A SUNKEN CITY? WE HAD BEEN PROMISED SAFETY.
I gaped at Kane, but he just radiated his usual relaxed indifference, as if Eryx had simply said, The kingdom is down the
street and to the left.
“Do not fear,” Eryx advised. “Have I ever led us into danger before? These precautions I spoke of will help us cross an ocean trench road to the capital’s secure beach. Luckily, I have procured for us a talented witch.” My eyes fell to Mari, who smiled primly and clutched her amulet. “She need only spell each passenger to ensure they can breathe in the sea. The funnel will do the rest.”
Mari, to her credit, maintained a confident grin and dipped her head in acknowledgment of the king. But I knew her well enough to clock the anxiety filling her eyes. She did not want to try and fail in front of all these people.
“Don’t worry,” Kane purred. “This charm is the least unpleasant. And if it fails, I’ve heard drowning is only a marginally agonizing way to go.”
Finally, after days that felt like years of my heart being nothing but a stone in my chest, a small ripple of fear sent my blood thrumming. It was both awful and all too welcome. I didn’t want to speak to Kane a moment longer, but I had to know—
“Unpleasant how?”
Something akin to sympathy flickered across his face, and this time when he answered me, his tone was a touch softer. “It’s a surreal sensation,
breathing water. But the funnel is quick. It’s over before you realize what’s happening.”
“And once we get to Azurine? Does the whole kingdom breathe water?” “No, Citrine has its own atmosphere. It’s ancient magic, different from
witch or Fae. Mermagic that has kept Citrine safe for thousands of years. The kingdom has never been breached.”
I nodded despite the shiver that skittered down my spine. I didn’t like the idea of being unable to breathe air. My palms were starting to sweat. When I felt Kane’s large hand on the small of my back, stroking in little, soothing circles, I went rigid.
“What are you doing?”
For the first time I could recall, Kane appeared at a loss for words. He dropped his hand and swallowed hard. “I thought—you seemed—”
“Don’t touch me.”
When Kane didn’t respond, I looked past Barney to Mari. “How hard will this one be?”
“Not hard at all,” she said, still rubbing her amulet. She might’ve said more, but her eyes widened and she swiftly tucked the necklace into her buttoned linen collar. Ryder raised a brow, no longer listening to Eryx, and instead eyeing our exchange. I followed Mari’s eyeline and found Kane staring at all three of us.
“Mari,” I admitted. “He knows.”
Mari’s cheeks flushed pink. “I’m so sorry, King Ravenwood. It—”
“The amulet suits you far better than it ever did me.” Mari’s answering laugh was more of a sigh of relief. “I will tell you, though,” he began, leaning closer to us both. My heart sank. He couldn’t tell her now, not before—
“Briar will be very jealous if she ever learns I gave her prized amulet to another woman. And another beautiful witch at that. Let’s keep it our little secret, yes?”
Mari nodded her understanding and I breathed out, slow and even.
“Please align yourselves in front of the young witch,” Eryx instructed the passengers.
I plastered a smile on and faced Mari. “Good luck.”
 |
WITH MARI’S HAND ON MY CHEST, THE MAGIC SWIRLED AROUND US, KICKING
up my hair and my skirts, kissing my skin, earth and moss scenting the air, until it was over, as quickly as it began.
I didn’t feel any different. I scanned my body and was fairly certain I looked the same, too. The rest of the passengers Mari had spelled were guided by Eryx’s guards into the ocean, but I stepped aside to wait for Leigh.
Griffin was next. Mari stood at least a foot shorter than him, but still held a confident palm against his chest. She chanted low, eyes closed, wild flamelike hair breezing around her face, while Griffin’s jaw held firm, his hands tucked tightly behind his back. He looked anywhere but at Mari, though his cheeks had gone a little pink.
When she was done, Griffin stepped to the side, rubbing distractedly at his chest where her hand had been.
Leigh went next, and after, we stepped onto the plank.
“Dive for the funnel,” a guard instructed us. “It’s three feet down. Once in, swim hard and try to run when you see land.”
“Run?” asked Leigh. “Run how?”
But he was already giving the same brusque directives to the passengers behind us.
Cold, salty air stung my face as we walked across the plank they had affixed to the stern, and I stared down at the churning waves below, freezing and deep, with foamy little caps sloshing against one another.
Fear was beginning to distort my vision. Maybe Leigh and I could just keep sailing. Take this ship and sail and sail and never return.
“Ready?” Leigh’s voice punched through my dread.
We gulped in twin gasps of air before jumping from the platform. Before I hit the water, one singular image flashed in my mind— My mother’s face, devoid of life.
My brain felt the cold before my body. So much colder—I knew it was so much colder than I had been expecting. Only moments later did my limbs feel the stabbing sharpness of being enveloped by a biting, bitter sea. I tried to calm my panicky heart—to shake the strange, intrusive memory of my mother. We had to swim. Despite the sting of salt in my eyes and the chattering of my teeth, I pushed Leigh forward.
The ocean was blurry and endlessly deep, but I could see the open mouth of the funnel below us, like a blown-glass vase, opening wide and growing slimmer. We swam toward it without looking back.
The first twinge of the need to breathe rapped at my lungs. To suck in a mouthful of air—not water—but I ignored it. Maybe I could swim the whole length of the funnel in one breath. I had been able to stay under the longest of my siblings when we were younger and played in chilly, rocky ponds.
Leigh and I swam deeper, and once we were through the mouth, the funnel carried us more forcefully down into the depths of the sea. Past schools of silver fish weaving in and out of pocked reefs of coral and porous sponge. Flatter, skinnier fish laced through emerald seaweed that swayed with the current, dusted in sparkling flecks of sand. The lower the funnel shot us, the clearer and colder the water became.
But now my lungs were on fire. I had to suck in a breath, to ease the burning, the pressure building in my chest. Leigh was the epitome of calm, watching two sea turtles pass us by, reaching to touch their marbled backs. She had to be breathing just fine. And I trusted Mari, didn’t I? Still, I was terrified that gulp of air on the ship had been my last.
It didn’t matter. I couldn’t hold out another minute, not another second
—
My lungs—
My chest ached.
Slowly—ever so slowly—I inhaled through my nose. The water
dissolved as I breathed in pure oxygen. I tried again. A tentative mouthful of briny ocean water this time. But I was met with the same result. No matter how much water I took in, by the time it reached my lungs it had
evaporated into air. I breathed deeply and swam with more confidence through the sheer tunnel of glasslike water, my limbs loosening with each inhalation.
The sea around us grew dark as ink as we dove toward the ocean floor. Pearly shells had lost the glint of the sun above, and I couldn’t tell the color of the starfish or anemones that lay still in the sandy depths. We swam faster—I wasn’t sure if the tunnel was only made of water, or some more protective magic, but I wasn’t going to wait around and find out between the jaws of a shark.
The funnel fed us through a rocky, pitch-black cave. Finally, Leigh’s fingers squeezed mine with unmistakable fear, the crescents of her nails digging into the back of my hand. I tried to squeeze back in reassurance, but we could no longer see the ship’s other passengers ahead of us, and the water had grown so cold my teeth were chattering.
I wanted out now, too.
I wanted clean, real air in my lungs. My chest was trembling, from cold or alarm I couldn’t tell.
We rushed through the water at a breakneck pace, so fast I realized it wasn’t our swimming. It was the funnel . . . purging us. Drowning in pitch- black darkness, I could feel the pressure of it in my eardrums, pushing into my eye sockets and popping in my jaw. Leigh’s hand was slipping from mine, the suction of the water tearing us from each other. I strained for her, clawed at her, sucking in strange salty air, eyes sealed shut by sheer force, choking on—
We tumbled onto a hot bed of sand with a splat. The grains ripped at my knees and cheeks, my dress whipped up in a frenzy, my hair a web I could barely see through.
But I sucked in a lungful of warm air. Fresh air. Real air.
And the heat was dry and gentle, different from the oppressive humidity and floral breeze of Peridot—different from anything I had ever felt. Leigh had landed on top of me, her elbow implanted in my windpipe. Any fear that spiked inside me was washed away by her childlike giggle.
Knowing she was unscathed, I scooped her off me and righted myself, depositing her onto warm sand, before I spat the grains back onto the beach from where they had come. Unsatisfied, I wiped my tongue on the rough wool of my sleeve.
“Woah,” Leigh breathed.
I took in the long, sandy stretch of land before me, bordered by a bustling harbor of vivid blue. Ships of every shape and size—sailboats and tugboats and dinghies—adorned the crush of turquoise waves, milling about and narrowly passing by one another. The harbor was bustling. Men and women shouted from boat to boat, lazing their feet in the water, playing instruments, dropping anchors. It was overwhelming, the sounds, the textures, the brightness, after almost two weeks on a silent, bleak ship. There were more people in this harbor alone than had been in all of Abbington.
I could scarcely wrap my mind around the fact that despite the sun shining overhead, the mountains in the distance, and the ocean that stretched beyond, we were thousands of feet below the sea. Mermagic, indeed.
When I stood, my knees were still wobbly from inertia, but Leigh had already taken off toward the shoreline to feel the crystalline water.
I didn’t know why it bothered me.
Taking care of Leigh was my privilege. She was my sister, and I would take a thousand lashes for her.
And yet, I was on edge. I didn’t want to have eyes on her at all times. To have to tug her back from the sandy shores, lest another unprecedented tragedy befall her. I didn’t have the energy to tether her to my side, and make sure she was safe, and fed, and looked after.
Kane was right. You’re pathetic. And selfish. A pitiful excuse for a sister
—
A stinging on my leg pulled my attention downward and I lifted my
skirts to see droplets of red dripping down onto the sand. I had skinned my knee in the tumble in from the funnel. I ran my fingers across the abrasion and tried once again to draw from the air and sun around me.
A glimmer—just a tingle—fizzed at my fingertips. Thank the Stones.
Blessedly, my skin weaved back together, forcing out little pebbles and grains of sand that had been embedded in the flesh.
On our journey to Citrine, I had tried to do that countless times. Late at night in my cramped bunk, I had prayed to feel the light and wind and air pour through my fingertips. To harness whatever unchecked power had poured out of me after my mother’s death. Just a little—to light a single candle or blow a door shut with a strong gust. But nothing had happened. Not even a spark.
Well, valuable lesson learned: use your lighte to obliterate a Fae army, expect to wait weeks for it to regenerate.
Turning back to the flat, tan beach, I witnessed the rest of the ship’s passengers sprawl along the sand, slowly dust debris off their clothes, and pull themselves to stand. We looked like a parade of dreary mourners in our dark heavy skirts and furs, compared to all the light, flimsy dresses—cream and blush and tangerine—in the distance. Down the textured bank stood Kane, Griffin, and Amelia, not a grain of sand out of place. I walked over to them, my boots trudging across the uneven ground.
“Is there some secret to the funnel that none of us were told?” I gestured to all the coughing passengers, sand woven through their hair and clothes, women wringing their skirts out, before I found more sand in my own braid. As I dusted it from my hair, Kane’s gaze dragged over me with amusement. “Just practice. We’ve learned to land on our feet. You all right,
bird?”
My hands froze on my braid and we both turned pale at his use of the pet name. He hadn’t said it since . . .
“Sorry,” he mumbled before stalking off.
I drew in a breath that tasted of salt water and pine trees.
“You really did a number on him.” Amelia’s eyes fell to me. “It’s almost impressive.”
Then she was walking, too.
I shook the tension from my shoulders and I called to Leigh, still at the water’s edge. When she ignored me, I called again, more insistent this time, until she darted over, kicking sand in her wake.
There were about forty of us who had escaped from Siren’s Bay— mostly Peridot nobles and their families, as well as a few soldiers. I could only hope more had survived by fleeing to other cities through the rain forest. Though, now that the kingdom was in Amber’s control under Lazarus, no city would be safe for those who were still loyal to Eryx and his daughter.
I couldn’t see any of Azurine past the large expanse of cypress trees we walked toward, but from what I could tell, the Kingdom of Citrine was nautical and bright, lusciously serene, and brimming with the intoxicating scent of citrus and olive and fig. Warm turquoise water ringed a radiant coastline of pines and limestone cliffs, with whitewashed villas built into them and gulls flapping overhead in a cloudless sky.
Along with the rest of the passengers, I followed closely behind Griffin’s towering form, Leigh’s hand in mine, as we came to a driftwood-and-rope bridge built over a rock-strewn portion of beach that cut through the aromatic trees and I assumed into the city’s center. We crossed it, single file, passing through the needled trees until we were deposited into a bright, sunny sandstone plaza.
A scream sounded in my ears, and I didn’t have time to wonder if it had been my own as someone leveled a gleaming scimitar at my throat.
