“My boy.” Yemma reached her slender hand through an opening and cupped my face. I melted into her chilled but affectionate touch. Her caress returned me to my loving childhood. “I’ve missed you so very much.” She let her crystalline eyes travel my body. “How do you get more grown up every time I see you? You’re just as handsome as ever.”

I allowed myself a rare, uninhibited smile, not caring how far it spread over my face. “I’ve missed you, too,” I whispered, chest heavy.

Yemma hadn’t taken a mate. Instead, she’d pronounced her undying devotion to my mother and me when I was born. Lorelei had accepted it as an honor. My birth had been a gift in my siren sister’s eyes. She’d imprisoned my mother, in part, to make sure I would stay in Anthemusa and be raised by her people.

“What are you doing here? It’s too dangerous. You shouldn’t have come.”

Her thumb brushed my cheek, her talons gently scratching my face. They’d leave no marks, but with my immunity to siren poison, even an accident wouldn’t matter.

“Your mother misses you. We talk about you all the time, to keep you in our lives. She wonders how you’ve grown, if you’re happy, if you love…” Her eyes glittered with tears like fired steel striking a rock.

A knot formed in my throat at the mention of my mother. I’d never told her goodbye or given an explanation for leaving. Yemma had only visited three times in the years I’d traveled the sea. It was too risky for her to be seen. Humans didn’t know the difference between siren citizens and the queen’s guards; they’d kill her on sight. But not all sirens were born evil and bloodthirsty, only the descendants of Lorelei. My two other sisters, Peisinoe and Aglaope—whom Lorelei killed—had their own bloodlines. Their lineages sung to sailors for amusement, for treasures, and to bed them. Not to rip out their hearts and sink their corpses to the sandy streets of Poseidon’s kingdom.

“Mother knows I never wanted to leave her. I never wanted to hurt her. You’ve told her this?” I asked.

Yemma took both sides of my face in her damp palms. “Of course, she knows, my child. She’s happy you found your father. And she wants you to vanquish Lorelei so the rest of us can live in peace. Nothing has changed. Her love for you is still as vast as any ocean.”

Grief, longing, and love stacked themselves into a cobblestone wall in my chest, crushing my heart.