Page 219 of The Games Gods Play
What I’m standing on is one of many such rocks, projecting from the water like spikes, that form a crown around a small island. Doors, windows, and recognizable shapes of buildings are carved out of the natural rock. And all around—in the crevices, on the boulders, in the water—are flowers bursting with color…and bones. Human bones bleached white by the weather and sun. Thousands of them.
Anthemusa. The Isle of Sirens.
But where are they? Shouldn’t at least a few of them be out here on these rocks, luring sailors to their deaths? I check the skies but see no birdlike creatures anywhere.
Carefully, I pick my way across my rock ledge to the island itself. It isn’t massive, but I’ll have a lot of spaces to check in the carved buildings. Or get caught.
I decide to approach this methodically, a room at a time.
Before I set foot through the first doorway, though, I hear it. Singing. But a turmoil of singing, almost like listening to a pack of coyotes in a killing frenzy.
Zeus be damned, that’s not good.
As quickly and quietly as I can, checking around each corner and in every door I pass, I follow the sound, tracking it as it gets louder and louder until I almost stumble into them.
Sirens, hundreds of them, are gathered in an amphitheater carved into the rock of the island itself. At the heart of the theatre, the stone forms a semicircle of tiered seats around a flat bottom, facing a stage that looks like several stories of carved pillars and doorways.
I stand in the shadow of an archway at the back, at the top of a set of steep stairs leading down into the amphitheater. A bird’s-eye view, so to speak. In the flat space before the theater, also carved from rock, are straight-backed chairs that look like thrones. Five of them, in which more sirens sit. The leaders, maybe?
Kneeling before them, faces slack with enchanted wonder, are Zai, Rima, and Diego.
None of them are restrained or fighting. They appear perfectly content to sit there as the sirens seem to argue, but in song. To me, so many voices are a cacophony. I can’t tell what they are saying or arguing over.
But I’m guessing it’s over my friends.
Where are the others?
I scan the grounds for any sign of where they could be and pause at the sight of two younger sirens standing with their backs to a door that leads into the stage itself.
They have to be in there. Right?
Make a plan, Lyra.
Coming up with this one doesn’t take long, but it’s going to involve at least two more pearls if everything goes perfectly. Exactly the number of pearls I have left.
But when has anything gone perfectly in these challenges?
I’m tempted to send a prayer to the gods. Please let me get us out of here without leaving anyone behind.
107
Clerk, Ally, Friend
I don’t know how long it takes me to work my way around the amphitheater to the back side of the stage. A while. I can hear the sirens the entire time, keeping them to my left thanks to the terrain and buildings of the isle. Every so often, one takes off into the skies, and I have to duck into shadows or hide in doorways.
It’s not until I’m staring at the back of Jackie’s blond head that I actually believe I can pull this off.
The other champions are held in a small chamber with a door that leads to the sirens and a window—not big enough to climb through—at the back. I don’t want to startle them. If they make too much noise, it’ll draw attention to us.
I give a tiny whistle.
Two heads turn my way—Samuel’s and Jackie’s.
Jackie’s ocean-blue eyes go wide. “Lyra!” she whisper-screams. And I wince, waving at her to be quiet before we both go very still, listening for the sirens guarding the other side of the door. They don’t come. I check over my shoulder, and no one is in sight. But the tension already riding the muscles in my shoulders cranks down harder.
They come to the window. “Tell me you have a plan,” Jackie whispers much more softly.
I show them my pearl. “I need all of you holding hands tight, and for you to hold mine.”
