“Are you trapped here?” I ask.
Her tail snaps with nervous agitation. “I made a bargain with a piece of scum that I’d sing on command until my feet touch land.” A breathy laugh escapes her. “They haven’t let me out of the water in years.”
I push the sleeves of my tunic up to the forearms. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”
Pressing my hands to the glass, I move my palm in a circle. Orange light beams from between my fingers. Heat radiates through my body: the warmth of a bonfire, the dappled glow of sunlight through leaves. The glass begins to melt. With a crack, the heated circle fractures, shatters, and water surges out, pouring over our boots and the cobblestones. Megaera yelps,swept into the current, gushing through the hole and spilling onto the pavement in a heap of pink fins.
Dom, never able to resist a lady in need, rushes over with an old blanket and lays it over her. I catch a glimpse of her tail shimmering into pale legs, the blanket twisting around her as she lifts her arm. The steel band evaporates away like water droplets on a pan.
She stares at her skin as if gazing upon the sun. “My bargain… It’s broken. I know a thousand songs, and none will ever capture this moment.” She peers from Dayton to me, then to Dom and Billy, who has run over to join him. “Thank you. How can I repay this?”
“Maybe you could tell us, have you seen a man?” Billy asks. “White hair? Kind of looks like a giant mixed with an abominable snowman?”
“He was kept in the cage on the edge of the cliffside. But they moved him for the revelry day party at Nether Reach.” Megaera winces, turning her gaze to the south. “Sira’s throwing a celebration at her tower. And if I’m not the entertainment, then someone else must be. Go there to search for your friend.”
Dayton helps her to her feet. “That’s what I was afraid of. But we’ve got to figure out a way to get you all out of here.”
She shakes her head. “You’ve done more than enough. There’s a tunnel that leads to an underground river at the very back of the Gem. I remember it from many years gone by. It’s a long road, but we can follow the riverbank. Eventually it flows into one of the lochs outside Coppershire. With the city emptied, I can make it there.”
“What about them?” I ask, looking to the herd of creatures.
“I will lead them.” She holds her hand out to the spider, which closes its eyes and presses a mandible against her, chittering. “We’ve grown accustomed to one another after all these years.”
“Go then, quickly,” Dayton says, face falling as he too looks to the south. “We don’t know how long Kel will survive as entertainment.”
Megaera grabs my hand. “I’ll find a way to repay you one day.”
“How about this?” I manage a smile and look over all the creatures, holding as many of their gazes as I can. “Should the Golden Rose ever call for aid, you answer. Deal?”
The siren gives me an odd look but smiles. “It is a vow.”
Dayton, Dom, Billy, and I stand solemnly as we watch the strange flock of creatures follow Megaera’s lead out into the city.
When the last of them have ambled out of sight, I turn to Billy and nudge his shoulder. “Look at you, hero.”
Dayton ruffles his hair. “Practically Aeneas!”
“You too,” I say, grabbing Dom around the shoulders. The boys’ faces flush in the exact same pattern, starting from the apples of their cheeks and spreading over their noses.
A sense of pride fills me. My brothers, so strong in their convictions, brave and gentle.
That’s the kind of leader my mother was.
The kind I’m striving to be. Not ruled by fear but by this all-encompassing love.
I put my other arm around Billy and pull them both tight to me. “Thank you,” I whisper.
“For what?” Billy asks, words muffled in my shirt.
“For always teaching me.”
The boys give awkward laughs and push away, but I don’t want to let them go. Not yet?—
“Fare?” Dayton’s voice.
I look up from the red thatches of my brothers’ hair.
Dayton’s wandered a few steps down the path, his back to me. “Are you doing this?” he asks.
