Sirens Unbound

by Laura Engelhardt

  “Diamonds are also sharp,” Cordelia murmured.

  “Absolute truth is sharp, but would you rather live in a fog of unknowing? Of deception woven out of misdirection and obfuscation? Would you remain ignorant?”

  And here the faerie touched upon her weakness. Indeed, Cordelia hated feeling so stupid. So unqualified. Having to pretend to understand what she didn’t. Knowing she didn’t even know the right questions to ask to gain the understanding that might make her less of a fraud. “What truth do you have to share?” she asked hesitantly.

  “The truth of our existence here. I will let you feel what we feel, amplified perhaps, like sunlight refracted through diamonds. But only for a brief spell, instead of an eternity.” Suddenly, the thin faerie disappeared into an explosion of icy wind that whipped through the trees, surrounding Cordelia in a shroud of freezing mist.

  A soft keening began at the edge of the clearing, growing in volume and intensity until Cordelia had to cover her ears against the sound. It was so painful that Cordelia didn’t even realize she was crying until she felt herself gasping for air, then noticed the hot wetness of her tears dripping onto her knees. She didn’t know when she had dropped to the ground, or how long she had huddled there.

  While her heart should have been pounding under the strain, it seemed to beat in an ever-slower tempo. Cordelia felt the clenching of her heart-muscle as it tried to contract, and each second was an agony of fiery cold as her chest tried to rise. This must be what humans feel when they drown, she thought. Cordelia panted, but still couldn’t get enough air.

  The oppressive weight that had knocked her down and compressed her into herself gradually dissipated, until only the shocking memory of pain lingered. It was an odd feeling: Not relief or euphoria, but an absolute ennui. Cordelia had never not cared about anything before. But in that moment, Cordelia didn’t care if she died or if the pain started again or if she just stayed frozen on the wet ground forever. She just didn’t care.

  Then she felt a touch of ice on her forehead, breaking the spell. A soft voice whispered in her ear: “Truth.”

  Part One

  The Ties That Bind

  It is estimated that almost ten percent of the mundane human population are latent sirens. Most will never transition to active status, and the current survival rate for those who do transition is less than one in four for females and less than one in ten for males. Congratulations on surviving your transition! That you have arrived in a safe location and are reading this book is a testament to your own skills, the quick actions of your progenitor, and God’s own grace.

  – Sirens: An Overview for the Newly-Transitioned, 3rd ed. (2015), by Mira Bant de Atlantic, p. i.

  Chapter 1

  The lights in Amy’s office clicked off again. She waved her arms so that they’d come back on, and glanced at the time on her computer monitor. It was almost four in the afternoon, and she’d been sitting at her desk since before seven trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Her head was throbbing with a bilateral frontal lobe headache.

  Eyestrain: she had been reviewing fMRIs non-stop for hours. Perhaps the annoying motion-activated lights had some benefit besides ostensibly saving energy. At least they signaled that she had been sitting for far too long. She stood up, flexing her back, and looked out the window to the left of her desk.

  She wished she could see the harbor, but the building was too far from the waterfront. The city seemed dark for mid-afternoon, with the dull cloud cover and steel-gray sky making it feel more like evening. She rubbed her eyes and looked across the rooftops. Shifting her focus to use her distance vision would help her headache. That, and perhaps eating something.

  Before she could sit back down to continue her third review of the day, Amy’s attention was captured by the teetering stack of print-outs on the corner of her desk. She glanced around the room. Clutters of papers were piled on every surface. Her desk was covered with charts, anatomy scans, research journals, and miscellaneous paperwork; a maze of haphazardly stacked medical journals blocked the way to the door. Although her walls still showcased her various diplomas and awards in a fairly orderly fashion, Amy had to admit that her office had become a non-functioning space. While she didn’t consider herself to be neurotically neat, there was a point where the mess overwhelmed her to the point of dysfunction.

  Amy spent the next two hours in a flurry of cleaning. She had Gillian bring in a recycling bin from the printer room, and filled it almost to the brim with paperwork that wasn’t helping her solve the problem. At one point, her cellphone buzzed and Amy knew without looking at it that it was Cordelia; her other siblings always called her work line. Well, Mary did; Thomas never called. Amy decided she’d call Cordy back later. She really wanted to finish this small project at least.

  At last, she looked around, and her desk was clear. She had even borrowed some of Gillian’s Clorex wipes and cleaned off her desk and credenza. Now only a few reports remained. Amy felt infinitely better. She might not be accomplishing much in terms of curing Patient B’s vision loss, but at least she had accomplished something today. Paring down the clutter had definitely helped her regain her equilibrium. Surveying her orderly office ushered in a burst of optimism, and Amy felt newly confident that she would figure out what had gone wrong with the operation.

  With her desk so clean, Amy decided not to spoil it by ordering dinner and eating it in her office, as was her norm. She’d go out for a change. Staring at her computer screens for the past week hadn’t brought her any closer to a diagnosis, and she needed to clear her head.

  “Good night, Gillian,” she called out as she shut her office door. Gillian was their lab administrator and office assistant. Amy had hired her four years ago due more to her vivaciousness than any particular expertise. Their previous administrator had been a no-nonsense, older woman, who had worked with Eli forever and was rather set in her ways. Dealing with her had always required just a little extra care. So Amy had been happy to find someone easier to deal with, if less efficient. Gillian wasn’t what you’d call a self-starter, but she was cheerful and willing to do whatever Amy asked.

  “Good night, Amy,” Gillian replied, but Amy was already halfway down the hall. She knew she walked fast and had a reputation for always being in a hurry. “Can’t-Catch Bant,” her colleagues used to call after her when she’d been a resident. A fairly lame nickname, but then they had all been rather sleep-deprived back then.

  Amy liked feeling that she moved with purpose, but knew the sense of accomplishment it gave her was illusory. Rushing around wasn’t conducive to methodical thinking. Other people went to the gym to get a work-out, but she went to the gym to slow down. Literally. Tonight, Amy was determined to head to the gym, set the treadmill at a mild 2.0 pace, then swim some laps. After all, that was how she’d managed to think through her dissertation.

  She hadn’t really left the hospital since Patient B had awakened from surgery last week, and was starting to think that her intense focus on the case was counterproductive. She needed a break.

  Amy walked swiftly past Eli’s office. He was in D.C. today, trying to assure Commander Thompson that despite the minor setbacks in the operation, they were nevertheless making progress. Eli Eisner had been her mentor since she came to Harvard Medical School post-residency, and had been the department chair when she invented the optic nerve-graft procedure that surgically cured amblyopia about ten years ago.

  It had been a surprise when Eli insisted that she take full credit for the procedure, and Amy still felt a thrill when she heard someone refer to it as the “Bant Procedure.” Most senior surgeons didn’t hesitate to claim their juniors’ successes as their own. But Eli was either unusually fair or extraordinarily arrogant — perhaps both. He puffed himself out as the “invisible” guiding force behind his department’s success, saying it so often that his role was far from invisible. But Eli was magnanimous. While claiming their successes as his own, he nevertheless let his doctors publish with their own
names on the bylines.

  And his style worked: Eli was now the acknowledged genius who had transformed Harvard’s neurology department into the premier facility of its kind. The best neurosurgeons in the country competed for a spot in their lab; Amy herself had been here for more than fifteen years.

  It was a shame Eli wasn’t in town; it had been a while since they had gone out for dinner. As Amy strode down the corridor, she noticed that Ted’s light was still on, though he wasn’t in his office. Ted Riccie was a new addition to their lab. A via-enchanter from the Danjou Enclave, Ted had joined their team as the Danjou’s delegate for their joint research project on mage sight.

  Amy thought that they had developed a fairly good rapport since Ted had come to the lab last year. Still, some of his notions were extremely foreign, even disturbing. The culture shock had run both ways; Ted found her sense of medical ethics “quaint,” as he put it. Before now, Amy had never been interested in the politics of the U.S. enclaves that operated as semi-autonomous regions within the country. She vaguely knew they weren’t democracies in the same way the broader mundane U.S. was, but issues like that were things her sisters liked to debate.

  Ted was the first mage she had ever really known. Working with him was like being back in boarding school, when she’d been surrounded by ultra-wealthy kids with such a different understanding of how the world worked. At that point in her life, the experience had been more intimidating than bracing; but now, she found the challenge of Ted’s perspective interesting, if somewhat shocking.

  Amy knew that Ted was one of the pre-eminent via-enchanters in the country, so she took for granted that his perspective was mainstream for mages. Before meeting him, Amy had never questioned her responsibility to ensure that her patients made informed choices. But Ted laughed disparagingly at the very notion of consent protocols. Apparently, when the enclave decided one of their mages would undergo experimental surgery, the mage had surgery. End of story; patient consent was irrelevant. Amy was very glad she wasn’t a mage.

  Rounding the corner, Amy almost plowed into Ted. “Oh, excuse me!” she said, backing away.

  “Such a hurry!” Ted exclaimed with a smile. “Got a hot date?”

  No one dared flirt with Amy in the lab anymore — at least, not until Ted arrived. Somehow, his mild interest felt more welcome than the previous attempts by men even more handsome than Ted. Maybe she was getting old. “Well, I’m starving and was going out to get something to eat. Want to join me?” Amy asked.

  Ted appeared to be in his early thirties, though with mages, you could never be sure of their exact age. Skilled mages mastered the art of maintaining constant cell regeneration, and could live for centuries before dementia set in, eroding their ability to cast spells. At just over six feet tall, with a solid physique and dark hair highlighted by a few gray sparkles, Ted was quite attractive. He had a charisma that pulled Amy in, more from his projection of self-confidence than from his navy-blue eyes and firm jaw.

  “Sure,” Ted replied. “Just let me pack up.” He walked into his office, and Amy leaned against his doorframe, watching as he picked among the clutter on his own desk to stuff his briefcase with a few print-outs and sealed test tubes.

  Ted’s office wasn’t nearly as clean as Amy’s was now, but it wasn’t in bad shape. Unlike Amy’s paper-filled office, all of Ted’s available surface area was covered with racks of neatly labeled test tubes and Erlenmeyer beakers. Oversized flip-boards displaying multi-colored schematics stood where the credenza should have been, and she recognized their comparative diagrams of brain anatomy tacked on his wall. Looking at the ring stands with open vials pushed up behind his computer monitors, Amy wondered how Ted didn’t worry about spilling liquid on the electronics.

  “I was thinking lobster rolls,” Amy suggested.

  “Sounds good. I love all the seafood in Boston. It’s been one of the perks of working here,” Ted said as he zipped up his bag. “Let’s go.”

  Amy led the way down the hall, moderating her typical fast pace. By tacit agreement, they didn’t discuss Patient B’s case, though Amy knew that they had both been obsessing over what had gone wrong since Barry Riccie had woken up unable to see the world with his previously perfect mundane vision. She tried to console herself that no one else could have done any better. The operation had gone exactly as planned, so they must have missed something when they designed the procedure. Amy supposed she shouldn’t have expected to immediately replicate her last success.

  Ten years ago, amblyopia (commonly called “lazy eye”) had been a relatively minor visual impairment in the U.S. that was typically diagnosed in early childhood when it could be treated with patching and visual therapy. But before the development of the Bant Procedure, all doctors could do for adults with untreated amblyopia was cosmetic surgery to limit the walleyed drift in one eye that was characteristic of the disorder. The revolutionary grafts into the optic nerve that Amy and her team developed in the Bant Procedure actually enabled the optic nerve to regenerate. Now, with surgery and visual therapy, patients whose nerves had atrophied were able to see with 20/20 vision.

  This project was exactly what she’d been looking for ever since. It was thrilling to be in charge of Project Hathor, even if there were some geopolitical strings attached. While Eli was still the department chair and nominal lead, everyone knew that this was Amy’s baby. Sure, she consulted with Eli regarding their approach, but Eli hadn’t really practiced medicine in years. This was her project. And her failure.

  Amy knew she was being hard on herself; it was too soon to tell if the operation were truly a failure. In fact, it was a clear success in many ways. Barry Riccie’s parents were mages, but he was a mundane. Born without magical vision, he was incapable of controlling magick. While proclaiming that he didn’t personally think mages were superior to mundanes, Ted had made it clear that having a mundane born into a mage family was seen as somewhat shameful in the enclaves.

  Before the operation, Barry saw the world clearly with 20/20 mundane vision, but lacked the ability to perceive magick … and he felt that lack as sincerely as a mundanely blind man would in a world full of sighted individuals. Amy reminded herself that while the inability to perceive magick was normal for any other mundane, for Barry, it represented a serious disability.

  “I’ve been through the fMRIs twice today,” Amy said as they walked out of the hospital, unable to help herself from bringing up the project. “I still can’t understand exactly why the operation eliminated Barry’s mundane vision.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Ted said with a shrug that Amy found immensely irritating. It was great that he had confidence in her, but his apparent lack of concern was irksome.

  “This was not a side-effect that we predicted or even seriously discussed with the patient,” Amy noted.

  Ted must have sensed her irritation, because he turned to look at her. “Relax, Amy. Barry would have undergone the operation even if you’d told him that he’d definitely lose his mundane sight. You’ve seen him; he’s thrilled with the results. For him, the operation was a success. He sees magick; he’s a mage. That’s all he’s ever wanted. Sacrificing his mundane vision is a minor setback in what was otherwise an unmitigated success.”

  “But he can’t control magick. He sees it, but what good is seeing magick if he can’t manipulate it?” Amy asked.

  “It’s only been ten days. The grafts are new, and you said yourself he’s still healing. Our children aren’t born casting spells — it takes years for mage children to develop physically, not to mention learning all the necessary skills to cast. It’s too soon to tell whether Barry will eventually be able to.”

  Ted never seemed to get excited about anything. His perfect composure was one of the things that irritated Amy the most, but she nevertheless found herself seeking him out. Ted wasn’t one of her junior doctors, but was part of the program and understood their work. With him, she could let down her guard a little. His incessant optimism was frustrati
ng, but it was worth it to have someone around to confide in.

  His different point of view could also be invigorating, and often made her think in different ways. They’d barely started talking about the operation, and she already felt less guilty that her cure for Patient B’s blindness had destroyed his mundane sight. Nevertheless, she was determined to fix it.

  Neptune Oyster was an upscale seafood place that was a bit of a hike from the hospital. While Amy had planned to go to the local dive around the corner, she had changed her mind when she ran into Ted. Tonight, she would reorient her thinking and get back on track. Clearing out her office, having a decent meal for once, and heading to the gym would give her the necessary perspective.

  There was a bit of a wait for a table, so they headed to the bar for a drink. The bar was at the front of the restaurant, and had a shiny, dark wood top. The back wall behind the bartender was decorated with lit glass shelves holding what looked like a hundred bottles of different liquors. Even the top-shelf bottles were half-empty. This was a high-end restaurant, and people actually ordered the really expensive stuff.

  It was fairly crowded, but they snagged two seats near the large bay window. Amy had never seen Ted order anything stronger than beer or wine, so when he ordered a scotch and soda, she had to wonder if he was feeling more strain than his unflappable attitude revealed. Amy ordered a dirty martini and ate the olives off the toothpick. Since she hadn’t eaten at all today, she felt the impact of the gin almost immediately.

  “Do you think the operation was a success?” Amy asked Ted, with a directness that she attributed to the mild buzz she was feeling. Never ask a question if you’re afraid to hear an honest answer, her mother used to warn. But Amy was asking, despite her fear of Ted’s response.