Page 35 of Siren Problems

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A man who could kiss her without consequence.

A man who could hold her without the ocean trying to take her in exchange.

She looks up at me, lips parted, pupils blown wide from the shock and the magic and maybefrom me.

“Calder...” she breathes, barely audible through the charm.

I want to kiss her.

Ialmost do.

But I let go instead.

Push her up toward the surface before I can make it worse.

By the time we breach, the tension’s still there.

Coiled. Unspoken.

On the boat, she rips off her mask and rounds on me, breathless.

“What the hell wasthat?”

“Backlash,” I growl. “The seal isn’t meant to open. Especially not toyou.”

“Then why does itwantto?”

I don’t answer.

I can’t.

Because I’m still reeling from the fact that—for a moment—I wanted to stay in that wreck. Pressed against her. Drowned in her.

Not because of a curse.

But because Icould’ve loved her.

CHAPTER 13

LUNA

Mira has been possessed before.

Once during a ley surge in Underroot and once at a magical convention when she got too close to an ancestral memory well. The first time she spoke fluent Old Tide for thirty seconds, then vomited glitter and passed out. The second time, she tried to marry a salt crystal.

So when she starts humming in a pitch only ley-sensitive glass can shatter, I freeze mid-step in the lab and mutter, “Oh hell no—not again.”

She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by the relic fragments we brought back from the wreck. Her fingers hover just above one of the sigils I traced this morning—still faintly glowing, even outside the water.

“Mira?” I ask.

Nothing.

I inch closer, slow and careful, like she’s a cat about to bolt—or a bomb about tosinge my eyebrows off.

“Mira, I swear, if this is another trance-loop and you try to propose to the coffee pot again?—”

Her eyes snap open.

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