My heart rattles so hard inside my chest I imagine Adrien must hear its frenzied thumping.
“It could be the thing in the well.”
“Or it could be him.” It has to be him.
“His BCD could’ve inflated and is lifting him—”
“Will you stop it, Adrien?” I growl.
Even though I don’t look away from the water, I sense his posture stiffening.
Something shines in the black well.Slate’s lamp!It must be his lamp!
The shine grows and grows along with my hope. I lean forward, the stone edge of the well digging into my abdomen. I suddenly wish I hadn’t let Papa take the phone away from me. I want to talk to Slate. I want him to hear my voice. To know that he’s awaited. That we didn’t abandon him.
I start to shiver with anticipation and have to grit my teeth to prevent them from clacking. The bubbles get larger and fiercer, bursting in time with my pulse.
Come on. Come on. Come on.
His hooded head pierces the rippling surface.
I hold my breath. Wait for him to move. When he tilts his head back, and his eyes, open and bright with life, land on mine, my heart comes untethered and floats up in turn.
“You’re alive!” I’m not sure whether to cry or smile, so I do both. I ugly-cry and grin so wide my cheeks quiver and ache. “You’re alive. You did it,” I whisper as a great big sob rattles my chest.
Slate spits out his regulator. “I’m not sure whether to be offended or surprised you doubted I would, Mademoiselle de Morel.” His eyes curve and glitter softly.
You conceited ass,I think, and would say it out loud if my throat actually worked, but I’m crying, and it’s really hard to talk around tears.
His arm rises from the water. “De Morel, you got the box ready?”
“It’s”—Papa clears his throat, as though he, too, has become emotional—“it’s ready, Roland.”
Slate bobs at the surface, his BCD floating around him like a buoy. “I might be a remarkable mermaid slayer, but I have yet to develop Spiderman’s skill for scaling up walls, so a rope would be greatly appreciated.”
“Show us the piece,” Adrien says, and I want to smack him for not tossing the rope in to help Slate climb out.
He must be freezing. And wounded, if the blood that darkened the surface came from him and not the thing.
Slate raises his arm. Although he doesn’t open his fingers, I spot the shimmering edge of something golden, and my heart wallops my ribs again, this time in excitement.
A piece of history rests in his glove.
I stare and stare, refusing to blink.
“I’d toss it up to you, Prof, but I wouldn’t want to curse you.” Slate smiles, and that smile sets my pulse on fire even though it’s not directed at me.
The rope drops into the well with a heavy splash. Slate wraps it a few times around the hand not clutching the Quatrefoil leaf. Gaëlle stands behind Adrien, holding part of the rope. I race behind her and grab a length as well.
Adrien leans back, then Gaëlle, and then me, and the rope tautens. I squeeze the wet, ice-cold fibers, and back up as though I’m carrying Slate alone. I doubt I’m helping much. I’m pretty sure Adrien’s doing most of the work.
Slate’s head appears over the rim of the well, and then his broad shoulders, and the rest of his long body. He tumbles over, pitching onto the cobbles like a drunk. I release the rope and stride around the two others to reach him, but Adrien bats his arm out.
“Don’t touch him until he puts the piece in the box,” he says.
I suck in a startled breath.
Slate heaves himself up, and even though his body looks whole and unharmed, I catch a tremor in his limbs. The aluminum bottle hooked into his BCD drags the flapping jacket down his arms. Both fall onto the cobbles with a deafening clang.
