Which is when I hear it. I think we all do, because each of us slowly stiffens.
Singing.
Beautiful voices raised in song.
Don’t listen.
“Sirens,” Zai whispers beside me.
“You’re finally here,” a voice as beguiling as a lover’s sigh beckons from the dark. “Come play with us.”
The others immediately all move forward, their gazes dreamy. Diego must take his ring off, too, because out of nowhere, he appears, then is swallowed by the wall of shadows.
Everyone but me, Jackie…and Samuel.
Jackie grabs Rima’s arm, but she shakes her off hard and keeps going. Samuel reaches for Dae, but Dae’s too fast, sprinting away.
“Stop!” I try to pull Zai back, but he pushes me to the ground before disappearing into the dark like the others.
Confusion is a writhing knot in my stomach. Jackie’s blessing is to see through enchantments, so I guess she’s protected from the sirens. But Samuel…
He stares back at us for a wide-eyed blink.
“That explains the color of your eyes today,” Jackie whispers. “You’ve been glamoured.”
In other words, Zeus did something to him to help him resist this.
“Why aren’t you affected?” she asks me.
“No clue.”
It doesn’t matter. One of us still needs to get to that gate. Maybe if we do, the Labor will stop and they’ll be okay. But I doubt it.
We all look into the darkness.
“We need to get the others across the line,” Jackie says.
Not waiting for us to agree, she heads into the dark.
With a nod, Samuel activates his shield, holding it before him as he also heads off.
I extract the tiny vial from my vest—my prize from Apollo—and squeeze drops of Eos’ tears into my eyes. Immediately, my vision changes—it’s like looking at the world through iridescent light, as if dawn has turned the land around me blue and bronze and orange and yellow, highlighting the details.
“Here we go,” I whisper to myself.
Then step into the shadows.
Even with my enhanced sight, the darkness is suffocating. It feels like I’m buried alive or drowning. The sensation is beyond unpleasant. It takes every ounce of focus I have not to give in to the panic trying to crawl up my throat.
Around me, scattered across the wide, long, flat earth, are the other champions. They seem to be walking in circles or sort of drunken, meandering paths. I move slowly, one step in front of the other, guard up for anything dangerous.
But it’s just the nine of us. No monsters. No sirens. I don’t even hear them now.
“Yes!” Trinica lifts her arms to the skies like a child reaching for a parent. “Take me!”
Something flashes from the sky to the ground so fast I can’t make it out, and just as fast, it zooms upward.
And Trinica is gone.
“Holy shit!” I stumble back.
“What was that?” Jackie calls to me.
“I don’t know.” Do sirens move that fast? And where did they take Trinica?
A sound like a flag snapping in a stiff wind has me whirling around in time to see the same thing take Diego.
Then Jackie yells, and I whirl again to find her with her wings spread, fighting another winged creature that’s trying to take her into the sky. The thing manages to pin her wings and arms down, and it rockets away.
Do something, Lyra.
Only there’s nothing I can do except stumble around.
They’re too fast.
“Where are you?” I hear a siren’s singsong voice behind me and whirl to find it standing in front of Samuel, who has his shield up. Can it not see him? Is the shield warded against them or something?
“I hear you,” Zai calls out, and the siren whirls.
