I turned just as Wilder lifted himself onto the glass floor, drenched, his underclothing clinging to his every trim plane and well-developed cord of muscle, and that was when I realized that he wore Pryce’s mask. That he’d been breathing through whatever Pryce Wishart had come up with to allow air into his mouth while keeping water out, and that…
I turned and counted my classmates, who sat shivering, wrapped in thick drying cloths, on the lowest level of spectator seating, just above the glass-covered surface of the arena. Directly below the Bluehelm and the highest-ranking professors and staff members, who stared at us, unmoving. Unspeaking.
And I began to count.
Keryth Malcom sat in the first position, but there was a gap on the bench to her left, which told me she hadn’t been the first out. Wilder had.
Lennox Pettigrove sat on her right, in third position, and next to him sat Adria, then Cressa, who stared at Wilder, dumbfounded. Number six was Yoslyn, who stood right in front of me. Then Gavin, number seven, who’d been collateral damage when Pryce was thrown back into the arena. He’d made it out but had yet to take his seat.
I was the eighth.
Only I wasn’t, because Pryce Wishart had beaten me out of the arena.
Wilder had pushed him back in, without his mask, though he would have been able to swim right back up through the hole if he hadn’t tangled with Gavin on his way down.
Yet…Pryce was still in the water, along with Raelah, who must have gotten turned around after she’d passed me.
Wilder tore the mask from his face and marched across the glass ceiling toward his spot on the lowest bench. In first position. He glanced at me, and when our gazes met, the fury in his eyes faded. He grinned. Then he winked.
I pushed myself upright, out of Desmond’s warm grip, and raced across the slick surface toward Wilder. He stood, frowning at my dangerous speed, and I crashed bodily into him, heedless of my drenched, largely transparent clothing. Of my stringy, soaked hair and the tears streaming down my face. Of my very dignity.
“Amber? Are you—”
I shot up onto my toes and kissed him, right there in front of everyone. In front of Desmond, who I could practicallyfeelwatching us.
Wilder kissed me back, long and hard. His fingers dug into my hips, and I slid my arms around his neck, burrowing into the warmth glowing through his cold, wet clothing, and in the end, it was only the low, solemn voice of the Bluehelm that broke us apart. That brought me back to myself, and to the ongoing trial.
“They’ve been submerged too long.”
I let Wilder go and stepped back to see that the Bluehelm had stood.
“Let’s get the victors somewhere dry and warm,” she said, stepping down onto the glass. “And let’s begin the recovery effort.”
Her words chilled me all the way to the bone, and I turned, Wilder’s hand warm in mine, to stare down through the transparent panels at the water below. It was too murky to see more than a couple of feet in, but somewhere down there, two of my classmates had—
“Look!” Keryth shouted. Her arm bumped mine as she stood.
Yoslyn gasped, and I followed their gazes to see a hand pressed to the glass. Clawing at it.
“Someone’s still alive!” Desmond shouted. Water splashed through the opening, and suddenly he was gone, and it took me a second to realize he’d jumped in.
He’d stood on the glass ceiling while I nearly drowned, but he’d jumped in without hesitation to savesomeone else.
A moment later, he bobbed to the surface of the water, framed by the hole in the glass, and shoved Raelah to safety.
Wilder grabbed her—I’d had no idea he’d disappeared from my side—and pulled her onto the glass, where she coughed up what seemed like buckets of water. She’d failed. But somehow, despite the fact that she’d lost her air bladder and had been down there far too long, she’d survived.
“How…?” Wilder asked, and someone stepped down from the spectator’s benches to hand him a drying cloth. He draped it over Raelah, and Yoslyn knelt to pound on her back. “How do you think—”
A pounding cut him off, and I jumped, whirling to look for the source. The sound echoed again, and this time I saw a fist hit the underside of the glass, several yards from the opening.
“There!” I shouted, pointing.
“Pryce is still alive!” Adria yelled while Cressa stared in stunned silence beside her.
Desmond dove under the glass again, and I watched the blur of his movement. His form met the other one, and he hauled a coughing, choking, still-blue-tinted Pryce Wishart into the air.
A buzz had begun among the spectators as they voiced quiet disbelief and confusion. As they made soft conjecture, while Pryce coughed up absoluteleaguesof water, shivering in a puddle.
