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“Run when we touch water,” Iggy said. “Beatrice? If you would hold my arm . . . Hexen, grab hold of the faery.Flow.”
I felt like I did when I was under a spell, and I realized that I’d made an apprentice vow to him. He was using that to ease my fears.
I couldn’t say if he was compelling me or not, but either way, I was obeying his wishes. Drowning was high on my “been there, done that, not interested in round two” list, so if his compulsion helped me push past that, it wasn’t a bad thing.
“Yes,” I agreed, taking Eli’s hand in mine.
Then Iggy nodded, and the last of the earth between us and the sea was scooped away.
The sea poured into the tunnel with a roar, filling it, surrounding us.
The churning water was impossible to see through, but I ran. Iflowedinto the sea as if it was flat ground atop the earth.
My body was slower, sluggish, and the cold cut at me as if it was stealing the last of my reserves.
“Do not pause.” Beatrice’s voice was imperious in my mind,
I wasn’t entirely sure how to obey, but Eli’s hand in mine tightened. I took another step, moving as quickly as I could under the water. My other hand still held the stone-but-beating heart.
I couldn’t tell how many minutes, meters, or miles passed, but eventually, my energy finally vanished—or perhaps the hex that Iggy had drawn wasn’t enough.
I went surging to the surface, mouth open like a gasping fish on the edge of death. For a flicker of a moment, I thought I would not stay afloat, that I would sink and drown, but Eli caught my hand as unconsciousness threatened.
A darkness waited at the edge of my eyes.
“Can he see us?” I managed between deep breaths. “Chester?”
“No.” Eli looked across the sea. We were far from any land, and while I was grateful to not be facing Chester, I wasn’t entirely sure that drowning or being eaten by some great creature under the sea was ideal either. Honestly, the last couple days had more than erased the calm I’d found the last few months.
In front of us, several field-lengths away, Iggy surfaced, treading water, holding the not-dead-or-alive woman. Beatrice, looking far from amused, was at his side. She motioned us forward.
“I can’t go back under there,” I confessed.
Eli nodded, and without another word, he began to swim, dragging my exhausted body—and the weight of the weapons I still wasn’t willing to surrender—behind him.
We alternated between swimming and floating for what felt like hours.
Eventually, Iggy glanced at the sky. “Hoy is nearby.”
“Hoy?”
“Island. Not crowded.” Iggy was panting too, now. “Perhaps three hundred souls in all . . .”
No one spoke again, but I felt like I was the only person who had no idea what or where Hoy was. All things considered, it wasn’t shocking. I’d only lived a couple decades. Beatrice was centuries old. Iggy . . . honestly, I had no idea. Eli . . . we didn’t discuss it.
I took a steadying breath and said, “Are we faster under or over the water?”
No one answered.
So we carried on, swimming and resting until we reached Hoy.
Eventually, we dragged our soggy selves to shore at what Iggy called “Braebister Mound.” Honestly, it looked like what the largest structure area at Skara Brae might’ve been if the tops of the buildings were not ripped open by humans or sea.
“It’s a mound.” I stared at it. “Not exactly the luxury digs one dreams of after escaping underground and running under the waves into the sea.”
“There’s a passageway,” Iggy pronounced, earning a quirked brow from Eli.
No one asked how Iggy knew, but I was fairly sure that asking would’ve been met by silence anyhow. No one here was eager to spill secrets, and I could respect that.
