“I cannot believe - you boys, I swear, you - if I leave you alone for more than five minutes, some kind of chaos ends up - but even for you two, this - a siren-?”

Kasey cuts herself off and closes her eyes. She takes a deep, steadying breath, pressing her glowing fingertips to her temples, trying to pull it together.

“Okay. This is gonna seem like a weird choice for my first follow-up question, but we’ve gotta start somewhere. What’s going on with this?”

She points to my wrist, which is tied to Aiden’s wrist with one of the shoelaces from my hiking boots.

“Oh - right!” I hold up our hands so that Kasey can see the tight knot. “We were worried that the siren might come back after we went back to sleep. We didn’t want Aiden to walk off again, so we took some preventative measures.”

“Yeah, given that we’ve discovered a new bi vulnerability, and a new ace invincibility.” Aiden frowns deeply, still a bit put out over this discovery. “Seduction magic.”

“Where’s Milo or Floyd when we need them?” Kasey groan-laughs, dropping to sit on the grass. She lets out a huge exhale, tilting her head back. “My life - afterlife - has gotten weird, I think. That’s a really good knot, by the way. Looks like some expert-level stuff, and one-handed, too? Which one of you tied that?”

“Aiden.”

“Wow, Aiden, why are you so good at tying up…?” Kasey trails off as Aiden and I both blush deeply, carefully not looking at each other. She lets out a gasp of scandalized laughter, then grins widely. “Oh, okay! You might be vulnerable to seduction magic, Aiden, but clearly you can wield it in all directions. That’s an advantage.”

“Oh, that’s true!” Aiden brightens up, then pauses, his brow knotting. “Wait, no I can’t. I don’t know how to do that kind of magic. And - probably shouldn’t, right? Sounds messed up.”

“Stay focused, boys. Why did Rose even give the siren a distinct gender? That reduces its effectiveness, creates a demographic that would just sleep through the call. Wouldn’t Rose want the siren to work on anyone who crosses this part of the woods?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a theory about that.”

“Enlighten me, Jamie.” Kasey gets up to start pacing around on the hilltop again, twisting her fingers around her wrist. She stares down at the baffling sight below, glances over at us, then lets out a wail of distress and barely-suppressed laughter. “Won’t you two please untie yourselves? That looks absolutely ridiculous, and we can keep an eye on Aiden just fine! Jamie! Theory!”

“I don’t think that Rose set out to give the siren a gender at all,” I answer hurriedly, as Aiden unknots the shoelace. “Her main goal was to make it really sexy and seductive, right? She probably made the artwork thinking about what she finds the sexiest. So the siren, it - it accidentally came out looking sort of like Leyla.”

Kasey whips around to face me, her eyes widening. “What?”

“The siren looked like the young version of Leyla that I’ve seen in the ghost-memories. It’s not a complete resemblance, obviously. The siren looked like a distant relative of Leyla, if Leyla also happened to be some very beautiful creature from a magical sunken-forest mangrove planet. But you can, um - see the template that Rose was working off of.”

Kasey stares blankly at me. She runs her fingers through her inky hair, looking dazed.

“We also learned something about Joni’s cousin Andrea,” Aiden adds, his blue eyes full of sympathy. “No wonder she came back to him all confused and freaked out, then wouldn’t talk about what happened.”

“Yeah, sounds like the poor girl had her sapphic awakening from being lured in by some kind of forest-fen seductress sea creature siren.”

Kasey distractedly flaps a hand at me, not really listening.

“That kind of thing probably happens all the time, Jamie. It’s perfectly normal. I’m sure Andrea - turned out perfectly normal, too. Look, did the siren leave anything behind when she ran off?”

“Just these.” Aiden holds out a handful of the soft, tiny white flowers that had formed the siren’s dress. We found them all in a heap where she had been standing. “And - this.”

He gestures at large to the forest spreading out around the hill.

“Aiden and I can’t make sense of it,” I admit.

We come to join Kasey at the ridge of the hill, and she gazes out at the inexplicable sight before us.

There were shining streams and sweet little brooks crisscrossing a blossoming forest here, yesterday. Now we’re looking at a brown expanse of almost-dry waterbeds. Weak little ribbons of muddy water, barely struggling along. That’s what all those rushing streams really are. The lush greenery and deep beds of fungi that were growing along their banks, enriched by the waters - they’re gone. Earth that had looked soft and rich to me when we got into the tent last night is dry and hard, cracking in some places.

Even the ancient trees look like they’re struggling. They must be drawing on the deepest of their roots, but even so, they’re not getting enough water. Some of them have needles going a yellowish-brown color. I walked around last night when we got back, feeling them with my fingertips, taking a closer look. The wilting signs of dehydration are everywhere.

“What we saw yesterday…” Kasey takes a long, steadying breath, pressing her fingertips to the bridge of her nose. “That whole gorgeous spread with all those beautiful little streams and flooded fields - that was all part of the siren illusion?”

“We think,” Aiden explains hesitantly, “That part of seduction is setting the scene, so that’s within the bounds of her powers.”

“The really weird part is - all of those empty waterways are real,” I add. “I had a look at them this morning-”

“With Aiden still tied to you?”

“-and I can tell from the way they’ve carved through the terrain that they’ve been here for a really long time. Way before Rose ever put a siren here. The forest probably used to look very similar to the illusion that we saw yesterday.”

“So why did it all dry up?” Kasey puts her head to the side, gazing up at me thoughtfully. “There hasn’t been a drought or a heat wave. And the rest of the forest is doing just fine.”

“Exactly. The only other thing I can think of is beavers, but when beavers abandon a pond, the area usually turns into a meadow. It would be an open place full of sedges and wildflowers. It wouldn’t be - this. It’s not like my science knowledge is perfect, half the time I’m double-checking stuff on Wikipedia right before I teach my classes, but… I honestly can’t think of anything natural that would cause this.”

“Which means it has something to do with the illusion.” Kasey’s eyes wander slowly over the dusty creek beds, the ailing trees. “But what the hell does this have to do with a siren?”

“Yeah, that’s what we were wondering,” Aiden rumbles. “While we’re at it, how did an illusion have a huge, real-life impact on the forest? Especially an illusion who should be running out of power.”

Kasey’s dark eyebrows shoot up. “You’re asking me, magic boy?”

“I know you’ve got a mythology section of the library in your head, so yeah, I am.”

Kasey stares hard at Aiden, then glances at me in surprise as I let out a sad little noise.

“I just don’t get why the siren would do this to her own forest. She’s supposed to protect it.” I drop my gaze to the heist ring I’m twisting around my finger, carefully keeping my eyes away from the view. “She must be doing it by accident, right? The poor plants… God, I can barely look at it.”

Kasey gazes intently at me, then slowly looks down from the hill again, her brow knitted in concentration.

I let out a breath of relief. I just caught a familiar sparkle in Kasey’s eyes. She must have just found the thread of some thought, and she’s slowly, carefully using it to pull herself towards a theory.

“Rose said that she adapted a sea creature for the forest,” she murmurs.

Aiden and I don’t bother to answer. Kasey was talking to herself, not to us. We exchange a fond glance over her head as she wrenches off her silver jacket and tosses it aside, fanning her neck.

“Brain hot,” she mutters, right as Aiden and I silently mouth those same two words at each other.

“The gears in there work hard enough to throw off sparks,” Aiden laughs, looking just as relieved as I am. “She’s got something, yeah?”

“We’re getting there,” I tell him, watching Kasey affectionately. Her mouth is twisted to the side, her eyes narrowed. “Any second now-”

“What if Rose drew her inspiration from two creatures, to make this one?” Kasey asks suddenly. Her eyes drop to the little heap of white flowers in Aiden’s hands. “She wanted to do a siren, but she needed to adapt it to the forest. Makes sense to blend it with another mythological creature, then, right? One at home in the woodlands.”

“Okay?” Aiden answers uncertainly. “What creature is she crossed with? She had pale green skin and dark green hair, does that help?”

“But her skin was also kind of a bluish color, too. Depended on the light.”

Kasey blows out an exasperated sigh. “You two dummies can’t even agree on a detail as basic as this?”

“It’s - hard to describe, Kase-face! It looked like green and blue carnival glass, and we only got a long-distance view of her, at night!”

Kasey doesn’t answer. She’s not really listening.

“Instead of the ocean,” she murmurs, “This siren lives in streams and rivers. More like…”

Kasey trails off. Her eyes light up, and she gasps softly.

“Oh, you guys - a naiad! Naiads are water nymphs, they preside over all kinds of waterways! Springs, streams, waterfalls, all the little creeks around here… yeah, Rose made a naiad-siren, and we’re in her grove. Did she look like a green, oceanic version of a nymph from a John William Waterhouse painting?”

I stare at Kasey blankly, but Aiden answers - “Oh, shit! Yeah, sort of!”

“Okay, Mr. I’ve Been To A Lot Of Museums,” I grumble, blushing a little. “I’ll just look that up later, I guess! What does this even mean, Kase-face? Does this help us?”

“Yes, Jamie, it actually explains everything, because-” Kasey breaks off suddenly, her triumphant smile falling away. “Well… you know, according to the lore… a naiad’s essence is bound to her river, or spring, or stream. If her water source dries up, then the naiad - she dies.”

Aiden and I stare at Kasey in startled silence, then turn to look at the dried-up creeks and streams. So little water is left.

“Okay,” Aiden rumbles, after a long silence. “Think I’m following you, Kasey. The naiad-siren is an illusion, but she’s like Thorn. She had time to grow into something more. She does her siren thing, but she also followed her naiad instincts and bonded with the waterways here. They’re hers.”

“Only… now all of the illusions are running out of magic and fading away.” My voice drops to a whisper as it dawns on me. “The naiad is dying, not her spring.”

“But the bond must run both ways,” Kasey finishes, wincing deeply. “Because the waterways are dying with her.”

“Oh, no,” I whisper, my eyes widening in horror. “This is the place she’s supposed to protect, and she’s killing it by accident! The poor naiad-siren! She must be heartbroken about it!”

“Yeah, I think she is.” Aiden's blue eyes grow sad. “She’s using what little magic she has left to make it all look the way it was before.”

Team Ghost Office falls silent, contemplating that with matching expressions of dismay.

I look desperately at Kasey. “How do we fix this?”

Kasey glances at Aiden. “You’d know better than me, Heliomancer, but… dispelling the naiad-siren and setting her energy free would probably release her from the bond, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Aiden nibbles his lip, thinking it over. “I’m just not sure how to approach her so we can talk to her about it. Jamie and I scared her off. She’s nowhere near us. The closest trace of magic I’m picking up is coming from the Sorcerer’s forest, and we know she wouldn’t have gone there.”

“Then…” Kasey nods, the decision made. “We should go talk to Thorn. We need to head back his way regardless, don’t we?”

“Yep. Illusion-hunting aside, Aiden and I have got work on Monday.”

“Our first trip out, and we didn’t dispel a single illusion,” Kasey sighs. “But I’m not mad at it. We got some good intel, and we knew this was gonna take a few attempts. Besides, Thorn might be able to give us some help.”

“Sounds good.” Aiden settles his backpack onto his shoulders. “I’d always rather be in Thorn’s neck of the woods.”

I shoulder my backpack, too, then take a last look at the sad, dried-out landscape below us.

We’ll be back for you, I promise silently.

“Will it survive until we come back, Jamie?” Aiden murmurs, his deep voice full of worry.

“I think so, yeah. I wonder if we helped it a little already, giving the naiad-siren one of her memories back. She got brighter after we mentioned Thorn. Like we replenished some of her energy.”

“We can hope,” Aiden says softly.

Big, heavy raindrops suddenly begin to tumble down on us as we head into the treeline. I stop in surprise, watching as the sluggish ribbons of water in the creek beds pick up a tiny bit.

“Alright,” Kasey calls, bounding along ahead of us. “Let’s go see our favorite forest spirit!”

~~~~

I have to fight the urge to hold my breath the entire walk back through the Sorcerer’s stretch of the forest. I’m sure now that it belongs to him, although I can’t say why. The whole team feels it, and we lapse into anxious silence for that part of the hike.

Stepping out into Thorn’s beautiful stretch of the woodlands hits us all with pure relief.

As soon as we find ourselves dappled with warm sunlight, the air ripples in front of us, and something steps out through it. Violet thorn-horns and vivid green leaves appear, as if being painted in piece by piece - until a huge forest spirit is floating there, looking down at us with his hollow eyes.

“Thorn!” all three of us chorus eagerly.

Thorn’s violet-lit eyes blink in surprise, then smile at us. The air around us rustles with his soft laughter.

Welcome back, my little ones, comes his whispering voice. Fared you well in the woods? Not hurt, are we? Come, let me look at you.

Thorn braces himself on his staff and leans all the way down, peering anxiously into our faces.

“We’re fine, honestly,” I laugh affectionately. “We didn’t dispel anyone, but we made some good progress.”

Oh? Thorn straightens up, smiling in relief, apparently satisfied that we’re unhurt. Come, tell me all. Will you be lighting one of those small, round fires again? I cannot feel them, yet still I like them. A mystery.

“Yes, but first we have something to show you,” I answer, and hold up what I have in my hands.

Thorn grasps his mossy staff and bends to stare curiously at the cluster of white, downy little flowers that came from the naiad-siren’s dress. The instant he gets a clear look at them, he freezes, then draws back sharply, blinking hard and fast.

As if swept with a radiant layer of rich pigment, Thorn’s whole body suddenly glows more brightly, all of his colors deepening. His enormous eyes grow as huge and round as they go.

You… he whispers, his rustling voice full of amazement. You found her.