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I plunged into cold water, the salt of it searing my mouth. It entered my ears, stung at my eyes, reached down my nostrils and my throat. I remembered but could no longer understand what it meant to breathe. I fell, and I sank, my skin and blood like ice. Tiamat blinked, and the sun went out.
Chapter 17
I gasped, breath and memory returning to my body all at once. I turned on my side, retching and panting, my insides burning with salt water. My back was cold, my clothes still wet. I was spread over stone, in a puddle of water.
The realm of the Great Beasts?
My eyes flew open and I scrambled backwards, my vision still blurry and barely registering the hints that I was no longer in Tiamat’s domain. The lights here were orange, like hazy circles of flame, and the atmosphere darker. It was warmer, too. And above all, it was quiet. Blissfully quiet. We were back in the Boneyard.
“You’re safe now,” Carver’s voice said.
Something soft fell across my back. A towel, it felt like. I heard Asher’s voice murmuring quiet, indistinct reassurances in my ear, small, sweet variations of “You’re fine,” and “You’re okay.”
I blinked hard, my eyes still stinging from seawater, my hair feeling stiff and crusty with salt. I shrugged, finding that my enchanted knapsack was still strapped to my back, when I remembered.
“V?” I cried out. “Vanitas. I left him behind.”
“Right here,” his voice grumbled in my head. It didn’t matter to me precisely where right here was, as long as it meant that we were still in the same dimension. “Safe and sound.”
“We saw you fall.” It was Prudence’s voice this time. Her boots scraped in the stone as she knelt and pressed a hand into my shoulder. My eyes were feeling better. Her face, similarly damp from seawater, her hair clinging wetly to her forehead, was a welcome sight. “We were worried about you, Dust.”
“I tried to catch you.” Past her shoulder, Bastion was sitting cross-legged, soaked to the bone, his skin crisscrossed with fine scratches, the floor around him darker and wet. “I tried to grab you when Tiamat picked you up, too.” I could hear the defeat in his voice. Quietly, he added: “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I heard myself say. “We’re all fine. And Gil?”
“Heading to the shower,” Gil said from somewhere behind me. “This is one wet dog you don’t want to smell.”
Prudence smiled tightly at me, then wrinkled her nose. “He’s right. Trust me.”
Carver sighed from somewhere above me. “I trust that things did not go as planned.”
I sniffled, rubbing under my nose. “You could say that. The short version is that the Great Beasts attacked us pretty much on sight, and the only one who was open to doing any talking basically spent her time berating me. Well, us. Humanity, that is. They refused to help.”
Carver sighed again, this time deeper, somehow even more disappointed. “Then it was a fool’s errand. A waste of gemstones, and of time.” The soles of his shoes clicked on the floor as he approached. “But I am very glad to know that you’ve all returned safely.”
His voice was kind when he said that, understanding, even. I suppose we really shouldn’t have expected much, considering our lead was Loki, of all people. Then again, it wasn’t entirely his fault, either. I scoffed, rubbing the back of my neck. What did we really expect, going up to the agents of the apocalypse, to the world-enders of mythology themselves, to ask them for help? A fool’s errand didn’t even begin to describe things. But you win some, you lose some.
I twisted the end of my towel into my ear, blotting away the last of the water, then engaged a small, steadily burning ball of invisible heat in my palm. I couldn’t wield dragonfire, Tiamat said – I didn’t deserve to, were her actual words – but I had a nice, effective magical method of drying my own clothes, and that was good enough for me.
“Glad to be alive,” I told Carver. “And glad to be back.” Banjo’s head poked out from between his legs. I smiled, despite myself. It was good to know that the little mutt was okay, too.
I ran my open palm along my body, sighing at the comforting pulse of heat as it pulled the moisture from my clothes. Those were going in the washing machine regardless, unless I wanted salt crystals building up in my nether regions. Plus I’d need a shower soon enough. I wasn’t quite as hairy as Gil was, even in his human form, but I knew I didn’t exactly smell like a rose patch.
“So did you guys pick anything up from Agatha’s brooch?” I glanced at Bastion. His gaze was still stuck on the floor. “At least tell us that we have a win.”
“Ah,” Carver said. “We were just about to begin. Now that you’ve returned, the three of you may as well attend and assist with the scrying. More arcane energy couldn’t hurt.”
“Not a matter of too many cooks spoiling the broth, then?” Romira smiled when I looked up at the sound of her voice. She was standing over what appeared to be a cauldron, made completely out of the same stone that composed the rest of the Boneyard. “Soup’s on, by the way.”
I clambered unsteadily to my feet, my curiosity overtaking the ache of exhaustion in my bones. Romira planted both her hands on the rim of the enormous cauldron. Either it wasn’t all that hot, or her affinity for fire magic gave her a kind of protection against it. But as I approached, I saw that there was no steam rising from the vessel, no flame burning underneath it either. I peered in.
The cauldron was holding some sort of liquid, only a little thicker than water, enough that running a finger across it might create more than a slight ripple. There was a faint bluish tinge to the not-water, enough of it that I knew that keeping my hands away was a safe bet.
“It is, in fact, clean water, only infused with a large quantity of arcane energy,” Carver said, as if reading my mind. “Dustin, Bastion, Prudence. You need only grip the edge of the cauldron when we perform the scrying. There’s no need to worry. There is no pain involved in the process.”
Asher walked up to join us, and six pairs of hands came to rest around the outside of the cauldron, forming us into a natural, if small circle.
“Romira and I already made some preparations,” Asher said, nodding at her and somehow avoiding his propensity to blush. “All we need now is Agatha’s brooch.”
