“Yeah, it’s not really safe,” Gemma agreed. “It can get out of hand.”
“I understand. I know it’s extremely dangerous.” Lydia waved her hand. “I shouldn’t have asked anyway. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson after the werewolf.”
She pulled back her shirt to reveal her slender shoulder. A red scar in the shape of a large dog bite wrapped around it. Harper was content to look at it from where she stood, but both Gemma and Marcy leaned in to get a better look.
“Cool,” Marcy said.
“So does that mean you’re a werewolf now?” Gemma asked after Lydia had pulled her shirt back up.
“Yeah, I’m all, like, rawr.” Lydia made her hands into fake claws and pretended to growl, but she started laughing almost instantly, a light tinkling sound that reminded Harper of wind chimes. “No, no, that’s not how werewolves work. It’s a whole different process.”
“Really?” Gemma asked. “How does one become a werewolf?”
“Well, it’s, like—” Lydia started to explain, but then she saw Harper’s annoyed expression and stopped. “Sorry. You guys didn’t come here to talk about werewolves, did you?”
“I didn’t come here for that, but I kinda want to talk about it now that you brought it up,” Gemma said, her tone getting a touch sulky because she knew Harper didn’t approve of that as a conversation topic.
“You’re not missing much,” Marcy said. “Werewolves are boring.”
Lydia leaned forward and lowered her voice, like she was telling them a secret. “They kinda are.”
“See?” Marcy asked.
“Anyway, you’re sick of being a siren and want to break the curse. Did I get that right?” Lydia asked. “Or did one of you want to become a siren?”
“No, no, no,” Harper said and waved her hands. “No more sirens. None.”
“Yeah, we definitely want to break the curse,” Gemma said. “And not have more sirens. In fact, if we can find a way to kill the sirens that already exist, that’d be great.”
“You don’t know how to kill the sirens?” Lydia raised an eyebrow. “So you don’t know how you can die?”
“I know some ways,” Gemma said. “But I don’t know how I can be murdered.”
Lydia crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back, studying Gemma. She did it for so long that Gemma became uncomfortable and began to squirm.
“That leaves you vulnerable to attack, doesn’t it?” Lydia asked.
“Yeah, it does,” Gemma said.
“We hadn’t thought of that before, but thank you for putting it in my head now,” Harper muttered.
“Do you know how to kill sirens?” Gemma asked.
“Unfortunately, no, I don’t.” Lydia looked genuinely sad and shook her head. “If I’m being honest with you now, I don’t know very much about sirens at all.”
“Well, what do you know?” Gemma asked.
“That you can sing the most captivating song and enchant sailors, but I’m assuming it extends to all people and not just those that operate ships,” Lydia said.
“That’s accurate,” Harper said. She leaned against the bookcase, watching Lydia as she talked.
“And that sirens can transform into either mermaids or birds, depending on what I read.”
“Both, actually,” Gemma said.
Lydia’s eyes widened. “You can do both? Wow.” She laughed again and clapped her hands together. “That’s amazing. That has to be so exciting.”
“It does have its downsides, though,” Gemma said, refusing to get caught up in Lydia’s exuberance.
“Oh, you mean the cannibal part?” Lydia wrinkled her nose. “That would be disgusting.”
Harper looked over at her sister, and Gemma swallowed hard and lowered her eyes. Based on the fact that the sirens had torn apart Bernie McAllister and Alex’s friend Luke, Harper had figured that the sirens were eating at least some of them.
Plus, she’d read about the cannibalism in the mythology books. Gemma hadn’t mentioned it, though, so Harper never brought it up. She didn’t think Gemma had hurt anybody. Gemma would do whatever she needed to do to survive, but not at the expense of somebody else.
“Yeah, that would be the part I’m avoiding,” Gemma said quietly.
“I don’t mean to be mean, but if you don’t know that much about sirens, how can you help us?” Harper asked.
“I don’t know how much I can personally help you, but I might be able to direct you towards some information,” Lydia said.
“Where?” Harper asked.
“Well. Okay.” Lydia held her hands up. “Let me explain first. Back in the day, there were all these powerful, magical beings that roamed the earth freely.