“How could you?” sobbed Hela.
No. Wrong. This is wrong, whispered something in Zofia’s mind. She forced herself to look up, prepared to count the stalactites on the cave ceiling. Instead, she saw the white paint of her uncle’s townhome in Glowno, the fracture left in the corner by the window from heavy rain that summer. Zofia spun around, expecting to see her friends and the shore, but they were gone, and all she saw was the wall with framed portraits and pictures of her uncle’s family.
“Zosia?” called Hela. “I will forgive you if you hug me.”
Zofia turned back around.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
She looked down at her feet, part of her mind expecting to see dark water lapping at her boots. But she saw only the frayed carpet that once led to Hela’s sick bed, and when she looked up, she saw her sister coughing softly into her handkerchief, her pale hand outstretched.
She must go to her.
Zofia took one step forward, then flinched from a sudden cold.
Had she left one of the windows open in Hela’s room? Hela didnot like the cold. The window, however, was closed tightly, and yet for some reason Zofia imagined she could hear Laila’s voice carried to her on an invisible wind, her voice raw as if she were screaming, and yet Zofia only felt it as a whisper:
“There’s something in the water.”
PART IV
26
ENRIQUE
One moment Enrique was crouched on the ground, tracing the drag marks. How was it possible? Even if natural changes in the ecosystem had shifted the skeleton, it should not have left marks like this. As he bent down to study it, a fine spray of water soaked his jacket, hitting his neck.
Enrique shivered, annoyed. Séverin needed to move more carefully in the lake shallows. He turned once more to the ground when he saw something strange… bits of gravel bounced on the silt. A low vibration sang through the bottoms of his shoes. It was as if the earth were bristling.
Séverin grabbed his shoulders, hauling him to his feet. The Forged beeswax blocked out sound in Enrique’s left ear, while the right was so heavily bandaged that even a scream registered as a low muffle.
Séverin’s scream was no different.
Enrique strained to hear through the bandage, but the wordsslipped past him. He held up his torch, the better to read Séverin’s lips.
A mistake.
Beyond Séverin, the black water of the lake writhed and boiled. Stalactites trembled on the ceiling like loose teeth, crashing into the surface. The moment they hit the water, rings of light bloomed across the inky water.
A second later, the lake ripped in half, rising up into watery sheets that stretched toward the ceiling. An unearthly, green glow pulsed in the depths as skeletal hands broke through the sheets of water and grinning skulls shoved their heads through the waves, sightless eyes snapping toward the shore. Tatters of silk and broken strands of jewels circled their wrist bones and snapped necks as they walked disjointedly toward them.
Around him, Enrique felt the vibrating thrum of music the way one can perceive light behind closed eyes. He was right. The siren had been a warning.
Séverin kicked at him, his eyes wild and his hands clamped over his ears. His lips moved so quickly that Enrique caught only a handful of words:
TRAP… DON’T LISTEN… AMPLIFIERS.
A flash of movement caught Enrique’s gaze. Zofia stood in the water, her hands grasping at the air. Thirty meters away, the skeletons slouched toward her.
Laila yanked on Zofia’s hand, her mouth opened in silent yelling.
“Zofia!” called Enrique.
But she didn’t turn her head. She was shaking, sobbing, her hand stretched out. Laila kept tugging on her, but Zofia didn’t move.
The siren’s song is the last beautiful thing you see before death.
Too late, Enrique realized what was happening. It made sensethat Laila, mostly Forged herself, would not be affected by a mind Forged manipulation running through the cave. But Hypnos? Séverin? Zofia? They were all at risk.
