-- Siren --

I turned off the TV after watching the latest Gerries Berries episode. The new team looked interesting.

I turned to my friend, Belire, "What do you think?"

"Hmmm, at least the first season will be interesting." He said

I let out a long sigh, "Yeah, but it will probably peter out like always in the second or third, with spots of interest."

"That's why I watch the first season, then wait for the rest to be done and binge it." He said. I wasn't a fan of that. Too many chances for spoilers.

A door slammed open to the hall where we were watching the episode. The siren guild was much more relaxed especially in the city, letting us keep abreast of everything. Though it still took me a while to convince them to let me have a TV here. I looked over to see Phlo run in holding her hand on her throat.

"Phlo what's wrong?" I asked

Phlo pointed at her throat eyes wide and filled with tears.

"Speak," Belire said shortly;

She glared at Belire, as she opens her mouth, only a wisp of air flowed out, but no sound.

I had to roll my eyes, "She's silenced."

Belire had Phlo move her hand as he ached out to feel her throat. His eyebrows raised surprised, "A healer sealed your vocal cords. Give me a second." Belire began to sing along a note. Phlo's eyes widened in surprise and relief, "Now what happened?"

Phlo took a moment to breathe before she answered, "The intruders in the woods woke and escaped."

Phlo wasn't one to fail on such a simple reconnaissance mission. Something else was bothering me, "Why didn't you call for backup?" She could have easily sent for backup before being disabled.

She looked embarrassed as she answered, "Only one was awake, and I could feel him falling asleep."

"Did you figure out what they wanted?" Belire asked.

"The only thing they said was to rest."

"Check your egg," I told her. That would settle whether or not it was true.

Phlo pulled out the egg, "Says it's complete."

"Then that was the truth," I confirmed

She looked up confused, "But we should go after them?"

"Why? They couldn't find us if they wanted."

"They stole my song."

"what? Oh, your voice. That was unfortunate but not enough to go after them."

"No." She let out a long breathe, "One of them figured out how to use my siren song."

"WHAT!! HOW?" I was blown away. How would that even be possible?

"I don't know. By all accounts, they should have been unconscious or completely unable to move."

Belire was looking at Phlo thoughtfully, "What did they look like?"

"I didn't really get a good look at four of them but one of the kinds of looked like he was covered in mist. It was kind of dark."

I saw Belire freeze. I knew he was thinking the same thing.

"Anything else about the man?" I asked.

"Uh...His eyes glowed a bright yellow, green?" She said uncertainly.

Belire looked at her seriously, "Like a cat?"

"Kind of."

Belire let out a long laugh, "I guess we are the spoilers."

I let out a chuckle, "Are you still gonna wait till the season ends."

"Maybe but the better question is what we should do."

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Phlo looked on confused drawing another chuckle out of me.

-- James --

I was driving the car listening to the rhythmic beating of the still loose vehicle armor. We had escaped the siren not an hour before, driving towards the pull as fast as we could. I was staring out looking at a city far in the distance with a massive stone-like wall. We were still a decent distance away but were shocked at how close we were.

I wasn't the only one as Violet parroted my thoughts, "I can't believe how close we were."

"I know right."

The entire cabin of the car was in quiet awe of the city, though we could only see the walls from here. They were hundreds of feet high, and we couldn't see a single building beyond. It was like a massive fortress at the end of the world.

The silence was broken by Violet, "Are we not going to talk about it?"

"About what?" I asked, wondering what she was referring to.

Violet raised her eyebrows annoyed, "The sirens. Our stalker?"

"Or how Aster stole a song." Rowan chimed.

I looked in the rear-view mirror seeing Aster curled in the corner of the backseat passed out, dry blood around his eyes, and looking pretty beat up despite the healing. I was also curious as to what the siren meant but for now, "We can ask him when we find an inn. For now, let him sleep."

Violet looked like she wanted to argue till she looked at Aster, "Fine. James, siren, fae woods, explain." She demanded.

I thought back to what I had read in the library, I never thought I would come across something like this so soon, "A 'Fae Wood' is a place that is a half illusion."

"Half illusion? So none of it was real?"

"Yes and no. The trees were real but" I was struggling to put the explanation together as the wording of the book was almost like a riddle, " The path you take into it isn't. If you're in one at dawn the magic encompasses anyone in and makes it near impossible to escape."

"How could that even work?" Violet asked.

"Illusions, sirens practicing their songs. The mess with your mind, even if it's not directed at you." The books had a lot of random information on them but even they weren't sure what a siren could do.

"That's kind of fucked up," Violet said annoyed.

"Yeah, and sirens themselves are almost always with their team. If they are alone then we were probably right next to a siren city. We needed to get out of there before she sent for backup. Though Violet you may have stopped that."

"Wait" Bay cut in, "There is an entire city just for Sirens?"

"More of a hidden city, Sirens are just the most well know as they are the guardians. There are supposedly other classes there but they all have to be scouted, to go there."

"Like shadows?" Bay asked.

I shrugged, "Probably, don't really know how they work."

"Don't you guys hunt them?" Violet asked not with a little venom.

"Information is still limited. I think it's purposeful" There was surprisingly little information on how shadows operated. Like someone wanted them to remain hidden. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a mission to remove that information.

"Guy's" Rowan's worried voice cut through our conversation. We all turned to him, he was looking out at the city and pointing at something above it. "What is that?"

I turned to see our destination coming up fast and the walls were much more intimidating than I expected, but I didn't see anything that was out of the ordinary, "Wha..." Then I saw it. In the sky above the city there was a massive, crack across the sky with massive holes of static flickering in and out of existence.

"The blight is that?" I asked not expecting a response.

"The sky is broken?" Rowan questioned.

I let out an involuntary snort of laughter, caught off guard by Rowan's comment. Looking around everyone else looked to be holding back a chuckle.

We were just about to reach the city when the air itself seemed to thicken.

"Do you all feel that?" Bay asked.

"Yeah, it feels kind of like when it's about to rain but more intense," Rowan commented.

"What is that?" I asked.

Bay took a deep breath closing her eyes, "I don't know, but it feels like power."

"Power?"

"Only thing I can liken it to."

The feeling only grew the closer we got to the walls. Thankfully, it eventually flattened out. It was still a little uncomfortable but not painful. By the time we reached the gates, I had gotten used to it. Need to focus on the feeling to notice it.

We passed through the gate to find, a city. Just a plain simple city. Looking around people were going about their day like normal. The only thing I thought was odd was there weren't many people in armor or wearing weapons. This place must be fairly safe.

It was twenty or so minutes of driving around the city when I went to ask, "So, where...do. We..." my voice trailed off as I suddenly stopped feeling the pull "Did you all feel that?"

"Yeah, the pull stopped," Rowan answered.

"Are we in the right place?" Bay asked.

"We must be. Otherwise, we should still feel the pull." I reasoned.

The cab got quiet again before Bay asked, "Now what do we do?"

I laid out my plan, "We find an inn. We rest. There isn't anything else we can do right now."

"Back to an earlier topic. Is the mist guy Aster?" Violet turned to look at the unconscious Aster.

"I don't know. But if he isn't then we have a stalker." I answered then reasoned, "And besides why would aster not tell us. It's not like he has anything to hide."

Violet turned thoughtful, "True, and we have fought with him so we should have seen him use it by now."

"Let's just ask him," Bay said annoyed.

Looking back Aster just looked to be getting worse, "Let's let him sleep. Till we get to an inn."

"Yeah, we'll ask later." Violet relented, before asking curiously, "So do you think he provoked the siren or was just caught leering or something?"

"Leering doesn't sound like him." Bay defended

"Maybe sneaking around and startling her, he might not have even known she was a siren," Violet said drawing an annoyed glare from Bay.

"I just want to know what he took," Violet said defensively.

Bay looked towards Aster before answering, "Same."

Everyone was tired when we finally reached the hotel, somewhere in the middle of the city, called the 'Last Stop'. It was a generic-looking hotel, that looked well kept.

"Are we really going to stop here?" Bay asked annoyed.

"Yeah. Why not? It looks nice." I defended.

"Yeah, but the name." Bay pointed out.

"Come on I just want to rest," Violet whined.

"Really no argument?" I asked surprised.

"To tired to fight."

"Last stop it is."

"Aster, wake up." Bay starts to shake him. As soon as she touches him Aster wakes, jumping instinctively out of the vehicle, slamming into random parts of the car, falling to the ground.

I had to hold back a laugh.

"You ok?" Bay asked.

"Huh?" Aster looked lost as he looked around, "Uh yeah. Are we here?"

"Yeah."

"Cool." Aster's face tilted, "Is the air thicker?"