Page 137 of A Thief Among Fae

I look at the runes inscribed on the wall before me. My heart thunders as I realize I have no idea what they mean. I may know Old Avedoran, but I’ve never seen these runes before. “I don’t know. I’ll have to tell you what they look like. The first is two touching triangles.”

A beat of silence passes. He’s probably thinking the same thing I am—my lack of knowledge might kill us. “That’s birth,” he says. “The next?”

“An X. The third is a single vertical line.”

“The riddle says one sees and the other hears. Maybe I need to align my wheels to your symbols.”

It’s worth a try. Anything is when we’re minutes away from drowning. “Do it!”

Desmond groans as he turns his largest wheel. He has to hold his breath and sink beneath the surface to read the runes on the other two. My teeth are chattering; the water has reached my chest. The current threatens to throw me toward the grate, and I grip the largest wheel with my numb fingers so I don’t get swept away.

He breaks the surface and gasps. “They’re aligned.”

I hope for a click, some sign that we’ve completed half of the puzzle, but nothing happens. Maybe nothing is meant to happen until my wheels are also aligned. I have to hope. The water is at my collarbone, and I don’t know how much longer I can hold on as the water swirls toward the grate.

“First is a vertical line with a triangle facing right at its top!” he shouts. “The middle rune is a tilted X, the first line slashing left to right and the second one vertical.”

Holding my breath, I pull myself beneath the surface. My trembling fingers slip on the wet stone, and I clench it until my bones feel like they’ll snap. My eyes burn as I keep them open. Every instinct inside me screams to swim to the surface. I force my panic down into a box and lock it. I turn the smallest wheel with my magic, the strain and cold making me dizzy.

Bubbles escape my nose as I turn the middle wheel. Then I climb up the largest wheel, gasping as my mouth finds air. “The large wheel?” I yell over the roaring torrent.

“Two mountain-like shapes nestled into each other.” His voice trembles. He’s clinging to the wheels, his shoulders violently shaking.

Nestled into each other? “Describe it more!”

“Arrow heads without the shaft, facing opposite ways. The right is lower than the left, tucked into it.”

I can’t picture the rune. It doesn’t help that the frigid cold has seeped into me. I can no longer feel my limbs.

“It’s a rectangle at an angle, its two L-shaped halves broken apart and slid toward each other!”

I’ll know it when I see it. I have to believe that. If my feet were touching the floor, the water would be at my neck.

Please, Elowyn. Let this work.

My magic thrums through me with every gasp, turning the wheel as I hold on. The runes on this one are still above the water, thank the gods, and it takes two turns to find the rune I think he’s describing. “Done!” I scream, my cold body shuddering so hard every breath is a gasp.

The water doesn’t stop. The slab doesn’t lift.

We’ve gotten a rune wrong.

Panic bursts inside me, breaking free of the box I shoved it into. It devours me. We’re going to drown. We’re going to die here and the draugr will feast on our bodies and⁠—

“Cynthia!” Desmond yells. “Deep breaths! Do not panic. We will survive this.”

How can I believe him? The water has risen above the largest wheel, maybe five feet left between the surface and the ceiling.

“Are the two triangles on your wall touching in the middle like wings or up and down like an hourglass?”

I drag my gaze to the wall. The white, angry froth of the water has covered it. “Like wings, I think!”

He swears. “It’s dawn, not birth! I turned the small wheel to the wrong symbol.”

Dread threatens to stop my pulse, if the cold doesn’t first. He’ll have to dive to reach it.

Four feet of air above us. The water is too high to hold onto the wheels and stay above the surface. I let go, and the current throws me against the grate, my back hitting it with a pain that vibrates through my head. My fingers shake, so numb that they refuse to grip the bars.

I hear him gasp. He’s diving down.