“We found our little hut in the woods one day when Farren and Ulises were away becoming successful.

  Their luck had turned, it seemed. After years of disappointing yields they’d finally managed to branch further than our secluded farming community when they came in contact with a person who could bring them back into the market of pirate goods. Or so I understand.

  They traveled back and forth from the Sun capital a lot towards the end. Then I started seeing the symptoms of money in our household: better food, better things, better moods. Farren began dealing in miscellaneous items of value again, often bringing cartloads of foreign spices and textiles back with him, or casks of liquors, ornamental weaponry, smoking powders, furs, books, artwork. Objects beyond anything my inexperienced imagination could produce came and went, never staying longer than a couple of days in our space. Only long enough to cause me unease.

  Funny, isn’t it? Instinct. It’s in there somewhere, in the soul or the mind or wherever we hold our inner beasts, always watchful, always ready to guide us to the truth when our logical minds are too busy rationalizing more complex concepts.

  My young instincts told me what would happen before it came to be, and I’m proud to tell you that I heeded them. And although it couldn’t have all gone worse in the end, I still won’t say I regret what we attempted to do. It was brave, and we’d not been taught to be brave. It was ingenious, and we’d never been given the resources to develop that skill. I could never bring myself to wish that we hadn’t made that last desperate reach for freedom.

  Even if it was what set off everything that eventually befell us—technically speaking.

  We came upon the abandoned hut entirely by accident. Ariadna, Lili, and I had been going on walks more since Farren and Ulises had started leaving us alone for longer periods of time. We liked to collect mushrooms and herbs, roots and shavings of bark that we’d learned were edible or useful. Some we kept for our own needs, but most we could sell to Labine, and so we’d often go out there into the dense labyrinth of monochromatic greenery that was our corner of the dark woods and make a day of our foraging.

  I dare say those were some of the happiest times of my life. We tasted freedom when we were out there.

  I believe a recluse of some sort had built it—the shack. It wasn’t much sturdy, or warm. It was a small room of maybe fifteen paces from end to end which contained treasures such as a rotting bed frame, a wobbly table with two chairs and a couple of knick knacks strewn about. Nothing else. And nothing else did we need.

  We cherished that place like we’d built it ourselves.

  Well, in a way, we did. We brought life into it. We decorated it with plants and flowers and handmade bits and bobs. We made mattresses and stole bedclothes from our homes and anything else we wanted that we knew would not be missed. We filled the place with joy we hadn’t known we had.

  And also with provisions, for we’d decided to start preparing to leave Renlym behind.”

  The inn where Mantis had stabled their horses was called the Restful Doe, Teela knew. That’s where they’d go. Pirria had reluctantly given her and Yilenn some direly needed directions and advice, but still it did not seem like enough to get by on. Teela didn’t even want to consider the fact that a significant part of their plan rested upon their ability to learn to drive the coach on the spot. They would worry about that when it came to it. For now, they could concern themselves with the reportedly ‘comfortable walk’ they’d have to make to the Restful Doe, which involved a left turn just before the house with the one fat prostitute, past the limits of the slums in a straight trajectory for seven blocks and then a turn right upon reaching the blue house with the wooden benches. That would be their indication that they’d reached their destination; the inn would be standing large on the right-hand side of the street, freshly painted white with a ceramic red roof. But locating the building wouldn’t be a problem. What Teela couldn’t stop thinking about were those seven blocks.

  She was wearing Mantis’s cloak with the hood pulled up to hide her revealing brown eyes from the servants, but the hiding in it of itself would inevitably draw some attention to her, she knew. Yilenn was a much more complicated matter altogether. Not only was she inconveniently attractive, but, as she’d informed Teela, she’d likely present complications of her own when they were exposed to the outside world and its temptations. She’d be pushed by the Sea toward potential breeding partners and was at risk of, in her own words, ‘escaping’.

  If they got remarkably unlucky, there might even be free men or Sea servants hiding somewhere in the endless population of Sunpeople. The siren would lure them out, entranced. Or worse, run after them herself.

  Teela had her weapon at the ready now, hidden under the heavy layer of wool of the cloak that draped over her whole body, almost to her ankles. Her heart was pounding rhythmically in her chest as it pumped blood to her head, her organs, her limbs. That pulsing flow made a faint beat against the grip of the kitchen knife she held in a strangling grip in her right hand, and her ears were ringing with its twin song. Teela could not determine her emotions, whether she was terrified or thrilled. She decided it was possible that it was both.

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  “Thank you again for your hospitality and generosity. I wish there were a way to repay you for your aid,” Yilenn said to Pirria. She was wearing a pair of Leroh’s trousers that would allow for her shoes to show and hopefully communicate her status as a siren upon first sight to any keen-eyed Sun servants. On her upper half she’d donned Mantis’s dark gray doublet over one of Teela’s undershirts, but unfortunately it fit her more tightly than it had Mantis. Teela worried it could have an undesired effect on others for the garment to hug her flesh so, but it was too late now to do anything about it, and there was no better choice of clothing for her among their pitious possessions anyway.

  “You need not repay anything, Seawoman. This is my contribution to the two beings who’ve served me for decades asking nothing in return. Now go, and mind yourselves.”

  “Thank you,” Teela said, too distracted to turn to Pirria as she addressed her.

  And they were off.

  Teela and Yilenn made haste while avoiding puddles of foul-smelling juices that filled holes in the packed dirt of the street and dodging heaps of fresh and rotting garbage. Few seemed to notice them at first, as few were out and roaming the streets idly in such an unpleasant environment. But as soon as they rounded the corner upon reaching the house with the prostitutes and the noteworthy plump woman displaying herself on its porch, Teela grasped the difficulty of the challenge she’d undertaken.

  Sun servants populated the streets like weevils in a bag of flour. They all looked the same upon first glance, moving sporadically in different directions and making one’s skin crawl to glance upon an apparent infestation. When Teela focused on any one face, all she could see were bright yellow eyes and the detached expressions of those performing routine tasks.

  The first man Teela’s eyes fell on was staring directly at Yilenn. He was unmoving, looking as if he’d just received an earthquaking piece of information with his mouth agape and his eyebrows slack with confusion. He’d been in the process of crossing the street, carrying in his hands a tray of freshly-baked, steaming bread.

  “Walk, walk, walk,” Teela reached for the siren’s hand and urged her to move faster. Yilenn was loose all over, moving with excessive fluidity and looking mildly disoriented. Her hand in Teela’s held no shape, draping in her hard grasp like a rag.

  Not ten paces later a different stranger came to sniff about the siren. “Greetings,” he said. “Are you ladies lost?”

  “We are Sea servants, sir. We can fare well on our own,” Teela tried dissuading him sternly, but she doubted the man had even heard her. He looked all but enchanted by Yilenn’s beauty.

  And he wasn’t even a suitable match for her needs! He didn’t meet the Sea’s most basic requirement to sire a child with one of his sirens: Not belonging to another God who might present a challenging claim on the valuable offspring. Panic started to form in Teela’s chest when she imagined what would happen if such a man came along next. She pulled on Yilenn’s arm and managed to get her walking again, leaving the man behind but looking unconvinced. Then, coming close to her ear and whispering as quietly as her vocal cords allowed, she said, “Yilenn, stay alert! We need to move faster. There’s too many people.”

  “Yes. Yes, you’re right. Hold me firm, Teela.” Her voice was concerningly melodic, and Teela didn’t wait to be asked again to grab onto her arm like it was at risk of flying away and giving her a little shake. Yilenn nodded dazedly in answer, breathing in unsteady gasps and looking around in attempted wakefulness.

  They were able to get through most of one block, wading anxiously past crowds of people who, as Teela had been led to understand, would jump at an opportunity to murder her and bring her still-cooling body to the Sun for a generous payment in coin and favor. All it would take for that to occur was for one of them to happen to look from the right angle, to notice her characteristics that gave her away as an outsider.

  As it was now, however, that was not Teela’s concern of highest priority, for another person whose eyes gave them away as an outsider was getting all the glances and looks and stares that could have potentially resulted in a terrible outcome for Teela. Yilenn didn’t look like a Sun servant, and everyone seemed to want to know why, or what they could gain from her being there. Curious eyes and watchful eyes and predatory eyes followed her like insects around a lamp, and every new pair that Teela noticed added to the sense that they’d not make it to the house with the wooden benches awaiting them an impossibly long six blocks away.

  “Gorgeous. So lovely,” a man appeared seemingly out of nowhere and grabbed Yilenn by the waist with his arm, bringing his face to her temple and whispering something else there. She pulled her face away and reached down to pry his touch away forcefully in a gesture more impolite than Teela had ever seen from the normally-kind spirited siren.

  “I am not for sale. Leave us alone,” she told him, and her voice shook only a little.

  But by the time they’d managed to leave him behind, another two had taken his place, and then another pair. Yilenn continued to refuse them, but her resolve was slowly starting to take on a different tone. She no longer sounded confident by the eight rejection, and her voice held a note of desperation that made Teela’s heartbeat thrum faster than it ever had. They were both realizing that there were too many of them gathering tentatively, beginning to form a veritable wall blocking their path, and that their eyes no longer looked so much mesmerized as they did starved.

  Then Yilenn’s arm pulled against Teela’s hold, and that was what she’d feared most of all.

  The siren stopped responding to the men’s advances directly with words and gestures, but only dismissed them as a whole by turning entirely away from them and in the opposite direction than that which they were supposed to follow. Looking back and leading Teela along with her, Yilenn became obsessed with an invisible goal, something that had captured all of her attention and disconnected her cognizant mind from her body. Then that something came running to her, wet with perspiration and panting. His eyes were blue.

  The unsworn man approached the siren and reached immediately for her hips.