Despite how quickly she swam, it seemed to take forever to reach the mouth of the river. She didn’t even enjoy the feel of the water or the current rushing against her mermaid tail. All she could focus on was getting there and finding the scroll.
Lydia had said that the paper couldn’t be damaged by water, so Gemma thought that the sirens had probably hidden it somewhere underwater. Possibly underneath a rock or in a box or something buried in the floor of the river.
Following her hunch, she began to swim up the Achelous River, turning over rocks and grabbing at anything on the riverbed that looked even mildly interesting. She hadn’t made it very far when the strangest thing started happening to her.
It got harder to breathe, and the scales on her tail were shifting back into flesh, but only odd patches. At first Gemma began to panic, assuming she was dying. She hurriedly swam back toward the ocean, and the odd changes stopped. She was her usual mermaid self.
That was when Gemma realized the river was freshwater—that had no effect on her. It was the same reason she didn’t turn into a mermaid in the pool or the shower. Only ocean water made the change happen.
That meant that the sirens probably hadn’t gone that far up the river. So Gemma focused her search on places where she could swim, staying mostly near the mouth of the river, but as the evening progressed, Gemma swam farther and farther upstream.
Once the moon was high in the sky, Gemma pulled herself up near a sandy beach next to the river. She stayed in deep enough so the water would cover her fins, and the waves splashed against her waist.
The stars were twinkling above her, and she leaned back, staring up at them. Her hands were sore from digging up the riverbed and even some of the ocean floor. Her tail ached from swimming, and the hunger made her stomach rumble.
Gemma had looked everywhere she could. The scroll wasn’t there. Either it never had been, or the sirens had moved it. It didn’t really matter which of those options it was. All this really meant was that Gemma had to come up with a different plan of attack, because this one wasn’t working.
TWENTY-ONE
Cursed
“I love him,” Penn breathed as she flung herself backward into her bed. In the three months that Bastian had been staying with them in France, Thea had heard Penn utter those same words a hundred times.
“You’re being dramatic, don’t you think?” Aggie asked. She sat perched on the edge of her sister’s bed, watching Penn sigh and coo over her newfound romance with Bastian.
“No, I love him.” Penn smiled so broadly it looked painful to Thea, who preferred to stay at the edge of the room to watch Penn’s daily declarations of undying love to Bastian.
“But he doesn’t love you,” Thea pointed out, and Aggie and Gia immediately turned their heads to face Thea in shock.
Thea was certain that her own expression of shock and horror mirrored theirs. While she’d thought that same sentiment at least a hundred times before, it was the first time she’d actually said it aloud. Her irritation had grown to be too much, and she couldn’t contain it anymore.
“He doesn’t love me,” Penn said, her voice flat, and then she sat up with a start. “It’s the damn curse. He can’t love me. We have to get rid of it.”
“Get rid of it?” Gia asked. She sat on the other side of Penn, her fair skin paling further at the thought of undoing their curse. “We mustn’t do that. We don’t know the repercussions.”
“I’m in love, Gia,” Penn insisted, imploring her to understand. “I can’t let anything get in the way of that.”
“But Gia is right,” Aggie said. “If we attempt to undo the curse, we might undo ourselves. Remember what happened to the minotaurs? When they repealed their curse, they made themselves extinct.”
“Don’t be so simple,” Penn growled and got up. “We’ll find our father or Demeter. One of them will know how to get rid of this without killing us.”
“Where will we find Achelous or Demeter?” Gia asked. “They’ve been in hiding for years.”
“Look harder!” Penn snapped. “I am in love with Bastian, and I am going to spend the rest of my life with him!”
“If you give up the curse, that might not be very long,” Thea said quietly. “The muses can give up their places for love, but it means they must also give up their immortality.”
“I won’t have to give that up,” Penn said, brushing off the idea. “Bastian is immortal, and so shall I remain.”
“What if you had to choose?” Thea asked. “Between living forever or true love?”
“I won’t have to choose.” Penn looked at her sister like she was dumb or insane. “I can have both.”
“Dear sister, but you must,” Thea pressed. “The only way I know to undo the curse would be to destroy the scroll, and that would lead to our demise.”
“We won’t destroy the scroll,” Penn said. “We will find another way. Maybe the gods can bless me the way they have Bastian.”