Benedict stiffened—my months in the man’s presence told me that the tic in his jaw was more alarm than anger.He held up his own bottle.“This will send me into the Other?How this different than whattheydid to Sam?”
Enisca’s reply was unflinching.“We know what we are doing.”
Benedict’s fingers contracted around the bottle, and for a moment I feared he might crush it.
Olsa took one of Samuel’s limp hands, clasping it between both of her own and settling her shoulders in preparation.“I will not cross over physically, but I will in spirit.”
I longed to be in Olsa’s place, her hands wrapped around Sam’s, but knew the other Sooth was far more capable than I of managing Samuel’s disoriented, injured body.
I could see Benedict’s anger and growing frustration, making his chest rise in tight, short movements.He hung his head briefly, eyes closed, simply breathing.
I forced myself to offer him an open palm.
“What do you want?”Ben asked.
“Hold my hand.”I still did not look at him, focusing on Sam’s closed eyes instead.“I’ll be with you.I’ll Otherwalk and anchor you as long as I can.”
“You must move more quickly,” Maren interjected.“Do not speak.You will all have four breaths before the danger of corruption— further corruption, for the twins—becomes too great, so hold each breath as long as you can.”
Ben ignored my proffered hand but downed the bottle in one long swill.
At the top of the table, Maren gently hefted Samuel’s shoulders and tilted back his head.“Mr.Grant.”
Charles carefully poured the liquid between Samuel’s lips, and, under Maren’s direction, massaged his throat to help him swallow.Sam did not stir.
“Do not let him breathe more than four times on the Other side,” Enisca instructed Ben, Olsa and I.“Cover his nose and mouth between breaths.”
I couldn’t bear it—the sight of Samuel’s limpness, the slosh of strange liquid or the suggestion that we would need to smother Samuel to keep his physical form in the Other.
I left Benedict at the foot of the table and took up position next to Maren.Then I drew a deep, level breath.As I let it out again,Tane’s presence surged, and indigo-grey light filtered around my vision.
The human world dropped away with ease.The walls, the table, every object in the room faded, until only the lights that were our companions remained.The distant boom of cannons and clashing storms vanished.Olsa’s brightness became stronger as her spirit followed us over the divide and began to pace the cabin, surveying the Dark Water beyond with vigilant eyes.
Samuel’s body lingered, suspended in the air before us and wrapped in his dark, forest-green glow.Still limp.Still unresponsive.
I heard the sharp intake of Ben’s breath—a gasp, shuddering on the way out.His first breath.
Samuel’s physical form suddenly crumpled to the deck of the ethereal cabin.I bit my lips closed and dropped down next to him, pulling his head into my lap and covering his nose and mouth with careful hands.
A heartbeat later, the red-hazed body of Enisca joined us.Her eyes were wide, her lips pinched, and her hands pressed to her stomach in apparent nausea.Still, her movements were quick as she reached into the pocket of her coat.She pulled out a wooden knife, the blade glowing like ghisten wood.
“Help me lift him.We head to the water now,” she said—her first breath.Her voice was low but clean and natural, and I fully comprehended that, along with Samuel, she and Benedict were wholly in the Other with me.Olsa’s form was still ethereal, half-present and watchful, ready to warn us of approaching danger.But Samuel, Benedict and Enisca were Otherwalking.
I had known this was coming, conceptually, but hadn’t anticipated the rush of emotion it brought.I was not alone in the Dark Water, with the lights of a thousand monsters beyond tenuous walls.
I reached to heft Samuel’s shoulders, but Ben pushed me aside.He heaved Samuel up on his own despite his barely healed shoulder, expression straining, nostrils flaring as he battled not to breathe,and looked at Olsa promptingly.A breath slipped through Samuel’s lips, then I covered his nose and mouth once more.
The Sooth woman led the way to the bulwark.She passed through without hesitation and stepped, bizarrely, directly into the water paces below—ankle-deep water for her, though the draft of the ship ran far beyond that.
One breath later, we were with her.The Dark Water lapped as Enisca motioned—hastily now, all of us nearing our final breaths— for Ben to put Samuel down.I crouched with him, and Ben arranged his brother’s head in my lap above the slosh of the black waves.
Fae dragonflies converged in languorous gold and purple swirls as Enisca took one of Samuel’s hands and slit his palm open, her lips pinched, her movements fast.She set his hand back under the waves, dark blood merging with darker water.
She took Benedict’s hand next, opening it shallowly from thumb to little finger in one clean swipe.He watched her without expression, though I saw the strain in his jaw and the way he fought not to speak.
He held out his hand and watched his blood drip into the Dark Water.As it fell, spectral tendrils of light surged into existence, lacing Samuel and Benedict to the world all around them and one another.The ties between them were strong, a clean and unyielding black that Tane sensed as healthy.But another cord wound around it, a muddied mingling of forest green and burned red that pulsed and strained.That same cord passed through each of the twins and trailed off into the water—Ben’s more sickly pink than red or green, and Sam’s tinted with orange.
Then, just as my lungs began to scream and Ben tipped his head back, chest spasming for want of air, a pure, blood-red color trailed up from the water.It wrapped around the men’s bleeding hands and seemed to pryintothem, into their veins.
