behavior for a male to offer his protection to a female as a feeble attempt to win her favor. She tapped her claws impatiently along her arm as the boy seemed to consider what to say next. After a brief period of internal conflict that knitted his eyebrows together in a manner Cordelia was worried might be permanent, he threw up his hands in exasperation and spoke in a cadence that was far more appropriate for a person of his physique.

"Ugh, it's awful, isn't it? I knew it wouldn't work," he grumbled disdainfully. "My brothers bet I wasn't brave enough to approach a girl. I just wanted to prove them wrong. Sorry," he apologized with a half-smile that pleaded for forgiveness. Cordelia offered a shadow of a smile in return. "You're awfully quiet. Is everything okay?"

Cordelia shrugged again. After all, she had just been informed of a rapidly-approaching dystopian future bristling with the promise of doom, death, and destruction. "Okay" was a massively inadequate word to articulate what she was feeling at her core, the raw and unbridled anxiety roiling in her gut just deep enough she could ignore it in the face of a more pressing matter, specifically the matter of bringing the prospect of a broken future to Sage and finding a way to say goodbye. Her heart strained at the thought. It was a repulsive, vile necessity she would have preferred to wholly ignore. But when morning joined hands with the end and the light in the sky turned to fire, all salutations turned to sulfuric farewells, and all that was once alive was bound to perish.

Moonlight glistened over abysmally dark-toned shoulders as he approached her with an air of caution. "I'm Caspian. I didn't mean to bother you, but it really is dangerous out here. You know, with whatever it is that's coming and scaring you all off. I mean, not that you're scared or anything, you seem pretty brave, and I don't mean your people are scaredy-catfish or anything, it's just, well, you know what I meant." His voice ended in a manner that was nearly inquisitive. Cordelia was stricken to realize Caspian was her opposite in almost every detail: he thinned where she was plump, his muscles receded where hers made her shapely and mighty, his tail was faded silver while hers glowed pastel pink, and he was filled to the brim with words, so full they spilled from his lips like ink into the spaces around him, writing their statements and clauses and questions in lettering that dispelled as quickly as the sound of his voice receded. As she scrutinized him head to tail, the only response she could force herself to give him was another raised brow and a flattening of her ears in disillusionment.

"Okay, I'm sensing a little bit of hostility." Caspian ran a hand through his dark, flowing locks of hair. "Frankly, I have no idea why you'd feel hostile to a random dude who just showed up in your home town and followed you out into the dark when you strayed from the crowd and probably wanted be alone, especially since said dude's only reason was an idiotic bet from his brothers. But I'm man enough to admit I'm not perfect, and your beautiful eyes can probably pick up on a whole lot of things mine can't." He chuckled awkwardly. In spite of herself, Cordelia felt the corners of her eyes crinkling and her lips turned upward. He was endearing in a peculiar way, always tripping over himself and laughing at his own cheesy punchlines.

Cordelia felt a pressure at the base of her tail. Her stomach tied itself into knots as she recognized the familiar texture of Artemis' snout. She endeavored to think of something, anything to ensure Caspian's eyes stayed locked on her own, even considering going as far as to flirtatiously bat her eyelashes (a gesture she found utterly ridiculous but which seemed to work effectively for the girls most interested in finding a partner), but before she could move, Caspian's gaze had already dropped, and he was staring open-mouthed at the gray pointed snout nuzzling eagerly at Cordelia.

"Is that a shark?" he exclaimed.

Without a second thought, Cordelia lurched forward and clamped a hand over his mouth. The volume of his tone terrified her. The crowd was close enough that its dull roar of conversation rumbled in the distance; a keen ear or another spy could easily have heard him. Appearing somewhat disgruntled, Caspian removed her palm from his face and shook his head.

"Don't worry, okay? I can keep a secret if you can," he said tentatively. His voice lulled into a hushed, almost awe-filled cadence. Slowly, Cordelia nodded in confirmation. With a toothy smile, Caspian conceded, "I actually love them, too. They're such gentle creatures when they're not hungry. Oh, but never approach a mom with a baby. A few years ago, I got a little too curious. That's how I got this."

Cordelia's throat tightened as he turned enough to reveal a plethora of scars all in the shape of teeth. They were sliced pristinely into his skin, stitches of pale tissue against the rest of his flesh, across one of his shoulder blades. The wounds, which must have been horrendously painful at one time, spoke a horrid, jagged, wicked story, and the foggy look in Caspian's eyes told her it was just as prominent in his memory as it was on his back. Her fingers twitched as if the sight were magnetic and touching it might allow her to glean a vivid, unhindered image of how exactly it had come about, as if the cells had a memory of their own and could tell her of every agony they had endured.

And yet when Caspian turned back around to face her, his dorky nature was still as overwhelming as before. "It was my fault. I actually dragged myself far away so she could escape and get enough distance to avoid being caught by my brothers. Some of the guys swear to kill anything that moves the wrong way, so you can imagine how they reacted when they found me bloody and half-dead."

_Did they find her?_ Cordelia's eyes implored him to answer.

Caspian's face took on a dreamy expression. "She's still out there somewhere. She and her baby, they're safe. And I'll always have something to remember her by." He reached back and ran a few fingertips over the scars. The movement was fluid and appeared almost subconscious, as if it were a motion he had repeated a million times, ingraining it forevermore into his muscles. Artemis perked up even further, apparently curious about the unfamiliar voice, and the sight of her broke Caspian's entrancement. "Can I pet her?"

Cordelia decided without hesitation it was the least he had earned. She swam aside and gestured to Artemis, allowing Caspian free passage to her. He dropped down into the seaweed with her as eagerly as a child would have and stuck out his hand. Artemis eyed it warily before taking a few uneasy sniffs. Whatever she smelled dissolved any qualms she was harboring and she eagerly wriggled into his lap as he ran his fingers gently over her sides and dorsal fin.

"She's beautiful," Caspian exhaled. He was practically glowing as his features morphed into the broadest smile Cordelia had ever seen. For Cordelia, it was exhilarating to see another siren so enamored with a creature perceived by so many as an enemy. Caspian had the most valid reasons one could imagine for hating the most vicious predators of the sea, and yet there he sat, beholding Artemis as if she were magical and laughing softly as she darted eagerly between long tendrils of seaweed and then returned to his open arms for more affection. "A Great White. She's incredible. Do you have any idea how big she'll get?"

Cordelia smiled in response, but at the last part, she froze and her face fell. She was aware of how majestically enormous Artemis was capable of growing, but she was just as aware of not being able to see the transformation happen before her eyes. A lump formed in her throat, and she bowed her head so her bangs would overshadow her watery eyes.

"Oh," Caspian's giddiness dissipated instantly and his shoulders sagged. He rose to his full height and swam over to Cordelia, touching her forearm lightly. His golden irises locked onto hers. They were brimming with sympathy and understanding. "I understand. The evacuation tomorrow—she can't come with us, can she? Of course not, they'd either chase her out of the cove or worse. You came to say goodbye, didn't you?"

It was the softest question she had ever been asked. The gentleness of his voice, the childishness of his face, and the uniqueness of his character all morphed together to show her the deep, endless compassion which filled his soul so completely it left no room for anguish or vengeance. Swallowing thickly, Cordelia gave a single nod.

Caspian's eyes were mournful, but he offered a thin smile. "I'm sorry. That must be incredibly hard for you, and I'm truly sorry." She could see the heaviness of his heart in his demeanor. Every part of him seemed to sag in a bitter, empathetic understanding. "Do you want me to leave you to it?" he inquired slowly. Cordelia did not need to react before he answered his own question. "Of course you do. I'm sorry to have disturbed you. I didn't realize...well, there's no excuse, is there? I'll just say I'm sorry and leave it at that." He smiled a joyless smile and she touched his hand lightly in a gesture meant to convey she was not upset at him. In fact, she was the slightest bit glad to have met him.

With a few swishes of his silver tail, Caspian vanished in the direction of the cove. Cordelia watched him go with mournful eyes. When he disappeared altogether, she allowed herself to sink down until her back was pressed against the sand. When Artemis swam over eagerly, Cordelia did her best not to think about the fact that this would be the last time she would release her beloved companionship. Her chest tightened as she sliced viciously through the seaweed which held Artemis so dutifully in place. A few tufts of seaweed drifted slowly down to the sand, and the current began the slow, agonizing process of pulling them away. Reverently, Cordelia observed the shrapnel of her claws crawl away. Those little pieces were far too insignificant in the grand scheme of the entire ocean to be remembered. They were dull, a bland shade of green against a bland shade of brown, and would have been utterly unimportant to any other passerby. However, Cordelia found herself shaking with grief as the little tufts were carried away with no hope of seeing their point of origin ever again. They would doubtlessly be snapped up by some little herbivore or snatched away by a raging storm which would atomize them without mercy or remorse.

Her chest ached. She ripped her eyes from the sight and focused instead on Artemis, who suddenly seemed timid. She shuffled back and forth in the water uncertainly, beady black eyes affixed on Cordelia with an air of wariness about her. Cordelia sniffled, steeled herself, and opened her arms. At once, the tension dissolved into the darkness around them, and Artemis rocketed into Cordelia's embrace. She pressed her snout firmly into Cordelia's midsection as if to pin her there. Oddly enough, it was almost as if Artemis had some idea of what might be happening and desired to stop it entirely. Cordelia clicked her tongue twice in the manner which signified Artemis' name several times over, doing so as soothingly as she could to put the poor thing at ease. She ran her fingers gently across Artemis' streamlined body and traced the sharp outlines of her fins.

_It'll be okay, sweetheart_ , Cordelia willed Artemis to read her thoughts. She knew it was not possible, but a hope resided in her heart that refused to die. She wondered who had kindled it and why they had done so, how they could have done so without her knowledge. But there it glowed, independent of any reason for its existence in the first place. Its only purpose now was to keep the heart it resided in beating, lest the will to live and the ability to do so flicker out in the face of a single icy wind. _You have to go, too, you know. Anywhere but here. Oh, but I suppose you can't follow me. Your mother abandoned you_...her thoughts drifted off. Artemis had nowhere to go and no chance of surviving on her own. Her departure was an execution, however unintentional it may have been.

Cordelia screwed her eyes shut. The tears were threatening to come, but she could not allow them to. Such weakness was unacceptable in the face of such a deadly, ruthless foe, a foe so intimidating that it had no name and no face, no title to identify it. All it possessed was the likeness of a storm, the thing that sucked light from the sky and turned it to jagged weapons and thundering cries for war.

I'm sorry.

It was the only thought that mattered anymore. She offered up a silent wail, a plea for forgiveness for her actions, for her mistakes, for her desperation, for her failures, for her childish ways, for the way she had been born. Her throat burned with the wish to speak—no, not speak, scream, to inflict her suffering, guilt, and bloodied intentions upon the horrible silence of the earth.

With Artemis nearby, Cordelia rose and turned her head in the direction of the lagoon where Sage would be waiting for her. Her head spun as she tried to settle on the best way to inform him that his life and the lives of everyone he held dear were endangered by a force she could not name or even begin to describe. As usual, words failed her, but she set off to tell him, nonetheless.

* * *

As she had anticipated, Sage was present when she arrived. He wore a particularly eager expression. Cordelia's heart snapped at the sight of it; she had felt that a thousand times over during her lifetime, but the notion of it breaking was something she had never been forced to confront. Now, she stood on the precipice of inflicting unspeakable pain and worry into the first creature she had dared to call a friend. This was the boy she had defied nature for, the boy she had defied the laws of her people for, and now she would be forced to defy the very optimism and gleeful curiosity that made him so impossibly, unbearably, wonderfully human, and so blissfully different to her and everything she had known before. It was unthinkable, and the amount of thoughts she had on the matter was astonishing.

She glided into the lagoon, the ridged back of her tail protruding from the water's surface as she propelled herself forward. Apprehension and discomfort welled up in her stomach. Stars glittered all around her, reflected in the water's peaceful surface. She caught a glimpse of her own reflection under the moonlight. Her expression was tight, pensive, and by all accounts, uneasy. She tried to appear somewhat more personable, but the effort was only halfhearted, not to mention ill-timed. Sage had already inferred from her expression something must be awry.
_Hello_ , he signed. The gesture, used purely in the name of formality, was hasty. Clearly, he was set on getting to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible. _Are you well?_

Cordelia avoided his eyes. She was not only mute in voice, but now even the familiar thrum of her innermost thoughts and impulses was so silent she was afraid they—and, by extension, she—may have died, or perhaps she was just snapped and broken in a way that was irreparable. She lifted her hands from the water with every intention of carrying to him the message of the monster on its way, but no message came. Her fingers fell limp and her arms collapsed defeatedly back into the lagoon. She clasped her hands in front of her and squeezed her eyebrows. The burning sensation of tears in her eyes told her she must still be alive. She submerged her gills and took a deep breath. Though her chest rose and fell, she did not feel it. Whatever she may have felt on the outside was nullified by the immense emotions inside of her, eating her away from the soul outward.

After a long moment, she lifted her hands and tried again. _Sage_ , she began. Her muscles ticked mechanically in time with a heart that felt like a man-made machine, only functioning because it was made to do so with no hope or dream to pursue. _Something terrible is coming. The leader of my people told us. It is danger. It is_... She did not know how to sign death, so she signed the closest thing to it she could think of. _It is goodbye._

Cordelia searched his face for any sort of reaction. At first, it appeared he would not let his features betray him, but slowly, Cordelia took note of little things she had never seen before over the weeks they had met and carved out their own language from nothing but the will to overcome some wall which had never been specifically established and yet had once felt as unbreakable as the flow of time or the gradient hues of the sky. His cheeks appeared hollow, shadowy, skull-like, and his lips were pursed together tightly, as if holding them shut might prevent whatever emotion was rising inside of him from escaping. His posture was slackened; gone was the tenacity to sit upright with his shoulders rolled back and his spine straight with confidence. It was his eyes, though, that caused Cordelia to reel back. They were like a corpse's, dull and unseeing, void of any life or potential they may have contained before. They stared, half-lidded, into the water. The whole world had gone still.

Cordelia felt something catch in her throat. Timidly, she flicked her tail and beached herself on the shallowest portion of the water, taking care to make sure the rippling water rose high enough to provide her with oxygen, until her face was just inches away from Sage's. He loomed above her, still staring numbly. They came to focus on hers only when she reached up onto the land and rested her hand atop his. It was the first time she had felt the sand of the earth, she realized with muted interest. Small piles of it rose between Sage's fingers where they pressed into the damp, sedimentary substance. It was also, she noted with significantly more intrigue, the first time she had reached out to touch him. Their skin had not connected since the fateful night weeks prior when he had, in the most literal sense, extended a hand of friendship toward her. His skin was as scalding and bristling with life as it had been before.

_I'm sorry_ , she signed.

Sage pulled his hand out from under hers to reply, _It's not your fault._

For what must have been the millionth time, guilt wormed its way into her bloodstream and tugged at her heart. _You don't know that_ , she told him, ashamed.

Sage's eyebrows knitted together, and his head tilted a few degrees to the left. _Of course, I do_ , he signed. _You are good, Cordelia. You are my friend. If something terrible is coming, it cannot be because of you._

Cordelia shrugged, once again refusing to meet his eyes _. I am not good. I cannot even sing. I do not know why you are my friend, Sage. I do not even understand how you trusted me in the first place. Sirens hunt humans. Did you know that?_ Even in silence, she knew the bitter scorn in her tone was evident. To her utter shock, Sage did not look alarmed.

_There were stories_ , he relented after a moment, _of vicious creatures in the sea. But you are not vicious, Cordelia. And you can sing. Even I can hear it._

Cordelia's mouth hung open. The idea was ludicrous—a deaf human, able to hear the song of a mute siren? It was a beautiful notion, but something so beautiful could not possibly exist in a land where flesh bled and hearts broke and one could suffocate with grief. Or could it?

He laughed at her confusion, and though the sound was empty, it did console her a small amount. He pointed to her chest above the place where her heart was beating. _Your song comes from here_ , he told her.

Cordelia's thoughts sputtered to a halt as she processed what he was telling her. All at once, her resolve splintered down the middle, and every bit of composure she had ever convinced herself she had crumbled to a pitiful heap of dust. She barely had time to hide her face in her hands before she burst into tears. She wept for the coming danger, for the inevitable goodbye, for her own mistake of ever involving herself in the human world, and, more than anything else, she wept for Sage's kindness and how misplaced she believed it to be.

When she managed to lift her face, tear tracks were already drying on her cheeks. Her eyes felt puffy and sore. As she examined Sage, she caught a glimpse of pity in his expression. It was fleeting and vanished almost immediately, and its removal seemed almost rehearsed, as if he had sensed its presence and intentionally wiped the slate of his expression clean for her sake. Pain shuddered through her veins as she looked at him longingly. There was nothing to be done. No matter how much he pitied her or even how much he liked her, it was impossible for her to stay and it was impossible for him to follow her into the sea. They were children of two different worlds: he, the child of the light and the land, and she, the descendant of all things deep and blue and frigid. When she had reached up in hopes of capturing a few glowing drops of sunlight for herself, she had never imagined there might be someone above reaching down for the world she knew so well and took for granted.

She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second and saw, in vivid detail, the picture of herself slipping, falling, flying into the endless, abysmal world of the sea, impossibly far from the cove and agonizingly far from Sage and Artemis. Shivers zipped down her spine and made her hair stand on end as she imagined the eternal waters pressing in on all sides, holding her up and pushing her down simultaneously as currents battered her off-course and then threw her back onto the track she desired, each new stimulus contradicting the last until the confusion was too much and she resigned to sinking down, burying herself miles below the sand just to end it. The tears began anew. It was the sensation of one droplet getting caught on the side of her nose which pulled her back to reality.

_Did you know_ , Sage signed when her attention returned to him, _that I am an outcast among my people?_

With a shaky breath, Cordelia endeavored to hold herself together. Falling apart was the easy option, a product of laziness and carelessness. It was the will to stitch together fresh wounds and ancient ones alike just to carry on that showed true fortitude. She shook her head in response to Sage's question and quelled the raging whirlwind of her thoughts as best she could so it did not drown him out.

_Before you, I did not have a friend_ , he continued.

In that moment, Cordelia was as helpless as a mollusk in the beak of a gull. She could see the marks of chronic loneliness etched into his eyes, and she recognized them as the ones which appeared in her own each day. It had not occurred to her that humans might be as indifferent to the vulnerable as the sirens. To think that the creatures her people preyed upon could be just as heartless was a preposterous idea, and yet Sage was living, breathing, wounded proof. The shattered remnants of her soul stirred as if to reach out to the shards of Sage's. To see another with scars matching her own was breathtaking in a way that was terrible and wonderful and strange.

_You make me feel less alone_ , Sage signed at the exact moment Cordelia was thinking precisely the same words. _For that, I thank you_. His eyes shone, but this time, it was not like the stars. It was like a reflection of light in a scarlet pool of freshly-spilled blood, a glint that spoke of nothing but a promise of tragedy in the past, present, and future.

_You will find safety?_ Cordelia asked him.

His hesitation spoke louder than his hands and told her there was no guarantee. Still, probably in hopes of reassuring her, he said, _Of course. Thank you, Cordelia. When do you have to go?_

_As soon as the light returns,_ Cordelia answered, casting a sidelong glance at the horizon. It was still comfortingly dark, whispering to her that the cushion of time still stood between her and a departure that would rip her from this place forever.

Sage looked disheartened but said nothing for a period so long Cordelia was beginning to wonder if he could have forgotten how. As the silence grew increasingly awkward, Cordelia focused on watching the moon journey through the sky and duck behind the smoky curtain of the clouds. To her relief, Sage broke the silence when the moon disappeared and the sky was no longer of any interest. His words were simple, but his movements were rushed, intense, and decisive.

_There is no sign for what I want to say, so this will have to do._ One of his hands cupped the back of Cordelia's neck and pulled her a few inches toward him as he angled his face toward hers. It struck her as he edged closer that their companionship was a seashell being snapped apart, two halves of one thing meant to be together. His eyes clung to hers, brimming with tears of desperation and loss and something else, something warm, that Cordelia could not name. His chest rose and fell as he took in deep gulps of air. All at once, his other hand was pressed against the side of her face, gently holding her in place as he pressed his soft lips to her forehead.

Cordelia closed her eyes to prevent anymore tears from escaping.

Everything was unfamiliar. In the few seconds he stayed there with her, lips placed on her skin and hands holding her as if he might never let go, she knew nothing but the beating of their hearts, the inexplicable sadness taking root within her, and radiant warmth exploding from the places he touched to the rest of her. Light and heat burst forth on the backs of her eyelids when she allowed her eyes to slip shut. In the midst of it all, one of Cordelia's hands somehow found its way to Sage's forearm and she was clinging to him as tightly as she dared to.

An eternity passed and the whole world seemed to fall silent as they connected, merging bodies and souls until which creature was which could no longer be distinguished. Then Sage pulled back, and Cordelia became painfully aware that some eternities only lasted for a few seconds before fading away on the wings of the wind, the shortest of eternities often the most precious and irreplaceable.

The muscles of his arms rippled as if to move him back entirely, but all at once he apparently decided against it and opted to press a final, brief kiss to her temple. She could feel his eyelashes brush against her skin when he blinked. She knew by the shortness and ill-concealed hurt of the gesture it was intended to be a conclusion, a final chapter, an epilogue, the last note of a sad song, the sort that trailed off as if even the music were conscious of its own melancholy and could not bear to carry on any longer.

In one swift motion, he released her. When Cordelia opened her eyes, he was gone. Nothing but air filled the hollow space he had once inhabited. Cordelia pressed two fingers to the place his lips had touched her forehead. There was no mark, nothing to indicate that the skin had been hallowed, consecrated forever by someone she had...

The fingers moved to her temple, and she let her head fall against her chest in defeat. No, she could not think of him in such a way. She could never admit, not even to herself, what it was she felt for him in the deepest parts of herself, the strange human boy with ears that could not hear a song she could not sing and yet still knew every lyric inside her, perhaps better than she knew them herself. She hoped with time, patience, and persistence, she might forget him, or at the very least forget everything she was experiencing in that moment. She would leave it to rot in the darkest, most forlorn corners of herself, as ignored and useless as a wrecked vessel at the bottom of the sea. She would pray never to see it again. This was all her doing. It was her responsibility to slay the monsters she had created and carry on for the good of those she put at risk.

As she turned from the lagoon, she was left with only a single cryptic thought, engraved under her skin in ink which mimicked the color of Sage's eyes and penmanship as crooked, flawed, and endearing as his smile. _The storms threatening us from the outside can never be as dangerous or as damaging as the ones the condemned make for themselves, within themselves._

Five: The Time and Space Between

The men had been gracious enough to provide their aid in the evacuation from the Cove. They had made a pact with the Chief to escort the citizens of the cove through the sea until a new place of safety was found and colonized. Cordelia had observed with a strange sense of calm as the crowd thinned into what appeared to be a mostly-straight line stretching from the mouth of the cove to the edge of the line where the sand dropped off from the shore and the domain of the sirens was divided from that of the humans. It must have been over a mile long, Cordelia mused.

She could not be bothered to care where she was positioned, so when Nerissa had grabbed her hand and looked at her with sad, pleading eyes, she had no trouble departing from an uninteresting conversation with Lani, Ondine, and Thala to wait with her family. It appalled her how quiet and somber everyone was. Throughout the night, she had heard the telltale sounds of partying and eager banter between friends and prospective lovers. She had even caught a glimpse of Indra speaking to a few of the men and looking as if she were being bored out of her mind.

All the fun was over now; she could sense it as easily as she could sense her own complacency with it all. She had inflicted a reputable storm of pain upon herself and, at present, could only feel exhaustion after the lengthy process of beating herself down. Even Kairi and Kura were oddly silent. Their faces were drawn and miserable as their eyes darted in all directions, taking in everything around them for the final time. Whenever Cordelia caught their gazes by accident, they stared at the ground, seemingly unwilling to utilize what once was an endless trove of humor and mischief. Mother was positioned behind them with her arms slung over their shoulders, an instinctive precaution she had taken since they were tykes to keep them in place. It had not been a necessary measure for years, but that did not seem to matter; it was a habit so old it had collected dust and was affixed to her figure in the form of muscle-memory.

Nerissa looked almost as forlorn as the twins, but she was marginally comforted by the two dolphins which flanked her on either side. They were leashed by two chains retrieved from shipwrecked vessels years prior. They had been an unnecessary possession for a multitude of years, but clearly, keeping them polished and in decent condition had not been a vain effort. Whistle, the cheerful spinner dolphin, seemed oblivious to the ominous storm hanging above the heads of all the sirens and let out intermittent chirps in hopes of capturing Nerissa's attention. The unreasonable bottlenose was as crabby as ever and seemed somewhat disillusioned with the idea of being leashed. He pressed his snout to the bend of Nerissa's tail, apparently seeking comfort in her touch. If circumstances were different, Cordelia may have shaken her head fondly. _Only Nerissa could earn the affection of that old grump,_ she thought.

Indra was carrying herself with posture so upright and unmoving that she was practically statuesque. The whites of her eyes had a pinkish hue and the skin below her optics was a dark, unpleasant color. Her hair was a mess, frizzing in complete disorder with flyaway strands sticking out of every tendril that managed the feat of forming a semi-tolerable hairstyle. Despite how askew her appearance was, she still held with her a sense of dignity that urged Cordelia to straighten her spine and hold her chin a bit higher. Indra locked eyes with Cordelia once she noticed her unwavering stare, and her brows furrowed slightly. In that single, fluid motion, the marble which made up her face seemed to shatter and break into flesh. For a few seconds, Indra looked like she had when she was young and still full of the livelihood curiosity and awe brought in their wake. As quickly as it had changed, though, it morphed back to its usual expressionless state, and her eyes flitted to a new direction. Their faded blue color contrasted starkly to the redness which framed them, Cordelia noticed. Never before had they appeared so blue. To be broken, it seemed, exposed the deepest parts of oneself, and sometimes those parts were beautiful. Beneath her thick exterior, Indra's true colors blossomed forth like a geode's. Cordelia had not caught a glimpse of those colors before, but upon seeing them, she knew it was a vision she could not forget.

A few interested suitors had passed and shot Indra meaningful looks as the sirens waited for the Chief's order to begin marching forward into the great, wide, blue unknown, but she had not returned one of them. When a particularly handsome one had no luck with her, Mother shot Indra a harsh glance which Indra pretended not to see. Cordelia knew she had, though; the innocuous tremor that shook her when such a jagged gaze fell upon her gave her away.

At last, the Chief rose from the front of the line and turned to face the seemingly endless rows of sirens behind her, awaiting her command. A few notes of appraisal and reverence lifted from the mouths of the sirens, but they dissolved far more quickly than usual. For the first time, Cordelia realized, all the sirens were without song.

"Forward," the cry rang out from the Chief's lips. The line came alive with movement. Sand rose in flurries beneath the incredible number of powerful tails whipping up currents of their own, and the citizens of the cove pushed themselves away from a home they loved dearly. Cordelia desperately wanted the moment to be grandiose and final, a testament to the life she had spent there; but instead, departure from the cove was a labor constituted by silence and rigid, reserved movements. No one seemed keen to leave, but no one offered any sort of brash resistance, and no unseen force of nature pulled them back when the community set off. In that moment, it became clear that sometimes the most brutally tragic thing to feel was nothing at all. It was nothing which defined and complemented the somethings surrounding it. Absences made times of togetherness sweeter and adieus far more bitter, rough, and harsh to the soul. In a world built on singing and secrecy, to abandon their hideaway in such utter and endless quiet contained an unprecedented, unexpected horror.

As Cordelia reached the mouth of the cove, she became dimly aware of a small wail a few paces behind her. When she turned to look, a young siren, certainly no older than a year, was writhing in her mother's arms, clawing feebly at the cold, empty water to stop, or even perhaps just to slow, the process. Cordelia watched as the child, unaccustomed to pain, heartache, sorrow, and loss struggled until the mother rested her chin atop the little one's head and stroked her hair gently. Wails receded to whimpers, and then the world fell into deathly silence once again.

A pressure at her wrist alerted Cordelia to Nerissa's presence. At the sight of honey flecks in Nerissa's brown eyes, Cordelia was reminded of the day so recent and yet so impossibly long ago when she had rested on the floor of the cove, basked in the sun, and reflected on how beautiful it all was. Now, as the dawn washed over her, wave after wave of it lapping at her skin and burning into her eyes, she could only quantify the fact that she had never seen a dawn so ugly and had never wished so desperately for the normalcy she had once despised.

Nerissa tugged at her wrist and implored Cordelia, muted agony in her eyes, to come. Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut, too bruised to bear another tempting glimpse of her home, and followed. In the earlier days—was it only weeks ago? It felt like millennia—she would have spun and flipped skillfully throughout the water, enjoying the elegance and strength her tail provided. But now, no such mischief existed within her; it had flickered out, had faded like the shine of the sun on a pearl, never to be seen again. She clung to Nerissa, and Nerissa clung to her, and their spirits were further intertwined than the battered, fraying forms they inhabited in that moment. Cordelia could feel their hearts beating together, each beat a testament to the kinship of sisterhood and shared suffering.

They left. All at once, there was nothing else to say or think. All colors faded to blue, all emotions to a blank, void numbness, all warmth to an unforgiving chill. The cove was but a memory, distorted nearly beyond recognition with nostalgia. That was the problem with the past. Things were always sweeter when they were over.

* * *

The journey was long and arduous. With no real destination in sight, the aimless wandering extinguished any glowing gems of hope the sirens may have harbored quickly. The line had grown thin and gaps were beginning to form between groups. All eyes were turned to the ground, which was now far more distant than Cordelia was accustomed to. It was a dark mass, practically monstrous and evil in appearance, miles beneath her. She wished she could bring herself to avoid looking at it, but truthfully, there was nothing else to observe aside from the heavyhearted travelers around her, and she had already committed them to memory.

There were Lani, Ondine, and Thala, inseparable as ever, and though they had begun the trip far from Cordelia's spot in the line, they had wandered back during a brief resting period and positioned themselves directly in front of her family. Behind Cordelia's family was a young man with red hair and freckles. A worn, leathery chain looped around his neck, its pendant a fractured piece of seashell which had odd stains on its edges. Cordelia had the strangest feeling it had been used in the past as a weapon. She was wholly indifferent to him, aside from the slight inkling of gratitude she felt for his decision not to approach Indra. Cordelia was genuinely unsure if she could hold back her vomit through another butchered failure of an attempt at courtship.

The ones Cordelia had taken the most conscious notice of, however, were the mother and child a few paces back. The infant had eventually ceased its intermittent wails and trembling as the hours dragged on and was now situated safely on the mother's back. The last time Cordelia had risked a glance back, the child had almost been asleep. The mother had looked relieved, albeit slightly lonesome. Daughters had often served as good company for the women of the cove; aside from the few who grew up especially rebellious and set out on their own with the men, most girls were content to continue building and cherishing a civilized, structured society, which was a blessing for their mothers, who often had nothing but their children. The need for such a strong bond and unconditional love made some hearts tender. Or—Cordelia glanced at her mother, whose expression was unreadable as she marched on between Kairi and Kura—in some cases, it made hearts go cold. She winced and shook her head, hoping the thoughts might disseminate like grains of sand swept away in harsh currents.

"Hey, you," a breathless voice hissed from Cordelia's right. Startled, she whirled around and glared pointedly at whoever it was who had sneaked up on her at such an irreverent time, but softened considerably when she recognized Caspian's youthful, imploringly friendly face. "Sorry! I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to talk, if that's okay with you."

Lani angled her head back to glance over Caspian and gave Cordelia a knowing smile. She nudged Ondine and Thala to do the same. Cordelia shifted awkwardly under their attention, fully aware they were perceiving something entirely different than what was happening. Though a distraction would have been welcome, she did not want to bear the endless barrage of teases that would ensue from moving away to have a private talk. To have her affections assumed and a love she could not have thrown back in her face by friends who were simply ignorant to all the wrongs she had committed, all the sins she had wallowed in, and how full her heart had once been—the mere thought was agony.

She shrugged, hoping it would become clear she was not in the mood to chat. Then, she directed Caspian in the direction of her friends, specifically she pointed at Thala, who flushed slightly in color and twirled a strand of orange hair around her pointer finger, averting her eyes from Caspian's.

"Are they your friends?" Caspian asked. Cordelia nodded. An impish half-smile tugged at his lips, and he nodded in Thala's direction when he continued, "She's...pretty."

_He truly is hopeless,_ Cordelia thought fondly. She rolled her eyes and pushed him in their direction, watching subtly as he sauntered nervously over to Thala. Lani and Ondine, both of whom looked very perplexed but not displeased with Cordelia's actions, stepped aside and lingered back until one of them was positioned on either side of Cordelia. Together, they watched in silence as Thala folded her hands in front of her and twiddled her fingers apprehensively.

"Hey," Caspian exhaled. His eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled. The sun, which was just beginning to break the line of midday and begin its descent back into the horizon, ebbing slowly until it would once again inevitably vanish beneath the vast, everlasting reaches of the sea, brought a warm glow to his dark skin and highlighted the marks of the scars on his back. For the first time, Lani and Ondine took notice of them, gaping in shock.

"He's so scrawny," Ondine murmured in Lani's ear, sounding impressed.

Lani's webbed ears twitched slightly, and she rolled her shoulders back before murmuring back, "Shh! That isn't nice." Her tone was chiding, but affectionately so. Though an outsider may have stereotyped her as the preppy sort, there was not a single cell in Lani's body with enough venom or attitude to live up to the title. "Just watch, Ondine. It's adorable!"

"He's a dude." Ondine seemed affronted by the suggestion. "They're not adorable. They're boastful sea cucumbers, and they smell."

Lani rolled her eyes. "Not all of them."

As if on cue, a brawny man who was quite vacant in expression passed by. The stench was appalling. Ondine gave Lani a skeptical look, which Lani waved off absentmindedly. Her eyes were still glued to Thala and Caspian.

"I'm Th-Th-Thala. It's n-nice to, to, to meet you," Thala was stammering profusely and looking a bit panicked. Ondine and Lani exchanged a look of uncertainty and maneuvered forward slightly, prepared to interject and save their friend from embarrassment if needed.

"Whoa," Caspian exhaled.

Thala looked at him cautiously. Cordelia guessed she was fearful of being patronized. However, to the relief of Thala and the three sirens shamelessly eavesdropping on her conversation, no such thing came to pass.

"Sorry," Caspian apologized, "it's just that your whole face lights up when you smile, and it's really beautiful. Sorry, is that weird to say? You don't even know my name." He covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath. Thala took the opportunity to conceal a bashful grin with her palm. "I'm Caspian."

"Th-Th-Thank you," Thala said graciously. "Caspian i-is a nice name. It s-s-suits y-you."

The tips of Caspian's ears went dark and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, well, thank you, no one has ever said that before."

"N-N-No one has ever s-said that I'm b-b-beautiful before, either."

"What?" Caspian clutched a hand to his heart and lurched back dramatically, eyes wide and locked attentively on Thala as she suppressed a giggle. "That is unbelievable. That's a travesty. This cannot stand!"

Ondine rolled her eyes. "She's flirting. It's disgusting." Lani laughed softly and gently shushed Ondine.

"Um, C-Caspian?" Thala interjected, laying a hand gently on his forearm and casting a pointed glance in the direction of Lani and Ondine. "Maybe w-w-we should go somewhere more private."

Understanding dawned on Caspian's features, and he nodded curtly. He seemed even shyer at the possibility of an audience than Thala. He seemed to shrink under the glow of the spotlight, eyes flitting sheepishly between Cordelia's and those of Thala's friends before he slunk off with her at his side. They did not stray far, but far enough that Cordelia could no longer make out their conversation.

" _Ohhh_ ," Lani crooned, folding her hands and pillowing her cheek with them as she sighed contentedly. "You have to admit, that's as cute as it gets."

Ondine's stoic facade cracked as she quirked a brow and let a smile slip. "Well, at least he doesn't smell," she conceded after a moment.

With smiles on their faces, Lani and Ondine returned to their previous positions ahead of Cordelia and her family. Cordelia realized after a moment how much lighter her heart felt. It was as if she had forgotten all that had occurred in the last few days for a small portion of time, and the respite had been blissful. She was reminded by the banter of her friends that life would go on, however badly it chose to. So long as hearts were beating and minds were thinking, existence continued, and existence had a surprising habit of finding unexpected ways to flourish. For an instant, Cordelia was hopeful. Her soul fluttered within her, turning its face to the sun in hopes of soaking up the beauty of the day.

But when she looked back at the downcast expressions of her sisters and the unchanging crossness tattooed into her mother's face, it was as if dark clouds had gathered and shielded her from the joy she had felt. Joy in the face of tragedy was nothing but a coping mechanism, a drug the brain produced to will itself to survive until the trauma was in the past. It was the superficial concealment of a problem which had set its roots into the deepest parts of her, the inner workings of her soul and the farthest reaches of her mind, a sort of omnipresent, looming figure in the shadows of her subconscious.

The Chief was the only siren who did not appear weary. Even the men showed signs of exhaustion and exasperation, particularly those who had had minimal luck in wooing the ladies of the cove. Despite the sighs and slouched shoulders that followed her, the Chief carried herself with grace and rigid posture, apparently hoping to set an honorable example for those who held her in such high esteem. She marched forward with such a commanding presence, it was almost inspiring.

Almost.

Cordelia suspected, however, any remnants of inspiration within the residents of the cove remained in the cove with their belongings, memories, and voices. Yes, even the voices had remained. Not a single song had risen from the moment of departure. The silence was only broken by fragmented conversations which stopped and started like hearts attempting to die but still under enough duress to choke out beat after feeble beat.

"'Lia," whispered a small, morose voice. Cordelia looked to her left in the direction of her family and saw Nerissa staring at her, the honey eyes dark and bottomless in their sorrow. Cordelia felt her heart twist within her chest, the pain sharp and palpable. Nerissa forced a bitter, watery smile and continued, "your friends seem nice. I didn't know you had friends like that."

Under better circumstances, Cordelia may have been annoyed by the presentation of such a blunt truth. Nerissa's words were, after all, an admittance to the fact that Cordelia was not the sort of siren who had friends, much less three of them with the new addition of a male who was apparently enamored with one of the three. However, now she could not bring herself to feel any annoyance toward someone she loved. Perhaps it was an effect of having lost so much in so little time. In times of unspeakable suffering, souls clung to the few shreds of untainted paradise they had left to grasp, even if those shreds were chronically outspoken younger sisters.

Nerissa glanced up and down the line of sirens, hiding her face behind her hair and hugging herself as tightly as she could. Her voice was no louder than the soft swishes the dolphins on either side of her made through the water when she said, "I don't know where my friends are. They're somewhere. They must be somewhere, safe with the rest of us." A sort of wolfish, barbaric desperation flashed in her expression as realization struck her squarely in the chest. "They are safe, aren't they? We are safe." A long pause followed as she looked down at the abyss of black, endless water beneath and up at the glittering, glassy light which shimmered at the surface above. "Aren't we?"

Cordelia took a deep breath. Even if she could have spoken, there was nothing to say in that moment. There was no fitting answer, no response that would reassure Nerissa in the way she so obviously wanted to be affirmed, no silver lining to the storm clouds which had enveloped their lives and were closing in on all sides, growling lowly with the voice of thunder and brandishing flashes of lightning like tridents. Her eyes closed tightly in hopes of blocking it all out, taking away all the pain and the uncertainty, but blinding oneself to the environment does not shield oneself to the effects. An explosion would kill without remorse, regardless if its victims saw its brilliant blast of light. A predator would pounce and bite savagely into its prey regardless if the prey watched it do so. Death would come for all in the end and wrap his cold fingers around the throats of every living thing, regardless if they dared to meet him face to face.

Cordelia placed her arm behind Nerissa and held her younger sister close. Her lungs ached and her heart shattered as a defeated whimper slipped past Nerissa's lips. The younger siren's tail brushed against Cordelia's, and she turned to bury her face in Cordelia's shoulder. Cordelia could feel her facial muscles contort, her lips twisting to swallow the cries, her eyes locking shut to hold her tears captive, her ears drooping in complete and utter loss. Cordelia held her as she wept, practically carrying her as she fell apart within Cordelia's arms, because the endless line of sirens never stopped or even slowed. There was no choice but to carry on—to carry one another on. Despite the bitterest sorrow, victims only had one another to rely on. That, Cordelia realized, was how victims became survivors, warriors against the injustices committed against them.

Nerissa sniffled, her body trembling, as unstable as seaweed snatched by the current. Cordelia squeezed her tightly and pressed a hand against her cheek, hoping to bring some semblance of peace into her heart. But Nerissa continued to sob, and Cordelia began to wonder if there was any peace left in the world for them.

Six: The Hurricane

The journey continued for days. The only breaks between movement were brief sleeping sessions and opportunities to snatch up any nearby food. Ondine was the best at catching fish, so she would often gather up as many as she could and distribute them to Thala, Lani, and Cordelia, much to her surprise. Ondine did not seem to fully embrace the notion of Caspian's association with the group yet, but once she realized Thala was slipping him portions of her meal, Thala's portions of the fish became noticeably larger. Not quite enough to fill two sirens up to the brim, Cordelia knew, but more than enough for Caspian to survive while Thala ate as much as she needed. Once Thala mentioned Caspian refusing to take more than a third of what Thala received, Ondine seemed placated and began to give him his own portions.

When Caspian was not swimming in the clouds with Thala, he visited Cordelia's section of the line. He greeted her family pleasantly enough, but always ended up pulling Cordelia just out of earshot to drone on as long as she could stand to listen about sharks.

Presently, that was where they were.

"Did you know," Caspian was saying, looking positively beguiled, "there are hundreds of different species? And they're all totally unique! It's fascinating. I would love to document it all one day. The way the other guys talk, it's like they're all the same, but I don't really think that's fair." He glanced down, noticed a scale on his tail that was half-shed, and picked it off absentmindedly. He dropped it and the silvery disc fell dejectedly into the darkness below. "After all, not every shark's like a great white. Not every shark has teeth, for that matter! Besides, every kind is beautiful in its own way, and to lump them all into one category just because one got scared and did something we don't understand...it's wrong."

Cordelia nodded. Though Caspian must have shared ten hours' worth of knowledge about aquatic life with her by now (and much of it had grown repetitious in the process), she really did not mind listening to him. There were few other things quite as interesting as what he had to say, and to lose herself in his perspective was a blissful respite, a way to escape her own mind, which was becoming more and more tortured as the distance between herself and her home (and Sage, but she tried to keep his name from her mind as much as she could) grew more and more insurmountable.

"I'm guilty of the same, though," Caspian murmured. Cordelia glanced over, surprised to feel a spark of curiosity glowing in her mind. Caspian smiled, clearly pleased to have piqued her interest. "Did you know humans are the most fearful predator of sharks? There are so many stories—humans brutally killing sharks, and I've even heard they do it for fun. I used to hate humanity for it. I could never bring myself to hate them all just because they're our enemy, you see, but once I realized they were harming the sharks..." He trailed off, running a hand through his dark hair. "I just remember being disgusted and enraged, even more so than with the sirens who kill sharks. I mean, if you don't even live in the water, what can they possibly do to harm you? I didn't understand."

Cordelia touched his arm lightly, hoping she could convey how deeply she understood. To learn he refused to conform to the siren interpretation of humans gave her a sense of kinship she had never felt before.

"But, when I got a little older, and cooled off a little bit, I realized I couldn't hate all humans for hurting the sharks if I didn't condone hating all sharks just because some of them had hurt my people. It would be hypocritical, right?"

Cordelia's breath caught in her throat. He had a cadence of wisdom and knowledge he seemed to feel guilty of possessing. Before she could think to act naturally, her eyes were locked on him, staring and unblinking, willing him to tell her.

Caspian smiled. "I'm trying to tell you that it's okay," he said, nudging his fingers against hers in a gesture of camaraderie. "I followed you the night we met. I was worried about you. I mean, you heard all that stuff the Chief said, the danger that was coming, and you seemed so lost that night. I was a little afraid for you."

There was an innocence about him, the likes of which Cordelia had once seen in herself. In his face, she could see her reflection in a brighter time, a time when she had not been afraid or even aware of her differences. She liked Caspian, she truly did. Alas, that did not stop the discomfort she felt when she absorbed the fact he had seen the most private of her private moments, the secret she held closest to her heart. To imagine another living being had observed a moment so surreally beautiful and painful and endless and fleeting was strange and intrusive. Had he seen her disregard every rule about humans the sirens hailed? Had he seen her set aside her world for the world of another? Had he seen in her face all the things she felt for Sage, all the things she told herself she was going to forget and leave in the past, bury among the ashes of her former life, and commemorate only with the dreams she could not get under control? Had he seen her at her most vulnerable, her most transparent, under the touch of another creature, a beautiful creature, a creature who she so dearly...

Her eyes filled with tears, and at once she was filled to the brim with memories of the boy who had spun her silence into a voice, had fashioned his deafness into a way to hear her song, had shattered a barrier for her that no one else had ever attempted. Her heart felt like it might shatter under the massive weight pressing ruthlessly into her chest. She turned her face to be sure no one in the long line of sirens, especially her family members, would be able to see her cry.

"Hey," Caspian breathed, his dark eyes pooling with concern, "it's okay. Cordelia, it's okay, I didn't mean to upset you."

She shook her head. _It's not your fault,_ she thought _. It's mine. All mine. If only I had stayed home that night, if only I had done what I was told, if only I had not been foolish enough to care so deeply, perhaps none of this would have happened._ Though she knew it was impossible, she still felt guilty for everything that had happened, even the disaster which had driven them from the cove. It felt as if her actions had thrown the balance of the universe into chaos and had destroyed all sense of normalcy.

"Look at me," Caspian said, throwing an arm over her shoulder. His voice was ragged. Cordelia realized he sounded almost as mournful as she felt. Obediently, her gaze flitted to meet his. "What I saw—the way you look at each other—I don't know how it could possibly be real, or how you possibly managed to do it, but it is what it is."

Cordelia sniffled and crossed her arms, as if to defiantly declare she did not know what he was talking about. He gave her a sad smile.

"I know love when I see it, Cordelia."

She nearly winced at the mention of the word. Love. It was so overused, so overdone, and yet it was the only word she had to possibly contain and rationalize the endless pool of far-flung hopes building inside her, like water pressing against the edge of a dam. Cordelia was always told that family was about love, that friends were about love, and that self-love pooled up from within if one could just bring oneself to seize it. By that definition, love was often cold. Love was often absent. And love was never there at all.

But with Sage, the feeling was possession. It was as if another person, someone indistinguishable on the spectrum of right and wrong, took hold of her body and soul and guided her to a place of light and clarity and...dare she even think the word? Dare she allow it to become real in the darkest recesses of her mind? Dare she face the consequences of a love she did not know, a love she could not define or contain or control? Dare she relinquish her preconceptions of what the world was—unfeeling—and exchange it for something so much deeper and more difficult to quantify? No. Of course she could not. It was foolish and unacceptable and wrong and...

But the way Caspian looked at her, the way he set aside all judgements and treated her with only the most charitable, understanding nature, made her wonder if it really was so wrong. Perhaps it was she who was in such a state of disrepair rather than the intangible concept of love itself or the concrete, frigid realities of the world. She supposed it would be impossible to tell the difference whether one was looking at a broken world or simply looking with broken eyes. Maybe the solution was simply to go blind, to enter all things with an untainted naivety and cling to that pure state of being with every ounce of strength one possessed.

She looked skyward to keep tears from slipping into her eyes. Though it would have been impossible for any onlooker to distinguish them from the masses of salty water all around, it felt wrong to release any palpable form of her grief. She wanted to hold onto it, because it was all she dared herself to hold onto. She did not have the courage to face what loving him would be like, so she chose to hurt for him instead; mourning what could have been was so much easier than pursuing what could be. But the universe was a vast place dominated by complexity. Could the easiest path ever be the right one?

Dusk was bleeding across the horizon, a slew of watercolors seeping on an endless, darkening canvas. Browns and reds and oranges muddled together around the massive ball of light sinking below the horizon. Caspian was pulling her against him. She went limp against him, suddenly overcome with the exhaustion of carrying the immense weight of her decisions.

"It isn't wrong. You know that, right?" Caspian spoke more quietly and pointedly than she had ever heard before. Cordelia shook her head, swiping angrily at her eyes in hopes of banishing the puffiness and redness from them. "What I saw—I don't mean to intrude, but—it was beautiful. It made me realize I want to feel so strongly about someone, strongly enough to be willing to make the rules." He paused, seeming thoughtful. "Sometimes, I think love is making the wrong choices for the right reasons."

Cordelia went rigid, every muscle in her body tensing as she turned to stone. Caspian released her and turned to give her a quizzical look. "What is it?"

There were a thousand wrong decisions Cordelia could have made in that moment. She could have struck him for so blatantly peeling apart the layers of her privacy and exposing her not only to him, but to herself. She could have sunk to the bottom of the sea, abandoning everyone and everything in favor of the sweet release the blackness of the void might bring. She could have turned from Caspian and never spoken to him again, carried her burden alone forever, and forgotten that the conversation she had just endured had ever happened.

The line of sirens marched on.

When her eyes caught a glimpse of the silvery-white hair of the Chief at the front of the line, it seemed to Cordelia there was only one correct option: to keep moving, conform just as every other proper siren had, and hold herself tightly together for the sake of her family and her friends. But when she glanced back, squinting hard as if doing so might allow her to see the cove hundreds of miles behind, even that noble choice felt incorrect. All she could fathom in that moment was the urge to fall apart and succumb to what truly had to be done for her own sake. In that moment, there was no hue she could see apart from the entwined colors of earth and sun wrapped up in Sage's eyes. In that moment, there was no sound she could hear but her own heartbeat as it called out into the darkness, hoping to match his. In that moment, there was nothing, not a single other cell in the vast entirety of an endless universe, aside from those which made up the both. It felt as if the only thing between was darkness, an undefinable darkness. That which one could not fathom always became darkness; or, perhaps, the darkness became _it_. Whichever way it was, the anthropomorphic beast which consumed all and spared none mournfully guarded the miles separating them.

The line of sirens marched on.

They were so orderly. Neat and disciplined, they held their heads up and marched. Their tails only gave halfhearted movements, but their expressions never wavered, never betrayed them. They were all so repressed. Even her family members were growing smaller and smaller as they moved toward the horizon, which seemed to have opened its foaming jowls to swallow up every living thing. Nerissa was the only siren to venture a glance back, and the glance was brief. It consisted of a fraction of a second of eye contact. Then, even Nerissa marched on. If she could have, Cordelia would have screamed at them all. It was as if they were all sleepwalking through a waking nightmare, as if waking them up and shaking them to their senses might somehow save everything.

The line of sirens marched on and on and on.

"Cordelia?" Caspian's voice heightened in pitch on the last syllable to indicate a question, but there was an oddly encouraging tone buried somewhere deep within as he spoke her name in a hushed and hopeful voice.

She met his eyes. Something had sparked within her. Something hot and powerful and blazing was raging in her stomach, the tongues of white-hot power licking up her spine and at her lungs. She tore herself away so they were no longer touching and staggered a few paces back. Her expression was stony, but he seemed to understand.

"Go," he whispered, nodding curtly. "I'll do what I can. To cover for you, I mean."

A lump formed in her throat. When she attempted to swallow it, bitter nausea churned in her stomach. She had never felt a sense of kinship so intense before, nor a sense of gratitude so all-consuming. She nodded back at him, steeling herself for what was to come and hoping to share in the strengthening optimism he seemed to possess.

She turned. A vast, endless horizon, in hopes of swallowing her whole opened its gaping maw.

She left.

* * *

For a long time, Cordelia was blissfully numb. Once she had turned her face away from the garish, soldier-like movements of the other sirens, rebellion became easier by the minute. The occasional regret quivered and twisted in her gut, but the feeling was not too difficult to suppress when she focused her eyes on the eternal blue ahead and pretended she could see the cove in the distance.

For the first few hours, something explosive had entered her bloodstream and allowed her to continue at a relatively consistent pace. The last drops of daytime had fallen beneath the sea, and the hues of midnight had overtaken the sky as she travelled, never bothering to cast a glance back. Now, though, her tail was growing weary, her spine was growing sore, and her eyelids kept fluttering shut without her command. Illusions of grandeur had a nasty tendency to hide the obvious: siren or not, she was a mortal creature and could only go so far on the raw fuel of emotion alone. She tried to remember when she had last slept for more than an hour or so at a time; she certainly had not since the day of the evacuation.

She dropped a few feet in the water as her need for rest began to overwhelm her determination to stay awake and keep moving. She startled awake and blinked a few times, slowing her pace to a meager crawl and looking around with bleary eyes in search of somewhere, anywhere, to rest. A few hundred yards in the distance on her right, she could make out the fuzzy outlines of jagged rocks. It was not ideal, but it would have to do. She took a deep breath and managed to drag herself to it. The rocks were forbidding and would have been unpropitious to any wanderer who was even slightly less exhausted, but Cordelia nestled into the first crook she could find and collapsed into a dark, heavy slumber.

She could not be sure how long she remained unconscious. She only knew a peculiar falling sensation in her stomach was what woke her. Timid rays of morning sun slanted into her vision as she pulled herself upright and looked around, asserting which direction she needed to go. Though her instinctive migration patterns were rusty due to generations of their stagnation as the society in the cove had developed and women slowly morphed from migrators to mothers of stability itself, but she was certain she could tell which way home was. A hopeless romantic might have claimed it was her heart leading her to Sage, but she knew something so poetic would be rare in her reality. Or perhaps less rare than she thought, at least as of late. Over the past weeks, it seemed more of her life had spun itself into a sonnet so meticulous and melodious that it put to shame the craftmanship of sirens who were scribes by trade.

Cordelia stretched her arms, fanned out her fins, and focused her senses on finding her way home. She languidly rose from her position on the rock (suddenly becoming painfully aware of how taut and knotted her muscles were) and angled herself toward what seemed to be the right way. She was a few paces on her way when something tugged at her intense focus. Her ears swiveled in the direction of a noise that barely registered. She attempted to banish the distraction with a shake of her head, but it happened again—her keen hearing picked up something in the distance, and something switched in her brain. This time her reaction was conscious enough to allow for a turn of the head. What she saw astounded her.

Ondine, Lani, and Thala were all sprinting toward her at breakneck speed, their tails all blurring behind them as they rocketed toward her. Caspian lagged slightly behind but was moving just as fast. Their voices were the noises which had breached her priorities and tugged her focus off the journey she knew she must continue. She might have been glad to see them if their pace conveyed anything but desperation. At once, Cordelia's breath grew shaky. _Did something happen? Are the sirens safe? Is my family safe?_ she wondered fearfully.

Eventually, the three girls reached her. Cordelia had been expecting an embrace, or perhaps some other expression of affection and friendship, but their expressions never changed from a state of fear, concern, and ironed determination. Lani grasped one of Cordelia's arms and pulled.

"You have to, to," she huffed, clearly out of breath, "come back with us."

"Right now, Cordelia," Ondine confirmed. She reached out to grab Cordelia's other arm, but Cordelia jerked away, freeing herself from Lani's grasp and moving herself out of reach. Ondine raised a brow. "Cordelia, we saw it. The danger, we've seen it with our own eyes, and it's headed straight for the cove, just like the Chief said."

Cordelia felt a million questions formulating within her skull.

Ondine must have seen the curiosity in her eyes, so she continued. "It's this massive thing, like a boat, but enormous. There are sharp weapons sticking out from it, silver things with pointed tips, and there are these...these...small caves along the side. They're black, and they look like they're meant to shoot something."

Thala's lip trembled as Ondine's description apparently brought her own memories to the surface. The innocuous motion grabbed Cordelia's full attention for a few seconds. Whatever the danger was, it had terrified them.

"The sirens all hid deep beneath the surface. Everyone was safe, but it was...well, it was a little bit nerve-racking when that thing's massive shadow passed over us. If we hadn't had the darkness of the night to protect us, it surely would have spotted one of us." Ondine balled her hands into fists, clearly determined to keep up the facade of untouchable bravery she was known for. "It would have had another thing coming if it had tried to hurt one of us, though."

"I don't know what possessed you to run off like that, but we had to warn you," Lani gasped. She opened her arms and gestured for Cordelia to come. "You won't be safe unless you come back with us."

The moment her lips closed, Caspian reached the group at last. His chest rose and fell as he took in deep gulps of air. "I tried to tell them," he choked out as he doubled over, rubbing at his side. Cordelia guessed the muscles must be cramping.

Thala turned and shot him a warning look. "Y-Y-You just tried to convince us not to c-come," she growled indignantly. "A-A-As if we couldn't h-handle ourselves."

"That's not it, I swear," Caspian said, his tone defiant.

But Cordelia could see he was wounded in the way his eyes went dim. Still, he appeared to push his own emotions aside, looking to Cordelia for confirmation that it was all right to explain the truth to her friends. Cordelia sighed and nodded begrudgingly. She could not help but feel guilty for their rash decision to chase her and endanger themselves, just as she had felt guilty for the danger itself. It was as if the mere fact she had managed to salvage from the ash heap of her existence a few scraps of companionship was enough to merit that companionship be tainted by sacrifice and contempt. Though actions outside of herself were completely outside her realm of control, somehow they did not fall beyond her realm of responsibility. She supposed that was the curse of caring for people deeply: their intentions for her would almost always prove good, and thus, they were infallible, leaving the blame for the collateral damage on her alone.

"There are humans near the cove," Caspian explained slowly.

Before he could continue, Ondine crossed her arms in front of her and rolled her eyes in disdain. "Yeah, we know. We did live there for a while." She pulled back her lips to reveal rows of vicious, sharp teeth. "As sirens, we kind of hunt them. It's what we do."

Cordelia cringed, and Caspian shot her an empathetic glance. "I know that," he said, mimicking Ondine's body language and gliding up so he could loom above her. The sight was almost comical, as it was glaringly apparent his lanky limbs would be no match for Ondine's muscular build. "But the danger is coming, and it will come for them, too. They're living beings, and they've got brains and feelings just like us."

"Caspian, have you lost it?"

Cordelia's eyebrows shot up in surprise. The mordacious words spoken with a tongue of venom came from Lani. Cordelia had never seen her so blatantly on the offensive, shooting spiteful words directly at Caspian. She lunged forward so they stood tail-to-tail, faces mere inches apart. "They're our enemies. They kill us. We kill them. If that thing goes to the cove and finds them, who cares? They were too stupid to escape, anyway."

Cordelia's chest felt hollow. The thoughts in her head had shed their flowery garments, had thrown away the purposeful insights of yesterday, and all she could see when she closed her eyes was Sage. She had figured on the night they had parted he would try to carry her message to the other humans on the island, but Cordelia knew what it was like to be an outcast. In her experience, deviating from the norm meant being ignored, even when her head was not nearly as silent as her voice would lead outsiders to believe. Sage had known that. He understood. In turn, she understood him, at least as best she could. She could only imagine that deafness in the human world was just as condescendingly frowned upon.

All at once the blissful numbness she had been clinging to erupted into spite and rage and bitter anger at the way the world, society, and even her own flesh and blood had treated her. Her features contorted into a silent shriek. She buried her face in her hands and could feel the short strands of hair which made up her bangs. They brushed softly against her knuckles. Her ears twitched as she tried, quite effectively, if only for a few meager seconds, to shut out the world which had betrayed her and torn her from the one with whom she shared a true, unbreakable kinship. Lani, Ondine, and Thala—they could never understand, not completely. Cordelia could only hope and pray they were willing to listen and withhold the judgmental looks Cordelia was so accustomed to seeing when even the slightest indication of her pain slipped past her walls and revealed itself to the prowling demons all around.

"C-C-Cordelia?" Thala's tentative voice was a blissful respite from the words Lani had spat at Caspian seconds earlier. "Are y-you okay?"

Caspian touched Cordelia's shoulder. When she lifted her head to see the dark hand resting on her tawny skin and felt the warmth of the touch, she was almost comforted. Up until that moment, she had not realized she was crying, but the swelling of her tear ducts gave her away. The pearly drops vanished into the water around her, never to be seen and never to be forgotten. She took a deep, shaky breath, taking care to notice the way her ribs expanded as she kept herself alive. _Alive_. It was a reminder she had not realized she had been craving. She was still alive. Her family and friends were still alive. Sage was still alive. Mourning the past did not equate to saving the future. She gave Caspian a meaningful look and he nodded in response.

"Cordelia loves one of them."

The silence was like death: cold and peculiarly inevitable. For a few seconds, the expressions on the faces of the trio were blank as their minds buffered and attempted to process the information. Cordelia, too, felt the inner workings of her head turning desperately, running wildly over their capacity to accept the word.

Lani looked up at the space where the water met the sky, then down at the abyss which held the base of the jagged rocks somewhere deep within its bowels. At long last, she met Cordelia's eyes. "Is that true?" she whispered, her throat tight and her voice a bit ragged.

A thousand thoughts shattered into fragmented concepts and abstract uncertainties within their eyes. Cordelia looked from Lani to Ondine to Thala, all of whom were staring back at her with their mouths hanging slightly ajar and clinging to each other as if Cordelia might have sprung at them and attacked like a vicious, traitorous beast. Oxygen abandoned her lungs as she became acutely aware this was how sirens regarded sharks: with trepidation and the faintest inklings of hate, even if that hate was just a subconscious fact of their genetic inheritance, that endless bloodline, the creed, the duty all sirens shared. She had broken it, and now her friends knew the worst of her. They knew her disloyalty, the Cordelia who had put her own interests above that of her entire society, the Cordelia who had selfishly pursued warm, fluttering feelings and disregarded everything she had been taught as a child, the Cordelia who had dared to dream something bigger than her voice was ever supposed to allow her to be, and, most humiliatingly, the Cordelia who had turned the course of nature itself by handing her heart to a human knowing full well a single stab through its core would kill her and yet trusting Sage would do nothing of the sort.

Scenarios played out in her mind, a thousand misfortunes dancing an intricate ballet on the centerstage of her thoughts, as she fearfully wondered what they might do with that information. Her chest tightened, lungs aching for her to take a breath, but she could not bring herself to do so. The moment was too heavy, her heart too damaged, her integrity too shredded for her to think of simple, boring things like breathing. The world was too vast, intricate, heinous, and pulchritudinous to bother with anything so unostentatious. With bated breath and sagging posture, Cordelia managed a brief nod. It incriminated her beyond the point of salvation.

Ondine and Lani exchanged a glance. Cordelia tried to read it, but could not. It was one of those secret expressions developed over years of companionship and deep, unsurpassed connection between two creatures. She had seen it once or twice between Whistle and the grouchy bottlenose dolphin in their formative years—a nondescript glimmer in their black, beady eyes that always signified some sort of subtle communication which was only translatable between the two of them.

Thala had not torn her eyes from Cordelia since the news had broken, but she eventually ripped her eyes away to stare at Caspian. "A-A human? C-C-Cordelia loves a—a—a h-human?" she asked. Caspian stared back solemnly, and Thala eventually averted her eyes. Somber silence was more of an answer than words could give in that moment.

"Cordelia," Ondine spoke up. Cordelia stiffened slightly, expecting some sort of reprimand, but it occurred to her that she had never heard Ondine speak so tenderly. Her voice had taken on an entirely new quality, one that was maternal in the strangest sort of way. "Cordelia, it's okay. Look at me."

Cordelia obeyed, albeit begrudgingly. Eyes so dark they were almost as black as the abyss that swallowed the ocean beneath them implored her not to worry. Cordelia was taken aback. Her lips parted. She so badly wanted to speak, to question, and, most of all, to thank them for not striking her immediately, but her throat remained empty and void. No song of gratitude was strong enough to break her disability.

"You don't have to be scared," Lani said quietly. Her voice was still tight and ragged, but she sounded much more confident now. "We're not going to hurt you."

Now it was Cordelia's turn to stare in utter bewilderment. Her jaw slackened and her mouth hung open. She felt her eyes go so wide she was worried they might swallow up the rest of her. Or perhaps they already had. She regarded them all with a single question in her eyes. _Why not?_

Thala chuckled softly. The tittering sound echoed in the emptiness around them and dissolved somewhere that felt farther away than it possibly could have been. Though Cordelia was standing only a meager few feet away, it felt as though she had been launched miles into the air and was positioned among the clouds, distantly observing the queer situation set before her. "D-Did you r-r-really think w-we would ab-b-bandon you?" she murmured, seeming to speak mostly to herself. "We're f-f-friends, Cordelia. F-Friends stick t-t-t-together." They moved forward, arms interlocked around one another, and pulled her into a group hug. Cordelia could scarcely comprehend what was happening, but the pleasant expression on Caspian's face, as he watched the four of them converge into what felt like the most crucial point of time and space her life would ever encounter, conveyed to her that whatever it was, it was good.

"We understand," Lani said breathlessly. When Cordelia looked at her face, she realized the skin around her eyes was puffy and the whites around her blue optics had grown pink. "I mean, maybe we don't understand, not completely, anyway; I mean, we can't exactly climb into your head," she giggled awkwardly to herself in what seemed like an attempt to lighten the moment, "but we all love in different ways, and we all love different kinds of people. We won't stop supporting you, even if..." She swallowed and made a second attempt to speak. "The point is, even if some of the other sirens won't understand, we're not going anywhere."

"It's just too bad you can't speak," Ondine said, ruffling Cordelia's short locks of hair fondly, "so you can't tell us the undoubtedly adorable story of how you guys met."

Cordelia cracked the first genuine smile in what felt like an eternity. She had not ever realized or bothered to consider that her lack of loyalty would not, and could not, reflect on those around her. No matter how undeserving she felt, her friends trusted and respected her. It was a peculiar feeling, but not one Cordelia was particularly averse to.

They floated there, motionless and statuesque, looking at one another with new, deeper understanding of one another. Everything was calm and still and silent. All the silvery fish who inhabited the area had vanished, leaving them in a place of total solitude and noiselessness. It was the sort of eerie calm one would expect in the final hours of the world, when all lives succumbed to the inevitable and laid their souls to rest for the final time. It was the same ghostly wall of nothingness that came before the storm.

Caspian was the first to see the storm itself rolling toward them at an alarming pace. His lips parted in a silent cry as a shadow fell over them. Automatically—perhaps even instinctually—Ondine wrapped her massive arms around the rest of the group and yanked them all downward until the darkness of deep water had all but swallowed them up.

The monster soared atop the water as easily as a swan, but its belly cut severely into the waters and left patterns like scar tissue in its wake. On top of the thing were massive, billowing structures made of white that snatched up the wind, stealing the voice of the air and swallowing it down to gain the energy to move. From its sides there were black, cave-like structures that made Cordelia's stomach turn, even though she could not guess their purpose. As her eyes climbed the side of the monster and reached the railing which secured its innards, her eyes fell on a silver glimmer. It was a shard of sunlight bouncing off a metal weapon that was as long as a trident but had only one point, the sort of cruel thing that could spear cleanly through a shark and drag it from its peaceful space in the waters below. In fact, that's just what the spear had done. Rage boiled inside of her as she thought of Artemis, the lonely little shark abandoned at the cove. What if that shark was her mother? Had the wretched monster yanked it from its life just as its arrival had wrenched her from her home and left her whole world whirling in a disoriented frenzy? She guessed Caspian had seen the carcass, too, for he was covering his mouth and there was a look of utter disgust in his eyes.

Cordelia recognized it as a ship, but it was unlike any other she had ever seen. The humans from the island had created quiet, unassuming vessels which had ridden across the ocean with smooth, elegant strokes and caused little disruption. Some of the ships who had belonged to those who were preyed upon by the sirens had been submerged as a sort of trophy a few miles beyond the mouth of the cove. Most of them had slumbered on the floor of the ocean for as long as Cordelia could remember, and their origins were nothing but her bedtime stories and the whispers she picked up from across the room when her sisters forgot she was there, still an impressionable and fearful little wisp of a siren at the time. She had always imagined them going down peacefully and regarded them with a sort of reverence because, though they came from the surface, they appeared as if they belonged in the world of sirens. She had once sneaked out to play among the wreckage. It had not felt like wreckage; it had felt like a playground, a place of seclusion and escape, perhaps even a visible, tangible incarnation of that which had previously only existed in her imagination.

But the ship she saw before her now, so engorged in size and mass it took up a sizable portion of the sky when it passed overhead, was nothing like those pleasant little ships the islanders had crafted. It had none of the character, no story behind it but that of bloodlust, and it lacked any sort of natural impression the ships she had seen before had given. It looked like it was the sort of thing fit for a time of war on the surface. It looked like it was meant to kill and pillage and purge the beauty of the places it visited. Cordelia shuddered. It was headed straight for the cove. It was a monster made of wood and metal, an artificial, hateful thing. It was headed for Sage.

Cordelia's thoughts came to a screeching halt. The monster, a vessel built for conquest, what use would it have for Sage? For those whom he loved and trusted? She guessed as little use as it had had for the shark it had speared and displayed as a rotting trophy.

It will kill him.

She felt sick, but there was not time to dwell on anything she felt. All she could do was swim with as much haste and desperation as she could muster and warn Sage. If she was quick enough, she could do it without the vessel or, more importantly, the cryptic creatures who were undoubtedly within its horrid walls ever knowing of her involvement or existence. She gave the friends who were now circled around her a hard look, imploring them to rejoin the group of sirens who were taking the wise path and leaving the danger behind. Then, she propelled herself upward and sprinted in the direction of the cove, taking care to remain mostly concealed by the darkness the depths so graciously provided her.

Unsurprisingly, it was not long before the sound of heavy breathing behind her alerted her of her friends' poor decisions. "Friends stick together," Caspian said through his exhilarated huffs. He reached over to nudge her shoulder encouragingly. "Did you really think we'd let you go up against that thing alone?"

She glanced back at him and smirked at the way his hand was interlocked with Thala's. _No, it seems like no one is going to be alone after all_ , she thought.

* * *

The journey seemed swifter somehow when Cordelia had companionship. The five weary sirens rarely spoke and never exchanged more than a few lines. The lengthiest conversation had occurred when their rippling trails in the water had finally distanced themselves far enough that the monstrous ship was out of sight.

"I think we lost it," Caspian had reported with a glance over his shoulder. A chorus of relieved sighs had followed and were quickly lost in the past as the quintet had pressed on. Shortly after, silence had fallen for another few hours.

The sun had glistened on the water and tattooed nameless patterns on their backs in the form of tan lines. Occasionally, when they grew bold enough, the tiniest flare of free-spirited rebellion took over, and they would breach the surface, one or two at a time, just to leap and feel the wind on their faces. Then they would slam back beneath the waves with renewed vigor. Cordelia supposed the morale of the group was as important as their speed, so she did not bother to intervene. Quite the contrary, she was, on more than one occasion, among them when they soared.

The hours had continued to tick by and fade into nothingness, disintegrating in the belly of the ravenous beast that most referred to as the past. Now there was only the present to worry about. The present. As their rapid strides began to weaken and their eager pace began to crumble, Cordelia somberly considered the notion of collapsing out of exhaustion and disorientation. The compass within her still pointed the direction she was going, but swimming for so long and with no real knowledge of where the destination was had proved itself to be a difficult and unpleasant task. She had begun to doubt herself and her ability to find her way home before she had even left; she had just been too pompous to let the thoughts surface for more than a few milliseconds.

But her friends had never showed any indication that they felt the same uncertainties. Their brows remained furrowed in concentration, their lips pressed tightly together as they focused completely on the task ahead. Cordelia found it strange. Even after learning of the homeliest side of her heart, the part of her she was most ashamed of, they did not so much as keep her at a safe distance. Instead, they seemed to have taken to swimming around her in a protective forcefield of sorts. After the initial conversation, they never questioned her or berated her.

As if to confirm her internal dialogue, Lani piped up. "Keep going," she said, reaching over and squeezing Cordelia's hand. Cordelia did not return her glance, but offered a curt nod in response. Her eyes, which had glazed over as she contemplated recent events and tried to quantify the magnitudinous, earth-shattering things that had taken place, came into focus. Something shadowy and strangely familiar flickered on the horizon in the late evening glow emanating from the sky. She blinked a few times, concerned it might have been an optical illusion, but the image before her persisted. She slowed, reaching her arms out to their full lengths to make her actions known to those around her, and pointed a clawed finger cautiously at the distance. Her eyes leapt from one gaze to the next as each of her friends turned their attention to the place in the distance.

Her suspicions—not just suspicions, no, but all the hope and optimism she had left inside of her, every scrap of beautiful sunshine she had soaked up on the days she had lain on the floor of the cove and dreamt of a life better than the one she had been dealt from the unfeeling, stony hand of life—were confirmed when shrieks of glee and celebration erupted from the three girls and Caspian clapped his hands together in delight. He proceeded to pull Thala into a quick embrace. Apparently, he had not considered this action heavily before enacting it, because he seemed surprised at his own forwardness and flushed almost as much as Thala when they untangled themselves.

The shadowy thing in the distance swayed and shook as the waves began to grow and settle into the routine of the changing tides. It was the cove, just as Cordelia had hoped. She felt her eyes well up suddenly as her tear ducts betrayed her. Something in the center of her chest felt as if it were soaring higher than she could ever hope to leap from the surface of the water. When she closed her eyes, she was at the peak of the sky, and her fingertips were grazing the clouds as her eyelashes snatched dewdrops of sunlight. Every hue imaginable, golds and pinks and blues and silvers, billowed around her, reflecting off the pillars of white and the backdrop of sky which seemed to knit the entirety of the world together like the canvas of a timeless artistic legend. And if she squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could and added just a few drops of starlight and imagination to the feeling inside of her, Sage was with her among the clouds, his legs firmly planted in the thickest cloud as he watched Cordelia fly before joining her in the air. In her imagination, she was hasty to kiss him again and hold him as tightly as she could, as if preserving his memory might keep the reality of him safe and unchanged.

But memories were not people. The Sage she knew was still in danger, and she was still being pursued by the grotesque, battle-ready vessel that was a pinprick in the distance. She opened her eyes. The feeling inside her named itself: _nostalgia_. It was intoxicating, but she set it aside, attempting to sober herself from the addiction of imagining and turning her focus on the reality that was much less grandiose and much more critical, at least for the time being.

They sprinted for it. Their tails became shimmering blurs in the evening light as they hurried home, that fabled place of the past, a _hiraeth_ everyone hoped to reach one day. Cordelia swam front and center, leading her friends with as much vigor and speed as she could muster as her thoughts muddled and mingled until they were an incomprehensible, happy mess. Her arms stretched out as if she might grasp the entrance of the cove and yank it close until she was as melded with it as her torso was to her tail. Whether it was a few moments or a few hours until they reached the mouth of the cove, Cordelia would never know; all she knew was the utter exhilaration and elation that filled her to the brim when her fingernails latched hungrily onto the rough rocky surface. A few particles of rock broke under her harsh touch as she clawed at it, desperate to confirm that it was real and that her home truly was set before her.

She took a deep breath. Her frantic hands slowly calmed as the overwrought emotions coursing through her veins began to quell. A few feet behind, her companions caught up. She turned to see the happiness on their faces, but her smile faltered when she noted the urgency still undeniably present in their expressions. There was work to be done; she was certain of that.

For once, it felt perfectly natural to stand motionless in utter silence. The moment was reverent, but not in a morbid way. Cordelia felt something buzzing within her as she turned and slipped between the massive rugged stones which marked the mouth of the cove and into the place she knew as her home. The peaceful darkness all around was merely a veil to hide the monstrosity on its way, but it was effective nonetheless. She took another deep breath and swallowed her contentment. There was no time to be content, not when death so relentlessly prowled just beyond the horizon. All she could do now was find Sage and get him to safety.

Though she could feel her muscles aching and yearning for rest, she persisted. There's work to be done, she reminded herself. Her bones were weary and sagged at the thought of a single stride more, but her resolve refused to crack. One way or another, she reassured herself as convincingly as she could, all this will be over soon.

Seven: The Battle

Lani, Ondine, Thala, and Caspian had not followed her into the cove, though she realized this embarrassingly late in the midst of her enthusiasm. She supposed they were keeping watch, or rather, that was what they would have told her had she raised an inquisitive brow. In the depths of her soul she could sense they were giving her privacy she had not realized she needed. They were granting her the chance to see Sage in secret, to throw away all her inhibitions as she had before without the shame of another's eyes fixated on her. They had sacrificed everything to make the journey with her and were happy to give up seeing the final result for Cordelia's sake. She would never understand friendship—of that, Cordelia was irrevocably assured.

Her tail flitted impatiently behind her as she swam through the eerie darkness, thick and black as oil and just as toxic. She was not sure exactly what she was looking for, but she did know it would be apparent when she found it. As her lips twisted with uncertainty and her eyes frantically searched the horizon for any sort of sign or symbol, anything that might direct her to where she was supposed to go or what she was supposed to do, how she was supposed to explain to Sage she had hurried back only to urge him to run away as quickly as he could, a sharp snout pressed harshly into her side. She winced, rubbing what would undoubtedly become a bruise over the next few hours, before turning to see what clumsy sea creature had been in such a hurry.

Her jaw dropped when she perceived the outline of a small shark in the blackness. It was Artemis. She had grown over the last few weeks, though not enough to come close to a full-grown great white. Her fins had elongated slightly, and her body had grown a bit stockier, sturdier, and built for the battles the species was known for facing. And despite how Cordelia had abandoned her, the blissful innocence of infancy appeared unhindered within her cryptic little head. Enthused by the reunion, Artemis swam circles around Cordelia, stopping only when the siren extended her hand and stroked her dorsal fin.

Cordelia's mind's eye flickered back to the image of the shark displayed on the monstrous ship as a trophy. It occurred to her that Artemis' innocence was a wonderful thing, something worthy of preservation and protection for as long as Cordelia could manage. She came to the resolution that if she and the others could make it out of the cove uninhibited by the oncoming danger, she would take Artemis along this time. Somehow she would find a way to explain to the others that the little shark was no danger at all and could even be an asset to the sirens one day. Caspian would help, she was sure, and leaving the little creature alone again did not feel like an option when Cordelia forced herself to look right into its eyes. Something was there that she had not seen before, a sort of dull mourning that indicated an expectation of disappointment. Before she could study it further, Artemis snatched her gaze away and glided in a final circle, coming to rest at Cordelia's hip, prepared to follow her to the ends of the earth. Cordelia smiled gratefully and patted her snout with gentle understanding. _It's okay_ ; she willed Artemis to understand. _I'm not going anywhere. We'll stay together this time. I'm not afraid to tell anyone anymore._

A soft current scurried past Cordelia's cheek, and she turned in the direction it came from. At first she saw nothing apart from the black-on-black shrouded landscape all around, but after a moment of squinting and allowing her eyes to adjust, she finally noticed it: a pale shadow atop the water, silhouetted by starlight as the silvery undertones of the moon's ethereal glow shattered into glittering fragments of immeasurable wealth and beauty in the water below. It was soft and unassuming, the sort of vessel she was accustomed to. She hurried toward it, afraid to breathe or make the faintest noise beyond the frantic swishing of her tail, and, above all, she was terrified her suspicions about the little boat would turn out to be nothing but disappointment under the veil of desperate hope. However, as she drew near, her familiarity with the thing proved correct. It was Sage's boat.

Why he had taken to the water when Cordelia had told him of its dangers, Cordelia might never understand, but she hurried toward him nonetheless. The boat slouched atop the water with an air of dejectedness, its sail slouched and wrinkled as it fluttered haplessly in the cool evening breeze. As Cordelia breached the surface and felt the cold night air kiss her cheeks and lap the dewy drops away from her features, she was reminded of the night they had met and how bizarre her own intentions that night seemed to her now. Proving herself had only grown harder, and yet her purpose had only grown clearer as the confusion had muddled all else. She had bridged gaps no other would have dared to, and she wondered if history might remember her kindly for it.

Her heart caught in her throat when she rose up high enough to peer into the vessel. There he was, all flushed cheeks and lean muscle well-versed in the art of directing his little boat wherever he wanted it to go. Underwater Artemis pressed more firmly against her hip, an act which reminded Cordelia to take a breath. When she resurfaced, Sage had not moved. He was curled up almost like a child would have been, supported by the gentle curvature of the wood which held him afloat. His eyes were closed, and he was utterly still, still as the night itself, still as the corpses of Cordelia's preconceptions. The steady rise and fall of his chest told in a gentle, whispering rhythm of a long night spent keeping watch over the cove, which had inevitably ended in succumbing to exhaustion.

Her heart swelled as she reached over the side of the boat and strained to reach his hand, lacing his soft, warm fingers between her webbed ones and squeezing as hard as she dared. He stirred, and his fingers twitched within hers. His eyelids crinkled as his face scrunched, visibly demonstrating his scorn for being awakened, but fluttered open after a moment's hesitation. Tenderly, awareness dawned on his features, and his bleary eyes came into focus and locked onto her own irises. A much harsher wave of emotion crashed over him as he scrambled onto his knees and crawled to the edge of the boat, all the while still clinging to her hand.

_Cordelia_ , he signed her name with his free hand. Her eyes softened and her cheeks ached from how hard she was smiling, but she forced her lips to at least close around her teeth. There were serious matters at hand that desperately needed to be addressed _. I thought you were leaving. I thought you had to go, to get away from this place._

_I did_ , she confirmed with a heavy sigh. _The danger is still coming. I had to make sure you were safe._

His expression crumpled considerably and Cordelia furrowed her brows. Why would he be upset by her admittance? She was about to ask, but something deeply anxious in the depths of her soul caused the query to dissolve before it made its way to her hand. _Cordelia, you should have gone_ , he told her earnestly.

She shook her head. _Sage, I've seen it. It's headed right this way, this monstrous thing, an awful thing..._

Her words trailed off and she tore her gaze away to admire the heavens above, untouchable by both human and siren. Some sirens believed the stardust in the blood of living creatures enabled them to persist after death in a land high above the clouds, a land free of pain and suffering, a land where all one had to do was wish and they would be swimming among the stars, surrounded by a heavenly perfection which was beyond the threat of alteration by any ill-intentioned beast. It was beautiful, to imagine star stuff running through one's veins, tracing out the winding pathway between life and death, decorating the gray space between in twinkling lights that made it all a bit less frightening. Cordelia's grip on Sage's hand tightened. She was still frightened.

Turning back to face him, she demanded, _Did you not tell your people of the danger? Did you not make a plan to leave the cove, to save yourself?_ As blessed as it was to see his face, a part of her was angry. Though it would have been a cruel, hollow fate to return all the way to the cove only to find it desolate and abandoned, truly it would have been best for Sage, never mind all the other inhabitants of the island. He smiled a sad smile.

At once, Cordelia understood. Still, he elaborated, _Of course I told them what you told me. But we are outcasts, Cordelia. Sometimes humans are as cold as the sirens you have told me about._ His fingers burned against hers.

_Nobody listened?_ she asked sorrowfully. He nodded in response, chin angled downward in resignation. Cordelia exhaled sharply, crushed by the implications. The most tragic of stories always followed calls for help when nobody came.

_It's okay. It's going to be okay_ , she told him, signing rapidly as she grew more and more anxious. Sage's eyes bored into hers, drenched in an odd shade of silver under the pale, luminous magic emanating from the moon, which saw all and forgave none. They were dim, clouded by the ugly brownish tones of doubt. His muscles, tensed like coils ready to spring at the first sign of danger, told his fear and total comprehension that whatever was coming had its fangs bared and its claws poised to strike and slash and shred. _I'll protect you_ , she added as her expression crumbled into a soft sorrow.

He looked away. So did Cordelia. It was as if gazing directly at one another might further obliterate the natural order they had disowned and cast away, as if they would somehow make it all worse by acknowledging the growing electric storm between them and succumbing to its fervid passions.

But Cordelia was tired. She was sick of waiting, of casting it aside, of pretending it was not real, of pretending isolation made her strong when all it had ever done was weaken the very foundation of who she was. In that moment, she would have set the entire expanse of the ocean aflame if it meant she could shed all the pain of the past, disregard the worry of the present, and stay with him. All her thoughts and inhibitions diffused into the water around her as she reached up, turned his chin toward hers, and pressed her lips to his for the second time. She kissed him with everything she had left to give, transposing the entirety of her identity into one simple, yet endlessly complex, act. The stars sang cryptic melodies above, exchanging secrets and gossip with the rustling atmosphere as human and siren pulled apart and pressed their foreheads together. Cordelia felt a shiver run from the nape of her neck to the base of her tail as a few tears slipped from her eyes.

After a few seconds of total stillness and solemnity, her lungs demanded a breath, so she submerged her gills into the cool waters of the deep and drank in as much oxygen as she could hold. Sage's eyes were locked onto hers now. She rose up, pulling her forearms into the open air to sign to him three words she would never retract.

_I love you_. She said it as bluntly as she could. There was no flowery prose which could tell all the splendors of what she felt, what she wanted, what her subconscious dreamed of when she was not able to guard herself from its whimsical daydreams.

He blinked, seeming appalled. Then, he signed it back, and the words hung in the air, suspended like impossible things among a sea of good intentions.

To put it mildly, the moment was utterly ruined when Caspian's dark head surfaced beside them in the water, his long hair plastered to his skull and his eyes wide.

"Cordelia," he gasped, clearly unaccustomed to speaking above the surface, "it's coming. The monster. It's on its way. We have to go before it traps us in here." His fearful expression lessened some when he turned and at last became aware of the fact that Sage was perched on the edge of the boat and staring intensely at him. Upon that realization, Caspian smiled and gave a slight wave. "Hi there."

Sage did not understand his dialect any more clearly than Cordelia's, but the wave seemed to convey the message. He waved back and promptly turned to Cordelia, his eyes searching for an explanation.

_The storm_ , she elaborated hurriedly. _It's here._

Caspian shifted impatiently and crossed his arms over his chest. "We have to go!"

Cordelia gnawed on her lower lip. She knew she had to keep Sage safe, now more than ever, but there was no guarantee the monstrous ship would leave the island intact. Whatever foul virus was writhing within its wooden threshold would be capable of far more than she could imagine, she guessed. And no one could predict how violent and volatile that virus would be. A sudden stroke of inspiration hit, and she acted before she could think better of it: she reached up, grasped Sage's arms, and pulled him into the water with her. His head went under for a fraction of a second, but Cordelia was quick to pull him above the surface. He sputtered as a string of syllables she could not make sense of tumbled past his lips.

Noise erupted in the distance, muffled only by the space between herself and the source. Cordelia pressed a finger to Sage's lips to hush him. She glanced over her shoulder and scanned the horizon for any sign of the danger. At first, nothing transpired in the midst of the endless darkness. It was only when Caspian stepped in that she could see the imminent threat.

There it was: the ship. That monstrous, foul, grotesque adversary had prowled all the way to the mouth of the cove. For now, its motion had ceased as it seemed to size up the entrance, which was just barely too small for its engorged build to pass through.

For an instant, Cordelia was relieved. It could not come any closer. Her home was a secret that kept itself, a lock which granted the key only to those who came in with innocent intentions.

Caspian vocalized her thoughts. "It looks like it's too big. Maybe it will go away," he exhaled softly.

The few meager hopes which had just begun to flourish within Cordelia were tarnished, obliterated along with the sky-scraping rocks which guarded the cove as thunderous explosions resounded and light the color of brimstone spewed clouds of ash and smoke. Massive boulders larger than ten, maybe twenty, sirens crumbled away like grains of sand as the mouth of the cove was destroyed. She guessed whoever was responsible would have called it an expansion. Her features contorted with disdain. It was, at its core, nothing but selfish destruction.

The monstrous vessel lurched forward. Its bow pierced the mouth of the cove, and its massive underside made a thick gash in the water, sending ripples of the ocean's pain in all directions. As it drew nearer and the sounds from within it began to echo off the rocky walls which had once protected the cove, Cordelia could hear excited whoops and battle cries rising in the air like some sort of deathly shanty. The billowing sails swallowed up the wind. The massive structure swallowed up the sky.

Cordelia felt rage. It had invaded a sacred place, a hallowed place, a place it had no right to be. She bared her teeth and felt every muscle in her body tense. She was ready, determined to fight, determined to win. She turned and faced the friends who had accepted her, who had cheered for her, who had pried into her and fractured the rigid exoskeleton which dominated her exterior to reveal the innards of her personality, and they had dared to call that mangled mess beautiful. Her eyes fell in quick succession over Lani, the encourager, Thala, the compassionate, Ondine, the protector, Caspian, the unique, and Sage, the otherworldly. Each resonated with a piece of her soul in that moment. Each was a part of her, and she was a part of each of them.

They moved as one. Cordelia released Sage, who promptly began swimming in the direction of shore to find assistance with the rest of his people. She and the other sirens, however, bolted straight for the ship, which was drawing nearer and nearer to the island. There was but one thought ingrained into their heads. Cordelia could feel it swirling, pulsing, whispering around them in an eerie sort of current driven only by the ghosts of past victims. It was speaking to all of them. It was driving them forward.

Cordelia was the first to reach it. Without thinking twice, she slammed the entire weight of her tail against the wooden bottom. It shuddered, and so did she upon touching the thing. It was artificial and motionless, totally unnatural, and yet as solid as a seamount but did not give out. Not yet. Her will stiffened, and she rammed it once again. Beside her, the other four sirens had reached the destination and did the same. It was like trying to rip a whole world apart and felt utterly impossible, beyond the realm of probability, and yet they acted in perfect synchronization on the off-chance luck might take their side. Another shudder as the wooden reinforcements quaked under the pressure. Cordelia's ears perked up as a few bewildered shouts rang out above the surface. Their actions were not fruitless. They had frightened the monsters inside. Now to end them and their threat to the pocket of beauty they were so intent on desecrating...

The massive structure groaned as it passed over them, undeterred by their efforts. Cordelia felt a hand press urgently on her shoulder. "Cordelia," Caspian's voice tore her from the state of the sheer willpower that had been suffocating all rational thought. "We have to coordinate. On my mark, okay?"

_Of course_ , Cordelia thought. The initial millisecond of indignance she felt quickly transformed to understanding and agreement. This was a matter of teamwork. She could not achieve the goal by herself, and the others had known it from the moment she had left.

Cordelia swam back a few paces; so did her friends. She exchanged a glance with Thala. Never had she seen such fire in another creature's eyes. It mimicked everything she felt and everything she held dear.

Up above, small shadows flew overhead before landing, presumably into the belly of the beast. It was like watching a militia of shooting stars assault an unforgiving horizon. On one shadow, Cordelia could make out the clear outlines of legs. The humans of the island had arrived.

"One..."

The shadow of the vessel loomed above them, ominous and dark, chilling Cordelia to the bone.

"Two..."

The promises of destruction and death drew nearer. The flames of Hades seemed to surround them. Cordelia was unafraid.

"Three!"

Their hearts were beating together. Cordelia rushed forward. The others moved with her, never faltering. Four tails slammed mercilessly into the wooden demon. It cracked, fractured, and all at once a hole was gaping in the side of the thing. The wound glared at them, dark and abysmal, and the vessel seemed to falter. More shouts of confusion rang out from above and intermingled with a new sound: the high-pitched wails of the defenders of the island as they assembled and leapt to the ship, attacking the inhabitants. The water all around felt like fire to Cordelia now.

The bow of the vessel had begun to pitch forward as the sea rushed in to aid its defenders. The water was quick to invade the bottom of the massive ship. Cordelia struck the sides of the wound once again with three strict blows from her tail. It widened slightly, though not quite enough to completely down the monster.

A blur sped past in her peripheral vision, something like a gray bullet. Then there was a pain in her side. She clutched the spot, worried that perhaps some horrid human weapon had targeted her, but there was no tear in the skin; a bruise was all she could see, just beginning to form beneath her skin. The gray flash spun around her twice, wriggling madly. When Cordelia caught a glimpse of the beady black eyes, she realized what it was: Artemis.

The little shark was not so little anymore. In her absence, Artemis had grown a few feet in length, but she was still just as friendly, a fact which was only a danger to her now. The teeth jutting out from her gums were much more visible now. In fact, her arrival had driven all the other sirens but Caspian away, who was staring with as much concern in his eyes as Cordelia felt. Lani, Ondine, and Thala watched from more than a few paces back with faces full of suspicion.

Cordelia reached out, attempting to still the frantic movements of the young shark before she got herself hurt, but Artemis would not be stilled. She circled around Cordelia's waist before slowing slightly and appearing curious for a reason Cordelia could not quite deduce. She worked out the answer when Artemis moved again, however, for the shark darted directly into the hole they had penetrated through the armor of the vessel.

Caspian yelled something, but Cordelia was too distracted by the inferno licking at her insides to make out what it was. The monstrous creators and inhabitants of this vessel had torn another shark from the ocean, spilling its blood and allowing its gills to dry like sand upon the shore. And that was only the one Cordelia had seen. Who could say how many lives had been senselessly taken? How many beautiful, peaceful creatures had been torn from the heavenly blue waves before? How many golden lives had been extinguished, allowed to decay, allowed to rot in the burning sun, all just out of reach of the water which sustained them.

The fact that the bloated ship had the nerve to snatch Artemis away after all the unforgivable sins it had already committed set Cordelia aflame. She was a storm wrapped in dark clouds and an ominous lack of compassion. She could feel her eyes go dark as the clawed fingers of her friends dug into her skin in futile attempts to bring her back to reality. Their efforts were in vain. Cordelia ripped herself from their kind, adoring hands and flung herself headfirst into the belly of the beast.

Eight: When Dawn Came

Darkness. It was all she could see at first. The vessel's wooden walls seemed to close in around her. Her lungs expanded and contracted with worrying speed. Cordelia had never known the feeling of claustrophobia. The open sea had never confined her in the way the artificial monster did. She could hear the voices of Caspian, Lani, Thala, and Ondine outside, all calling and pleading with her to return, but she felt as though they were a million miles away, and she was stranded on another planet. The thunderous claps of their tails smashing furiously against the wood rang out through the chamber, and the structure around her groaned.

She swallowed her nausea and attempted to pull herself into a state of composition, just as she had done countless times before in her youth. Her muteness had impaired her once. What could one boat do to her now, after all she had been through? After how far she had come?

With newfound courage, she swam, arms outstretched as if embracing the darkness. Her fingertips itched for any sign of movement as she searched for Artemis. It was only when she paused to get her bearings and focus on the meager slants of light slipping in from the wound that she heard the dull thudding a few feet to her left.

She turned to look. There was Artemis, as lovable and dopey as ever. She was endeavoring to escape their confinement by repeatedly ramming her snout into the ship. Though she had grown, she was far too small to make a dent, but she did not seem intent on stopping any time soon. Cordelia reached out and curled her fingers around Artemis' tail, pulling her close before the little shark could harm herself. Artemis nuzzled against her arm in a gesture of gratitude. _Okay, Artemis_ , she thought as blood pounded in her ears—it was difficult to form rational thoughts— _time to find our way out of here_

More loud thuds echoed around them, and Cordelia's ears twitched at the unpleasant noise. Without warning the vessel's nose pitched further forward. Cargo that Cordelia had not noticed before began to roll toward her. She flattened herself against the floor, which was nearing a ninety-degree angle, and pulled Artemis down with her as barrels sank past at breakneck speed and smashed into the far wall. The bits of crushed wood blasted in all directions. The ship pitched further forward. Cordelia began to lose her grip on the floor and released it, performing a flawless flip to gain her bearings once again. As the ship began to sink around her, her eyes managed to pick out the hole in the darkness, and she sprinted for it. It had grown slightly wider, clearly the result of being brutally attacked by her friends. Her tail moved at a furious pace as she raced to reach the opening, to reach freedom, and to finish off this monster once and for all. And just as her fingers brushed the jagged wood...

She drew back, horrified. In her shock, she released Artemis. For once, the young shark did not race around as if her life depended on it.

A puff of sand, after having been disturbed, lifted from the opening. Slowly, seeming to examine these new surroundings, each grain settled again. The vessel was downed, as lifeless as the ocean creatures it had once killed, but the exit had been blocked off by the floor of the sea.

Cordelia grasped the rough edges of the wood and pulled with all her might, with everything she had left: only a meager amount. It was in that moment she realized how much she had given of herself already. Her essence was spent, and in the end, all it had purchased was her imprisonment, this one far more tangible than the last. The ship did not budge, and the sand only shifted as if to scold her for disturbing its slumber.

She could still hear the thunderous sounds of slamming tails nearby and she followed the noise, her nails dragging against the wall her friends were attempting to break through. The wood shuddered but held fast. For a few moments, she, too, tried to break through it, spending the last of herself on the freedom she so desperately desired. But the wall did not move.

She was gasping for breath. She was afraid of the dark that seemed to prowl upon her and afraid of the walls that held her in a vicelike grip. But the walls did not move.

She floated, drifted, collapsed, sinking down to the boat's wooden bottom and curling up into herself, allowing herself at last to cry. Rejected by the world, she resigned herself to being locked away in the nightmarish depths of the vessel from which she had saved her island. The muffled voices of Ondine and Caspian shouting at one another scraped against her ears. Artemis flitted past a few times, indecisive, and then nestled into the crook of her arm. Then everything was silent.

Had they left? Probably. How long until they forgot? How long until she forgot? How long did it take for a story to deteriorate, to dissolve into the cracks and crevices of an aging mind? How long did it take for the flame of motivation to succumb to an icy wind? How long did it take for love to melt into indifference? How long did it take for deathly loneliness to attract the inescapable death of body and soul?

All was silent.

All remained silent. Cordelia's pounding heart began to fade. Her chest grew hollow. Her head felt heavy. A great black void had opened up to swallow her and take her away.

Then it all changed.

The sound of a thousand beating drums, a million beating hearts, an eternity of jubilation and determination, erupted from all sides. Cordelia shot upright, circling the perimeter of the chamber in an attempt to work it out. Every inch of the walls shivered under the intense pressure.

Then a crack. Light began to stream through near the middle. The immense noise began to concentrate itself in that area. In mere seconds, the walls collapsed, surrendering to the war waged upon it. A siren burst through, her eyes searching the chamber, presumably for Cordelia.

Nerissa?

"Cordelia!" her younger sister exclaimed. Relief flooded her expression, and she rushed over, pulling Cordelia into a crushing embrace.

When they pulled apart, Cordelia noticed the younger's eyes were red despite how happy she looked.

"You're alive! You're okay! We were so worried! And...oh, hello," Nerissa giggled when Artemis approached. "Is this the shark Caspian was talking about? She's cute!"

Cordelia's head was spinning faster than a hurricane. She gripped one of Nerissa's hands tightly and squeezed, pressing for an explanation.

Nerissa gave her a knowing smile. "Come on," she said in a hushed voice. She led Cordelia into the light of the open sea where a peaceful silence had settled over the cove like a blanket of sand. A gull cawed melodiously overhead. Sirens stood motionless as far as the eye could see, their gazes all trained on Cordelia. She locked eyes with several of them as she drank it all in. These were her saviors. Every single one of them had focused their efforts on the monster, not just for the cove, but for her.

She turned around. The dents, cracks, and crevasses, which had been carved into the wood with broad strokes, confirmed her suspicions. She turned back to the crowd just in time to see Caspian emerge with her three other friends flanking him. Interestingly, Thala's pinky finger was joined with his. Cordelia felt her panic fade completely, and a sense of calm overtook her.

She turned to Nerissa. _You came for me?_

"Caspian told me what you were planning," she explained coolly. Her pink tail shimmered under the sunlight and sent dancing, glinting fragments of light all around the aqua sea. "I knew we had to come back to help, because this isn't the sort of thing you should have to do alone. You've already done so much alone, Cordelia. So I tried to convince everyone to turn back. It wasn't going well, but then..." She turned to look at someone in the crowd, and her expression softened, "I had some help."

Cordelia turned to look. An aged figure, bent over under the weight of responsibility and yet possessing an endless kindness in her eyes, transpired. She worked her way to the front of the crowd and stepped forward until she was mere inches from Cordelia. The Chief was standing before her.

Cordelia did not know how to react. She did not bow; she did not feel it was appropriate. A part of her whispered that she was not confident enough to face the leader of her kind head-on. She defied that voice. She looked the Chief in the eye, and she squared her shoulders, prepared to stand her ground.

The Chief smiled warmly. A weathered hand reached forward and patted her on the cheek. "Cordelia, we are so, so proud of you. Because of you, the cove is safe. We are all indebted to you." She bent her head downward in a gesture of respect and honor. Cordelia was motionless, utterly stunned by the sight before her. The Chief lifted her head. "I know you think you have rebelled."

_I have_ , Cordelia thought. The familiar feeling of guilt began to unsettle her insides.

The Chief gazed upward. "Listen, my daughter. You have not rebelled. You have established something new, a shining order where there can be peace and friendship between two worlds. Just listen."

Cordelia did. For a few seconds, she did not know what she was listening for. She soon realized, however, that if she strained her ears and closed her eyes, the distant sounds of a foreign song were rising from the island's shore. It was the song of the humans. It was strange and different, full of consonants and emotions unfamiliar to Cordelia, but it was beautiful. It was one of the most beautiful sounds she had ever heard.

One by one the multitudes of sirens around her began to join the melody. Their saccharine voices drifted through the water. There was no temptation, no ill-concealed threats, no monstrous intentions in their songs. It was a song of victory and compassion, a song of total and complete acceptance, a song of teamwork and togetherness. Everyone was singing. Thala's broken voice rang out among the throng. Caspian's off-pitch baritone joined the throaty notes of the men. Lani and Ondine harmonized with one another, dipping and rising in a sort of vocal dance, the likes of which Cordelia had never heard before.

The sound was overwhelming. It evoked such emotion from Cordelia that her eyes began to water. The bridge was crossed, the battle was won, and the time for night was over. The sun had risen. She locked eyes with the Chief.

The old siren's smile stretched ear to ear. "You have brought us the future. We are grateful, Cordelia. I have a gift for you. Come with me." She turned and motioned for Cordelia to follow. Nerissa's voice died down as she looked worriedly between Cordelia and the Chief, seeming slightly nervous about losing Cordelia again. The Chief waved her off gently. "I am afraid this is a private process, my dear. Cordelia will be back soon. For now," she gesticulated all around, "enjoy the song. It is one the sirens have not heard for thousands of years."

The Chief turned and weaved through the crowd. Cordelia followed. She kept her thoughts from worrying about the countless pairs of eyes watching her as she passed by focusing on the tail of the Chief. It looked more ancient than the rest of her, characterized by countless nicks and tears and missing scales. The color was gradient, light gray at the bottom which morphed into the color of storm clouds near her waist.

At last, they made it past the last row of rejoicing sirens and were released into the openness of the cove. The Chief kept going. Cordelia raised a brow and glanced behind. The rows of sirens were growing smaller and smaller as they continued to swim away. How far would she have to go?

A few more moments of travel answered the question. They were now positioned at the mouth of the lagoon Cordelia had sneaked to as a child, the little body of water she had used to communicate with Sage. Her mouth dropped open, and she stared at the Chief in spite of herself.

She knew about this?

"I may be old," the Chief responded warmly, as if she could hear what Cordelia was thinking, "but I'm not as dull as you expect, Cordelia. I have to keep tabs on my children, you know." Cordelia nodded, pretending to understand. She could not. "Well, don't just stand there, my dear! Go in."

Cordelia obeyed. She entered the warm water of the lagoon and skirted the edge of it so the Chief could enter behind her. Their heads rested above the water. The Chief did not appear phased in any way as they looked at one another.

"Cordelia, you have saved our home, and our people are exalting you. In spite of your youth and your disadvantages, you have overcome. You've inspired us all." The Chief was regarding her with tired eyes. "I am growing old, Cordelia, and it is time to crown another siren Chief. The first crowning ceremony in a few hundred years," she remarked. Pride was evident in her tone. After a few seconds of Cordelia attempting to work out exactly what the Chief was implying, she chuckled and reached for the necklace of wind-worn shells around her neck. Slowly, she removed it, slipped it over her head, and over Cordelia's. "You will lead our people."

Cordelia gasped. Her hand reached upward and she ran a few fingers over the smooth shells which now made a soft arc over her chest. She, worthy of the title of the Chief? She, capable of leading the entire community? Her skepticism reigned supreme, but the Chief seemed to have her mind made up.

When Cordelia moved to take off the necklace, the Chief grabbed her wrists and gently returned them to her sides. "It's okay. I will help you at first. I'll teach you the magic of our ancestors. Together, we will ward this cove and ensure the safety of its people for the rest of time, both the sirens and the humans. Do not be afraid, Cordelia," the Chief reassured.

Cordelia nodded once. Her chest swelled. In spite of her doubts, she was ready.

"There is just one more thing," the Chief articulated with considerable hesitation. Her eyes sparkled knowingly. "One more thing I can offer you, my daughter. It is up to you whether you want it or not." Cordelia quirked a brow and nudged the Chief's arm with her own, urging the wise woman to continue. "I could give you back your voice, Cordelia."

Cordelia reeled back, appalled. All this time, the magic of the Chief could have morphed her into the mold society expected her to fit into? All this time, she could have been singing with her sisters, just another face in the crowd? Was she upset? Was she glad? Perhaps both? Nothing made logical sense, and yet somehow, she had the sensation all was falling into place. It was her handicap which had brought about this day, this battle, this victory, and the final alliance. It was her handicap which had caused her to forge only the most important friendships and revealed who to remove from her life. It was her handicap which had turned out to be not only her greatest asset, but the greatest asset of the siren community.

She shook her head. If her muteness had done so much already, she was eager to see what it could do in the future. She had been born for a reason, fashioned exactly the way she was meant to be. Her voice was inside her, and her heart was singing. That was all that mattered.

"I thought as much," the Chief agreed.

Just as they turned to leave and announce the news of Cordelia's chiefhood to the masses, a shout from a few dozen feet away drew their attention. It was Sage, running barefoot through the sand toward them. His eyes were wide and full of hope. He smiled softly at Cordelia and then said something to the Chief. Cordelia tilted her head in confusion when the Chief spoke back, fluent in the human tongue. Perhaps there were parts of siren history she did not know about. She was eager to learn.

A few more lines were exchanged between them. The Chief turned to her; her eyes were sparkling. "You found a good one, Cordelia. Stand back," she ordered.

Cordelia obeyed, though her eyes never left Sage. He was standing with his feet planted assertively in the warm, golden sand. His eyes were brimming with a fiery decisiveness. As she retreated out of the lagoon, the Chief rose up, seeming to float to the top of the water, and extended her hands toward Sage. They glowed with a silver-blue light that reminded Cordelia of the color of the stars. Soft, unintelligible syllables poured from the Chief's lips as she waved her hands, as if beckoning Sage in. The human stepped forward. The moment his feet were submerged in water, he was enveloped in the same ethereal glow and pitched forward, vanishing beneath the water's surface.

Panic surged through Cordelia. She did not know what the Chief had done, but what if it had harmed him? Was this just her way of punishing Cordelia? Had everything prior merely been a prelude of deception?

No.

The light fizzled out beneath the water's surface, and Cordelia was stunned at what she saw. She stared, uncomprehending, before rushing forward, hands outstretched to verify the reality of what she was seeing. And then she kissed him with all the heat of a newborn sun. It was a kiss full of promises, full of joy, and full of triumph.

Sage was a siren.

###

Honnah Patnode

Honnah Patnode, the author of _Parallel Infinities_ , and now _Metanoia_ , is an eighteen-year-old high school student. She has been writing since she was drawn to the hobby in the midst of middle school boredom and has, as of the release of this novella, created three works to be professionally published. She has many ideas for future works of literature and hopes to publish them as well. In her college career, creative writing is one of the things she aims to focus on most in order to incorporate it into a successful career.

When she is not writing, Honnah occupies her time with music. She plays the clarinet and piano, composes musical pieces on computerized programs, and listens to a wide variety of genres. She prefers to listen to and create music that is emotionally moving and has authenticity and uniqueness to it. Honnah is a member of her high school band and considers the elective to be a favorite hobby for the sense of community and accomplishment it brings. She also busies herself outside of school by caring for and playing with her four pets: two cats and two dogs.

Her plans for the future are to pursue happiness in whatever form it may be. She hopes to continue writing and bring moving, emotional, and ultimately thought-provoking experiences to readers that pick up her books. For her, writing is a very personal, cathartic experience, and she hopes to bring that same sense of individuality into her readers' lives. Her favorite aspect of writing fiction is the knowledge that every reader will perceive the story in a slightly different way, intertwining his/her personal life into the story in a way that makes it even more poignant.

Honnah's inspiration comes predominantly from beauty and tragedy in the world around her, and both of those emotional experiences are what she hopes to express through her writing, regardless of where the characters or plots take her. It also comes from the artistic success stories that motivate her to try to forge her writing into something remarkable.

Natalie Spence

Natalie Spence, as of the publishing of _Metanoia_ , is seventeen years old. Her artistic talent is well-known among her peers and supervisors and has appeared in three published works. She also obtained a first prize award at the 2016 EUP art show for a mixed-media piece. Multimedia, incidentally, is the most prominent defining feature of her art style.

Her plans for the future include studying art in college, at least in part. She hopes to implement artwork into her career. She diligently works at improving her skill through her educational art class as well as recreational drawing. Her ultimate goal at the moment is to become a self-employed studio artist and also continue collaboration with literary works. She aspires to care for a large, happy family one day.

Natalie's most frequent choice of art to create is that which includes people and faces—specifically eyes. Features such as these are her specialty and what she practices most. Her favorite aspect of drawing is the relaxation it brings her, as well as bringing specific, accurate, lifelike depictions of vivid scenes to the page.

Outside of art, her talents and hobbies include reading and cooking. She owns a cat named Pearl that she loves dearly. She is a proponent of online media content that ranges anywhere from writing to video production. In the last year she has adopted a Vegan lifestyle, a quality she hopes to pass on in generations to come.

Natalie's inspiration and motivation comes from the comforting nature of her talent for expressing beauty in multimedia art. It has qualities that reflect the meticulous diversity that makes life simultaneously challenging and exciting. These qualities are responsible for her hopes of integrating art into a crucial and stable aspect of her adult life.
