Castien turns it.
I bite my lip and stare at the alignment.
“No. That’s wrong. Go back one notch.”
He reverses it without comment. I’m flustered. I can’t start making mistakes so early.
The level reaches my chest. I’m starting to shiver, and my hands are numb as I trace the symbols.
“This ring. Turn it until the date 1347 lines up with the crossed swords on the fourth ring.”
He turns it.
I frown. That doesn’t look right.
“Wait, no. The other direction. Go the other way.”
One mistake follows another. My anxiety is building, and I’m second-guessing everything.
The seawater reaches my shoulders, and I have to tilt my head back to keep my mouth above the surface.
I give Castien instructions and he follows them, but I realize they’re wrong and have him reverse the last three steps. Then I change my mind again. I’m panicking and can’t think straight.
The flood rises over my head, then his. The muffled rush fills my ears. We keep working until I have to kick off the floor and swim upward, break through the surface, and gasp for air. The ceiling is eight or nine feet above me. I tread in place for a few seconds, my chest hurting. No wonder I caught a cold from hell doing this twice before. I really shouldn’t be in freezing water a third time. No pain, no gain, I suppose.
I take a deep breath and dive back down.
Castien is kneeling by the trap door where I left him. His glowing eyes provide light in the murky darkness. He doesn’t need to surface to breathe, so he’s waiting for me. I swim down to him and steady myself by gripping his shoulder.
I point at the fourth ring and indicate which direction and how far he should turn it, and he does. I check the alignment and nod. I surface again for air, then dive back down. I give another instruction, and he adjusts the mechanism. I check the alignment. I surface again. The pattern repeats over and over. The air gap at the ceiling gets smaller with each trip, and it takes me longer than last time to figure out the right configuration.
The fifth ring needs the Latin phrase “sanguis et aurum” – blood and gold – to align with a chalice symbol. The alignment takes four tries and two trips to the surface, but it finally clicks into place.
The sixth ring needs the date 1666 to align with a skull. This is the heaviest and most corroded ring, so Castien has to use real force. The alignment takes four attempts, and we still can’t get it right. This is the last one, and for some reason, I’m missing something.
This has been going on for fifteen or twenty minutes. It feels like hours.
I swim upward. My head breaks through the surface and I nearly slam my skull into the stone ceiling. I jerk back.
Maybe two inches of air space remain between the surface and the stone above me. I have to tilt my face up and press my nose against the ceiling to breathe. I gasp in the tiny pocket. The air is thin and stale.
My lungs burn, and every muscle in my body screams. My lips must be blue from the cold, and I’m shivering so hard that my teeth chatter. I can barely keep myself afloat.
Dread rises inside me. What the hell? I can’t do this. I figured it out once before, but I can’t do it again. My muscles lock up with fear.
Castien emerges beside me.
His hands reach for me and grip my ribs. They are enormous. His fingers wrap almost all the way around my torso. He’s holding me like he’s afraid of hurting me. I can feel him through my soaked shirt.
His steel body starts growing hot. It’s like he’s warming himself from the inside. The warmth seeps into my frozen skin, radiating from his hands and spreading through my chest.
Shock cuts through my panic. He’s warm, and the warmth helps my brain start working again.
We’re pressed close in the tiny air space. Our faces are inches apart, and his eyes are steady on mine.
“You can do this,” he says.
I nod. My throat is too tight to speak, but my response is enough for him to nod back.
