Page 92 of A Yulean Sister’s Guide to Getting Kidnapped

“That’s exactly what we’re saying,” Sage said.

Bramwell took in this information, scratching his gruff chin in thought.

“Sage, I know that this isn’t something you want to talk about, but can you please tell me the whole story of how the necklace ended up on you?”

She looked between him and I. I tried to give her an encouraging glance, but ultimately what she shared was up to her.

“OK, I’ll tell you.”

She proceeded to explain everything that she told me earlier to Bramwell, leaving out some of the emotion she felt around it.

“Sirens,” he said with interest. “I’m not sure what they have to do with it, but it’s obviously something important.” He continued to ponder, pacing in front of his stack of books, looking at each one on the spine.

“I want to try to find some information,” he said, picking up one of the books. “I have a theory, but I’m not sure how much of it is true.”

“Care to share with the class?” I asked.

He dutifully ignored my snippiness. “I think we’re right about it being an ancient relic. But I think we were too focused on where it came from and not what it was used for.”

“What do you mean?” Sage asked.

“I mean, it’s obvious the necklace does… something. We just need to find out what that something is.”

“It shoots beams of light,” she said, as if it weren’t obvious.

“But it’s doing more than that,” I said, realizing Bramwell was right. We needed to take a step back. “Has it ever done this before?”

“Obviously not,” she said.

Bramwell grabbed a quill and piece of paper, writing down our thoughts. “Okay. And you’ve obviously got it wet before.”

She nodded.

“So it’s the ocean specifically.” He tapped the feather to his chin in thought. “And it was given to you by a siren. They’re typically self-serving creatures. So, it had to be something important to them.”

“If it was important to them, why would they give it to me?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t they like… hide it in a shell or something?”

“It probably couldn’t be kept in the water if its presence was that impactful,” I said. “They had to keep it out of the ocean.”

“So they gave it to me to keep it protected?” she asked.

“It tracks,” Bramwell added. “Peradona has a few coastlines, but the capital is in the middle, mostly landlocked. The idea that it would be far away from the ocean there would make sense.”

“And who better to protect something like that than a princess herself?”

Sage took a deep breath, absorbing it all. “Okay, but other than the beam of light, it didn’t seem to harm anything in its path, or really do anything special except pinpoint an area in the ocean. One we don’t even know about.”

Bramwell looked at all the notes he’d scribbled while we talked, his eyes bouncing over them, obviously trying to piece it all together.

“I think it’s some kind of tracking device,” Bramwell said after a while.

“Tracking device?” Sage asked.

He nodded. “It makes the most sense. It’s clear it’s creating a path from one point to another, one of those points being the necklace.”

Sage put her hand around it. “So where does it lead to?”

He abruptly stood, pulling out one of his maps. “You saw where the point went?”