Page 26 of Summer L.A.W.

Victoria tilted her head thoughtfully. “At least it explains why her cheekbones always look like they were carved by Neptune himself.”

Mason swiped a hand down his face. “Are you people serious right now? The girl just sprouted gills!”

“We’re adapting,” Victoria replied smoothly, flicking droplets off her arm. “It’s called coping. Try it sometime.”

Crystal rolled her eyes. “Glad to know my near-death experience doubles as your comic relief.”

Before anyone could retort, the water itself vibrated. A note—low, rich, and insidious—slid through the waves like silk. Mason didn’t hear it so much as feel it against his bones. The witches froze mid-banter, their eyes glassing over one by one.

“Oh, hell,” Mason muttered. “That’s him again.”

The siren’s song grew, sweet and poisonous. Victoria’s paddle slipped from her hand, her board listing as she stared toward the horizon. Sahara’s jaw went slack. Magda actually sighed.

Mason slapped water with both hands, trying to break their focus. “Earplugs! Cotton! Beeswax! I don’t care what you use, plug those ears before you all swim off like lemmings!”

Crystal glanced at him, alarmed. “They can’t hear you.”

“Then you tell them!” Mason snapped.

But the song was aimed at the witches alone, bypassing him and Crystal completely. Her gills pulsed, the slits flaring as if rejecting the sound before it could root in her blood. She gritted her teeth. “Okay, this is officially creepy.”

“Officially?” Mason barked a humorless laugh, then lunged for Joell as her board started sliding toward deeper water. “Lady, if you’re hell-bent on joining Poseidon’s fan club, you’re gonna have to drag me with you.”

The seabird screamed overhead, circling tighter, silver-tipped wings flashing like lightning. Out beyond the break, a shape rose slowly, deliberately. A dark silhouette perched on a jagged piece of wreckage. The siren himself, handsome as sin and twice as dangerous, lips parted in song.

“Yep,” Mason muttered. “I hate my life.”

“Wait, I think I can stop this.” Crystal grabbed the earplugs from Mason’s ears, waved a hand over them, and they multiplied. Then she aimed them at the Siren’s mouth and launched them. Sure enough, it stopped his song, and he gagged instead.

The witches suddenly snapped out of their trance, and Mason barked, “Where are your earplugs?”

Victoria answered, “We thought you were just concerned about us getting swimmer’s ear. We didn’t know there was a damn Siren out here! Mon Dieu!”

The witches blinked, shaking off the siren’s trance.

“Crystal,” Magda breathed, still staring at the delicate slits behind her ears. “Do they… itch?”

“Do they open and close like a goldfish?” Sahara leaned forward on her board, fascinated. “Because if so, I’m going to need video footage.”

Victoria smoothed back her wet hair and gave Crystal a long, assessing look. “Darling, if you ever need to accessorize, I know a Parisian jeweler who could design ear cuffs to set those off. Silver, maybe opals. Very… aquatic chic.”

Mason threw up both hands. “She grows gills, and you people turn it into a jewelry consultation? What’s next, a Project Mermaid runway show?”

“Not a bad idea,” Victoria said coolly.

Crystal snorted. “You’re all insane. I nearly drowned and⁠—”

The water beneath them bulged.

A vibration thrummed through Mason’s ribcage, deeper than the siren’s had been, and more primal. The surfboards wobbled under the sudden churn. Mason, treading water, had to compensate. Crystal’s seabird shrieked overhead and dove low, silver-tipped wings skimming the foam.

Magda’s eyes widened. “That’s not the Siren.”

Mason didn’t need to be told who it was. He’d seen enough in the dark depths to know.

The sea split open, and out of it rose a towering figure wrapped in coils of streaming green hair, eyes black as the deepest trenches—the Sea Witch.

Her voice cracked the air like a storm ripping the horizon. “Sister…”