Saina sang the last bars without the slightest hint of magic, and the bar broke into applause.

Above them, the restaurant, which had frozen to listen, also cheered, and there were even whistles and stomps. Saina replaced the microphone and stepped down from the little stage, and everyone went cheerfully back to their meals and drinks, exactly as she’d meant them to.

Tex and Laura, however, stared at her when she returned to the bar.

“That was… interesting,” Tex said diplomatically.

“Beautiful,” Laura was quick to add. “You do have a gorgeous voice.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tex agreed.

“But I thought I was going to enlist in some crazy zombie army for a few moments there,” Laura confessed.

Saina looked at her in consternation. She shouldn’t remember that fleeting compulsion.

She looked over at Tex thoughtfully. They both looked rattled, but not… enchanted.

“I wonder if it is because you are mates,” Saina said suddenly. “Most people don’t have clear memory of siren manipulation.”

Tex and Laura looked at each other and shrugged in unison. Their connection was so tangible and beautiful. Saina allowed herself a pang of envy. That was what Bastian thought they had. It was a more lovely fantasy than anything she could have woven for him.

To her surprise, they did not seem to be afraid of her after that. Tex handed her drink back across the bar, and Laura gave her a twinkling smile and went to take drink orders from the newcomers to the bar, and do a quick round to make sure everyone else was still satisfied. A pair of giggly girls took the karaoke stage after her, teasing each other as they made their song selection from the menu.

“Saina?”

Saina froze at Scarlet’s familiar voice and turned slowly to face her.

Scarlet looked no more enchanted than Tex and Laura had. Did she have a mate, too? She looked more put together than she had the last time they’d met, her bright hair pulled tightly back without a single strand escaping.

“Yes, ma’am?” Saina said with a crooked smile, trying to look brave.

“A word, if you don’t mind.” Scarlet did not wait for her response, but turned and clicked away with her sensible business shoes into the darkness past the bar deck to the stairs down to the pool deck. Saina scrambled after her, feeling shabby and chastised in her cheap flip-flops.

At the bottom of the steps, Scarlet continued down the pool deck, pausing only to pick up a towel that Saina had missed, draped at the foot of one of the lounge chairs.

At the dark end of the pool, where the deck wrapped around to overlook the beach, she finally stopped so that Saina could catch up with her. The chatter from the bar and restaurant faded to a hum and the chorus of night frogs and insects made a pleasant drone against the waves lapping the beach below.

“That was an impressive show,” Scarlet said, her voice carefully neutral.

“It wasn’t what I… expected,” Saina said honestly in return.

How much did the resort owner know about the pool of power underneath the resort, Saina wondered.

“You showed... restraint.”

Well, she knew something, then.

Saina lifted her chin in challenge. “I’m a siren,” she told Scarlet frankly. “Restraint may not be something we’re known for, but I promised no harm to your resort.”

Scarlet smiled in the faint light. “I’m pleased to see that you recognize the gravity of a contract,” she said. Then, unexpectedly, “I was impressed with your performance as a lifeguard today, but I was perhaps unnecessarily dismissive when you told me you were a performer earlier. If you choose to stay here at Shifting Sands, I would be pleased to put you on our entertainment schedule.”

Saina suspected that was as close to an apology as Scarlet would get, and it was gracious. She was touched. “I would love that,” she said in an uncharacteristic rush -- then she remembered that she would be leaving in a few days and the familiar pang of regret squeezed her chest. “But I… won’t be staying.”

Scarlet’s expression was unsurprised. “You plan to leave before Bastian returns,” she said dryly.

Saina pursed her lips, not exactly answering. “He’s not my mate. And I have unfinished business to take care of. I don’t mean to waste your time.”

“I have no patience for drama,” Scarlet warned her.

“Yes, ma’am,” Saina started to say, then she staggered in place, clutching her chest and gasping for air.

Everything was black pain, then Saina was aware that Scarlet had her by the arm, looking her anxiously in the face.

“Bastian,” she choked helplessly. “Bastian, you idiot!”