Despite the tide’s nudging, I was tiring, faltering. My muscles were corded, seizing with cold. I tried to call out, to warn Llir I was lagging, but my voice wasn’t working. Sea slopped past my lips.
At that moment, I felt a grip on my ankle, heard a croak from behind me: “Floodmouth. Thank the gods.”
I wheeled. A figure was tugging me backward, deep-brown eyes unnaturally wide, ebony hair waterlogged and stringy.
Avrix.
He looked half drowned already. Sucked in cheeks, wrinkled skin, like a corpse that had floated up from the seabed. He was low in the water, legs down below him, injured hand floundering as the other clung onto my foot.
“Morgen’s gone,” he gasped, kicking wildly. “And Ebba. But you’re a good girl. You’ll save us both, won’t you? I won’t let go.” His grip was strong as a hawk’s talons.
Revulsion rose in my gullet like bile.No,I tried to say.Let go. You’ll drown me.But nothing came out; the words wouldn’t form.
I went under.
Freezing salt filled my mouth. I managed to surface, just glimpsed Llir’s head turning, but then I was down again, deeper this time.
I kicked out, tried to shake Avrix off me, but he clung on desperately, sinking along with me.
My lungs were burning, screaming for air, and I remembered the last time I’d felt this: my exam.
I’d almost failed then. Now I was going to.
My arms moved weakly. My legs were like lead. At least, I thought, I’d gotten rid of Crake. And it was oddly peaceful down here…strangely pleasant. I could almost ignore the crushing weight on my chest.
But at last I couldn’t fight the urge any longer.
I opened my mouth, tried to suck in a breath, and choked, instead, on icy water.
40
Thenext thing I was aware of was a scratching beneath my cheek.
A cough spasmed out of me, followed by a dribble of seawater. My head was pounding, my limbs like loose rope. A brisk breeze was blowing, and I could hear gulls shrieking—I wasn’t under that grave-cold water anymore.
I shifted and realized it was gravel against my face, scraping my skin, bruising me through my clothes. I blinked salt from my eyes, my vision slowly clearing, and saw a figure lying stretched out next to me.
Llir.
He was on his back, his chest rising and falling as he panted, but his eyes were squeezed shut, his face drawn with exhaustion.
“Here,” I heard a familiar voice say, and another figure—suntanned skin slick with sea spray—bent down between us and offered a metal flask. Tigo. “It survived the swim. Who’d have thought it?”
I heaved myself upright as Llir grasped the flask. He took a swig and coughed out a painful-sounding guffaw. “It’s tea,” he croaked. “I was hoping for brandy.”
“Tea is the elixir of life,” Tigo admonished, looking mightily relieved that Llir was speaking.
“You want some, too?” came another voice, flinty. I looked around and saw Rhianne nearby, her red hair darkened to burgundy by seawater. We were on the island’s shingle beach, and she was dragging a makeshift raft up the slope—the jagged base of a wagon, it looked like.
A hand appeared in front of me, holding out the flask, and I took a quick swig, my eyes finding Tigo’s. Though the burn on his cheek still looked nasty and must have stung horribly in the salty water, his gaze was impassive, and he quickly glanced away. With a sick sort of feeling, I remembered how we’d left things.
“What happened?” I said, the words coming out wheezy. “Avrix…” I recalled his iron-strong grip.
Rhianne trudged over, brushing grime from her palms. “He went down—Morgen, too, earlier—but Llir managed to get to you. Lucky we snagged that driftwood.”
I looked quickly at Llir, but he avoided my eyes. He stood stiffly, bent over, spat on the shingle.
“Where’s Mawre?” I asked, feeling a clawing foreboding. I wasn’t used to seeing the others without her.
