Page 96 of A Storm in Every Heart
She turns to smile at me. “Yes, of course I know it’s your name, but what does it mean?”
I’m not sure I’ve ever told anyone the origin of my name before, but suddenly the words are tumbling from my lips and I can’t stop. “It’s my mother’s surname from before she married my father. Her family are known for their magical talent. For centuries, they would help hold the tide back from the city during large storms. We have walls for that now, but the name stuck.”
She nods. “I’ve always wished I could use magic like that.”
“Can’t you?” I ask.
“Not really. Maybe I could if I was trained as a child, but I never knew anyone who used magic until I went to Vernallis.”
I bite my lip. “Do sirens have magic?”
She looks sideways at me, and to my surprise, she snorts a laugh. “How long have you been waiting to bring that up?”
I let out a sigh. I wonder how it would have gone if I’d asked her the same question before we were on the ship and she was clearly in her element. Probably not nearly as well. That’s good to know. It seems my plan worked and I am getting to know her after all.
“Sorry,” I say, smiling back at her. “One of my father’s advisors said something about it, but if you don’t want to talk about it…”
“It’s fine.” She waves me off. “It’s not as if it’s a secret I can hide.”
She flushes lightly, and my eyes trace over her almost unnaturally beautiful face. No, of course she wouldn’t be able to hide what she is. Even before Magnus told me, it was all too obvious that there was something unusual about her, I just didn’t know what it was.
“I didn’t know until someone told me,” I admit. “I’ve never seen a siren before. There are a lot of them in the waters around the palace, but I was always kept well away from them.”
“That’s probably a good thing. From what I’ve heard most aren’t very friendly.”
“You’re friendly.”
She snorts. “I wouldn’t go that far, but I know what you mean. For example, I’m not likely to make you jump off this boat to your death.”
I raise a curious eyebrow. “Could you do that?”
She frowns, looking uncomfortable for the first time. “I’m not sure, maybe.” She bites her lip, looking as if she’s not sure if she should elaborate, so when she does I feel as if I passed some nebulous test. “For a few years now I’ve been able to sway people my way when it comes to small things, but for obvious reasons I’ve never tried anything as serious as drowning. Even if I wanted to do that, it’s not as if I had anyone to teach me how it works.”
I find myself leaning closer to her, hanging on her every word.
I’ve always thought sirens were monsters—far closer to wraiths or vampires than they were to Fae, but Odessa is quickly changing every preconceived idea I’ve ever had.
“Have you met other sirens?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “My mother, I suppose, when I was very young, but she left and I don’t remember her.”
“Left…not died?” I hedge, fairly sure that this has taken too serious a turn and I should try to steer it back toward something light.
“She went back to the ocean,” Odessa clarifies. “That’s…normal for sirens, I think. They—we—don’t usually stay on land for very long.”
“What about you?” I can’t help asking, thinking of Magnus’s comments about the landlocked sirens in the ancient courts of Ellender.
She shrugs. “I’ve never been in the ocean before.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Never? How is that possible?”
“Even though we lived on a ship, my father was very careful not to let me go in the water. I think he believed I might not come back…and maybe he was right, who knows? After he died, I went to Vernallis where we lived hundreds of miles from the nearest sea.”
“How did your father die?”
“Drowned himself,” she says bluntly. “That’s how the legend goes, isn’t it? Men who love sirens always go mad and drown in the end.”
Her eyes narrow on me like she’s searching for something in my reaction. I get the feeling I’m being tested, but I’m not sure how.
