‘Time for a swim, recruits,’ Marquis says.
He steps out of his trousers first.
I look pointedly at the water as I shrug off my coat and pull my jumper over my head. The air is cold on my bare skin and I realise I’m standing in the most regrettable underwear possible, taken from a donation package provided by Hollingsworth back in London. I look anywhere but at Atlas. At the line of white birch-rod scars on my naked arm, and then at Serena, infuriatingly chic in the white brassiere she’s been hiding beneath her military uniform. The wound in her arm is almost healed.
We line up by the pool and as Atlas steps into the freezing water I sneak a glance at him. He’s skinnier than I thought he’d be, a lump of scar tissue knotted across his left shoulder. I study the curve of his bare arms and the dark hair at his navel. Serena is staring too. She catches my eye and smirks. I step into the pool. The glacial temperature cuts my breath short and my feet begin to burn.
‘Too cold,’ I hear Gideon gasp.
I force myself further into the water until I’m waist-deep, my body trembling uncontrollably.
Serena shivers beside me. ‘I don’t think I can.’
Gideon swears as Marquis dives suddenly, disappearing beneath the surface. We wait in silence until he re-emerges and takes several deep, desperate gasps.
‘There’s an entrance,’ he says, his teeth chattering.
Atlas wades in next to me. The tops of his thighs are bright red.
‘I’ll go first,’ Marquis says.
‘I’ll go with you,’ Serena says, wincing. ‘Someone needs tobe able to pull you out if you start to drown.’
I swallow. They dive one after the other and it’s just me, Atlas and Gideon left, standing in our underwear on the most dangerous island in Britannia.
‘What’s taking them so long?’ Gideon says.
‘It hasn’t even been a minute.’
‘And what’s the plan when we get in there? Provided we don’t get eaten.’
I blink. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Before anyone can answer, Marquis surfaces and Serena emerges next to him.
‘You only have to swim for a few seconds before the tunnel gets higher than the waterline,’ Marquis says, gasping again. ‘We’ll be able to breathe down there.’
‘All right,’ I say, feeling a swoop of dread. ‘Once we’re inside, I’ll try to convince the wyverns to let us stay. Then we have to get to know them. Whatever secret weapon Hollingsworth thinks they have should soon become clear if we befriend them.’
Atlas is nodding. ‘Once we have it, we get out. The rebels won’t be able to hold off the Bulgarians forever and the information we uncover could be crucial.’
I look around at them. ‘See you inside, then.’
I dip beneath the water. The cold freezes my brain and everything in me begs me to return to the surface. I open my eyes. The water is clear and Atlas’s face is in front of me, his cheeks bulging with air. I gesture at him to hold on to me and he nods, his hands settling on my waist. Then I follow Serena downwards towards a patch of dark water. Tiny silver fish trailing algae dart in and out of the cave entrance. I don’twant to go in, but if I hesitate we’ll run out of breath. I grip the rocky edge of the entrance and push us inside. I swim upwards, looking for the place where the ceiling gets higher, but my head hits solid rock. I immediately go dizzy with panic, but when Atlas’s feet meet the bottom of the tunnel, he pushes us forward. I can just make out Serena’s shape in front of me as she reaches out a hand and pulls me towards her. We surface, gulping air. The water is up to our necks, but at least we can breathe.
I feel for Atlas in the dark. ‘Are you all right?’
My hand meets with his ear and when he replies I feel his breath on my cheek.
‘Now I am,’ he pants, his voice echoing through the dark.
We move along the tunnel as Marquis surfaces behind us, followed by Gideon. I use my arms to pull myself through the water until the ceiling above us disappears at the same time as the floor drops out.
‘This is the most stupid thing we’ve ever done,’ I hear Gideon say.
‘For once, Gideon,’ Marquis whispers, ‘I agree.’
I tread water as my eyes adjust to the light streaming in through small gaps in the walls. We’re in another pool that sits inside a cave. And directly opposite us, staring out from beneath the overhanging rocks, are a hundred pairs of eyes.
HORROR CREEPS UP MY SPINE. AS the light pierces the gloom, I see the shapes of a crowd. The creatures are at least a head taller than Marquis and standing on their hind legs, frozen except for their swaying tails, like cats about to pounce on their prey. And I’ve never felt as much like prey as I do now, half-naked in front of a pack of dragons whose canines are longer than my finger. The wyverns don’t look as harmless as the watercolours at Canna House suggested. They have doe-like eyes and rounded snouts, but their bodies are nimble and they have enormous foretalons, the index curved and longer than the others. One of them bats its feathered wings together and lets out an unwelcoming screech. How do we show them we’re not a threat?
