Page 12 of Hymn of Breath and Bone

“She’s on Caspian’s ship,” I said, pointing to the figure. “Or she was, before it sank.”

“She is the figurehead on all of our ships,” Ana corrected, stroking the image with a delicate, gloved finger. She pointed to the sky, in which I could now make out the shape of a face. “This is Zephrus, god of the sky.” She moved her finger to the illustrated waves where another face was visible. “And Undine, goddess of the sea.”

“They have names?” I asked, staring at the face of the sea as if I should have known her name. “I suppose Zephyr is named for your god?”

“She is,” Ana confirmed, smiling at the mention of her mate. “And these areourgods, Marina.”

“And who is Melusine?” I asked, looking again at the figure between the sea and the sky.

“She was their daughter,” Ana explained, her finger tracing Melusine’s illustrated wings. “Daughter of sea and sky, and goddess of the Silent Isles. The myths say that Melusine created the isles. Unable to be happy wholly in the sky with her father or the sea with her mother, she created a place between them. A place where the peoples of her parents could live in harmony together.”

“You believe she was real?” I asked, frowning down at the image.

“As real as any of our gods and goddesses,” Ana replied with a shrug. “The pantheon of Annwyn is complicated and their stories vast, but I feel the call of Zephrus in my blood when I fly.”

I nodded, something tightening in my heart as I remembered the tug of the sea, the feeling that she was real and present and intimately known to me, the rush of her power in the currents as I swam.

As if in response to my thoughts, I felt something tug beyond the cavern walls. Felt the waves crash upon the rocks as if saying,Yes, I am still here.Was she Undine? Did it really matter if I knew her true name?

“And where is Melusine now?” I asked, tearing my gaze away from the manuscript to look at Ana. “What happened to her?”

“No one knows,” she said, her shrug a little too casual to be completely convincing. “Some believe she sleeps beneath the isles, powering our magic. That it’s why we are weakened by our exile. Others believe that she died, heartbroken by our people’s war, and that her spirit—” She cut herself off, head snapping around as if she heard something. I listened too.

It was quiet. No rustling of feathers from the other archivists. No faint screech of gulls through the windows.

But there, beneath the silence, was a faint note. A siren song.

“Cover your ears, Marina!” Ana hissed, grabbing my wrists and pressing my hands hard over my ears.

The faint note was muffled, and I shook my head to dislodge the magic that I hadn’t even noticed winding its way into my mind. Everything felt slightly fuzzy, and I blinked several times as Ana frantically scrambled to her desk and found parchment and a pen. She scribbled something on the paper and thrust it out to me, eyes wide with panic.

My heart stuttered as I read the word she had written.

Hide.

Ana pushed me toward the back of the cavern, away from the stone doors where the sound must be coming from. I ran toward the many shelves, looking back only once to see she had drawn a dagger from somewhere and was holding it before her as if prepared for attack.

With my hands over my ears, I was clumsy, stumbling into bookshelves and knocking over piles of books with my outstretched elbows as I ran through the cavernous library.

Where the seas could I hide? This room was a circle. It wouldn’t take long to discover me, especially if there were sirens after me. They could fly and see the whole blasted room.

I ran for a stone staircase, running up a few steps and looking back toward the center of the room. Several figures stood at the now-open stone doors. I didn’t recognize any of them, but one of them was pointing as if ordering his partners to start searching.

I saw Ana throw a hand up and a wall of wind blocked their progress as I descended again, cursing silently. The song was louder now, and it was making my head swim despite my hands covering my ears.

My best bet would be to keep moving; to weave in and out of the stacks and try to evade capture for as long as possible. In a moment of desperate panic, I threw out a silent scream along the bond I shared with Caspian and tugged hard.

Something tugged back, and I felt Caspian’s sudden panic rise to meet my own.

He was coming.

I kept moving, creeping as silently as I could around the stacks, using the shelves to keep myself upright when a particularly powerful blast of song made it through my hands.

I risked a glance around the next shelf to the center of the room. I couldn’t see Ana, but—there. A shimmer of blue silk spilled across the floor. And next to it…

Blood.

I bit my lip, forcing myself to hold in my scream as I glanced around and risked running to her. I didn’t see anyone–if I was fast, I could pull her to safety.