Shifting out of reach, I turn toward Harper to see how she is faring. The boat, however, is empty.
I whirl around. “Harp—”
Zephyrus catches my shoulder in warning. “Take care with your friend’s name.”
“Where did she go?”
A beat of silence passes. “She cannot be reached.”
“What?”
Grave is his expression, entrenched in the weight of mortality. But it is not his own mortality he fears. For Zephyrus, Bringer of Spring, cannot die. “They have taken her.”
“Who has taken her?” My eyes strain as I scan the open water. What manner of creature dwells beneath the surface? “How?” We would have witnessed her abduction, right?
“The naiads,” he whispers. “Nymphs who dwell in fresh water. They are shrewd creatures, able to manipulate the air and water to mask sight and sound.”
Something has frozen inside me: my heart, or my stomach, or my lungs. The airhadchanged. I did not imagine it. I see nothing. I heard nothing, not even a splash. She could be just below the surface. I lean over the side of the vessel, searching—
A firm yank drags me backward, and I land hard on my rear, rocking the boat. The roselight hits the bottom of the hull with a crack and rolls beneath the bench. “Naiads paralyze their victims upon contact. A numbing kiss, they call it. She will drown once the paralysis wears off.”
“Paralysis?” Was my distraction the reason she was taken unaware? If I had been more attentive, if I had resisted Zephyrus’ allure… “How long does the paralysis last?”
With a kindness I have not often encountered, the West Wind says, “It is not a painful death. She will have no awareness of what is happening.”
I may dislike Harper, but to perish in water, away from life-giving sunlight, her soul will be forever barred from the Eternal Lands. I wish that fate upon no one.
Slowly, I push to my knees, adjusting the skirt around my legs. I then reach for the roselight, grasp its sleek, cold shape. What do I need? Time, and it is already gone.
“Look at me.” Zephyrus grabs my arm, but I shake him free. “It’s too late for her.”
“It’s never too late,” I say, and dive into the oily black lake.
19
DOWN AND DOWNISINK. The embracing cold shortens my breath and cripples my lungs, my hair slithering through the gloom like strands of fiery grass. Squeezed in my icy palm, the roselight dissolves the dim into fragments. Strange, ethereal creatures slink along the silty bottom. They possess unmistakable female anatomy, dips and swells beneath shreds of wet cloth, limbs shaped into fins. The naiads peer at me with enormous milky eyes.
Harper drifts at the bottom of the lakebed.
Her hair, as thin and insubstantial as mist, hangs like a shifting veil around her face. Two naiads guide her in this listless state, bubbles trailing from her slackened mouth and boots dragging through the silt.
I kick upward, head breaking the surface of the lake. Zephyrus screams at me from the boat, but I’m already diving, propelling myself forward with sturdy kicks. The deeper I swim, the greater the water’s crushing weight. Another hard kick closes the distance.
As my fingertips brush her shoulder, cold slime wraps around my ankle. I glance down. One of the creatures grips my leg with webbed appendages. Bubbles burst from my mouth in a scream, and I kick once, twice, until the naiad releases me. Once free, I catch Harper’s waist. Her weight sags against me. We begin to sink.
My ears pop painfully, and pressure thrusts at my eye sockets. We hit the sludge-filled lakebed. I push off hard, Harper in tow, and swimwith all my strength. The hazy surface seems an impossible distance. My head feels like it will split open, but we are nearly there. I can almost taste the air on my tongue.
Long, brittle fingers snag my hair, and something rushes past at the edge of my vision. I twist to meet my newest foe as the grip on my skull tightens, my hair drawn up by the roots. Snatching the dagger from my waist, I lash out, striking one of the creatures in the shoulder. The blade plunges into soft, rubbery flesh, and the naiad recoils with a low wail, a stream of smoky liquid clouding the water.
A second creature crowds my back. I spin, cutting low to give myself distance as Harper slips from my grasp. I feel my lungs begin to wither, pain coiling into a white-hot star.
Kicking away from the advancing mob, I regroup. My head pounds with unrelenting agony as the naiads writhe, dragging up silt, fogging the water. One strikes out with curled nails. Pain erupts across my shoulder, and I swing the dagger in a wild arc. The creature rears back, the seam of its lips wrenching open to reveal triangular teeth ringed in rotting gums.
Another lunge with the blade, and the creatures scatter. I dive, grabbing the back of Harper’s dress with one hand, and begin hauling her toward the distant light. In the corner of my eye, I spot Zephyrus gripping Harper’s other arm, lending strength to the task. Amidst the turmoil, I did not notice him dive into the lake.
My head breaks the surface in a spray of droplets. I gasp, sucking in a mouthful of frosty air. The boat has drifted farther downstream, knocking against the far wall.
“Bring her to shore,” he manages.
