Chapter Ten
Channel Crossing — Sirens Under Fury Watch
The packet hit open water and the heat dome’s rules changed. Salt cut the brass from the air. Shade-cloth snapped. On the roof, two Furies rode prone like figureheads pointed the wrong way, bronze wings reefed, lion-hips stacked, eyes on the waves.
The sirens came at the half-mile marker.
They were not pretty in the old way. They were hungry infrastructure — beautiful the way a reef is beautiful, all edge and wreck. Three of them surfaced along the starboard rail, hair like oil-slicks, mouths too wide, breasts beaded with cold water, eyes reflecting the Furies instead of the sky.
“Ride with us,” the first said, voice sweet as a leak in a hull. “We know islands. We know how to keep a man swimming until he forgets the names of boys.”
Henry felt the lock flinch. Kat’s hand found his wrist.
The second siren cocked her head at the child-tag crate chained amidships. “Empty. But empty remembers full. Give us the tag to lick and we tell you the future of every school gate in your city.”
“No,” Kat said.
The third smiled at Penny’s clipboard. “Protocol queen. Trade. One orgasm each into the water — your spend calls fish for the coastal nests — and we don’t sing the selective open.”
Jean’s voice went flat and professional. “Counter-offer. You get nothing from the seal. You get a logged bottle of non-selective surplus from the barge communion if you escort the packet’s keel past the sandbar. You get a Fury complaint if you push.”
On the roof, a Fury stood. Bronze wings half-opened. The sound was a sword leaving a scabbard the size of the sky.
The sirens hissed as one. The first spat foam. “Fence-bitches.”
“Escort or vanish,” the Fury said, and her voice was verdict.
They escorted.
They did it ugly and useful, bodies arrowing under the bow, singing only to the sandbar, a low ugly note that kept the keel true. In exchange Penny cracked a surplus bottle from Demeter’s barge and poured it in a thin stream over the rail. The sirens drank at a distance, mouths open on the surface like fish, and did not come closer.
Halfway across, the middle siren rolled to her back and looked at Henry with something almost like respect.
“Selective,” she called, almost playful. “When your nephews are majority, if they ever taste the sea wrong, sing them home to a door that shuts. Not to us.”
Then they were gone, dark commas under the chop.
Helen wrote: Sirens deterred by Fury presence + refusal + surplus diversion. Attempted child-tag bargain: failed. Note for coastal protocols.
Henry stood at the rail until France was gone and England was a darker line. Kat’s shoulder touched his. The cabinet rattled once, politely, like a guest who knew the answer was not yet.
“Tuesday,” Kat said.
“Swimming,” Henry said.
Behind them, Jean held Penny from behind and watched the Furies reef their wings for landing approach. Penny logged the last Channel mile with a steady hand.
Green across the board.