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“I just remembered that your father is in the next room.”
He chuckled darkly in my ear. “Who cares? Let him know that I’m the only one that can touch you like this.”
I blushed. “Y-you realize that since I’ve rejected him, I have no dowry. You’ll be with a broke, rejected siren.”
“You were not rejected,” he objected. “You were temporarily denied your request for obvious reasons. It will be granted in time. And second, do you really think a Judge of the spiritual world would be broke?”
He smirked. I shook my head at him in confusion.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Just because I don’t have an inheritance doesn’t mean a thing. How do you think I fund my travels between this world and the Den of Sirens?” He cocked his head to the side in pride. “You think just because you never imagined me rich, that I really wasn’t?”
I lost my voice for a moment, processing his words. “So you mean…”
He pecked my lips in satisfaction. “It means no matter which life you choose—the human realm or the next—I’m the one in charge of your fate.”
***
I had five more years with my father before he was laid to rest next to my mother. Jacques’s father paid all the outstanding debts of the funeral and my father’s business, saying that it was nothing compared to the life my father had given him.
After Father passed, I sold all my belongings except for my mother’s necklace and my father’s wedding ring. I kept them together around my neck at all times, remembering my blessed life on earth with them.
Our staff was dismissed to other jobs, and Lina found herself in Monsieur de Villiers’s home as an assistant there. A year after she settled into his home, Jacques and I announced that we were moving across the ocean for Jacques’s business. No one thought it was strange. After all, Jacques was a successful trader, and as his wife, it made perfectly logical sense that I accompany him to his new headquarters.
But the truth was, I was going home.
Jacques and I packed our things and sailed back to the Den of Sirens. King Melchior welcomed us back with open arms, a glint in his eyes showing that he knew that Jacques and I had married behind his back. But he didn’t seem angry with it.
Eventually, my request for my wings was granted, and I was turned back into a siren. All my lives collected together in my memories, and the evil I had seen and done made me stronger as a siren, my perspective broader after experiencing so much.
Jacques and I were paired together in our missions: him judging the sirens, and me judging the humans. We worked well together, even if he had to pull me out of the reckless situations I frequently got myself into.
Luc, my dearest Rhys, became a close friend to me once again, and it felt like I had never left the den even though it had been centuries. After the years passed, his broken heart turned into deep wisdom, and I saw him blossom into a wise, honorable siren that anyone could look up to.
And when it came to honor, Henrik regained his. He was loyal to the king in every way, the pain of his evil past keeping him on track. Our relationship was restored, but remaineddistant, as Jacques was his employer and Henrik refused to get too close to me out of respect for his superior.
I heard and saw Adrian rarely. When he came to the den to see Henrik, he remembered me. When I flew into the city, he didn’t recognize me. He eventually married, proving that his infatuation for me didn’t override his sense. And watching him play with his children made me realize how pure his heart truly was now, how much one heart could influence others.
The humans who knew Adrian and Henrik were affected in positive ways. Although many still gossiped about the wayward pirate and the expelled naval son, those who knew them both personally were better for it.
Their pure hearts made my job easier.
Luc had been right. To live as a siren and make a difference in the balance of the realms was much more than I could have dreamed, and with Jacques as my most intimate confidant, I was made even better for it.
After all, Jacques had once been possessed by evil, and I had once succumbed to it. Knowing this—knowing the difference between our transgressions and our purity—we could see the world for what it was: blended.
A mix of light and dark, a combination of good and evil.
Knowing good and evil, we could heal ourselves. Knowing the good and evil within ourselves, we could heal it in the world.
ADRIAN’S ENDING
It had been eight weeks since I had come home.
Father had been healing well, but slowly. There were times I thought he might not wake the next morning, making me grateful that I had come home to take care of him. The Siren King must have known how ill my father was, and that’s why he had denied me my request for my wings.
But even so, this meant that I was a human with the power to charm. This power was more than I understood. I didn’t want to abuse it, if nothing more for the fact that I knew I would answer to King Melchior in the end if I did.
