They slept at Pirria’s house that night. The older woman took what used to be her son’s bed in the room at the far corner of the large space, Leroh and Teela were given the bigger bed, for which he was grateful, and Mantis and Yilenn slept atop thickly folded blankets on the shabby wooden planks of the floor.

  Leroh was trying to sleep, but it was a task difficult to accomplish with all there was to be afraid of.

  Apparently, Pirria’s news had given Mantis a lot to think about, and led her to change her plans significantly. She’d not shared a lot with them, but upon Teela’s insistence she’d divulged the basic outline of her strategy.

  Mantis had thought to bring Leroh along to the wealthy district of the capital where the power-holders of the Sun reign had their residences. Her best guess was that the folk of Pirn would have been stationed there as house slaves. The ones who’d chosen to live, that was.

  If they were to find Mother and his friends, it would be there, Mantis said. So she’d take Leroh and have him look around for anyone left to rescue. If news were good, her plan had been to strike a bargain with the Sun, similarly to how she’d exchanged Leroh’s life for those of the father and son earlier in their acquaintance.

  A tickling shiver ran through Leroh’s back and up his neck at that thought.

  But he couldn’t conjure the same level of shame over this new deal, perhaps because it wasn’t his own life being bargained for. Still, it felt bad not to feel so bad.

  Rapists. It was rapists she would trade the Sun for.

  And perhaps it was true. Perhaps there was some rightness to Mantis and Pirria’s extremism. Perhaps rapists shouldn’t have an equal right to live to those innocent of such crimes. Or so Leroh tried to convince himself of to try to smother the rising waves of moral conflict threatening his soul.

  He also tried convincing himself of something else ridiculous: that Mother might still yet live.

  Leroh imagined his mother, short and stout and with a face as unyielding as mortar, lowering her eyes and falling to her knees before the Sun. He tried picturing her choosing to serve him, the God most despised, the being responsible for their hunger. Leroh thought of his only parent choosing to give up her eternal spirit to a life of willing servitude to him.

  Leroh would find her in servant’s clothes with eyes bright like the plume of a flame, and Mantis would be able to rescue her. And Mother would come eagerly, with a smile…

  It was laughable to even imagine such a thing, but it was much too painful to face the truth. Leroh continued to try.

  In his closed-eyed preoccupations also intruded the image of himself in the Sun’s throne room. Were Mantis to fail tomorrow, that’s where he’d be taken, and he’d be given the choice to serve, too, if he was lucky.

  With a hot flush in the crowded, darkened cellar Leroh admitted to himself that he would choose the shameful option if that were to happen. Of course he would.

  He couldn’t delude himself to even envision a future where he’d choose death over life— as Mother surely had—even if the life offered was one of torment and dishonor. He just didn’t have it in him to take that step. He’d kneel.

  Or would the Sun eat him right then and there, too angry with Mantis to even afford him the option? The Sea certainly hadn’t waited to hear his opinions…

  But Mantis had saved him.

  She’d bought him back his life, then. She could do so again. Even if everything went to shit tomorrow, he still had the comfort of Mantis’s protection. He didn’t know why… what he’d done to deserve it, but he had her shield to count on.

  And with that thought in mind, Leroh was able to fall asleep.

  Mantis had her eyes closed to the near blackness of Pirria’s home in the middle of the night. Her jaw was clenched tight in a way that made her molar teeth ache dully, and her hands pressed to her chest were fists. She realized she was squeezing her eyes shut and tried loosening the pressure, but it felt odd and unnatural to try to control the closedness of her eyes. She let them do what they wanted.

  She wouldn’t sleep.

  She couldn’t, with the question threatening in her mind like an animal with its teeth bared. If she looked away for a moment, it could bite. She needed to stay alert, to look at the beast in the eyes and remain still.

  Why couldn’t she see him?

  It might be a number of reasons. Yes. The prince might have left, gone away from the castle for the day. Or the Sun might have known she was in the city. He could have been informed, and hidden the rapist prince from her view somehow. She’d never thought that possible, but it could be. It could be. Maybe the castle was just too far away. Maybe the physical limitations of her God senses were to blame, and that was all there was to it.

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  But usually she could see them from days away. Not clearly, but she was always able to perceive them, pulling at her from a distance, calling faintly.

  She couldn’t sense this one at all.

  The rumors could be wrong. Let it go.

  She’d find out. Tomorrow. Tomorrow would come shortly, and then she would know.

  Her fists shook with strain and Mantis felt the sting of broken skin where her nails poked into her palms.

  A nearly imperceptible sound in the room made her open her eyes.

  Yilenn was there, standing in front of her with her woolen blanket in her hands. Her berry-red hair was black in the dimness of the room, and her face was darkened to a mere contour of itself.

  The siren laid out her ‘mattress’ on the floor beside Mantis at an arm’s length from where she was lying on her side, and got down to rest atop it. Up close, her eyes were wide open and observant. Mantis said nothing.

  After a long breath, Yilenn spoke in a voice as soft as a caress of Wind, “You kill…rapists.”

  Mantis furrowed her brow. “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know. I thought it was bad people in general, criminals.”

  “No.”

  “Hm.” Yilenn didn’t speak again for a few moments. Then, “I…we…sirens, I mean, we have to be careful with the sailors. They take liberties sometimes.”

  Mantis shook her head. She’d not seen any targets in Okedam.

  “Well…maybe they don’t go so far as to… I don’t know.” Yilenn looked up at the ceiling as she spoke. “Or maybe my master is involved in the process, like the other day…”

  “I didn’t sense any when I was there. But when we’re finished here, I’ll go back and see about these sailors. You can point them out to me. Or I’ll just ask around.”

  Could it not be considered rape if the Sea altered the sirens’ emotions? Perhaps. There were hazy lines Mantis had had to learn to work around. But if Yilenn said it was a problem… Mantis would need to return to look into it further.

  She knew that sirens had to spend a lot of time alone roaming the waters of the Sea, rivers and lakes, and they happened to share a space with the Seamen who frequented that environment for fishing and trade. They came out to the shores to make their shelter every night, using crude camps set up especially for them. The life of a siren was one of discomfort; that was clear. But Mantis had never thought about the added concern of assault. She’d assumed they were safe, as the unsworn greatly feared them and were no match to the strength of any God servant, and the Gods had commands in place against such behavior among their servants…

  “Many would benefit from…your visit. Certainly,” Yilenn whispered.

  Mantis didn’t speak. There was a persistent pain in her chest, like her heart knew something she didn’t and was trying to beat it out to her. She slapped a hand over it to try to silence its message.

  She didn’t know yet, not for certain. She’d know tomorrow. Tomorrow was soon enough.

  Mantis extended the hand that had been on her chest and took Yilenn’s in hers, intertwining her rough, dry fingers that were weapons with the siren’s perfect digits.

  The skin of her hand, the texture between her knuckles was like down, so soft and easing. So warm. The contact sparked an electric shock that traveled up Mantis’s arm and settled over her body, leaving her stinging with tension. But it wasn’t the same terrible tension from before.

  Yilenn’s eyes widened a little and then her lips parted with a barely-audible intake of breath. She tightened her grasp on Mantis’s hand, just a bit, and it was good.

  “I can’t sleep,” Mantis wasn’t sure why she told her that. Maybe just to say something. Her breathing was odd, and she feared Yilenn would be able to tell.

  “Me neither,” the beauty replied. Her face was slack, her eyes big. Strands of hair fell like the petals of a red flower around her head.

  She smelled like a feeling. Her mere proximity was a soothing balm, like a breath of perfumed air on a peaceful spring evening. Too beautiful, unnaturally so. Too tempting, a known and obvious danger. And yet Mantis needed the feeling of her, that addictive and hoaxing sensation of wellbeing, and she decided she would suffer greatly if the siren were to leave her presence in that moment.

  “Tell me something nice,” Mantis asked her quietly, her words slurring together.

  Yilenn smiled, a small tilt of her lips. For a few heartbeats, she said nothing. Then some very strange words came out of her pretty mouth. “Hm…starfish are nice. Have you ever held a live starfish?”

  Mantis flinched and chuckled with shock from the abrupt change of topic, then covered her mouth with her free hand. “No. That’s revolting.”

  “It’s not! They have these little feet. They’re funny.”

  “That’s not nice at all, mermaid. Not what I wanted,” Mantis’s voice was breathy with amusement, of all things. “They have feet? How many?”

  “Hundreds!”

  Mantis laughed in earnest then, and heard Teela sit up on the bed, finally awoken by the noise.

  “What are you doing?” she asked in one of her deafening whispers. She probably couldn’t see much in the darkness of the cellar. Only the light of the sole street lamp outside Pirria’s home piercing through the upper floor’s windows illuminated the space, and only Mantis and Yilenn were able to use that meager brightness to see each other at all.

  That knowledge gave Mantis a strange sense of comfort, as if she’d been saved from getting caught doing something wrong.

  “Go to sleep. Everything’s fine,” she replied in as loud a voice as was necessary for the girl to hear. It was after a long moment and a loud grunt of disapproval that Teela dropped down onto the straw-filled mattress to go back to her rest.

  Yilenn was covering her mouth and looking at Mantis through crinkled eyes when she returned her gaze to her darkened but still mesmerizing face. Their hands were still clasped securely in the space between their bodies, and that way they stayed.

  Mantis didn’t truly sleep that night, but it was not as bad as she’d expected.

  When the Sun started to show his hateful light at dawn, she felt ready to do what was necessary.