Page 82 of The Witch and The Blood Oath

At least she’s not crying.

She calmly gestured to the forest, but her dark eyes were round. “Shall we go after them, then?”

“We shall,” I snapped. “Let’s move.”

Elle’s politeness grated my nerves, as did the fact that she had tricked me before. Part of me respected her, though I wanted to hate her.

Ineededto hate her.

Focus,I reminded myself.Walker could be in danger.

The three of us hurried into the woods with nothing but the clothes on our backs. The rest of our belongings had been lost in yesterday’s chaos. I was grateful for all the fish Ryder had been able to find and the berries I had scrounged for us. Despite this and the nerves churning my gut, my stomach rumbled with hunger.

Cadence cleared a path through the thick shrubs, vines, trees, and roots, and I hoped that advantage would help us reach the guys before something else did.

“What do you think they’re after?” Cadence wondered. Her breath was a bit ragged, but the girl didn’t complain about our pace. “I don’t sense anything chasing them.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know what could’ve prompted them to leave us, but I don’t like it. Something…something unnatural could be influencing their actions.”

“I don’t sense any other magic,” Cady countered, “except for the magic in the island itself.”

“Some creatures are bound to places,” Elle mused. “Lives can be tied to locations, and beings can be cursed. Such things are harder to sense.”

Cadence opened her mouth to reply, but I interrupted. “How exactly do you know all of this?”

Elle swallowed. “My parents taught me.”

“Please don’t start crying again,” I muttered.

“Freya!” Cady chided. “Not cool.”

Traitor,I thought and grimaced at my hypocrisy.

“Cursed,” I mused, intent on steering the conversation back to the problem at hand. My stomach dropped.“Sirensare cursed.”

“And they hide in convenient locations to summon fishermen to their deaths,” Elle realized. “The men are headed in the direction of the opposite coast—away from our protection.”

I bit my tongue to keep from asking what protection the most hunted magical creature on the planet with seemingly no powers could provide. I had already damned the girl. The least I could do was curb my hatefulness.

“Their song,” I said instead, “we must not be able to hear it because we’re not its target.”

“Like a dog whistle,” Cadence agreed. “It’s tuned to certain frequencies.”

“We need to hurry,” I insisted and picked up the pace.

For a while, we walked in silence, other than the constant shuffling of insects and the incessant raggedness of our breath. As the sun rose higher in the sky, more and more sweat poured down my spine. When I couldn’t take the heavy, humid heat, I summoned a breeze.

“Hell yeah,” Cady said. Her light brown hair danced past her face. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“Your brother would not approve of your language,” I chastised, though I fought a smile.

“The breeze feels great,” Elle said. “I thought I might drown in my own sweat.”

“Aren’t you used to the humidity?” Cady asked before I could make an unkind remark. “You know, we found you right on the coast.”

“I’ve lived all over the world,” Elle said. From someone else’s mouth, it would’ve sounded like a boast, but she explained it like any other boring fact. “We were constantly on the move. Ididn’t realize until I was older—until I had complained about it many times to my parents—that it was for my own protection.”

“How old are you?” Cady asked.

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