The temperature drops like we sailed into a freezer, the spray’s so thick I’m breathing salt, and the roar of water between the cliffs drowns out everything else.
I keep my eyes on Scylla’s dark cave.
Show yourself. I know you’re watching us. Let’s get this over with.
We sail deeper into the channel, the ship rocking hard enough that I have to brace my feet to stay upright. Callie’s at the wheel fighting the current, and I can feel the exact moment Charybdis’s pull starts making itself known, because the hull groans, the left cliff looms closer, and every instinct I have is screaming to get away from the monster sleeping beside us. Luckily, we’re not close enough to trigger the whirlpool, but it feels like the pull’s warning us what will happen if we try.
Then, Scylla’s first head slides out of the cave like a nightmare made flesh. It’s long and serpentine, covered with green scales. The neck seems to stretch forever, weaving through the air with horrible grace, and the head itself is the size of a small car, with jaws that hang open to reveal row after row of teeth.
A second head follows, then a third, and by the time all six are visible, I’ve stopped breathing.
Evie raises her hands, and a shimmering orange dome encases the ship. The heat’s immediate and suffocating, and my electricity recoils from it, thanks to the trauma via heat shield I experienced a few days ago in the Fury Loop.
In less than a second, one of the heads rears back and strikes, the impact hitting the dome like a battering ram. The ship lurches sideways, but Evie holds her ground, keeping the shield intact.
Scylla screams from all six heads, the sound bouncing off the cliffs and drilling into my skull. It’s too many voices layered on top of each other, furious and hungry, clearly not planning on retreating until they have their breakfast. AKA: us.
Another attack hits the dome so hard the entire ship shudders. Evie’s arms are shaking, sweat streaming down her face, and the shield flickers for a half-second before she screams and forces it back into place.
“She can’t hold it,” I say, the words ripping out of me. “I have to help.”
“Jade, wait.” Logan reaches for me, but I’m already moving, even though my lightning is supposed to be a backup plan in case Evie’s domeactuallyfails.
But I’m more than a backup plan. I’m powerful. I’mstar touched.Evie’s heat shield may have almost killed me a few days ago, but she would have pulled back before she did. Plus, unlike then, we’re working together now.
So, I call on my magic, reach for the dome, andpush.
Electricity rushes out of my fingertips in a crackling burst, silver-white against the orange-gold of Evie’s heat shield.
Hopefully I don’t fry the dome out of existence. Hopefully the two magics can co-exist, separate and parallel.
Instead, her shield and my electricitymerge,heat and lightning weaving together into a dome that crackles and pulses with power I’ve never felt before.
Scylla’s next strike bounces off like she hit steel.
Then, Evie’s emotions slam into me.
It’s like Pyropsychology class, when Nina accidentally projected her fear into me. Except the raw, ragged grief that steals the air from my lungs right now is a thousand times more overwhelming, and from the way Evie’s arms are shaking even more than before, it’s too much for her, too.
Scylla screams again.
Another one of her heads rears back, and then it’s slamming into a weak spot of the dome, directly into the forward mast.
Wood explodes, showering the deck with splinters that sting my arms and face. The mast tilts and begins to fall in what feels like slow motion as the connection between me and Evie shatters, and then I’m hitting the deck hard, my palms scraping splintered wood as electricity fizzles out of my fingertips.
The mast is falling toward Evie, who’s on her knees with her hands still raised, too focused on maintaining what’s left of the dome to see the massive beam plummeting toward her.
Logan’s across the deck in a second, barreling into Evie and rolling her into the clear. The mast crashes down where she was kneeling, slamming into the deck and sending debris flying everywhere.
He jumped back. There’s no other way he could have known exactly where to be, and exactly when to move.
How many minutes did that cost him?
Meanwhile, the heat shield’s down, and Kieran’s sending two daggers flying at another head—one for each eye—blinding it in seconds. The head shrieks and rears back, and Kieran’s hands shoot out, reaching for weapons that are no longer there. But then his fingers are flexing, as if he’s pulling on invisible strings, and the daggers are ripping free and flying back to him, hilts slapping into his palms like they’re magnetized.
What the hell?
Blood gushes out of the ruined sockets where Scylla’s eyes used to be, her neck flailing as she screams out in pain.
