“Hey, big guy,” I rasp, forcing a grin through my exhaustion. “How about a lift? Think you could hoist up a bard?”
Fabien’s eyes widen with a flicker of realization before he nods. Without a word, he stoops, wraps his arms around my waist, and, with surprising gentleness, hoists me up as if I’m weightless. But I’m not. Once I’m perched on his shoulders, I feel the tremor running through him, the strain in his arms. It’s not strength holding me up—it’s sheer, stubborn determination.
“Steady, Fabien,” I murmur, trying to keep my own body steady. “Just a little closer.”
He shifts forward, his toes at the very edge of the pool that circles the pillar, but he can’t go any further. His whole body is tense, balanced at a precipice.
I stretch out my hand, pushing forward until my chest feels like it’s going to pop. But even with all the bending and reaching, my fingertips are still shy of the hourglass.
“It’s not enough,” Gypsy whispers, her voice breaking with something I rarely hear from her—doubt. I feel it too, that creeping sensation of ‘what if this is it?’
Is this the end? Really? Just like that?
“Come on, love,” Zayan tells her. “Let’s run one more time. It’s a short route.”
Her eyes flash, her eyebrows twitch. And then, right when I think she’s going to break, she nods.
After all this is over, I need to tell her she’s the most strong-willed person I know. She must have ran the most out of all of us. She’s not doing it out of revenge, love, or necessity.
No, she’s doing it because quitting just isn’t in her bones. That’s a rare kind of strength, the kind that doesn’t need a reason or reward.
What fuels someone when they’re not driven by passion or pain? What gives them wings, then? I swear, Miss Captain looks like an angel right now, one who’s carved her own wings out of sheer willpower.
“Get me down,” I mutter to Fabien, casting a glance her way. “We should run, too.”
But he just shakes his head. “No. If I get you down, I won’t be able to pick you up again. I’m too weak. You stay. They run.”
The way he says it… He’s not lying. He’s barely standing up. I can feel it. I can feel his heartbeat thudding through his chest, matching the rapid pace of my own.
“I need to do this. For my parents.”
God dammit, that heart of his. The longer I stick around, the more of it he shows.
I swallow hard. “Alright,” I tell him. “Let’s wait for them to come back.”
Gypsy and Zayan aren’t exactly sprinting at this point. No, their legs are dragging, as if the act of moving itself that becametoo difficult. I can almost feel the weight pulling them down, each step carving itself into the sand.
As they near the shore, scooping up the wet sand one last time, I find myself tightening my grip on Fabien’s shoulders. Everyone’s giving their all here; I’ll be damned if I’m the only one playing spectator. I reach up again, arm straining, hoping for just an inch more height to snag the edge of the hourglass.
“Come on,” I rasp out. “Just a little… bit… more…”
I’m so close I can almost taste it—just another inch and I’ll have that cursed glass in hand. But then, like a thunderclap, a scream shatters the moment. No, not just a scream—two sharp words slice through the air.
“Watch out!”
Gypsy. Her voice punches through my focus just as a wall of icy water smacks me dead in the chest, sending me tumbling off Fabien’s shoulders. Watch out. Right, would have loved to, but, uh… it seems it’s too late for that.
Because, naturally, a wave the height of four huge men crashes down, swallowing the entire island whole.
And me? Well, lucky as ever, I get caught right into the current.
35
Zayan
The current tosses my body back and forth. Or maybe it’s more than one current tearing me in every direction—hard to tell when all you can do is shut your eyes, hold your breath, and wait for the ocean to stop trying to grind you into pieces.
Pressure claws at my ears, and I realize the island we knew just moments ago is now somewhere beneath these waves. The land is gone.
