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Hecate batted the glass, and the siren flinched.
“Okay, okay,” he snapped. “It might have been cut with plaster dust.”
I pulled a face. “You tried to rip off my grandmother? I mean, I could have told you that was a mistake.”
Having said that, I couldn’t have predicted that my grandmother would have imprisoned him like this.
“She’s had me in here for days, and I’m not the only one she’s trapped. Just last week she shrunk down a fae and milked them for fae dust,” he said.
My blood ran cold. Grandmother did always seem to have an unusual supply, despite the reluctance of most fae to part with the dust their wings shed.
“There’s...there’s no fae in here,” I said, looking around the other shelves.
“No, because she was given a forgetfulness potion and sent on her way.” The siren got up and placed his hands on his hips. “I’m telling you, your grandmother is a psychopath, and I have no idea how long she plans to keep me in here. If she even plans to let me leave!”
I started chewing my nails and immediately stopped. If grandmother caught me, she’d slap my hand.
This was all too much information. Hecate thought my grandmother was up to no good with my potions, though I still didn’t really know what they did. And now it turned out she had the missing siren locked up in her secret potion store? She hadn’t batted an eye at dinner when the Nexus officers asked her about it.
Was it really so easy for her to do this to someone and lie about it?
Curiosity got the better of me, and I grabbed one of my potions from off the shelf and held it up to the glass.
“Do you know what this is?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s a binding potion. She batch made some the other day,” the siren said.
My breath left me. “A...a binding potion? Like for...for powers?”
“That’s exactly what it’s for,” he said. “I don’t know who’s powers she’s binding but she means business.”
This was impossible. My grandmother wanted me to leave. She was always saying that I was getting in the way and a drain on her resources. Why would she possibly want to keep me from discovering my powers?
Hecate placed two paws on my arm and stretched up to paw at my face. As she grazed my cheek, the words, I told you, this place is dangerous for you, entered my consciousness.
Any retort I had stuck in my throat. Hecate and this siren both had insight into my situation that I had been completely oblivious to. But none of it made sense. What was my grandmother’s motivation for this?
Banging in the kitchen had me jumping. Damn it, someone was up. What if it was my grandmother and she checked up on me to see I wasn’t there?
I had to get back to my room, but I needed more answers than time allowed.
I snatched the siren’s jar off the shelf and dashed out of the secret room, careful to close the door behind us properly. If anyone found out I had been in there, I would have been in enough trouble. But something told me that uncovering what I had would lead to punishment even I had never experienced under this roof.
At the kitchen door, I took a deep breath and peered inside. My aunt bustled around making herself a midnight sandwich. That was unusual for her. Maybe she was stress eating again.
She had her back to me, slathering butter on a thick piece of sourdough. My mouth watered at the sight of it, but a tap of Hecate’s paw on my leg brought me back to reality.
I sneaked back to my room and shut the door. Hecate jumped up on the bed and waited expectantly as I set down the jar next to her. I unscrewed the lid, happy to see that at least my grandmother had poked holes in the top and laid the jar carefully on its side.
The siren - who’s name I still didn’t know - made his way down the glass with his hands out either side of him and clambered onto the rim. He stared up at Hecate with wide eyes.
“Actually, I think I’m going to stay in here,” he said and climbed back down into the jar.
“She won’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down next to the bed.
I was pretty sure of that, although I hadn’t long seen her wolf down a piece of chicken three times his size.
“Now, what’s your name?” I asked.
