Chapter Two

Winter froze, not breathing, his skin crawling. A siren. The broken bodies in the straight flashed through his mind, their bones picked over. He wanted very badly to push it away from himself, didn’t want to be touching it, but he didn’t dare release his hand from her mouth.

His heart began to pound, remembering all the pictures of their sharp teeth, the palm of his hand itching with anticipation. He tightened his arms anyway, pulling her against himself and upward so her toes left the ground, nothing for it, stretching her neck back.

Isidor’s hand settled on his knife, all traces of his good nature gone, his eyes cold.

“Keep it still, brother,” Isidor breathed, walking back toward him, drawing his knife.

“I’ve got her,” Winter said, very much so hoping he did, keeping his voice calm. “Get something for a gag. We’ll need rope. Check the cabin, see what’s there.”

“We should just—.”

“Not yet,” Winter interrupted him, breathing slowly, steady.

Isidor’s eyes shifted and narrowed at him. Isidor finally replaced the knife.

“Be careful,” Isidor said, leaving at a run toward the cabin.

#

Winter was left holding it. He felt like he had a poisonous snake by the back of the head. Her breathing was shallow and quick, his face near her hair. Her smell was distracting. He looked down.

He could see Maren’s necklace, his mark. A wave of sadness went through him, the grief more dull, tinged with an older acceptance, but now it held all the sting of failed hope.

After twenty years, they’d finally found him, but Maren was dead. Killed by a siren on Nanine. There was no other way she’d have the necklace. They’d never learn where their father’s body was now, wouldn’t be able to launch him to Sága to be with his brother, Dane. The disappointment was bitter.

He looked down at the necklace again. Evidently it had liked it. Winter felt another wave of revulsion, the back of his neck tingling. Its hair was all over him, sweaty, clinging to him, making his skin crawl again, no way for him to brush it off, a strand sticking on his chest, another on his wrist, even his neck. He didn’t want to imagine what else it had done with Maren’s body, gruesome visions going through his head.

Isidor was right. They should kill it. But nobody had ever gotten this close to one. They were deadly. He’d certainly never imagined touching one.

Winter realized he was angry. He wasn’t ready to kill it yet. This thing had given Maren a terrible death, madness and possibly worse. He doubted it could talk, but he wanted to find out. He became aware of the quiet, birds and the rustling of wind through leaves, the sound of her fast breaths. Winter had lifted the screecher’s body, his left arm a bar around its waist and arms above the elbow, his right arm tucked, his hand across its mouth tight, its neck stretched back and its head almost on his shoulder, entirely off its feet.

As more time passed and it didn’t bite him, didn’t struggle, he began to notice the desperation in its breathing, how hard its heart was going. He relaxed his hold, allowing its head to come forward a little. She didn’t seem particularly strong. He eased up a little more, as much as he dared, and she drew a long breath in through her nose. He realized that she—it, really, but that was difficult when she looked like she did, smelled like she did, felt like she did—was having trouble breathing.

They did breathe. He’d been holding it tight. He eased up more, cautiously. She took a longer breath, and another. It still hadn’t made any sound under his hand. Waiting, he imagined.

Isidor came back, to his relief. His brother was panting.

“Gag first,” Winter said.

He hoped that would be enough, that the siren couldn’t sing around it. It couldn’t possibly understand, but this still seemed to awaken it. Winter tightened his hold until its struggles were confined, Isidor watching grimly. Winter met his brother’s eyes and moved very slowly, saying a prayer to Sága about its teeth, rotating his hand so he could pinch its nose closed as well. It renewed its struggles, unable to breathe. He finally met Isidor’s eyes again and uncovered its nose and mouth in one motion.

The siren opened its mouth to draw a great breath of air and Isidor put the gag in. She was pulling for air around the cloth. Isidor walked to stand beside Winter to tie the gag behind her tight, her mouth stretched back around it. Winter looked. Its teeth were like theirs. No sharp points. He flexed his hand, still feeling the imagined threat.

“Tie its hands in front,” Winter said.

Isidor quickly wrapped her hands in rope and tied them tight.

“Why are we doing this?” Isidor said in a low voice, tying the last loop, obviously trying not to touch it too much, leaving a lead that he put in his fist as he stepped back, his face showing disgust again. “It’s a screecher. There may be more on the island. Let’s kill it, see if we can find Maren’s journal, and get out of here.”

“I want to question her.”

Isidor made a face at him.

“How can we question a siren, Winter? It’s mindless, a killer. I doubt it reasons or talks, and the moment it opens its mouth we’re dead.”

“With a knife to its throat.”

Isidor looked at him doubtfully. Winter was doubtful himself. It was a risk. It probably wouldn’t work. The anger swept through him again. They deserved to know after they’d searched for so long. And the thing he held in his arms had killed Maren. He wanted to try.

He held Isidor’s eyes, letting him know that.

“You’re so stubborn, Winter,” Isidor accused, agreeing to it.

“Here we go,” Winter muttered.

Winter simultaneously pushed the siren away and grasped her upper arm tightly, his fingers practically touching around her limb, bringing her up short. He hauled her up onto her feet, his hand gripping her hard.

They both stared at her. He could see it clearly now, didn’t know how he could have missed it. No sharp teeth, but otherwise she looked like the legends described. A siren. She was strange, strange and so beautiful. Everything desirable. It looked like a woman, smelled like one. Felt like one under the dress.

In all the lore, sirens were mimics. They were predators, always hungry, hollow and mindless shapes of women that drew men and drove them mad and then ate their flesh, sometimes not in that order. They boarded ships and left vessels drifting empty, dragging their victims into the sea, down to the depths. Winter set his eyes away, trying not to look at it too much.

They brought it to the small bamboo cabin, set high, a tall, sharply sloped grass roof almost touching the ground on either side, a porch with stairs leading up, crude hacked poles and lashing. There was a river not far, a sagging line with a blanket hanging on it, a garden. In front of the stairs leading to the door of the cabin there was a pit for fire, a great tree with low hanging branches, an arbor built into it for shelter from the weather, now failing, shell chimes and feathers hanging from it that twirled in the wind, making a pleasant sound.

This remote cabin had most likely been Maren’s home. Somebody had lived here recently. Not the siren, obviously. There was a garden, not much, but someone was tending it. Signs of a recent fire in the pit.

“Nobody was here?” Winter said, puzzled.

“I yelled, but I was in a hurry,” Isidor answered, his eyes also scanning the camp, uneasy.

They would look around in awhile. Winter brought it under the tree as Isidor tossed the excess rope over a low limb. Isidor stepped back, pulling. Her arms rose above her head. Soon the siren was hanging, on her tiptoes, swinging. Isidor tied the rope off as Winter came around, both of them staring at it.

She was trying to find her balance, losing it again. Winter looked at her face. It was difficult to see past her beauty, difficult not to feel badly for her. He didn’t doubt its fear was real. Winter drew his knife. The siren made a sharp noise, straining away from him, its strange pale eyes going to his face.

Winter approached it cautiously, still nervous even with it bound and gagged. He reached with his other hand for her hair, digging in and getting a good handful. It was silky and thick. What he and Isidor used to call grabbing hair when they were young and being crude. He brought himself closer, getting control of her. She even smelled good, somehow clean and under that the sweetest musk.

Winter made his fingers snug, wary, pulling its head back, holding the siren steady. He put the knife to its throat. They wouldn’t take the gag off yet. He wanted to see if it spoke any language before they risked that.

“Do you understand me?” he said in the Dorsan language.

Isidor made a small scoffing noise. Winter did feel a little stupid for trying to talk to it, but he was determined to know anyway.

It looked at him blankly. He tried again, cycling through all the languages he knew, watching its eyes carefully. Beautiful eyes, uptilted, the color like amber, like light through thick honey, long tangled lashes, her brows sweeping and high. Winter blinked, feeling himself becoming fascinated, clenching his teeth, his skin crawling again, trying another language. It took awhile.

No sign of recognition, no sign she knew any language. Just blank. A mindless hunter, eyes as flat as a shark, just existing to eat. Winter felt a stab of disappointment, although he wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t really expected it to talk. He felt another wave of disgust. There was no reason to keep it alive then. It had killed Maren. His hand tightened on the knife.

“Maybe it only speaks siren,” Isidor said, making a joke, because Isidor was never serious at important times.

Its eyes shifted to Isidor when he spoke, the spark Winter had been looking for.

It had done that when he and Isidor were talking before, reacting like it knew what they said. He could swear it understood Isidor. That wasn’t possible, never mind that she was a siren. All Siblin learned multiple languages, but they didn’t teach their language to those who weren’t Siblin.

“I’m going to kill it now,” Winter said in Siblin, on impulse, flat and casual, the same inflection in his voice Isidor had just given.

Its eyes went straight to his, widening, the siren struggling again.

“You understand Siblin?” Winter said incredulously.

He tightened his grip on her hair. He must be wrong.

“My brother is going to take the gag off so you can answer my questions,” Winter said slowly in Siblin, watching its eyes. “If you sing, if you even hum, I’ll cut your throat.”

He looked at its face. No change. He was wrong.

“Nod if you understand me,” Winter said, waiting, feeling stupid again.

It made a brief motion, nodding. Winter stared.

“It understands?” Isidor exclaimed beside him, Winter feeling the same sense of shock.

It knew language? Winter stared at it more, looking into its eyes carefully. He finally turned his head, glancing at his brother. Isidor came and slowly loosened the knot on the gag behind its head. Winter felt his back tense. Isidor slowly drew the cloth away from its mouth, both of them ready. Winter held the blade. One swipe and he’d open the siren’s throat, silencing her forever.

“Where did you get that necklace?” Winter said to it when the gag was off, still feeling a little foolish talking to it, asking it questions. “Where is Maren?”

Her lips parted. Winter tightened his hand on the knife at her throat. She closed her mouth.

“Answer!” he demanded.

Nothing. It probably couldn’t. They’d know before they were done. Winter’s eyes went to her fragile jaw, her collarbone, lower.

“Do it,” Winter said.

Winter held her hair tightly, held the knife steady at her throat as Isidor stepped forward and cut the top of the dress straight down, cutting the sleeves. The whole garment fell to her feet, revealing her body, naked under it, no undergarments. Winter kept the knife to her throat, surprised, looking down at her, a surge of hot lust going through his lower belly.

Sirens were always represented mostly naked, or in sheer veils or white rags, indifferent to clothing. This one was no different, the dress a shapeless lump of cloth. But under it.

She was delicate in her shoulders and wrists, yes, she was also curvy. Her breasts were full and firm and high, jutting, her large nipples a dark, dusky red color. Winter’s eyes traveled down. She was a little thin, her belly sweet, tiny waist, rounded hips under that, so pleasing, squirming to keep her balance, a small patch of dark red hair. Beautiful legs. She certainly wasn’t part bird or fish, unless she had another form.

But it was that skin, too, that remarkable coloring redheads sometimes had, luminous. She had freckles on her shoulders. Winter’s crotch was tight, his belly tense. She was so erotic. He wanted to touch her just to see if she was as soft as she looked. A beautiful empty shell of a woman.

“Sága,” Isidor muttered beside him.

Winter agreed. Their ability to reach their pleasure might be limited, but their Siblin desires were unaffected. Like all the Elder races, Siblin didn’t take a woman against her will, not ever. He wasn’t sure a siren counted, but the interdiction held. Neither of them could touch her. The idea was disgusting anyway. Arousing, but it gave him a small shudder to imagine a mindless creature under him, staring up at him with that blank gaze. They shouldn’t touch her any more than they had to.

Winter looked at the necklace around its throat, Maren’s mark, his eyes narrowing. He released her hair and reached, the knife steady at her throat, snatching it off her neck with a strong jerk, the chain breaking, shoving it in his pocket and taking her hair again. She closed her eyes.

“Answer me or he’ll cut you,” Winter said.

She didn’t respond, her eyes still closed. Isidor came to his side, putting the knife on her belly, turning it, letting her feel the cold steel of the flat of the blade. That got its attention. Her eyes flew open, finding Isidor’s. Isidor let the knife dig in, turning the blade on its edge, beginning to cut her.

They both reacted when the siren cried out, the first sound it had made, too much like singing. Winter released her hair abruptly and clapped his hand over her mouth as Isidor lifted the knife away from it with a sharp motion, Winter’s hold on the knife at her throat wavering when her body moved away from him on the ropes. Winter’s heart was pounding, grabbing her waist, getting her swaying under control. Her skin was soft, yes. Stupid. That had been stupid. They should have gagged it first.

Even if it understood what they said, he doubted it could talk anyway. He slowly pulled his hand off its mouth, his knife securely at her throat again.

“Maren is dead,” she panted out in Siblin.

Winter stared. He really hadn’t expected it to speak. Watching its mouth move, hearing the words surprised him, unsettled him. He looked in her eyes again, searching. Her voice was husky, soft, sending a thrill through him that went straight to his cock, arousing and disgusting him more. But it knew Maren’s name.

“Did you kill him?” Winter demanded.

She began to shake her head and then stopped, the knife too close. She swallowed.

“No.”

He didn’t believe her for a moment.

“How did he die?”

“He fell and a branch pierced his side. Poison got into the wound. He got a f-fever,” she said.

Winter was staring at her again. He’d never imagined them talking.

“Where did you get Maren’s necklace?”

Her eyes shifted between them.

“He gave it to me.”

“It’s lying,” Isidor said, stepping to Winter’s side again, flipping his knife once in his palm. “Let me work on it. We’ll take off the gag when it wants to tell the truth.”

“Please, I’m not—,” she said.

“Are there more sirens on the island?” Winter interrupted her.

Isidor was right. They couldn’t trust her answers. They couldn’t trust anything about her.

“No.”

Winter nodded at Isidor. Isidor stepped forward with the gag in his hands, the siren resisting, and shoved it past her lips and into her mouth, retying it tightly.

Winter lowered the knife from its throat. They both stepped away from her, breathing hard with reaction. Blood from the nick under its ribs dripped a little. Winter looked at the cabin. Let the siren think about it, if they did think. They would see what was in the cabin, see if there was any sign of Maren, and then get it to answer their questions.

It wasn’t just about them anymore, or about Maren. Siblin used the Brecca Islands, most relatively uninhabited, too remote from other land. Siblin stored goods there, careened their ships for maintenance, met each other. If screechers had started to hunt the islands, Siblin needed to know that. The siren could talk. She’d tell them the truth in the end.

“I’ll see what’s in there,” Isidor said.

Winter walked to the porch, waiting at the bottom of the stairs, keeping an eye on the siren. Both eyes. He stared at her delicate shoulders, tiny waist, the flare of her hips, beautiful ass, round and plump, dimples at the base of its back.

He had talked to a siren—a siren—and it had answered him, had seemed to reason. It wasn’t just parroting words. That didn’t seem possible. He stared at it. It made it more evil somehow, less like a mindless thing acting on instinct. A sound came from inside the cabin, a dull thump, and he looked at the door, Isidor coming out quickly, clattering down the stairs.

“I don’t know who’s using it now, but this was Maren’s cabin before she killed him. His journal was in his chest, sitting right on top. The cabin is full of his things.”

All Siblin kept a journal. It would hold the answers they wanted.

“Open it,” Winter said impatiently, looking over his shoulder.

Isidor unwrapped the trailing leather binding. He found the page they wanted. It was dated Ferin, 34, Y989, twenty years ago, that summer when Maren had disappeared. They both looked at Maren’s handwriting, recognizing it.

#

I didn’t want to bring Winter and Isidor so close to the Brecca Straight, that treacherous passage, but Dane had hidden goods on Nanine and my boys were old enough now that I could take the risk of retrieving them. So I came here alone, leaving my boys in Dorsa, knowing I would only be away a few weeks.

I had made this passage twice before, relying on luck. But this time, before I had gotten far into the strait, I saw the siren. She hadn’t seen me yet. She was walking behind the rocks. I was desperate, knowing I only had moments before she saw me and began to sing. I got my bow and I shot at it with an arrow. The shot was lucky, flying very far. I saw the arrow strike the siren. I heard it cry out.

Maybe it was because it sounded so much like a real woman. To this day I still don’t know why, but I took the dinghy to those terrible black rocks, walking through the bones of the dead men there, and I found her.

The arrow had struck her in the side but she wasn’t dead yet, blood coming from her mouth. I went to her. She was broken and beautiful, more beautiful than any woman I had ever seen before, her red hair spilling over the black rocks. I sat beside her and lifted her head. It was like she was trying to tell me something. Her teeth were like ours. Her eyes were light like amber, like honey, like the legends. She didn’t look evil, and I was struck with remorse, although I knew it was a siren.

When she died, a child came from behind the rocks, no more than three or four years old. The child ran to her and began to cry tears like a real girl-child. It was so pretty, dark red hair. I cannot begin to describe the pity and horror I felt to see it, so very beautiful in its illusion. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bring myself to kill something so young, even knowing what it was.

I got back in the dinghy, intending to return to The Wandering Eye, to leave her there. But a small child couldn’t have survived alone, and as much as I tried to tell myself she was not as she seemed, only the shape of a child, that she was a siren, a mindless hunter that would eventually sing men to their deaths and add to the carnage all around me, the bones of the dead breaking under my boots even as I got out again and picked her up, as much as I knew that she would probably be my death, poisonous as she was, I couldn’t abandon her to such a fate....

#

Winter met Isidor’s eyes. Isidor turned to look at the siren.

“You don’t think...” Isidor said, trailing away.

“Maren kept it?” Winter said in disbelief.

Obviously Maren had brought it to Nanine, succumbing to the young siren’s power, and the siren had gotten hungry. That’s how it had gotten on the island. They didn’t have to worry that sirens were expanding their territory. There was only this one. Maren had brought it here, trapping it, and it had killed him and then almost killed the sons who came to look for him.

Winter looked at the siren again. They had the information they needed. They could kill it now. Isidor turned the pages, sentences leaping out at them.

#

It doesn’t appear to speak any language or even to know that I am speaking one. I am not sure that it reasons....

#

No surprise there, although evidently it had learned some. Isidor skipped several pages.

#

She is learning the Siblin language, although it’s difficult for her, as if spoken language is not something she has heard before. Sometimes if I speak too fast she shakes her head and puts her hands over her ears like I am being noisy....

#

She was humming today, but it was only about the rain. I know because I saw the rain in my mind, listening to her, but when I looked up the sky was clear....

#

Isidor skipped more pages.

#

I woke when Soule was crying in her sleep. She told me she dreamed of fire raining from the sky. I think that she remembers her mother. She can never know what I have done.

Winter made a face. Maren had named it. Isidor turned the page and then another, and another, finally flipping the pages rapidly. They saw writing, more writing, both of them scanning, reading, realizing, Winter’s disbelief growing. Maren had lived with it here for years.

#

Soule is growing so fast. I think she is seven or eight now. I can’t believe I ever thought her a monster. I love her like she is my own child. Siblin can never know about her. Nobody can know except for Isidor and Winter. I miss them every day, but she is too young for me to leave and I don’t dare take her past the straight. Someday, when Soule is older, I will send my sons a message so they will find us. I know I would be proud if I could see them now....

#

Winter frowned at the journal. Isidor turned pages and more pages. Another sentence caught Winter’s attention, dated nine years ago. He put his finger on it, stopping Isidor, drawing his eye. They read.

#

I left Soule alone and took The Wandering Eye across the strait, as I will have to come back through those black rocks to return to her. I am terrified something will happen to her while I am gone, or happen to me. She is only fourteen or so, too young to be alone, but I can’t wait any longer. She is safer here in the valley. I have told her that if I don’t return she is to stay on the island, although her existence will be so lonely I don’t know if she will be able to endure it. She can’t go into the world alone. They will kill her or worse, she has grown so beautiful. She looks like her mother, but I can’t tell her that. I must get a message to Isidor and Winter so they can find us....

#

Winter glanced up at the siren, frowning at her now. Winter looked down as Isidor searched for the last page with writing on it, the rest of the journal blank. Winter felt another stab of grief. It would join the Siblin archives in Minsk, the Library of the Siblin Dead, containing the journals of all Siblin who had gone before, going back a thousand years. The writing was spidery, faint.

#

The wound in my side has festered. I am fevered. I slipped on the slope coming back into the valley and fell on a branch with a sharp limb. It was just a stupid accident, carelessness, but it punctured my gut.

#

The siren had been telling the truth about how Maren had died.

#

Soule has begged me to take The Wandering Eye and find a healer, but I know it’s too late. I can hear her crying at night. I am the only person she has ever known, at least that she remembers, and now I will be gone too. I fear to leave her here without me. I can only think something went wrong with my message. I cannot bear to imagine that I brought Isidor and Winter to their deaths in the straight, that this would be the reason they haven’t come. And now I also fear what will happen if they do come someday and they find her here alone....

#

“The last entry is dated three years ago,” Isidor said, pointing.

Winter felt another wave of loss, bitter. Maren had been alive only three years ago, waiting for them. If the message hadn’t been damaged, if they had come to Nanine sooner, they would have found him. Maybe he would still be alive.

#

My boys, Isidor and Winter, when you read this. As I write, I am lying in the cave where I will rest until you come. Soule is with me. I know that you will find this place one day. Soule cannot launch and fire The Wandering Eye alone. I have asked her to wrap my body when I am gone. When you come, send me to Sága to be with my brother Dane. I have missed him every day since he was taken from me. Don’t ever doubt that I loved you both. I am sorry to have left you. Soule is my daughter, just as you are my sons. I have given her my Tal.

#

They both looked at the siren, staring at it. Winter was struggling with disbelief. Maren had adopted it? He looked at Isidor, seeing the same. Was that even possible?

“I’ll get a blanket,” Isidor said after a moment.

Winter walked to her, going to the rope. He unwrapped and took the tension, lowering her slowly. She found her feet as he caught the rope on the other side of the limb, winding it. Isidor came out of the front door with a blanket and walked toward her. She went to the length of the rope before Winter got enough of the excess, bringing her up short and holding it taut, shortening it hand over hand as she still attempted to evade Isidor.

The rope was finally short enough so Isidor could catch her, throwing the blanket over her shoulders. He took its arm and led it stumbling up the stairs and into the small cabin, still tied and gagged, Winter following, looping the lead. He had no idea what they were going to do with it.

The inside of the cabin was neat, small, all open. One room. A galley kitchen, no more than a crude table and chairs, obviously made by Maren, shelving. A drying rack, a bucket for water. Two pallets for sleeping, chests.

Winter began to walk around, still holding the excess rope, seeing things that reminded him of The Wandering Eye, their childhood home. Carvings. Books in stacks on the floor. Maren’s lyre. Maren’s shaving kit, memories of the man teaching them. A knife that Winter had coveted that used to belong to Dane, Maren’s brother.

It was difficult to believe, but the evidence was all around them. When Maren was alive, he had lived here with her. Maren had given her his Tal, adopting her as his child, making her Siblin by their reckoning. A siren.

Maybe Maren had lost his reason.

There was another pallet on the floor, padded. That must be where she slept. Isidor led her to it, sitting her down, pulling the blanket more securely around her shoulders.

Winter went and squatted next to it, looking at it closely. It looked away, not meeting his eyes. He hesitated, glancing at Isidor, his brother’s hazel eyes reflecting his own doubt. Winter reached for her gag. He slowly untied it, drawing the cloth away, both of them tense, Winter wondering if they were being very stupid.

“You’re Soule?” Winter said cautiously.

She looked at him, her eyes darting to Isidor and back. She slowly nodded. The blanket still gaped, showing the swell of her breasts and one of her nipples, a flash of her belly, her knees, the siren seeming unaware of it, not to care, both of them trying not to look.

“I’m going to untie your hands,” Winter said. “Don’t go anywhere. Definitely don’t...sing.”

She was watching him with that same flat stare. He glanced at Isidor, who looked as uncertain as he felt. It seemed like madness to free her.

“Give me your hands,” Winter said.

It understood. She brought them out of the blanket. Winter worked on the knot, deep red marks where the rope had bit in revealed when he unwound them. He tensed when she immediately moved, but she only pulled the blanket closer around her, covering herself, not looking at them. She had cared. Her hands were shaking. Winter studied her averted face. He couldn’t possibly tell if she were acting on instinct to gain their sympathy so they wouldn’t hurt her more or if it were genuinely afraid. Both, maybe.

“I’ll see if I can find Maren’s medical kit for the cut,” Isidor muttered, standing up.

Isidor came back with the familiar bag, the memory of a hundred childhood hurts soothed in it, and water from the bucket he poured into the basin there, bringing it, a cloth. Isidor squatted next to her. Winter grabbed another blanket from the bottom of the bed, putting it across her front.

“Lie on your back,” Winter said.

The siren shrank from him, shaking her head. Winter bent over her and took her shoulders and pushed gently, turning her. She looked scared, her hands going to his lower arms and holding on, her eyes on his face, but she didn’t fight him as he eased her back. When she was prone, Isidor lifted the blanket at her side, exposing her belly, keeping the rest covered.

She startled when Isidor touched her skin with the wet cloth, cleaning the blood from the cut, her strange eyes going to him.

“Don’t be scared,” Isidor said, glancing at her. “I’m Isidor.”

Her eyes roamed his face and then shifted to Winter.

“I’m Winter,” he said, feeling strange to introduce himself to a siren.

She looked between them again. They both froze, staring, as her eyes filled with tears. It was crying? The siren turned slowly on her side away from them, curling up.

Isidor sat back on his heels, glancing at Winter. Winter put his hand on the rope at his feet and then looked at her, unsure. He had planned to tie her up so she couldn’t run, at least until they knew more about her, just to be safe. He looked at Isidor. Isidor got up, Winter joining him, walking across the room.

“I don’t think she’s dangerous,” Isidor said low, leaning in.

“How can it not be dangerous?” Winter hissed back. “It’s a siren.”

“We don’t know what that means anymore,” Isidor argued.

Winter made a face at him.

“Did you not see the wreckage of the ships we passed, the dead men on the rocks? It’s a graveyard. Sirens have been killing sailors in the straight for over two hundred years.”

“She could have killed us when she first saw us,” Isidor argued. “She ran from us instead.”

Winter looked at her turned shoulder doubtfully. Maybe. Maybe they had just startled it, so close.

“She didn’t hurt Maren,” Winter agreed reluctantly.

“He gave her his Tal,” Isidor said.

Winter still had trouble believing that.

“All right. I don’t tie it or gag it. But we don’t leave her alone,” Winter said in a low voice. “And if it starts to sing, we don’t hesitate. We stop it any way we can.”

Isidor glanced at her and nodded agreement. He walked to stand over the pallet.

“Do you have clothes?” Isidor asked her.

The siren sat up and sniffed, swiping her cheeks with her fingers. Her eyes deliberately shifted to a chest beside the pallet. Isidor went around the pallet and opened it. He pulled out another coarse dress like the one she’d worn, folded neatly. Isidor leaned down to hand her the dress. Her hand snaked out, taking it quickly.

She pulled her knees and sat up, inching around until her back was to them. She dropped the blanket and pulled the dress over her head, pushing her arms through the short sleeves, her head through the collar, pulling and twisting the red mass of her hair over her shoulder. When she was done, she turned back, pulling the blanket over herself and sitting against the wall, her knees drawn up, not looking at them. Her right arm where he had grabbed her was dark red, turning purple with a bruise showing the marks of his fingers.

Winter looked out the open door. Dusk was turning to darkness. He looked around and found a lantern, getting the other pallet—presumably where Maren had slept—and dragged it over next to hers.

“I’m not going to tie you up,” he told her, “but we’re going to sleep on either side of you so you don’t leave. We won’t touch you.”

He didn’t want one of them to have to keep watch all night. He couldn’t even tell if the siren had understood him. She didn’t make any sign. Winter went out for necessities, Isidor going when he returned.

“Do you have to—,” Winter said awkwardly, not even knowing if she did that.

She understood him. She nodded, her eyes averted. He thought about it and picked up the rope. He reached. She moved her foot away from him, still not looking at him.

“It’s dark,” Winter said. “I’m just going to put it around your ankle.”

He didn’t want the siren to disappear into the night. She seemed inclined to flight. Again, she didn’t give any indication she understood or even heard him, but she didn’t move away this time as he found her ankle, looping the knot. Even her feet were pretty. He stood.

“Come on,” he said.

She rose, making a wary arc around him to the door. He kept the rope slack. She glanced back at him, almost to the door when Isidor came back through it, big, startling her.

The siren stepped sideways, her feet tangling in the rope at her ankle, falling on her hip, her hands coming out. Isidor tried to catch her, reaching. She cried out and then clapped her hand over her own mouth, scrambled away from him, cringing. Her knees came up, her arms wrapping around them, burying her face, making herself as small as possible. Winter could see the rope burns on her wrists.

“Take the rope off her ankle,” Winter bit out.

Isidor approached her. He tugged at the knot at her ankle, pulling it off and tossing it away. She didn’t move when she was free, didn’t look up. She could be putting on a show and they were falling for it. But Winter was becoming increasingly doubtful that she was faking. A wave of tension went through his gut.

Isidor squatted next to her, looking at her. He put one knee down and bent, putting his arm behind her back, another behind her knees, picking her up. Her eyes opened and went wide, reaching and clutching at the front of his shirt like she was afraid he’d drop her. She was little in his arms, her knees showing, bare feet, her red hair trailing long off his arm.

“I’ll take her,” Isidor said, looking down at her.

When they returned, Isidor set her down and she went straight to the bed, not looking at either one of them, curling up on top of it. It was too hot for blankets. Winter went and sat on one side of her, Isidor on the other. He and Isidor lay back. None of them touched, although there wasn’t much room.

Winter looked up at the ceiling, the room dark, listening to the sound of a siren breathing next to him, knowing Isidor was doing the same on the far side of her.