I stand, suddenly feeling hot, panicked, and anxious. I feel Rhydra’s concerned gaze on me. And his.
“I’ll be back,” I mumble.
And then I dive over the side of the boat into the cold, black, welcoming water. The initial shock wipes my mind clean for a moment, and I begin to work my arms. Faster and faster, until they begin to fatigue.
I finally stop, tread water, and look back. I can barely see the lights on the boat from here. I lie on my back and look up at the black sky. I can see the faintest hint of a blueish green tint in the veil, as if there’s some grand light show above it that we’re missing out on. I think I’ve read about this before in old historical texts, but I can’t remember what they called it.
Feeling a little calmer, I begin my journey back to the boat, which looks like it’s stopped moving. With the help of a little water magic, I propel myself along, traveling through the water much faster this time.
I would’ve gotten off the island ages ago if they hadn’t fucking taken that from me.
I approach the boat quietly and pick up on some chatter.
“No, we really should look for her.” I didn’t realize Phaedra cared what happened to me, to be honest.
“She’ll be fine. She’s a water elemental. Let her have a moment,” Daegan grumbles. But his voice sounds tense, impatient.
“She already drowned once on my watch and nearly died.” Damn it, Phaedra.
“What?” Daegan. Sounding startled. Sounding… scary.
“Yeah. When Adrian first showed up she got this crazy idea that she could swim off the island. Without her magic. I guess she wanted to be away from him that badly. It took a while for her to dry up though, and she had a lot of… setbacks.”
“Dry up?” Daegan asks. Demands.
“Yeah… she, uh… had quite the drinking habit. Is she not normally like that?”
Nobody answers. There’s a long silence. I’m about to alert them to my presence when I hear Daegan’s voice again.
“Did he hurt her?”
“No,” Phaedra says immediately. Almost defensively. “Adrian would never…”
A grunting sound comes from Daegan, and then I grab onto the ladder on the side and pull myself up.
All eyes are on me as I climb back into the boat, but Daegan’s already on his feet, handing me a large, thick hide of some sort. He holds it out and I step into it, already shivering as he wraps it around me. Somehow, he completely avoids making any sort of contact with me though.
“Thanks,” I mumble, tucking my chin into myself, shivering more.
Everyone is awake now. Great.
Even Kezra is hanging out by herself at the front of the boat. Sometimes she’ll fly off to who knows where, but she always comes back for a while. She probably just flies over the ocean by herself for some peace. Sort of like what I just did.
“Hey, Kezra?” I call out to her. I can’t really see her face, but somehow, I know her attention has shifted to me. “How is it you’re the only creature that we know of on the whole continent that can still fly?”
“An elf does not know a fairy’s greatest secrets, just as a fairy does not know a witch’s greatest secrets.”
“What?” Raef says.
“It means she doesn’t know why the curse works the way it does, just like the rest of us,” Rhydra explains. She leans closer to me. “I like the fairy,” she tells me more quietly with a grin.
“Yeah, I knew what she meant,” Raef says, waving her off.
“Then why ask? Do you struggle with hearing also?” Kezra questions him.
Raef heaves an exaggerated sigh and doesn’t answer her question. “I wonder if the witch even knew what she was doing when she cast it,” he mumbles. That’s a fair point. I’ve wondered that myself once or twice. We may never know all the answers though. If anyone knows more about that, it would be Maethrel. But he likes to keep his secrets.
Magic holds many secrets that we may never understand.
