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age now, but television and radio, these are such new concepts. In the several millennia before that, the only way we had to entertain ourselves was with plays and stories.
    “I’ve done opera before, but that’s a bit tricky.” Thea motioned to her throat. “The whole siren-song thing can turn an audience into a frenzied, obsessed mob.”
    “That doesn’t sound all that pleasant.”
    “No, it’s really not,” Thea said. “I’m just glad they’re not doing a musical. I so needed something to get me out of the house, but I won’t sing in front of crowds anymore.”
    Tom appeared agitated by something Kirby had said and yelled at him. Not berating him, exactly, but it seemed a bit more harsh than Gemma would’ve thought the situation required.
    “He’s really taking this seriously,” Thea said as they watched Tom give very forceful stage direction. “That’s weird for such a small-town production.”
    “This is kind of a big deal,” Gemma said. “He’s, like, a real director. Not Broadway, but he’s done some bigger productions. He’s not from here.”
    “I suppose the British accent gave that part away,” Thea said. “But how is this a big deal? Is this town super into Shakespeare or something?”
    “This play is part of Capri’s big At Summer’s End Festival,” Gemma explained. “The activities kick off on August twenty-seventh and go all week until Labor Day. There’s a carnival, a parade, a cook-off, and a Miss Capri contest.”
    “Weird.” Thea wrinkled her nose. “You seem to have an awful lot of festivals here.”
    “It’s because it’s summer and we’re a tourist town. We have to milk it for all it’s worth, and then when the tourists go home, the town closes up. The festivals stop.”
    “You cannot tell Lexi that,” Thea said. “She would freak out.”
    Gemma chewed her lip, and then turned to Thea. “How much longer do you think you’re going to stay here?”
    “It’s hard to say.” Thea lowered her eyes.
    “You’re getting restless, all of you are,” Gemma said. She paused, but Thea didn’t bother to contradict her. “You haven’t found out anything supernatural or helpful about Alex or Daniel. Have you?”
    “I never really thought that Alex loving you was all that supernatural,” Thea said, and just saying it like that opened the still-fresh wound in Gemma’s heart. She tried to keep her expression neutral as Thea went on. “My theory is that Alex had already fallen in love with you before you became a siren. That’s how he got around the curse.”
    “Did you tell Penn that?” Gemma asked.
    “No,” Thea said. “I thought the curse needed some reevaluating, that maybe we’d been denying things that were true. I just wanted to talk Penn into staying here so we could figure things out.”
    “And what have you found?” Gemma asked, but she thought she already knew the answer. If they’d had any major breakthroughs, any life-changing pieces of information, Thea wouldn’t be sitting in the theater preparing for a play.
    “Nothing.” Thea’s husky voice sounded soft and sad. “I don’t know where else to look. And Penn’s lost interest.” She stopped, correcting herself. “Well, she’s lost interest in Alex, anyway.”
    That was a relief, but that was what Gemma had suspected. She hadn’t spoken to Alex since they’d broken up, but she’d found out from Thea that the sirens had had a few conversations with him. None of them had sounded too terrible, mostly because Penn found Alex simple and boring.
    Penn had her sights set on somebody else entirely, and Gemma turned her attention to him. Back past where Tom was instructing Aiden and Kirby, working quietly so as not to disturb them, Daniel was crouched down, with the blueprints for the sets spread out on the stage.
    The sleeves of his flannel shirt were rolled up far enough that the black tendrils of his tattoo reached out from beneath one. He ran a hand through his dirty blond hair