“That doesn’t make me feel better.” Nothing was going to erase the sight of Charis lying there broken because she had missed the explosives.

  Cord looked over his arms and took a step back. “It wasn’t supposed to. If you feel better after something like this, you become a monster. But you can’t hold yourself to impossible standards. You can’t know everything. You can’t be everything. You stay in this job long enough and you’re going to see more people die. That’s a fact, Shasta. Either figure out how to live with the consequences of not being good enough every time or find a different job.”

  Shasta lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “I will find who killed Charis.”

  “Good.” Cord’s eyes focused on something behind her. “Get ready.”

  Shasta braced herself before she turned around.

  Agatha strode over, her back ramrod straight. “What happened?”

  “There was an explosion. I suspect the explosives were packed in the mannequin.” Shasta swallowed, trying to wet her suddenly dry mouth. “Based on what you told us, we didn’t come prepared for this type of an attack. Now it will be something we look for.”

  “I—” Agatha sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “Even this far from the rest of the world, I know it’s odd for explosives to follow vandalism. However, now we must prepare for aggression from our enemy. What do we know? How do we defeat them?”

  Over Agatha’s shoulder, Shasta watched the sirens gather up Charis and carry her away. “The bottle that was in the cave, that was vinegar. I’m afraid they may be threatening your clutch.”

  Agatha’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I have already doubled the guard.”

  “Right now that’s all you can do.” Shasta weighed the potential complications of sharing information that lacked solid evidence to support it and decided it was worth the risk. “While I can’t tell you who is behind these attacks, I can tell you that the person or people responsible have a detailed understanding of your society. They know of the eggs and what would constitute a threat to them. Based on the type of dye added to your baths, they also know what type of chemicals would be damaging to your skin. I can’t tell you who it is, but I think one of your own is involved.”

  “No.” Agatha jerked back. “We made the decision to leave as a group. None of us would betray our sisters like that.”

  Shasta wiped the tear smudges from her cheeks. “Then don’t believe me, but prepare as if it’s one of your own. If we’re both lucky, I’m wrong.”

  “And if you’re not?” Agatha arched an eyebrow.

  From somewhere behind them, a scream cut through the air. Shasta whirled around, but there was nothing there. Agatha leaped into the air, touched down, and leaped again. Shasta forced her aching body to run after her. Cord kept pace.

  Agatha landed on the lip of the caldera and peered down the side. “No, not Berenice,” she whispered.

  Shasta scrambled up beside her, took a deep breath to steady her nerves, then poked her head over the edge. The path curved along the volcano below them, and near the bottom of the path was the crumpled form of a siren.

  Sappho landed beside Agatha.

  “We have some decisions to make. First, do we stay together or split up? Do we look for more evidence related to the explosion or see what happened to Berenice?” Cord leaned close enough that his breath brushed across her ear.

  The chill worked its way down her spine. These were the first overt attacks done during daylight and directly intended to injure. “Together. We’re too vulnerable alone.”

  He let out a breath. “Good. I was afraid you would argue.”

  “I’ll argue with you when we’ve saved the sirens and are out of this crisis.” She could only focus on one thing at a time, and right now that was the second attack on the sirens.

  “Agreed.” Cord tugged at the back of her shirt. Then he retreated off the rim of the caldera and far enough back that they could give Agatha and Sappho privacy.

  Shasta followed him. The two attacks were so close together. Was it coincidence, or had it been planned? If it was the second, then that spoke to a different level of organization on the side of the perpetrator. What that didn’t tell her was whether the bomb had been triggered by someone or on a timer. If it was the former, the attacker had waited until they were sure to kill sirens. If the latter, then the deaths could be unintentional. Without sending evidence for analysis, there was no way to know.

  “You didn’t answer. Do you want to stay here and gather evidence or investigate Berenice’s incident?” Cord asked.

  “The bomb may or may not have been in the mannequin, but we know there was an explosion, and we don’t know anything about this other attack.” Shasta tried to be objective. “You probably have better training for this, having worked with the police. What do you think we should do?”

  “I don’t think we have the equipment to properly check the blast. That means the more individual incidents we can investigate, the more likely we are to see commonalities.” He glanced toward Agatha, who was talking to Sappho. “Someone will get to her before us, but if we hurry we can still get a good idea of what happened.”

  “Then let’s do it.” Shasta set off at a jog, and Cord fell in next to her. They hurried past the cluster of women sorting through the rubble. Never again would she forget to check something for explosives.

  As they turned onto the path, Cord asked, “Why are all these attacks happening now? Wouldn’t it have been safer for them to lie low until we left?”

  “That’s one of the many things that has been bothering me.” Shasta dodged around a root. “I can only assume they’re on some deadline, but the sirens haven’t mentioned any event other than the upcoming hatching.”

  “That would make the goal, what, killing off all the adult sirens and raising a new generation?”

  “Maybe.” There was merit in that idea, especially if one of them was unhappy with the status quo, but it didn’t seem to fit all the events.

  They were close enough now that they could see Berenice. Several other sirens were tending to her. Ligia shoved a piece of fabric between her teeth and Demetria grabbed ahold of her leg, which was at an unnatural angle. All of a sudden she yanked. Berenice screamed even louder than she had before as her leg straightened. Her head turned to the side as she passed out. If Berenice was lucky, she’d be out long enough for them to fully attend to the leg.

  “What happened here?” Shasta asked Ligia as she and Cord joined the group.

  Ligia pointed ahead of them. “Three trip wires in a row.”

  Shasta followed the motion. For a moment she didn’t see anything, and then the fine silvery rope stood out against the sky. The three of them were strung about fifteen feet off the ground, with one higher than the other two to make a rough triangle. It would be difficult for a siren in the air to miss one of them, never mind all three.

  As she and Cord looked at the setup, a siren leaped into the air and sliced through the ropes. Shasta walked over to where they fell onto the ground and squatted down next to them. They were the same silver blue as had been used for previous trip wires.

  Shasta looked past the group toward the shore. A lone seal on the landward side of the sand dunes hopped awkwardly, trying to make its way back to the water.

  “Sharks!” Myrrine sprinted up the path. “Sharks in the water!”

  “Roxana and Pelagia are swimming,” Demetria whispered.

  There was only one place near the island the sharks and sirens had crossed paths lately. Shasta grabbed Cord’s hand and tugged him along with her as she took off toward the far side of the island.

  “What did she mean by sharks?” Cord asked as they ran.

  Demetria landed in front of them before taking off in another one of those long leaps. She was going to get there first and hopefully wouldn’t become another victim of the sharks.

  “Remember the list, how someone had chummed the water for sharks?” Shasta scrambled over a rock and then settled back into a run.

  Cord kept pace with her. “Surely the sirens know how to avoid being munched on by sharks. They spend a lot of time in the water.”

  “I don’t think the problem is that it’s a shark or two. I think the problem is it’s a lot of sharks.”

  Cord hesitated. “How many sharks would the sirens consider to be a lot?”

  “You’re about to find out.” Shasta scrambled across the last set of rocks between them and the beach, praying it wasn’t as many sharks as she feared. She prayed there would be something they could do about it and that she wouldn’t get there in time to see another siren die.

  Chapter Eight

  There weren’t a few sharks in the water, but dozens. Roxana and Pelagia were treading water more than one hundred feet from shore while the sharks circled them. Shasta slid down the rock, surprised her feet held her. This wasn’t a matter of persuading one or two sharks to go away but of trying to convince all of them to allow the sirens safe passage back to land.

  Demetria stood on the shore, water just barely lapping at her toes, looking helplessly at her friends.

  “What kind of chum have they been using?” Cord asked.

  Shasta shook her head. “I was told it was causing a shark problem, not that it was causing a shark swarm problem.”

  “Can we agree that persuading the sharks to go away is unlikely?”

  “Agreed.” As they approached the shore, Shasta kept her eyes on the sharks. So far they were staying out of the extremely shallow water, but she’d seen documentaries on sharks. She wasn’t getting even ankle deep in the water.

  At first glance it seemed like the sharks were circling, preparing to attack Roxana and Pelagia. However, the longer she watched, the less it looked like they had any real interest in taking a bite out of the sirens. Their paths almost seemed to be timed. About every five seconds one would veer closer to them before turning away and swimming a lazy circle around them. The six sharks closest to the sirens never left their immediate area.

  Shasta focused on one of the sharks closest to land. It swam lazy circles along the shore, then a figure eight, still staying in the shallow water, and then another circle. She picked out another shark and followed it. It swam a series of overlapping circles up and down the shore. Shasta didn’t have a lot of experience with sharks, but she was sure of one thing. Normal sharks didn’t swim in repeating patterns.

  Taking a deep breath, she cracked open her shields and felt for the sharks. While she could feel their energy, even brush her power against them, she couldn’t readily distinguish one individual from another. Finally she narrowed her focus to the shark closest to shore. She could feel its energy, how it moved through the water, and that was it. She couldn’t send her thoughts to it or hear what it was thinking.

  Cord leaned close, his words hardly loud enough to be a whisper. “We have a problem.”

  They had a problem all right. Those weren’t sharks. They were weresharks. Shasta turned until her lips brushed his ear. “I don’t want the sirens to know what they are until we talk to Agatha.”

  “Help them! That’s what you’re here for, right?” Demetria demanded. She motioned wildly at Roxana and Pelagia.

  “And how would you propose we do that? We’re elves, creatures of the land and elements. That’s a lot of water and a lot of sharks. I’m not swimming out there to feed myself to them.” Cord’s voice cracked through the air.

  Demetria took a step back, her mouth hanging open. “How dare you. We allowed you, a man, to stay here.”

  Cord followed her as she retreated, his fingers curling in preparation to summon his sword. “I paid your price. I will help you, but don’t talk to me like I’m nothing. I won’t risk myself foolishly.”

  Shasta hurried to get between them, the sand shifting under her feet as she walked. Normally she’d ask the earth for patience, but here it didn’t talk to her. It was just earth. “Demetria, I was told sharks have been coming here. Is this a normal amount or is this unusual?”

  It took a moment for Demetria to stop glaring at Cord and focus on Shasta. “I’ve never seen this many so close to the island.”

  “You hunt sharks, right?” It had been served at the feast.

  “What does that have to do with the current problem?” Demetria pointed at the two sirens still treading water. “Help them.”

  “I will, but I need you to answer the question.” Shasta didn’t know much about sirens, but she knew plenty of shifters. This was a protest against something the sirens had done. Her guess was hunting some of the weresharks.

  Demetria started to say something and then paled, her eyes locked on something just past Shasta’s shoulder. Shasta didn’t bother checking what Cord had done. Instead she kept staring at Demetria.

  The siren closed her mouth, swallowed, and nodded. “They’re good meat.”

  Shasta tipped her head toward the gathering crowd. “Get them off the beach. Cord and I will rescue those two, but we need you to make sure other sirens don’t charge down here and put themselves in danger.”

  For a moment Demetria looked like she would protest, but instead she looked at Cord one more time, then turned and walked away. She gathered up the half dozen sirens who were standing close to the rocks and shooed them away.

  When they were gone, Shasta turned to Cord. “What did you do?”

  Cord looked a bit bashful as he held up his hand, and twisted his wrist. His sword appeared. He twisted his wrist again to vanish it. “I might have done my best to look intimidating.”

  “Thank you.” Shasta smiled.

  He bowed his head. “Anything for my lady.”

  Shasta snorted and turned back to the shark-filled waters. “Do you think they’ll let Roxana and Pelagia go if I promise the sirens won’t hunt sharks anymore?”

  “You think you can get the sirens to agree to that?”

  Shasta shrugged. “They haven’t liked having the sharks come after them. I can certainly work out a temporary truce that the two sides can debate later. I know Agatha will back me if it keeps her people safe.”

  “It’s better than any of the daring rescues I was formulating.” He motioned toward the water. “You better do the negotiations. The sirens aren’t so fond of me.”

  “I’ve noticed.” Shasta stripped off her shoes and socks and rolled up her pants. It was easy for him to say she had to do the negotiations. He wasn’t the one who had to wade into the water and try to figure out how to talk to weresharks who might not be willing to shift this close to the island.

  Taking deep breath, Shasta took her first step into the water. It was cold, colder than what she was used to for summer at the beach. She stopped when she was knee deep. One of the smaller sharks broke off from its pattern and swam toward her. In this form werecreatures had a bit of animal in them. If she tried hard enough, she might be able to get a message to the shark before it decided to take a bite out of her.

  She projected like she would if it was a true shark swimming toward her, sending out a calm friendly message. I am not your enemy. I wish to talk. She repeated it over and over again as the shark swam closer. But she wasn’t calm. What if she couldn’t get the weresharks to negotiate? Would she watch them kill Roxana and Pelagia? When the wereshark was ten feet away, her nerves got the better of her and she lost her hold on the message.

  The shark stopped moving when it was about four feet away, which was closer than Shasta had wanted to get to a shark on this trip. It maintained the distance, making adjustments as a wave swept in, and watched her. She studied it in return. It was about six feet long with a pointed snout and dark blue coloration along its back that faded to a light blue on its sides.

  One of the sirens screamed. Shasta looked past the shark. In the distance, she saw Roxana and Pelagia turn, facing a group of sharks in the open ocean.

  “You’re not a siren,” said a mildly curious tenor.

  Shasta pulled her attention back to the water in front of her. Where the shark had been, there was now a man kneeling in the water, only his head above the waves. He had medium brown hair—though when dry it might’ve been lighter—brown eyes, and a slender build.

  “I am Shasta.” She tipped her head to the side so he could see her pointed ears. “As you said, not a siren, though I was hired to find out who was attacking them.”

  The man’s lips flattened into a thin line. “We haven’t attacked them. Scared them, yes, but not attacked.”

  “Have you done anything on their land, or have you kept to the water?” She wasn’t sure if she would trust his answer, but they had to start somewhere.

  “All we’ve done is lunge after them, bump them, and try to scare them away.” He sounded a bit offended that Shasta would think they had ventured onto Sirenum. “And we only did that after they killed and ate Laurel. She never hurt nobody, not even when she was a shark. Only ever went after a few tuna. Now we can’t get her grandkids to shift. They’re stuck human.”

  She was suddenly glad she hadn’t eaten any fish since arriving on the island. “Did you tell the police?”

  The man nodded. “By the time they came out to investigate, the only thing left was a half-cured skin. They took samples, but between her being a shifter and the skin being ‘not an ideal sample,’ it had to go to a special lab. We were told that with the backlog it would probably be six months before we have an answer.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them they were bright with anger. “That’s too long for Laurel’s family. And even if it comes back that they killed her, it’s doubtful there will be any repercussions. Or as the police said, ‘Sirens have a right to fish, and accidents can happen.’”

  “I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t help, and I’m sure it sounds odd coming from someone who’s working for them, but it’s true.” It was inadequate—condolences always were—but it was the best she could do.