Page 26 of Crown and Dragon

She’ll drag you low, low, low,

Into the sea’s dark arms you flow,

Pulled to pieces,

Knocked utterly senseless,

A song, a touch, and you’re a memory forgotten.

She snorted at herself, darkly amused.Great work remembering that horror but missing Fara’s birthday last year.Oh, gods, how Fara would be sounding the alarm if she knew that a siren was involved in this venture to Midhampton.

“Almost there,” Marius whispered.

“What?” Eyebrows leaned forward to frown at Marius across from Tahlia.

A tomato soared from the crowd to the left and splashed onto a piper’s head.

“Eh! Not time yet!” the piper shouted, his complaint backed up by several others calling out and shaking their fists.

“All these people have tomatoes already,” Tahlia said, more to herself than anyone.

“Yes,” Eyebrows said gruffly. “Of course they do. Have you never been to the Tomatina Festival?”

“Not to the one here in Midhampton.”

“There are no others.”

“No, there’s another one. In, umm, in Deigs.”

The guard who’d elbowed Eyebrows made ahuhsound. “Really?”

Another tomato flew overhead. A shout followed. Two more tomatoes dashed across the gathered humans. One smashed into a woman who laughed and wiped her face. The other hit adrummer. The drummer threw a punch at a man to his right, who hit him back.

“Get up there and get them marching again,” Eyebrows ordered Marius.

Marius nodded and started off with a glance in Tahlia’s direction. Without waiting for a command from the actual guards, she followed Marius.

A little girl with bright blue eyes slipped from her father’s watch and ran into the parade, dashing behind Tahlia. Tahlia whirled and snagged the girl’s arm. She eased her away from the pipers and the men Marius was barking at, then deposited her into her father’s arms.

“Thank you, guard.”

“Of course,” Tahlia said.

She wanted to study the human’s face, looking for differences between human facial features and Fae’s, but there was no time. She couldn’t lose Marius. Whipping around, she took off to find her spot behind him again.

“How did breaking the fight up go?”

“I think I bruised an arm. Accidentally, of course.”

Tahlia grimaced. “It’s not easy to be careful, I’m sure.” He was easily three times as strong as a human male.

The music continued, and the marching carried on until the parade had snaked its way through the streets. They kept in line as much as they could until their fellow guards began to pass flasks and skins of various blends of alcohol to one another. Then order started to fall apart pretty quickly.

They came to a wooden stage, one of several they’d seen throughout the city streets.

“You two, up, up, now,” Eyebrows demanded.

“Why isn’t he drunk yet?” Tahlia whispered as he shoved them toward the stage.

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