Chapter 30

Eridanys saidlittle while he worked, dredging sea mud and clay from the bottom of the lagoon. Alba watched in silence from where he'd been left off to the side, with promises of safety. No one will find us. Just stay right here and calm down. Not sure how long he'd been there, exactly, sitting motionless and out of the way. Just watching as the siren gathered his clay and brought it back to the surface, smearing it with intentional movements over the bodies of his kin laying silently in the grass on the opposite shore from where Alba sat. Only a few yards away. Easily within calling distance, though the reach felt impossibly wide.

Alba sat with knees pulled into his chest. Watching without seeing, ears ringing, constantly glancing toward the far mouth of the cove in search of ships looking for him. Knowing they would be looking for him, even as a storm brewed on the air. They might already be turning the lighthouse over. Would they find the other merrow missing when they did? Did Josiah know what to look for? At first Alba was sure he wouldn't—but the gossip from the funeral procession wouldn't leave him alone. Is that Dawson Michaels' ex-fiancé there? No, that's his younger brother… Took over the family business when he died…

Pressing his hand to his face, Alba held his breath until his thoughts blurred and the world spun.

That place Eridanys took him, which Eridanys had called a sacred site to bury his kin, was only just big enough to be drawn on a map as an island. Though even then, a drop of ink might have exaggerated its size.

Just large enough for cliffs and trees to grow, grass and wet ferns carpeting nearly every other inch of the stone and soil emerging from the sea. Barely out of view of the mainland shore, the sister lighthouses only just visible from the mouth of the lagoon. Though in the dimming light of sunset and the thick fog rolling in, even they were barely more than shadowy fingers emerging from the horizon.

Another incoming storm violently churned the sea around them, loud enough to be heard even within the safe confines of that cerulean pool, though never reaching where Alba sat on the edge of the moss pulled in tightly on himself. Shivering from all the times waves crashed over them on their way there, trying to convince himself again and again that not even Josiah Warren was mad enough to try and sail during such a thrashing squall.

The lagoon sat at the end of a narrow channel of sharp, rocky cliffs at the mouth of the island, secluded within an embrace of trees and walls of stone in every direction. Fed by a dribbling waterfall swollen with endless rain, protected from the wind enough that even tired seabirds nested in pockets of the stone, terns and laughing gulls and, to his chagrin, even a pair of albatross clacking their beaks together and throwing their heads back to trumpet words of affection to one another.

On the other side of the pool, the five remaining merrow of Moon Harbor gathered, though only one moved about with life. Diving down to the bottom of that pool again and again, water clear enough that Alba could watch every movement. Eridanys, who searched for specific patches of mud and scooped them into his hands, dragging them back up and spreading it over every inch of one body or another. Rarely speaking, and only in whispers to his fallen brethren when he did. Alba didn't like to look—the merciful cuts across each of their throats, spilling thick black blood into the grass, were enough to make his stomach turn.

He didn't want to know if there was a reason Eridanys chose that method to put them out of their misery. He didn't want to know if there was a connection between it and how Edythe was killed, like mimicking some merrow ritual. Alba was tired of rituals, sacred sites, merrow magic, symbolism. He was tired of all of it.

Eridanys covered his kin to toe in the mud, leaving only their faces exposed above a muddy line drawn along the shape of their jaw. He finger-painted different markings on their cheeks, dots and lines and symbols Alba did know, but even from the distance recognized as similar to those drawn in the piles of salt on the new moon, then carved into his mother's rotting skin. The siren added more markings into the layer of clay covering the rest of their bodies last, swirling motifs like waves, birds and shells, pearls, ancient languages of the deep.

At its core, while the sight made Alba's stomach churn, he also couldn't deny the process was something serene to watch. The solemnity with which Eridanys did it, the careful and intentional movement of his hands, his fingers, even his expression remaining flat. Despite Alba knowing how Eridanys felt about his kin, he still offered them respect in death. One final extension of familial reverence, even to the people who'd once wronged him so terribly.

Once finished, Eridanys disappeared back into the pool, swimming all the way to the bottom where he spread his hands over the patches of disturbed mud. Like a painter smoothing the pigments on his palette, erasing any sign anyone had ever been there.

He remained down there a moment longer, unmoving, floating and staring out toward the channel that lead to the sea. Alba almost felt guilty for watching so closely in such a private moment—but then Eridanys' head turned to where Alba sat. Looking for him, too. Alba hunched slightly more into himself, but still didn't look away. Embarrassed. Selfishly hoping his siren would come to meet him.

Eridanys did. Extending his arms, his tail unfurled beneath him, ascending in a strong, fluid motion right to where Alba sat on the edge of the water. Alba finally let his tense body unfurl, making room for Eridanys to break the surface between his knees.

He slid up to touch Alba's face and kiss him without warning, leaving Alba breathless, needing an extra moment to compose himself. Eridanys, meanwhile, slathered one last handful of rich mud over Alba's hands, and Alba watched as the stains on his palms from the siren's blood washed away in the water with ease. When Eridanys moved to spread it further up Alba's arms, Alba stopped him. Not sure why; having come to know the blood stains he donned as well as the tattoos in his skin.

"Are you alright?" Eridanys asked after rinsing Alba's skin for the final time. He kept one hand on Alba's face, the other propped alongside his hip on the grass. Alba nodded, before motioning with his chin to the other side of the pool.

"Are you finished?"

"Yes." Eridanys glanced over his shoulder to his kin. "Now we let them rest where they lie. As the tide rises and fills this lagoon, it'll wash over them, carrying away the mud and clay, and eventually, taking the rest of their body out to sea. To nourish the mud with their magic, for any merrow who may come next. Deep enough that no human can find and poach any part of them."

Alba nodded. Something about that was comforting, even to him. He cupped a hand around the back of Eridanys' head, combing fingers into his wet hair, the pearls interspersed throughout the strands.

"Despite everything they did—I think this was admirable of you."

Eridanys smiled wearily, bitterly, like he wasn't sure how much he agreed.

"I have been thinking again about how… I don't know what I hoped would happen when I returned. What it was I hoped to find," he muttered, swaying slightly as his tail moved beneath him. "First I thought it was to show them I was still alive, as if it would prove I was more than they ever thought; that I never needed them, I was capable of surviving on my own on the outside despite everything they ever taught me… To prove it was possible for someone to live, even thrive outside of their protection. Maybe someone else in the kinship would see me and realize they didn't have to stay somewhere they didn't belong, as well. I had changed like they said I would—but I only resorted to the violence I did because I had no choice." He went silent, furrowing his brows as he thought about it more. "You once said… the reason you didn't run away sooner was because sailing was all you ever knew. That that was done on purpose, that keeping you from learning how to live elsewhere was the best way to keep you compliant. I think merrow teach their young the same way."

Alba squeezed the nape of Eridanys' neck in encouragement. Eridanys exhaled through his nose.

"Even once I came back and realized they were gone, then learned they were all dead, then even how they died, I… I didn't know how to feel. Was I happy? Was I angry? Did I feel vindicated? But to be vindicated would mean I was vengeful from the beginning—and I don't know if even that was true. When I was banished, I was angry, but more than that, I was..."

Eridanys shook his head, a muscle in his jaw clenching.

"Confused. Ashamed. Determined to prove I didn't need a corrupt kinship to survive. I do not forgive them for casting me out, but—" he clenched his jaw again, before the tension in his body relaxed, as if finally letting go of something invisible clinging to his back, weighing him down. "I do not think… they deserved to suffer like this. I never wished them peace, or happiness, but—I never wished them pain, either. A part of me always even wished they might realize their cruelty, learn from it, come looking for me, or at least welcome me back if I ever returned. Another part of me wished to forget they ever existed, to live as if I'd never had a family at all. Either way, perhaps all I ever wanted was peace."

He glanced over his shoulder again. Watching his deceased kin, adorned with burial rites given by his own hand; the hand of a merrow wrongly cast out, forced to become something unrecognizable and full of rage and violence, who still offered such tender reverence to those who'd done him wrong.

Looking back at Alba again, Eridanys surprised him with another calm smile.

"I never expected to find that peace in the companionship of a wickie, instead."

Alba rolled his eyes, but pulled Eridanys into him. Kissing him. Deep and tender and full of affection and apology and a silent promise.

"I'm sorry I called to you in the middle of?—"

Eridanys kissed him again. "You never listen. I told you before—I will drop everything with one call of my name." His expression softened, tracing fingers from Alba's temple back through the silver strands of hair behind his ear. "You're my shore-caller. I will always come when you call, no matter where or when. From any shore."

"What if I can't reach a shore to call from?" Alba asked. He didn't mean for it to sound so frightened, hating himself. Hating how he'd felt like nothing but a pathetic, whimpering child for days, made weak by the world after so many years hardened into something that could withstand it. As if meeting Eridanys was his final undoing.

"Then I will beseech the sea to rise high enough for me to reach you," Eridanys said without hesitation. "And I think she would listen."

Alba furrowed his brows. He squeezed his eyes closed in embarrassment, letting his head droop before shaking it.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "At the funeral—he was there. Josiah Warren was there. I just panicked, I didn't know what else to do…"

Opening his eyes, he gazed down at where Eridanys' skin turned to scales from his stomach to his hips. He reached out to touch them, feeling the bump of every shiny piece like coins beneath his fingers.

"I think… Herman Warren was Dawson Michaels' ex-fiancé. The one who left after you killed him." He finally met Eridanys' eyes again. "Did you know that?"

"That they were fiancés? No." Eridanys frowned. "I know Herman Warren spent some time in Moon Harbor—but not the reason, or his business, or even for how long. Especially not that sort of relationship he had with Dawson. Most details like those were kept from me on purpose. What in god's name is his brother doing here?"

"Everyone was sayin' he came to pay his respects to Mr. Michaels," Alba muttered, touching Eridanys' stomach again, then his chest, as if feeling the siren's heartbeat would relax him. It did. "But I think… he finally came lookin' for me. Maybe Phyllis said somethin' when she invited him to the funeral. Marco said Josiah had no idea he was here when he came—but who knows how true that was. Maybe Eugene told him a long time ago, since he was comfortable threatenin' me with the same thing right before I killed him…"

His hand on Eridanys' chest closed into a fist. He squeezed his eyes shut again, inhaling a deep breath and letting it loose through his nose. Controlling it, keeping his composure despite the nausea in his gut.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to find whatever is keepin' my mother's spirit trapped if he's in town," he went on, voice cracking again. Hating himself again. Reaching up to touch the tiny braid left by Edythe's hands in his hair. Full of exhaustion and disappointment and frustration, all the way to his fingertips. "I can't just leave her here, but I… I don't know what to do."

Eridanys said nothing, just touching Alba's face, stroking his cheek with a hand designed to tear rather than gently caress. Alba leaned into it, closing his eyes once more. Trying to find even the briefest moment of rest there against it.

"Let's destroy this town…" Eridanys said, repeating the comforting words Alba had once said to him. "‘Summon the water high enough to wash through every house, up every street, so every stolen part of your kin can return to where they belong…'" He pressed his forehead to Alba's, closing his eyes, placing both hands on either side of Alba's face. "So every part of your mother can return to where she belongs, as well. To wash her out to sea, so she may be set free from this place."

"How?" Alba asked, leaning into him.

"The king tide on the full moon," Eridanys told him. "When the moon is strongest—when merrow traditionally make their pleas to the goddess. I'll call out to her, no different than you called out to me from the shore. I'll plead with her to raise the tide even higher, to wash every part of this cursed place back into the sea."

Alba wanted to cry, but he wouldn't. He wouldn't cry again, no more, not again. Instead, he hooked his hands over Eridanys' wrists where they still held his face, hoping to steal his surety. His faith, his confidence.

"Alright," he said. "Alright."

"Until then—we'll leave," Eridanys went on. "We'll disappear before anyone can find you. We'll stay somewhere safe, warm, new, somewhere on land. And return when it's time. To cleanse this shore and her forest of all her sins."

"Alright," Alba said hoarsely. "Yes, alright—I'd like that. God, I'd like that."

He kissed Eridanys again; he kissed Eridanys again and again, finally wrapping his arms around the siren and pulling him out from the water. More and more, longer and hungrier until hands pulled at clothes and mouths skirted from lips to find other wet places to worship. Alba and his siren, who would always come no matter which shore Alba called from—who Alba would always answer no matter which part of the sea beckoned his name in return.

Alba slept sweetly wrapped in Eridanys'arms among the moss and trees and incoming lapping waves of the tide; where the chill could never find him, even without blankets. Where discomfort was far from him, even without the comforts of a bed. He was warmed by the trailing remains of the man's hands and mouth and body pressed against him until he was moaning and gasping; comforted into a deep sleep by the mere proximity of him with eyes closed and arms pulled into his body. Safe in Eridanys' arms. Safe in the arms of his merrow-siren love.

Perhaps that was why he never stirred, until it was too late. Until Eridanys jolted upright with a hiss and a snarl, throwing himself over Alba just long enough for Alba to rush back to life with a gasp.

Everything moved too fast for him to react—moved too fast for him to think, to respond, until Eridanys was already being tied with ropes, face down in the moss, biting and snarling, whipping his massive tail like a wild animal, six men required to pin him.

Until more hands were on Alba, throwing him down and smashing his face into the earth until he tasted blood. Cursing at them and thrashing, he kicked his legs in an attempt to break free, only to gasp and go still when a knife found his throat.

"Easy, lad," a gruff voice cooed. "No use making all that noise, now. No one's gonna hear you. Just go easy now, come on. That's it."

They bound Alba's wrists, then his ankles, leaving him on his side to watch as Eridanys was finally subdued by the others. From boats tied off on the lagoon, other silhouettes searched the opposite shore for the merrow corpses already reclaimed by the sea like Eridanys once described, shouting in frustration to one another as tensions grew. Watching them search, one other figure smoked in the darkness, only the pinprick of the end of a cigarette visible. Alba knew who it was without having to see his face.

Josiah saw Alba looking. He dragged long on the cigarette before flicking it away and approaching. Alba stiffened, bracing as Eridanys growled, low and threatening. Unblinking as he watched the man approach, then kneel down in front of Alba—and the siren tore through the ropes binding him, flaying open the chest of the nearest man before lunging off his coiled tail with all the speed and strength of when he was in the sea.

With teeth bared and claws spread to strip flesh from Josiah's bones, Alba could barely gasp a syllable of Eridanys' name before Josiah turned, burying a knife into the siren's ribs. Summoning black blood to bubble around the edge of the blade, spilling from the wound the moment it was yanked back out again. Despite it, Eridanys still slashed his sharp nails, missing Josiah's throat but ripping trenches through his cheek. Josiah shouted, clutching his face and stumbling back, barely dodging another attack and slamming the knife into Eridanys a second time. Sending the siren back to the dirt.

"Eri—!" Alba cried as Eridanys collapsed with a strained grunt, clutching his ribs but still stretching his neck to search for Alba only a few feet away. Others rushed Josiah, disarming him, calling him mad, snarling that they needed to keep the merrow alive, damnit!—but Josiah just watched where Alba and Eridanys stared at one another on the ground. Where Alba didn't know what to say, paralyzed by the sight of his siren's nose and lip bleeding dark blood, Eridanys' eyes wide and pupils dilated in a frenzy. Searching until they met Alba's, where he snarled something Alba didn't hear.

Not a threat—maybe a command. Maybe a declaration of some sort—but Josiah planted a foot against Alba's back before Alba could respond. Pressing weight down, crushing him, bowing his ribs, saying something to get Alba's attention, but Alba didn't hear it, either. There was only Eridanys; Eridanys' strained, terrified expression, straining harder in pain and panic as men rushed to bind him a second time. Tighter, using more rope, barely managing it as Eridanys snapped teeth and thrashed his strong tail in response. Then dragging him away over the grass even as he continued to fight, a thick pool of black blood left behind. Smearing over the dirt, the rocks, staining the beach as he was carried to one of the boats.

The regret of saying nothing, only able to helplessly watch as it happened, was like a knife in Alba's own ribs.

"So glad to see you again, Mr. Marsh." Josiah knelt down in Alba's line of sight, forcing Alba to look at him by curling a finger beneath his chin.

Alba snapped his teeth down on it hard enough to feel the bone crunch, earning a slamming fist to the side of his head like a disobedient dog. It made his ears ring, but he still managed to laugh, not knowing if the blood on his tongue was his own or Josiah's.

"I've been searching everywhere for this godforsaken town, you know," Josiah went on, grinding his teeth together. "Ever since I found some very interesting drawings in Herman's lockbox. Even Marco wouldn't tell me, despite running him ragged for so many years to get him to talk. But once your mother ran off, and you took off after her—I went to see where she came from. Saw it on her papers. Knew if I found her, I'd find you, and I'd find Moon Harbor. But, as it turns out, I didn't need you at all—Moon Harbor came for me first, when Herman's old father-in-law croaked."

Josiah grabbed a handful of Alba's hair, craning his head back and forcing him to meet his eyes. Alba strained against the burning pain of his scalp, but still managed a weak smile with lips painted red with blood. Reveling in the sight of four bloody gashes disfiguring the man's face, dripping thick and wet down his cheek and into the grass.

"You really are more trouble than you're worth, aren't you, Albatross?"

"And here everyone says you're the smartest of the Warren boys," Alba spat. Josiah pressed the end of his cigarette into Alba's hairline, making Alba jerk backward.

"I knew it the first moment you were plucked off the street like an alley cat, Albatross," he ground out. "You, your damn mother, your damn father—your whole family, nothing but a pack of freeloaders from a useless little town. Though after seeing it for myself, I have to say, it's no surprise how easy it was for father to lure the lot of them out to sail for him. Your father could've actually done something for himself, you know, had he not died so easily. Wonder if his meat tasted as weak as the rest of him when they ate him up north, too. You should know—is it true dead men taste like pork?"

Alba snapped his teeth again, but Josiah pulled back fast enough to avoid them that time.

"As much as I don't want to be responsible for you anymore—that pet of yours is a siren, isn't he? Don't look so surprised—I've been reading Herman's notes for a long while, now. I also know a siren will attract fish as well as any merrow ever would, and I know they need fresh meat to survive. Hopefully he'll be hungry again soon, though I can't say skin and bones like you will satisfy him much." He released Alba's hair, patting his cheek before squeezing his face. "You can consider your debt paid with your life, Albatross. Go on, fellas, give Alba something to help him sleep on the trip back to town. Talk to you again soon, seabird."

"Bastard!" Alba shouted, twisting and attempting to kick away the faceless shadows that suddenly encircled him. Fighting and cursing at them, he snapped teeth at their hands, their fingers—but an oar cracked against the back of his head, and the world tumbled into darkness.