“Why?” Gemma asked, and her heart pounded so loudly in her chest, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to hear Diana’s reply over the sound of it. “What do you mean?”

Diana didn’t say anything right away, then the bell above the front door of the store chimed loudly.

“I think this visit has gone on quite long enough, and I now have customers to attend to.” Diana stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, you can show yourselves out.”

Gemma jumped to her feet. “No, Diana, please. If I kill Penn, is the curse broken?”

“I’ve already given you my answer,” Diana said as she continued toward the door.

“Diana!” Harper shouted, and chased after her. “You can’t just leave it like this. You can’t just walk away!”

“Harper.” Lydia grabbed Harper’s arm, stopping her from running out of the sitting room. “That’s enough. She’s helped as much as she’s going to.”

“We could hold her hostage and make her tell us,” Marcy suggested from where she sat on the floor, still petting Thallo.

“There’s nothing we have that could hold her if she didn’t want to be held, and that’s not how we do things,” Lydia said. “If she doesn’t want to help us, we can’t make her.”

Diana had gone back into the store, but Gemma couldn’t just let it go. Not like that. She chased after her, and when Diana wouldn’t stop, she grabbed the billowy sleeve of her dress, forcing Diana to turn back to her.

“No. It can’t end like this,” Gemma begged her, and she was near tears. “Demeter, please.”

They were nearly hidden underneath the dangling flowers and vines from the potted plants above them, but from the corner of her eye, Gemma could see the new customers. They were still far enough away that they wouldn’t hear them, but they were coming closer.

Diana stared down at her, her green eyes tired, but there was a new anger that flickered behind them. But Gemma refused to look away or let go of her, not until she got an answer.

“One of the other girls, Aglaope, she came sniffing around. It must’ve been … five years back,” Diana said finally, apparently seeing that Gemma wouldn’t leave without something. “She never found me, but she got close enough when I heard that she’d been looking.

“I’d always liked her,” she went on. “She was kind and loving, but in order for Thea to be punished, Aglaope had to be punished even worse. It pained me to hurt her like that, but her anguish was a means to an end, and oh, how she’d anguished under Penn’s cruel rule for thousands of years.

“But when she came looking for me, looking for a way out, I ignored her. I liked her, pitied her, and she’d been tortured plenty, but her cries went unheeded. And if I wouldn’t help her, what makes you think I would help someone as insignificant as you?”

THIRTY-FOUR

Renunciation

All Gemma could think about was getting out to the water. Their flight home had been delayed for hours. It was well after five in the morning by the time they got home, and she had barely made it. Her migraine had gotten so bad, she’d thrown up twice on the way back.

When they got back to Capri, instead of taking them home, she had Marcy drop her off at the bay. If she didn’t get into the water soon, Gemma was certain she would die. She felt even worse than when she’d been at Sawyer’s beach house and refused to eat, and her hair was falling out in clumps.

Fortunately, it was still dark out, but the sky was beginning to lighten. To be safe, she steered clear of the beaches, which would be filling up with tourists much too soon. Instead, she went down to the rocky shore along the cypress trees, where the bay began to curve toward the cove.

The jagged edges of the rocks jabbed through the thin bottoms of her flip-flops, but Gemma barely noticed. The watersong blotted out everything else. Stripping off her shorts, panties, and shirt, she stepped out into the water wearing only her bra.

As soon as the saltwater hit her skin, splashing over her feet and ankles as she waded out into the depths of the bay, sweet relief rushed over her. The pain that had been so agonizing drifted away as her skin began to flutter, her flesh shifting into the smooth, iridescent scales of a fish.

She dove out into the waves, swimming as fast as she could, pushing herself away from the land and deeper into the water, which had finally, mercifully, stopped calling for her.

It was then, with her body feeling fresh and rejuvenated and without the song clogging up her thoughts, that Gemma was able to feel the full ramifications of her visit with Diana and how truly defeated she was.

All the way back from Charleston, as a barely conscious Gemma had struggled not to throw up or sob, she’d heard Harper rambling on excitedly about all the things this could mean. They could kill Penn, and that would set Gemma free.

Or they could figure out what to do with the ink. Harper was certain there must be a way to erase it or something, even though both she and Gemma had tried exposing it to every liquid imaginable without any success. Even through her sick haze, Gemma suspected that Harper was fooling herself. But her sister seemed so excited and happy, Gemma couldn’t bear to take it away.

While Gemma had been curled up on the hard chairs of the airport, Lydia had been sitting next to her, typing on her tablet. Harper and Marcy had gone to get something to eat, but Gemma felt too nauseated to eat anything.

“Dammit,” Lydia muttered. “I think she was lying.”