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He shakes his head. “Come here.” Before I can listen, he pulls me to him in an embrace. “Just stay right next to me. Now sit.”
It’s awkward trying to do it with him clinging to me, but we manage. Each inch we descend, the water becomes more and more irresistible. I’m so anxious, so tired of everything—the water promises relief from all of it.
When it reaches my waist, I cannot help it anymore.
I let it in.
And with Riden’s face right next to mine, the siren doesn’t even surface. She stays far away, just where I want her. I let my head sink under the water, and Riden, as though sensing that it’s me the whole time, lets me go.
After maybe a minute of resting on the tub’s base, I return to the surface, step from the tub, pull the water into myself, and smile.
“Again.”
After a few more tries with the same results, Mandsy and Sorinda leave the room. I don’t need them. Riden is the key.
I dry myself off again after the fifth time and toss Riden a towel. He tousles his hair with it, wrings his clothes out over the tub.
“All this time,” I say as I lace back on a corset, “I just needed you to come along and keep me human.”
“Why do you think that is?”
I don’t know yet. Maybe I’m not ready to know yet. Not with danger looming so close.
Danger so close.
The fleet is close.
The fleet will have water.
“Riden, I have an idea.”
Chapter 18
ITALK WITH NIRIDIAand Riden in private. “I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up in case this doesn’t work.”
“The crew needs hope right now,” Niridia says. “How about if I tell them after you’ve gone?”
She knows that I don’t want to face them. Not after I took away their chance at water. I don’t want to offer a new one. How much will they hate me if it doesn’t work?
“All right,” I answer. Then I turn to Riden. “Are you comfortable with this?”
“I’m willing to try if you are,” he says.
“Then let’s be off.”
The two of us approach the gap in the railing, the one usedfor climbing down to board the rowboats. We step up to the edge, peer down into that blue abyss. Probably thousands of feet deep. It is such a scary mystery, the ocean.
I look at Riden nervously.
“It’ll be the same as in the tub,” he says.
“It had better be.”
Behind us, the crew must be watching, curious as to what we’re up to.
“This is your last chance to—” I start.
He wraps his arms around me, and we fall.
