Dirty Lying Sirens

Chapter Twenty

Madeline

I was about to explode if we didn't get off this damn boat.

Understandable, since we had been stuck on it for thirteen days and my cabin fever had reached an all-time high. Not that I wasn't enjoying being on the water, it filled my heart with a satisfaction that I hadn't expected. Like scratching an itch I couldn't reach. But with little space to wander around and the limited deck to sit on and watch the waves, some cabin fever was to be expected.

However, when I'm woken up in the wee hours of the morning to Caspian's shouts of "we're here" I didn't expect to spend the next hour sitting on the deck and waiting. Caspian and I had spent the last few days being friendly but not overly so. We shared glances when Nikkos wasn't with us, and even sometimes when he was but wasn't looking. But our limited interactions which helped the both of us keep cool heads until we reached Atlantis was now broken, and all the tension that had built in me over setting foot in a new place had risen up and tightened my throat as I sat on the deck and waited.

The moment Caspian shouted, Nikkos and I were on deck in a flash. The consuming darkness that usually met me when I stepped out at night was instead illuminated with a gentle blue that outlined what could have been a lighthouse with no lightbulb that stuck out of the water. A tower of some kind, with movement at the windows in the top part of it which also seemed to be the source of the blue glow. The whole thing was made from white stone, even the flat roof, and even though I'd had an hour to stare at it while Nikkos helped Caspian tie the boat off to one of the tower's jutting wooden posts, I still couldn't pry my eyes away. Why was it here? What was it sitting on? And . . . why did Caspian say this was Atlantis when I couldn't see anything else around us?

Then, Caspian disappeared. He climbed up a ladder that was carved right into the stone tower, and went up to the windows before a pair of slim hands seemed to help pull him inside.

And then, we waited.

"What's up there?" I finally asked Nikkos, tired of waiting for answers.

He looked over from where he was pulling out bags that would presumably come with us, including the things that I'd barely thrown in my backpack the night before. "Ah, you do need explanation, don't you? I'm sorry, Madeline, I got caught up in sorting our things."

Nikkos set down a box with a grunt, then came over to join me on the seats near the front of the boat. "This is a siren tower, it's the only way in or out of Atlantis."

My eyes were glued to the flashes of movement in the windows. "Then is there a siren up there?"

"Yes, there is," Nikkos said. "A few of them, I'd wager. Singing to the sea, keeping us hidden and keeping the protective shell around Atlantis in place."

My heart was beating hard, the choking sensation in my throat loosening up as I wondered what it would be like to help. How they did what they did, and if I could really wrap my head around doing it too.

"There are other towers," Nikkos added. "Bigger ones, where other boats are anchored. We came to this one in the hopes that we could make your arrival as quiet as possible. Otherwise, we risk quite the spectacle as we descend. The last thing I want is for you to feel paraded across the city."

I grimaced. "Yes, please do not do that."

Nikkos chuckled. "We won't. Though, Caspian is meeting with a few of the elder sirens right now to let them know about you. As long as they agree, you can stay with Caspian for a few days as you meet everyone."

That brought a frown to my face and my eyes back down from the tower to look at Nikkos. "If they let him?"

"They do have more say than we do," Nikkos said. "I'm truly not worried that they won't allow it, Ashana is an incredibly wise person. She's the head keeper of the house of sirens."