“What about your sister Aglaope? How long were you stuck with her?” Gemma asked.
Thea visibly tensed up at the mere mention of her sister. The sirens hadn’t spoken much of her, but they’d said that Gemma was meant to replace Aglaope. When Gemma pressed to find out how Aglaope died or what had happened to her, the sirens hadn’t been very forthcoming.
Well, it hadn’t been the sirens so much as Penn. Whenever Gemma tried to find out more, Penn changed the subject or brushed her off. Thea had seemed much more open to talking about Aglaope, so while it was just the two of them, Gemma decided to use the opportunity.
“I wasn’t stuck with her,” Thea snapped. “And she’s really none of your business.”
“You just said that I’m one of you now,” Gemma countered. “If I really am, shouldn’t I know what it means to be a siren? That means knowing stuff about the past, about the sirens that came before me.”
“She lived for a very long time,” Thea said at last. “She was only two years younger than me, so she lived nearly as long as I have.”
“She was an original siren, wasn’t she?” Gemma asked. “Demeter turned her in the beginning, and she wasn’t a replacement the way Lexi and I are.”
“That’s right.” Thea took a deep breath and brushed sand off her bare knee. “Aggie was actually my full sister, unlike Penn, who is only our half sister.”
“You had the same father as Penn but different mothers?” Gemma asked.
“Yes, but our mothers were actually sisters,” Thea said with a wry smile. “It was all very incestuous back then. The gods often moved around, sleeping with each other’s siblings and children.”
Gemma wrinkled her nose. “That’s gross.”
“So it is,” Thea agreed. “But that’s how things were done.”
“And you just went along with it?” Gemma asked.
Thea thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “I tried to.”
“But Penn didn’t,” Gemma said, turning her attention back out to the water, where Penn and Lexi were still taunting Sawyer.
“Penn’s never really been a go-with-the-flow kind of girl.” Thea laughed, but it was a hollow, bitter sound.
“What about Aggie?” Gemma asked, using the same pet name that Thea had used for her. “What was she like?”
Something dark passed over Thea’s face, and any trace of a smile fell away. She lowered her eyes, staring off at nothing.
“Aggie was kind,” Thea said. Her voice was naturally huskier than the other sirens’, but it became deeper now as she spoke, heavy with sadness. “Penn says that made her weak, and maybe it did. But compassion is still something that ought to be admired.”
“So what happened?” Gemma asked. “Did Aggie die because she was nice?”
Thea stared out at the ocean, and her expression went dark again. “Aggie thought we’d lived long enough. We’d had more than our share of time on this earth, and we’d experienced more and seen more and enjoyed more than maybe any other being here.
“But all of that came with a cost,” Thea went on. “And Aggie thought that we’d caused far more than our fair share of death. She said that we had enough blood on our hands, and it was time for us to go.”
“Go?” Gemma asked.
“Yes,” Thea said. “Aggie proposed we stop eating and go off into the sea to swim together until our bodies gave up and we died.”
“She wanted you all to die together?” Gemma asked.
“Yes. That was her grand idea.” Thea took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was totally flat and emotionless. “So Penn killed her.”
Gemma waited a beat, thinking she’d misheard her. “She…” Gemma shook her head. “She just killed her?”
“There was no other choice, we didn’t want to die.” Thea spoke quickly now, all her words running together in one long string, and they lacked any conviction. “And we couldn’t let Aggie kill us, so it was us or her, and it was going to be her either way. We had no other choice.”
“How did Penn kill her?” Gemma asked, realizing she might have a chance to learn about a siren weakness. But Thea only shook her head.
“Just because I’m talking to you doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” Thea said. “I’m not going to tell you how to kill a siren.”
“What happened after Aggie died?” Gemma pressed.
“The timing was the worst part of it,” Thea said. “The full moon was coming, and we didn’t have another siren planned. And when we finally found one, she died. Penn had her eye on you, but we thought you were too young. Things get more complicated when you get involved with underage girls. Their parents and family tend to pursue them more.”
“So what happened to the other girl?” Gemma asked.
“Girls, actually,” Thea corrected her. “There were two of them before you. We found them in nearby towns and tried them out the same way we did you.”
“What do you mean?” Gemma asked.