“You’re telling me we didn’t have to get on this creepy ass boat.” River interrupts.
“No, I said there’s another way, it is possible to go around the waters, but that could take days… days we don’t have,” Ryder says, and River crosses his arms and gives an unimpressed look.
“Okay, days. That’s good, right? We are now a few days ahead of it, one less thing to worry about!” Nala says, unconvincingly.
“If the stories of the Hollow are true, thatthingmay be the least of our worries,” Ryder says, and a weighty silence follows. He turns and walks towards the seats that wrap around the boat.
Now that my heart has calmed down, I can finally assess my surroundings. The boat is definitely not how I imagined. It doesn’t rock. It doesn’t even creak. It glides, steady as breath, inches above the crashing waves. The floorboards are wooden and physically aged; there are places where the wood has splintered, creating gaps where light filters in, casting jagged shadows across the space. Every step we take is calculated, careful not to lose our footing. The walls, though warped and cracked, still bear the remnants of their former splendour, with intricate carvings and faded paint along their edges, hinting at the time when the boat was a grand vessel. Below us, the charged water ripples in unnatural patterns—light weaving like serpents, reaching up as if tasting the bottom of the hull.
I sit down next to Ryder.
“What did you give him?” I whisper, afraid of the answer. “What memory?”
He forces a smirk, though it’s hollow—thin enough to see the ache beneath. “Nothing important.”
Liar. It hits me instantly. Not because his voice trembles—it doesn’t—but because Ryder never looks away unless he’s breaking.
“Think it’s time you had a remodel, don’t you?” River mutters just loud enough for the ferryman to hear, and we all slide him a questioning stare. The ferryman looks unamused and glares at him hard enough to make him silent.
“Forgive our friend, he hasn’t quite mastered conversation yet,” Ryder says, eyes narrowing at River. “I’m happy to throw him overboard if you’d like.” This time, a slow smirk spreads across his face, and I swear I see River gulp.
“That won’t be necessary.” The ferryman states, striding closer to the helm. “The Hollow will decide his fate, not you or I.”
Now I’m the one gulping.
There’s no going back now, no way of disrupting whatever grim destiny is waiting for us on the other side.
I grab Ryder’s hand before I can stop myself, and he squeezes back, firm and reassuring, though I can’t stop my other hand from trembling slightly against his knee as we settle into the carved seats that hug the rim of the boat.
As the Nightboat glides deeper into the electric expanse, the Enchantra glows brighter, casting us in soft silver. Ryder scoots closer, shoulder brushing mine, and I rest my head lightly against him. Maybe he was now unaware of the memory he gave, maybe he had no recollection of it, no way to explain it away to me. I hoped to myself that the memory he gave was the one of me under him, half dead by his solid hands—that he would not have to remember me slowly dying underneath him. That his nightmares could have a break from the horror. But I guess if the memory is gone forever, I will never know. Some people say that memories are like drugs to Deceivers; ifso, our ferryman is nothing but a strung-out addict. Others say that when the memories are taken, the bones remain—but the flesh, the feelings, the things that make memories valuable to a person, are gone, and just the shell remains.
Suddenly, the space around us feels too small, the cracks in the wood not large enough to feed in enough oxygen for me to survive. I need to feel the wind on my face, to breathe. I take to my feet before my brain can negotiate with my legs, wading over the holes in the floor over to the front of the boat and resting my arms on the ledge. The wind greets me, the salt clinging to my skin, with every lick of my lips, I can taste the sea on me, and I can finally breathe—deeply—each inhale cleaning my lungs of the claustrophobia. The forest on the horizon torments me. I crave the moment when we dock from live waters, but the very idea of the Hollow shakes me to my core.
‘Oriah, if you can hear me, I pray that you guide me and watch over me.’
Still nothing.
The boat glides in silence, the sea glistening orange with the struggling light of the sun. It only flirts with the surface, barely touching it and definitely not warming my skin. The cold air whispers through the wind, causing my jaw to clench tightly from the temperature change, but I brave the cold. Mourn Peak stares back at me like the bright beacon of a lighthouse in troubled seas, but also a twisted warning.
The blister in the sky is beginning to lower again, and I do not want to welcome the night. Another day that passes is another day closer to the morbid inevitable. Either the relentless grip of the serum takes Ryder and drags me along with it, or River gets there first. Both scenarios sit like an ache in my chest and cause saliva to well in my mouth.
The motion of the boat is making my stomach turn; it groans and swirls and threatens to send its contents crawling up mythroat. But the contents are scarce, my stomach feels so empty that it aches. I haven’t eaten in a while, I mean, between being chased out of the shadow realm and hunted by a deranged creature, I haven’t really found the time. It groans again as if cautioning me to fill it soon, or it will start taking chunks out of my liver.
The sea stills, and the boat glides along it like silk. The urge to fondle the water with my fingers as we continue is strong, its calm temperament tempting me to sneak a touch of its lethal current. Though the boat floats a metre above the surface, I couldn’t reach down even if I tried. I can feel Ryder’s presence haunting me, his eyes on me, though his feet stay far away. Perhaps he could sense the weight in my chest and assumed I needed some space.
A small splash to the right of me steals my eyes away from mourn peak for a second. Just beneath the surface, a dark shape becomes clear, causing ripples in the water; it’s only a shade or two darker than the sea itself. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it if it hadn’t disturbed the water around it. The creature sets pace with us, gliding parallel to the hull, and the water ripples again as its small head props up slightly out of the sea in motion, sending its snake-like frame to greet the air briefly before curling back down into the deep again. An intense shade of blue claims its spine, and its length glistens like small diamonds imprinted on its skin.
My eyes hover on the water line, feeling a strange attraction, a strange urge to feel closer to this thing. A small smile forms on my face as I watch it frolic close to the surface. It stretches another inch when I see an almost identical being brush next to it, and they swim gracefully in tandem. Their tails meet swiftly, creating small sparks that light up the water like tiny fireworks. My eyes light with them. These must be the eels Ryder was lecturing us about. The reason these waters contain enoughvoltage to fry us all alive and then some. But they look so sweet, the way they drift through the undercurrent is a tranquil vision of serenity.
“They’re beautiful,” I say quietly, my eyes still fixed on the shimmering sea. Ryder shuffles an inch closer to me and glances over the edge, his lips pressing into a small smile. He doesn’t respond. Just shuffles back and keeps on watching the horizon, his face clearly tenser than it was a few minutes ago. I can’t help but furrow my brows at his silence, but I have learned not to try to decipher the code that is Ryder Stormwood. I’d be here all day, and we definitely do not have enough time for that.
I try to stifle my breath, careful not to disturb the graceful creatures as if my exhales are louder than the wind whistling in the breeze; they have now dove deep beneath the surface, masters of camouflage. Their only slight indication is the way the water twinkles and glistens a few metres down. Ryder never mentioned the eel’s beauty, that their scales resembled twenty-four-carat diamonds under a complementary spotlight with immense clarity. Now that I come to realise, the sea around us sparkles and shimmers as far as the eye can see. At first, I thought it was the reflection of the fatigued sun. A pathetic attempt to cast light into the depths. But now that the sun is waning, it is obvious—the eels are everywhere. Electric pulses dance across the surface like lightning trapped beneath glass, and small sparks escape the water’s grip, jumping like static every so often, suggesting that an eel is close.
Nala and River soon drift to my side, their expressions softening into the same awed smile tugging at my lips. An eel leaps high from the surface—arched like a ribbon of living lightning—before splashing back under. We watch another, then another. They move like serpents gliding over sand, sparking with colours that flare and fade like burnt metal catching the light. For the next thirty minutes, they become our unexpectedentertainment, distracting us from the gnawing dread of what waits ahead.
At last, through the thinning fog, a shoreline materialises—so similar to the one we left behind, it feels like stepping into a mirrored world. Except this side is wrong. The sun has fully vanished now, and the sea glows in its absence—amber, lilac, turquoise—pulsing with every eel’s movement beneath its dark blanket. Beautiful. Unsettling. Alive.
The forest looms beyond it, thicker and darker than any woodland has a right to be. The trees twist toward the sky like warped spines, a silent warning carved in bark and shadow. I didn’t think darkness could deepen further, but here it bleeds into black—so absolute the sea and land merge into one seamless sheet of ink.
