The woman’s head tipped down, her eyes narrowing dangerously. Her voice took on a dangerous purr. “She truly didn’t tell you?”
“Nope. Got pissy, issued her challenge, and told me that since I wouldn’t treat her like a proper princess she didn’t feel compelled to tell me squat.”
“That is also like Adriana and completely unacceptable.” The woman smiled again, but this time it was more a baring of teeth. “As you guessed, I’m a siren; in fact, I’m as much a princess as Adriana and as you.”
She sounded defiant about it, as if she expected me to argue with her, and I did, but obviously not in the way she expected. “I’m no princess. Not even a little.”
“Oh, but you are.” She shook her head, her blue-green eyes dancing with mischief. “You come from a royal line. Your great-grandfather was brother to the queen. In fact, you come from the Pacific royal line, just like Adriana. And she has pissed off so many of the other royals that having an alternative, even an unlettered heathen like you, will put her in a very precarious position indeed.”
“Unlettered heathen?” I tried not to sound as hideously insulted as I felt but didn’t quite manage it.
“You don’t know the first thing about our culture, do you?” Her smile was poisonously sweet.
“Well, no. But unlettered heathen?” I repeated the words with some heat. “That has got to be an insult.”
Her cheeks went a teeny bit pink. “I’m sorry. I’m just quoting some of the more vocal members of the family. Atrocious snobs for the most part.” She paused. “Just so you know.”
“I take it you’re not from the Pacific line.”
She blinked and blushed more furiously. “Oh dear. I really am handling this badly. How rude of me. I haven’t introduced myself, have I?”
“Nope.”
She curtsied. Actually pulled out her skirt and dipped a leg back before bowing her head for a split second. Then she stood. “I am Princess Eirene Medusi of the Aegean royal line, but you may call me Ren. I do beg your pardon. It was unbelievably gauche of me not to introduce myself the moment I walked in.”
“It’s no big deal.” Right now, the lack of a proper introduction seemed like the least of my worries.
She gave me a long, measuring stare. “You actually mean that. You’re not going to throw a fit or challenge me for the insult?”
I smiled. “Nope.”
She grinned back at me, showing a set of fetching dimples. “How very refreshing. If we’re not careful, I may actually come to like you.” Her voice bubbled with amusement.
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“Oh, but it is surprising. Your branch of the family and mine very politely loathe each other. Your side considers us upstarts because my mother broke off from the clan and formed her own hierarchy. We think they’re a bunch of pompous . . . well, never mind. Let’s just say that my motive here was to see if I could catch Adriana having done something embarrassing. And I have.” Her delight was obvious. She gave me a conspiratorial wink. “Of course, the excuse we gave was something else entirely.”
“Which was?”
“We’re giving you a gift to welcome you to the family.”
A gift? I tried to think positive and not conjure up mental images of big wooden horses. After all, my visitor could apparently get inside my skull.
“Adriana is going to hate having you actually show up for the hearing before the queens.” Ren sounded positively gleeful. “You’ll appear before the queens, not the lords. Entirely different areas of authority. The lords tribunal handles the laws of the sea. The queens deal with family matters. Oh, this is delicious! She would have had you at the wrong time and in the wrong place on the island. Queen Lopaka will be beside herself at the insult to her brother’s great-grandchild.”
“It’s the same queen as when my great-grandfather was alive? Yikes. She must be a sturdy old girl. Then you’re going to tell me where, when, and how?”
“Oh, better than that.” She waved a hand, making the bracelet of seashells and tourmaline wound with gold wire she wore glitter in the sunlight. “If I can possibly manage it, I’m going to take you there myself. I can’t wait to see Adriana’s expression when you appear.”
Ren’s voice was delighted, but I could hear a deep bitterness in her words. She really did loathe the other princess. While I didn’t have any reason to love Adriana, I’m not a fool. I was staying out of the middle of that catfight. “Um, I’m under house arrest.”
She smiled. “You won’t be. The official hearing before the queens isn’t for a couple of days. By then all sorts of things will have changed.”
“And you know this how?” I was really hoping she hadn’t “arranged” it. Because as suspicious as the authorities were, they’d never believe I hadn’t. And that would be so bad.
“We have our ways.” Her eyes twinkled, then she started to pout at my lackluster reaction. “Oh, will you please relax. I haven’t done a thing, nor have any of the other sirens. But the king you helped has and your government is very interested in your talents and abilities. Between one thing and another, you’d have to do something fairly heinous between now and then to be stuck here. And you don’t strike me as the type for heinous.”
She apparently didn’t know me very well. Or she had a very different definition of “heinous” than most. When I cause trouble it’s seldom intentional, but I still wind up in hot water.
“Anyway.” Ren waved her hand in a theatrical gesture and I felt a surge of power. With a shimmer of light, a small, elaborately carved box appeared in her hand. It was quite beautiful, elegant and detailed with Egyptian-style carvings of a snake having swallowed the sun. It was inlaid with lapis and moonstone and smelled ever so faintly of cedar. I couldn’t say why, but it felt old. Old and powerful, in the way my favorite knives were powerful. Those knives, locked away in my safe, had taken Bruno five years of daily bloodletting to make. Which made me wonder what in the hell was in that box.
She reached out to give it to me and our hands brushed. The instant our skin touched I felt a jolt of power hard enough to rock me back a step. The box dropped onto the thick carpet, spilling out a small gold cup and a collection of brightly colored scarabs the size of my thumbnail. They scattered and I could see that symbols were carved into their flat bottoms.
Ren didn’t fare nearly as well. The bolt knocked her onto her butt in the middle of the floor. I heard the roar of the ocean and outside a group of gulls began dive-bombing the windows, knocking themselves senseless trying to get in.
“Ow.” I shook my hand, trying to make the odd pins-and-needles sensation that wasn’t quite pain go away. There was a mark on my palm, about the size of an old-time silver dollar. Dark red, it was irregularly shaped, like a tentacled birthmark. It was seriously ugly and looked old, which made no sense at all, since it hadn’t been there seconds before.
Ren stared up at me, her face drained of all color, her expression one of abject horror. “Let me see your palm.” Her voice was shaky, but there was grim determination in her eyes.
“Why?”
She gave a hiss of displeasure. “Quickly, in case the mark fades! Let me see your palm!”
I held my hand, palm toward her, being very careful not to touch. After she had a good, long look she very carefully scooted backward and stood without my help. Using her hands to smooth her skirt, she bent carefully at the waist to study the spill of scarabs.
“I can see you’ve been given a death curse but not who did it or how. Perhaps the Wadjeti can tell us.”
I watched as she very gingerly picked up the lid to the box, giving me my first glimpse of the exquisite scarab on the inside of the lid. One by one, she began gathering up the small bits of Egyptian pottery, looking carefully at the symbol on the bottom of each as she did.
“Cursed?” Crap. We studied curses back when I was in school. I even knew a guy who’d been on the receiving end of one. And while he’d been an absolute jerk who richly deserved it—still, ouch. I understand that surgery helped with part of the problem and he and his wife eventually were able to adopt. “Is it fixable?”
She didn’t answer. Not good. I’d been hoping for a quick “yes.”
She straightened up and I realized she had missed one. A single, red scarab had rolled beneath the edge of one of the chairs. Without thinking, I reached down and picked it up. It was warm and I felt a slow pulse of power flow through me. It didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt really, really good. I was almost sorry to give it up, but I extended it to her, flat on my palm, carving side up.
I wouldn’t have thought she could pale further, but she did. White showed around her entire iris as she took it from me. But she pulled herself together. With a shaking finger she pointed at the edge of one of the chairs. “Is that another one over there?”
I dropped onto my knees. Nope. Nothing. I rose in a smooth movement and turned to her.
“I need to talk to my mother.” Almost slamming the lid shut, she shoved the box into my arms. “I realize it’s probably useless to say this, but try to stay out of trouble.”
And in less time than it took to blink, she was gone.
5
I sat in the visitor’s chair in Dr. Scott’s office. Not even 6:00 A.M., but I knew he was already on the grounds. I didn’t technically have an appointment, but I’d at least called ahead. The night receptionist, Autumn, had reluctantly agreed to let me into his office. Mostly because I told her there’d been a major security breach and I needed to talk to him right away.
Dr. Scott’s office takes up probably a fourth of the first floor of the administration building. It’s on the same side of the building as the group therapy room, with a similar wall of glass facing the ocean. The decorator had done a great job echoing the golden tans of the sand and the blues and greens of sea and sky. Everything was beautiful, tasteful, expensive, and soothing.
