Blood rushes between my ears. We’re running out of time.
The baron’s body curves over Sira’s, a crescent moon devouring the night. “Very good. Soon, we will be united. Your world, our home. And you shall have whatever you desire.”
The Baron waves a hand, and sparks of green flash behind Sira, forming the outline of wings. Sira looks over her shoulder, a delighted smile on her face.
Suddenly, they fall, sizzling on the wet ground.
The baron turns and strides back to the middle of the pool. “My presence is needed elsewhere. Worlds beyond this one require my dominion.”
Sira smooths a wrinkle in her skirt. “Very well. I must prepare for the coming revelry. All shall gaze upon the triumph of their creator.”
The baron’s body shivers like a lake caught in a rainstorm. “As soon they will gaze upon the triumph of their conqueror.” With that, he dissipates back into the pool.
Heart thumping and blood rushing, I have to hold my breath as Sira turns and strides out of the chamber. I stay pressed against the crystal until long after her footsteps drift away. Even after I hear the groan of the secret door at the end of the passageway open and close, I force myself to count to one hundred before I move.
The chamber’s gone dark besides the few lanterns, the pool having lost its luminous green glow. What did the Baron say? His presence is required elsewhere?
He’s gone. For now.
I wring my cloak in my hands. Just as we feared. Sira is going to siphon my mother’s magic all at once. How much time do we have? And what did all that mean, the talk of tethers?
I drift over to the pool. It doesn’t look unusual. The baron can’t be everywhere at once. And if he’s disappeared for now?—
WherehadSira gone? She couldn’t have held her breath all that time.
There’s something down there.
I snap my fingers over the water. No response. Gingerly, I lean down and dip a finger in. It’s cool and clear.
There’s no telling when the Baron will be back or if my absence at the castle will be noted. I came to the Below for a reason, so there’s no point deliberating it.
I take a deep breath and dive in.
32
Rosalina
Down, down, down, I swim into the deep. The water is chillingand so dark I cannot even see my hands in front of me. What am I looking for? The bottom? What if there isn’t one, and I swim until my lungs burst? Or what if the Baron returns and bewitches me with promises like he did Farron?
There’s nothing he can offer me that I cannot claim for myself, I think.My home, my loved ones’ safety—I will make it so by my own hands.
My chest burns and my legs ache from kicking. I should have followed Sira’s example and taken off my cloak, but the idea of being parted from it was too much.
I need to turn around before my lungs burst, but I’ve gone too far. There’s no way I’ll make it back to the surface before my air runs out. Stupid, stupid, stupid?—
My hand hits something. Not the bottom.
Open air.
A current grips my body, and I’mpulleddownward, where I plunge out of the water. I free-fall, gasping for breath and screaming at the same time. I smack hard against stone, jostled and bruised.
With a groan, I sit up and blink the water from my eyes. Above me, impossibly suspended in midair, is a vast pool of black water. Not held in a basin or glass, just floating. Waves ripple across its surface.
Is that the Baron’s pool? Then where am I?
I spin in a circle. I’m in a dark, cavernous chamber, not unlike the one I came from. The only light comes from veins of gemlight threading through the rock—faint and bluish, like moonlight filtered through deep water. It flickers, as if unsure it wants to reveal what waits in the shadows.
Two towering obelisks rise on either side of me, jagged and black as midnight. They hum, low and deep. Though similar to the broken crystals above, these pulse with a different type of magic. A magic I’m more familiar with.
