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“We most certainly are not going to perish here, Thomas.”
His eyes glistened with emotion. He truly thought there was no way out of this. My heart sank faster than my skirts as the water lapped at my waist. He was the master at seeing the impossible. If he were giving up, then we were…
“Thomas—” A memory of Professor Radu’s lecture slammed into my chest at the same time uncontrollable shudders took over our bodies. “Feed the dragon!” I shouted, dodging a stream of water as another spigot opened above us. Water was rushing in so fast it was now covering the altar. “That’s got to be the key!”
“Where is this mysterious dragon we need to feed, Wadsworth?”
“I-I—”
Thomas didn’t wait for a response. He scooped me into his arms and deposited me on the altar, dragging himself up a moment later. More frigid water rained down on us as if we’d landed on an abandoned island in the middle of a monsoon. At best, we had minutes before the water reached the ceiling. My vision threatened to go black at the edges. Being buried alive was always a scary thought; dying in a watery grave was something I never knew to fear. Emotions rolled through me, crashing against my thoughts. Hypothermia was close, its effects already clouding my mind.
Thomas’s lips were already turning a slight blue as he trembled beside me. If the water didn’t kill us, the cold certainly would. Where was the dragon? It had seemed like an inspired idea moments before…
Thomas pulled me toward him, lifting me up as the water reached my chin.
“S-stay w-with me, Wadsworth.”
He stood a good head taller than me and was using his height to offer me extra time before I gulped water. I wanted to cry, bury my face in his neck, and tell him how sorry I was that I had dragged him here, to this horrid tunnel on this ridiculous adventure. Who cared if we were the ones to find the Impaler or the Order? I should have brought my theories to the headmaster. The royal guards should have been scouring these tunnels, not us.
“Thomas…” I spat water out, suddenly eager to unleash all my secrets. “L-listen, C-Cresswell,” I said between chattering teeth, “there’s something I-I have to tell you. I—”
“S-stop, Wadsworth. No l-last-minute confessions a-allowed. We’re going to get out of this.” Water slid down my cheeks and I shook my head. Thomas cupped my chin and looked fiercely into my eyes, his hands frozen. “F-focus. Don’t give up. Use that alluring brain of yours to find Radu’s dragon and get us out of here. You can do this, Audrey Rose.”
“There are no such things as dragons!” I screamed, dropping my face onto his shoulder.
I was so cold I wanted to curl up and float away. I wanted the pain in my limbs to recede. I wanted to give up. I stared at the altar under our feet, eyes blurring with unshed tears as the shape beneath us swam into focus. We were standing on the solution.
A dragon nearly the entire size of the altar was carved onto its top. Its mouth was wide open, showing off teeth made of stone that appeared sharp enough to slice through skin.
“I found it!”
“H-how… f-fascinating,” Thomas said, his body and voice both wracked with shudders. “W-we have a table like this in our home in Bucharest. Except our dragon is less…s-sneering. I n-named him H-Henri.”
I cut a sharp glance in his direction. He was near convulsions. I needed to move quickly. I wrestled out of his iron grip and tilted my head back as far as it would go, then took a deep breath and submerged myself. I kicked toward the carving, not having to work too hard as my clothing acted as an anchor. I shoved my finger into the dragon’s mouth and dragged it across the stone tooth, wincing as blood blossomed in the water.
My heart tapped out an anxious rhythm. Something gave way a little, the dragon’s teeth receding ever so slightly. A trapdoor cracked open in the stone floor, allowing some water to escape, but not enough. I tugged again but the teeth refused to give further. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. Nothing ever was.
I needed to breathe. I tried kicking my way back to the surface, but my layers proved too heavy. Panic seeped in as I flailed underwater, air bubbles streaming out around me. I wanted to scream for help but couldn’t risk losing more air.
When I thought I’d come to the last of my breath, Thomas yanked me up, wiping soggy strands of hair from my face as I gasped and nearly vomited. He made sure I was all right before swimming down to the trapdoor, trying to wrench it open. I took a deep breath and followed, hoping our combined might would work. We twisted and tugged to no avail.
Thomas clutched my shaking hand in his own, and we kicked up toward the remaining air. As we broke its surface water rained down on us—now sloshing past our chins—and I caught the exact moment Thomas resigned himself to our doom.
He drew in a ragged breath, one that might have arisen from hypothermia setting in or from the realization that we were staring down our final moments. I had never seen him without a plan before. He fixed me with the kind of stare that seemed to memorize my every feature. His thumbs caressed the apples of my cheeks. Water covered my mouth and I lifted my face higher. I knew this was it. These were the last moments of my life. Regret filled me with immeasurable sorrow. There was so much I hadn’t done, so much I’d left unsaid.
“Audrey Rose, I—” Panic raged behind his normally measured gaze. I could barely make out the garble of his words as the water rushed over my ears.
Straining to lift my face above the water, I gasped in a final gulp of air.
“Audrey Rose!”
Thomas’s plea was forgotten the second the room quaked. A sharp crack echoed off the chamber walls as the ground beneath us split wide open. He grabbed for me, shouting something I couldn’t hear over the deafening noise. As quickly as the water burst out from the walls and ceiling, it tunneled down even faster in a giant whirlpool, yanking us along with it.
I reached for Thomas’s outstretched hand, screaming as water ripped us apart.
We were sucked into a hole that swept both our words and our bodies away.
CRYPT
