I glanced back at him, expecting to see his eyes dancing in the flame light, but he appeared quite serious.
“That doesn’t give me confidence.”
He didn’t feel like a monster when he’d repaired my spectacles and placed them carefully on my nose, nor when he’d handed me the book on fae magic.
Or when he’d been tangled together with me this morning.
Are you a monster? Is that how you see yourself?
The stairway ended abruptly, though the torches kept going.
“It looks like a cliff,” I said, peering over the edge. There was only darkness below, with the occasional shimmer of light in the distance, bouncing off the flames.
Kiyan leaned forward and sniffed the air. “There’s water below.”
“Can you use your magic on it?” I turned to him.
“I can call on what’s inside it, but only if I’m touching it. And I can’t conjure plant life here, because we are too far underground. With my old powers, maybe. But not with my limited ones.”
“Can you tell if anything is in it now?”
He closed his eyes, whispering softly under his breath, placing his hand along the cavern wall, connecting to the condensation that spiraled down to the water. The torchlight flickered across the hard planes of his face.
He looked much less harsh when he wasn’t scowling at me or giving me suspicious glares. When his eyes were closed, I was uncomfortably reminded of how beautiful he was—like one of the ancient statues I helped the Citadel unearth, carved from rock, unforgiving.
“There’s something, but it won’t speak to me. Or can’t. But it’s hard to determine when I’m not in the water.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
Kiyan peered over the edge. “We don’t really have any other option. I can’t conjure plant life in here. There might be some I can speak to in the water, but it is too far away. Can you swim?”
“Of course I can swim, if it’s necessary.”
“It’s necessary. We’ll have to jump.”
I gaped at him. “We can’t jump down there!”
“What else do you suggest we do?”
I peered over the edge. Across the dark expanse, torchlight lit up the other side of the cavern, looking like the continuation of the corridor. It seemed as though the path kept going on the other side of the underground lake; we just had to swim to it.
“There’s a reason I never liked swimming,” I muttered, clenching and unclenching my hands. This was no different than me plummeting into a bottomless cavern filled with perilous spikes.
Which was what I was afraid of.
The black surface of the water shimmered, and it looked fathomless. But despite the unknown, there wasn’t a pair of eyes staring back at me from the lake.
I shored myself up, preparing to jump into the darkness.
“Okay, I think I can do it. I’ll jump.” I darted a look at him. “But I might need you to do it with me.”
He rolled his eyes. “We can jump together.” His hand found mine, and my fingers were swallowed by his palm, firm and unyielding. The panic in my chest eased. I took off my spectacles and folded them carefully in my pocket.
“I’m ready.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” he said sarcastically.
“One, two—”
