“We can stay and keep it steady on this side,” one of the crew members offered, but Kane shook his head.
“Only the three of us. We need as many people as possible to deal with the academy if they come.”
Erinna tensed as fear thread itself through her nerves. Would they even survive an encounter with the academy?
One of the crew pressed a coil of rope into Kane’s hands. Behind them, the camp roared to life—shouts, the clatter of weapons, men bracing for a potential fight. The door slammed shut. Stone shuddered. Marble cracked and fell into the rift below. Then—nothing. Just darkness, and the weak glow of Erinna’s lantern.
A burst of gold and orange. Flame roared to life in Kane’s hands, climbing up his shoulder in a blazing pauldron.
Erinna smirked. “Now who’s the showoff?”
Without another thought, Erinna put a boot on the rattling wood, heart lurched into her throat when it jostled against her weight.
“Wait.” Kane brushed his hand against her arm. Concern painted his features as he glanced down to the roiling water below.
She brushed him off, raising the lantern overhead. “I should go first.”
“I need to go first,” said Afton, placing his own boot down with a grimace.
“You two are going to kill yourselves,” Kane grumbled. He circled his arm around her shoulders and pulled Erinna back. She crashed into his chest, opening her mouth to protest until she felt it.
Rope wound around her waist with a tug. Kane had put her in a makeshift harness. A protective leash.
“I’ll go first, tie the rope to the other side and then the two of you can fight about who goes first.”
“But there are…” Afton started at the same time Erinna asked, “How will you get…” But Kane was already gone. The pirate disappeared in swirling shadow.
Erinna felt the tug of the rope against her waist. “What just happened?” she breathed.
“Oh, a shadow walker. How rare.”
Erinna sent a glare to the spirit. Shadow walker, gravewitch, Grace, she added it to her growing pile of important unknowns. Flame erupted on the other side; a roiling inferno licked at old torches as it passed. Some took to the flame, casting light in the long hallway for the first time in decades. Dust swirled around his boots. Kane took the end of the rope and tied it around a large marble column.
She let out a shaky breath and stepped onto the gangplank once more. “Stay close to me,” Erinna whispered to Afton. The mage only gave her a sarcastic snort in response. He was clearly just as frightened to lack some snotty remark.
“You may want to hurry. I believe your pirate has set off another trap.”
Dread threatened to paralyze her on the shaking wooden bridge. “A trap,” she whispered and watched as the flame ended its life at the end of the hall. The last torch blazed to life at the far end of the hallway. Doors lined the far end. The wood caught, burned, and turned to ash.
“It’s a trap!” she cried.
“The walls will close in, take the middle door on the right. The rest are fake.” Raye’s voice was far too calm for her liking. That was the perk of being dead, she guessed; there wasn’t another way to die.
The makeshift bridge buckled beneath their weight. Afton stumbled to his knees, and Erinna felt the tug of the rope against her weight. It was going to break. Without a second thought tospare, Erinna hauled Afton to his feet and shoved him toward the ledge. They were only a few steps away from safety.
The wood cracked and splintered beneath her feet. The mage staggered to the other side before the gangplank gave out and Erinna tumbled into the dark below.
Her fall was halted with shuddering force as the rope snapped taut against Kane’s hold. She swung aggressively over darkness, heart beating into her throat. If Kane hadn’t tied the rope around her, she would be at the bottom of the ocean, dead and gone.
They had made it to the other side, but Erinna wondered how easy it would be to return as she peered into the seemingly never-ending darkness below.
“That was a risky move, Yarrow,” Kane grunted as he pulled her back to safety. Worry and anger painted his features and likely mirrored her own.
“Well, I guess I owe you my life then. Right before you end us all.” She hurriedly undid the bindings and tossed the rope to the floor.
Kane looked around. “Seems fine to me.”
Raye flickered and shook his head in her periphery.
