Lower and lower I go, first my feet enter the frigid water, then my legs, then my chest. When my head dips under, I instinctively start to hold my breath. Sergeant Suffering’s booming voice reels through my brain,“Breathe, you pussy, breathe!”
I suck on my regulator as I whirl on the rope like a leg of lamb on a spit. Around me, layer upon layer of stones stretch down into the mucky channel.
The in and out of air from the tank echoes behind Cadence’s steady voice. “So I was hesitating between a classic tale and a personal one.” She pauses. “Since I’m betting you want to hear the personal one . . .”
Damn right.
“ . . . I’m going with the classic tale.”
Tease.
“Have you ever heard ofThe Little Mermaid? I thought it fit the moment superbly.” I hear a smile in her voice, and it momentarily makes the entrenching obscurity less forbidding. “Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as—” Her words cut off. “—very, very deep. So deep indeed that—”
Fizzing silence.Come on.Bluetooth, don’t leave me hanging.
“There dwell the Sea King and his subj—”
My heart jolts at the sound of her voice, then jolts again when the depth interrupts the broadcast. I long to hear Cadence’s story crackle back against my eardrums but don’t even get graced with static.
Pressure builds in my ears, and I pinch my nose to release it. I keep going down, scanning the darkness for movement. Fear pounds so hard it’s probably creating a current.
I look up and the beam of my headlight hits something. Something that moves around the length of taut rope anchoring me to the surface. My BCD seems to grow tighter, as though I’ve inflated it to maximum capacity even though I haven’t pressed the red button. I catch another flutter of movement and realize it’s just the slow, steady stream of bubbles I’m exhaling.
Can’t believe I almost pissed myself over some bubbles.
Come on . . . show yourself. Let’s be done with this.
My feet bump against something hard. I jerk my head down. I’m at the bottom of the well, standing atop a shiny carpet of coins. I scan the water above me, but nothing circles the tight rope. I don’t know whether to be relieved or scared shitless. Is the Quatrefoil piece even still here, or was Rainier wrong?
Maybe we had less than twenty-four hours to retrieve it.
My already racing heart kicks up a few notches.
I wait and wait. Time trickles by slower than my exhaled bubbles.
Instead of being a sitting duck, might as well be a crouching one. I lower in slow motion onto my knees and sweep my gloved hands through the thousands of Euro coins and older Francs. The metal’s tarnished on most, the round faces tinged black and green. If the leaf is in here, it should be easy enough to locate, since it’ll be shinier and bigger than any of these coins.
A shrill cry pierces the steadyka-shoookof my breathing, in time with the splash of a body dropping into water. I jerk to my feet and crank my neck, bumping the back of my head against the yoke valve. Skull smarting, I squint into the length of liquid black, spot a dark shape floundering in the dim circle of light.
My muscles harden, my joints tighten, my palms tingle, and my heartbeat bounces between my ribs and air tank.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
“I fell in! Help, oh God, I fell in!” Cadence’s voice erupts inside my ears. “Help!”
Cadence?
Cadence is in the well?
How the hell did she fall in?
Grab the rope,I think. It’s got to be easy enough for her to reach.
“My boots. My coat! They’re so heavy, Slate.” My name combined with her yelps wrenches my heart.Merde.I press the button on the BCD and push off the mound of coins, rocketing upward. In the back of my mind, I hear Sergeant Suffering calling me an idiot and lots more Breton swear words.
I’ve got to help her. I’ve got to—
