The female grabbed my boots, her weight pulling at me. My fingers slid down the rope, scraping and burning, but I clung to it frantically.
A monster lunged up toward her, mouth open wide.
Kiegan abandoned the rope to grab my arm, hauling us both upward with brute strength. My shoulder burned, my fingers nearly slipped, but somehow, we made it.
We collapsed together on the narrow platform, gasping.
“Thanks,” I managed.
“Don’t be impressed,” Kiegan panted. “Sera just wants to be one of Fieran’s picks for Bismyth. She’s smarter than the rest.”
Sera flashed me another grin, feral and bright. “Do they really not see how he looks at you?”
If only that look weren’t a lie.
I pushed up to my hands and knees. The platform was not large; I’d seen from below there were several more layers stacked on top of us, each spreading above us like a tree. There was room for the three of us and a trunk with the lid thrown open.
Sera joined me. There was a pile of golden coins and bejeweled trinkets inside. “Kiegan already found the bows and arrows for us, and I got a knife. Are there any other weapons?”
“I don’t see any. What is all of this?” It was enough riches to change my family’s whole life back in Stonehaven.
“It’s a trap, not a prize,” Kiegan warned. “People will weigh themselves down. It’s a good way to drown.”
I sifted through what was left for a weapon, then gave up. I raked my fingers one last time through the coins. I wasn’t stupid; I didn’t take a single one. But I still ached to let them go.
The slats beneath us shuddered.
All three of us froze.
“Climb!” Kiegan shouted. He raced for one of the posts holding up the tower. Sera and I did the same, the three of us each grabbing one of the posts.
And the platform began to fall. Slats pulled away from the floor, one board at a time falling away. I clung to the post, my feet almost slipping as a board bucked beneath my feet. I clung to the post frantically, and when the board was gone, my feet found the thin frame for the floor—as narrow as my heel. I balanced, grimacing.
Then the floor was gone, revealing the roiling, bloodthirsty sea. My heels hung over the expanse of air and distant water, and I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling a rise of panic.
In the distance, there were screams, and I caught glimpses of other shifters falling from the platforms.
Steady heart, still a chance.
But the wind was grabbing and pushing at me, so cold and fierce that my muscles spasmed in my wet clothes. There were no grips on the straight posts that Kiegan and Sera had climbed; it would take my sheer strength to keep from plummeting back into the sea.
Kiegan had already reached the next platform. “Cara, you’ve got to climb.”
Sera leaned down beside him. “Pick up the pace, mortal. Once we get to the top, we can take the ropes across to the other towers.”
I followed her gaze. There were ropes that swung between the towers, slack and rippling in the wind, so high above the water that a fall would break bones. I’d barely managed to scale the ropes at all.
The truth was, I’d slow Kiegan and Sera. Maybe cost them their chance.
“Just get across,” I said. “Stop the game.”
“It’s not that easy,” Sera said. “They’ll keep breaking the course until we end those monsters.”
“Then get across it before the ropes snap. I can’t keep up.”
Kiegan cursed. “I’ll climb back down and help you up.”
“And make me look even weaker in front of the stands?” I shook myhead. “I’ll be all right. Go. Maybe I’ll figure out a way to deal with those sea snakes.”
