“You remember,” Thea explained, waving her hand vaguely. “We brought them out to the cove, wrapped them in the gold shawl, and they drank from the flask.”

She did remember that, but not very clearly. The night she turned had been a blur. She’d been swimming out in Anthemusa Bay back in Capri, and as soon as she’d heard Lexi singing, everything seemed to stretch and distort.

The only thing she could remember with real clarity was the awful taste of the liquid in the flask. It had been thick, and burned going down her throat. And then she’d passed out, and in the morning she’d woken up on the rocks with a gauzy gold shawl wrapped around her.

Later, Penn had explained to her what the liquid had been—the blood of a siren, the blood of a mortal, and the blood of the ocean. That had been the mixture that had actually turned her into a siren, but until now she hadn’t questioned the purpose of the shawl.

“What’s the significance of the gold shawl?” Gemma asked.

“It was Persephone’s,” Thea said. “She was supposed to wear it in her wedding.”

Persephone was the reason for them becoming sirens. Thea, Penn, Aggie, and their friend Ligeia were supposed to be watching Persephone, but instead they were off swimming, singing, and flirting with men. Persephone was kidnapped, and her goddess mother, Demeter, cursed them in punishment for not protecting her.

“What that has to do with the ritual, I don’t really know,” Thea admitted. “It was all part of Demeter’s instructions, and we have to follow them.”

“So then what happens?” Gemma asked. “You wrap the girls in the shawl, give them the potion, then what?”

“We toss them into the ocean,” Thea replied simply. “The mixture is supposed to turn them into a siren, and that will protect them. If it doesn’t take, then the girls drown.”

“And you’d already drowned two girls before me?” Gemma asked, her heart hammering in her chest. “And you just tossed me into the water and hoped for the best?”

“Essentially, yes,” Thea said. “You were our final hope. When you washed up on shore, alive, we were all so relieved.”

“I nearly died!” Gemma said, indignant.

“Yes, but you didn’t.” Thea gave her a hard look, signaling her to stop the melodramatics. “And now you’re one of us. It all worked out the way it was supposed to.”

“But it almost didn’t,” Gemma said. “And I know that you all couldn’t care less about me or the other two girls you killed, but don’t you care at all about your own lives? If I had died, what would you have done?”

“I don’t know,” Thea snapped. “We would’ve found someone else.”

“With only a few days before the full moon?” Gemma shook her head skeptically. “I sincerely doubt that.”