Sol looked beneath her. She sat on a wooden raft. It was more like a long, thick mass of plywood, really, but it was big enoughthat the oddity had to be intentional in its design. It was absent of edges and any semblance of functionality. She tried to move, to stand, or at least sway to the side, but nothing gave.
“Don’t. Move.”
Cattya’s voice was directly behind her. Sol’s breath hitched as she tried to pull herself forward—then couldn't.
Her wrists were bound behind her back and against what felt like a post. Beneath her, her ankles were also bound with— “Copper shackles,” Sol whispered.
Cattya scoffed. “Lucky time to be Unsettled.”
Sol snapped her head to the side. Jonah and Phil rested against a post as well, bound and visibly weak.
She looked to her other side.
Cas and Cade were bound to each other similarly, but as Cas simply stared out at the sea, Cade seemed like he might flood continents if released. “This is fucking stupid. Who does Semmena think he is?” the man yelled, struggling against his shackles. “Drugging us and tossing us out to the middle of the Helian Ocean without magic? They didn’t even give us any instructions.”
Sol racked her brain for anything she ate that could have contained a sedative so strong, especially one she hadn’t sensed.
She knew the chocolate pastries had been too good to be true.
“In my experience, pushing against the cuffs only makes it worse, Lane,” Cas said. “It also is greatly testing my patience.”
“If you had any common sense, Cade.” Cattya shifted against the post, tugging the shackles tighter against Sol’s wrists. “It’s obvious the goal is to get the fuck away from the Jinn gate.”
The evaporated mental haze Sol fought with had been replaced with a severely calm sort of panic. “What did you say?”
Cattya moved sideways slightly, and Sol peered over her shoulder. “Take a look at what you should be guarding right now, Princess.”
Sol didn’t have to see the thing fully to know it was terrifying. The Jinn gate had been a story until now, a promise she would have to deal with in the future.
But there it was.
At first glance, it was only a lonely, bare island. It didn’t seem too long to walk fully across, didn’t seem menacing at all, in fact. Sand covered on its shores, and scattered trees the color of rotting wood spread along the edges of it. Sol lifted her chin slightly, letting her see inland as the wooden raft they sat on swayed with the waves.
Even from where she sat, she could see the wound in the land. It was as if the island imploded on itself, folding into the planet in a massive tear. From within the slash, blue smoke spread in a fog, a fog that still reached them from where they floated. No birds flew around the land. No sounds of animals. No jumping sea life.
It was all very… dead.
“They’re going to come to us any second,” Phil said, his voice almost calm. “And we won't be able to stop them.”
In fact, everyone around Sol seemed eerily calm, aside from Cade. It likely meant they had no hope of escaping.
“Okay, so what do we do?” Sol cataloged their problems. Copper. No magic, when it was perhaps the one trial they needed it in.
Cas hadn't so much as looked her way.
It was more an annoyance than a problem, she would admit— but the guilt of the night before was still something she needed to settle with him. Preferably before they died.
“Not much to do,” Jonah said. “Any sharp move from us and the Copper will seep into our blood. That’s a death sentence in itself.”Fuck.
“Okay, but it won’t kill me.” Sol pulled against the shackles, then stopped as Cattya wailed.
“You move, and it cuts me.” For once, the Fire Wielder sounded scared. “If the Jinn end up here, you’ll need me alive.”
Smart for the woman to remind Sol of that, since technically poisoning her with copper would get rid of a problem. But Sol had no intention of hurting the woman, not if she could help it. She wiggled her hands slightly. They weren’t bound too tight. If she could just squeeze one hand out??—
Slowly, and carefully, she straightened her hand, moving it side to side and hoping the sweat and humidity would help it slide out.
Even Cade was silent as she worked, as she tugged without moving the chains to avoid hurting Cattya.
