Kieran stares at the daggers for half a second, his eyes wide. Then his jaw sets, and he’s moving again, blades ready.
I glance around, checking if anyone else saw what he just did.
Callie’s frantically trying to control the wheel. Logan’s helping Evie to her feet after the near fatal incident with the mast. All of them were occupied, leaving me as the only witness of Kieran’s… whatever the hell he just did.
I don’t have time to unpack it, because one of Scylla’s other heads moves in, and I pull lightning from the sky, throwing it into her ugly face.
She roars, electricity webbing around her head and down her neck, flailing around as the jolts fry her skin. But the head doesn’t fall into the water or turn into ash like I wanted. It simplyslithers back into the cave, as if Scylla can heal from a lightning strike by retreating to safety and licking a few wounds.
Another head pulls back as well, as if to help its sister-head. I strike it with lightning before it disappears into the cave, but we’re clearly playing on hard mode now, because she also doesn’t turn to ash.
Evie’s shield is back up in time to protect us from another attack, and then Logan’s lunging for the frontmost rowing yoke midship and wrenching it back. The twin oars swing in their iron locks, blades carving into the dark water as he puts everything he has into propelling us forward.
One stroke. Two strokes. Three.
A horrible, groaning roar comes from behind us on the left, and I spin around so fast I nearly trip over a coil of rope.
The whirlpool’s expanding outward into a churning spiral of death, water that was calm seconds ago spiraling inward and sucking debris to the center.
“That’s not possible,” Evie calls out as she continues maintaining the shield. “Charybdis activates every eight hours, and we’re too far away to have triggered her.”
“The cycle’s wrong.” Logan rows faster, the muscles in his arms coiling in a way I really shouldn’t be stopping to admire when death is coming at us from both sides.
Callie’s fighting the wheel, her body straining against the current. “I can’t hold her!” she cries out. “The pull’s too strong!”
“Stop trying to outrun her by going straight.” Logan rows faster, sounding eerily calm. “Turn right instead. We’ll use the oars to propel us faster.”
My brain short-circuits.
“I’m sorry, what? We barely survived Scylla trying to eat us and now you want to head straight to her?”
“The whirlpool’s expanding toward the center. If we stay this course, we get sucked in. If we go left, we definitely get suckedin,” he says, leaving no time for argument. “Evie—hold the shield. Jade and Kieran—help me row.”
I hurry to the rowing yoke behind him, grip the handles, and row with all the strength I have.
Kieran sheathes his sword, takes the yoke behind me, and then we’re plunging the oars into the water in time with each other, pulling hard toward the right cliff.
The current fights every stroke. My shoulders are burning, and my arms are shaking. The oars keep trying to twist out of my grip, and I have to clench my teeth and pull harder, like I’m rowing through concrete instead of water.
“The vortex is moving!” Callie calls from the wheel.
I look back, and she’s right. The whirlpool isn’t just expanding anymore. It’smoved,so the center of the spiral is in the middle of the strait.
It’s exactly where we would have been if Logan hadn’t told us to turn a hard right.
Evie’s frozen, her eyes locked on the whirlpool. “Charybdis is anchored to the seabed. She can’tmove.”
“Tell that to the giant death spiral trying to kill us,” Callie snaps.
“Keep rowing,” Logan says, strained but steady. “We’re almost through.”
I tear my eyes away from the vortex and row. My palms are raw, every muscle in my body screams, but I row and row and row, because the alternative is becoming fish food in the world’s most nightmarish ocean hole, and that’sreallynot how I wanted to end my weekend.
“Heat shield!” Logan calls out to Evie. “Full force, maximum power, for at least sixty seconds. If it flickers, we die.”
Evie raises her hands and a bright dome ignites around us, solidifying seconds before Scylla strikes again, the impact rocking the boat sideways.
I fight to keep rowing. Logan’s hands are shaking around the handles of his oars. I can only trust that Kieran’s holding strong behind me.
