Squaring her shoulders, Prunella marched off down the street. There could be no thought of abandoning Mak Genggang to the Society now, when the witch had taught her so much. She would stand by Mak Genggang, and she did not mean to look back.
And Prunella would have held to her resolve, if there had not been a great thud behind her, and if Zacharias had not let out such a horrible scream.
•••
ZACHARIASdid not mean to make a play for Prunella’s sympathy. He had slipped and fallen: it had rained during the night, and the ground was still wet. He thought nothing of it, but when he sought to rise he found he could not.
He reached out to steady himself, and put his hand down in a puddle of rainwater. He did not mind this either—until claws sank into his hand.
Zacharias screamed. The pain was excruciating, and when he tried to tear his hand away it felt as though his arm would sooner be pulled out of its joint. The puddle grew and transformed.
Zacharias saw a gaping maw made of brown water, with translucent fangs, and leaves swirling down its throat. He took a deep breath despite the prickling of magic in his nostrils, knowing that one inhalation would need to last him a while, and then the monster gulped him down.
Prunella, turning reluctantly around, saw a mass of water consume Zacharias’s person. She shrieked.
“What is it?” cried Mak Genggang.
“Mr. Wythe is being murdered!” said Prunella. She thought of the fire at the Blue Boar, and clenched her fists. “Oh, the villain! What shall we do?”
Mak Genggang peered over the side of the basket. Zacharias was fumbling blindly at his coat, perhaps seeking his staff, but he seemed to be fighting against a great force to move at all. His eyes and mouth were screwed shut, and his face wore a look of grim resolve.
“If the water does not hold him long enough to suffocate him, it will poison him first,” said Mak Genggang, in the judicious manner of an expert. “Look at how his face twitches—the water is acid, and eats at his skin. It is a clever hex. Must we save him?”
“Mak Genggang! He persuaded his wicked magicians to preserve your life.”
“And threw me into gaol!” said Mak Genggang. “Very well, child, I will do it, so you need not make faces at me. He is a well-bred young man, after all. I like a young man who shows a proper respect to his elders.”
She held out her arms, and now it could be seen that Mak Genggang was not merely a tiny replica of her former self, for there was a singular new addition: a pair of wings growing out of her back. Mak Genggang had invented these to ease her escape. They were of thin, leathery skin, spread over delicate cartilage, and looked nearly translucent as Mak Genggang took to the air.
She hovered for a moment above the devouring mass of water, then dived into it, alighting upon Zacharias’s shoulder.
Zacharias felt a tiny weight settle upon him. He moved his shoulder to try to dislodge it, but then for the first time since he had been devoured, there was an intermission of pain. A cooling protectionflowed down his arm, shielding his flesh from the acid sting of the water—extraordinary blessing!
There was a buzzing at his ear, blurred by the water, and Zacharias heard indistinctly the words:
“Listen to the spell, Sorcerer. I am too small to cover you entirely, but you may do it yourself if you attend.”
The relief of the pain seemed to return to Zacharias some of his own mind. He focused on Mak Genggang’s voice, and though all noise was blunted underwater he discerned the syllables of an enchantment, repeated over and over again. The words were foreign, of course, but one did not always need to understand the words of a charm to cast it: as a youth Zacharias had amused himself by casting spells in Sanskrit to tolerable effect, though he had made only a brief study of the language.
It required an effort of will to open his mouth to speak, for he knew he must swallow the burning water in consequence—but he did it.
As he murmured the enchantment, speaking slowly despite the fiery agony from the water sliding down his throat, the relief began to envelop him. It spread from his arm down his left side, along his leg, and then the effect of the spell began to communicate itself across to the right side of his person. Provided he kept repeating the spell he could preserve himself from this distracting pain, but how would he get himself out of this fix? No exertion of mere physical strength would extricate him from the grasp of the water. Besides, he was beginning to feel faint from lack of air.
“Mak Genggang,” he said, or thought—he was not sure which—“if you can but make a hole through the water, and if Miss Gentleman will assist—”
Mak Genggang did not reply, but a gap opened in the water, and Zacharias thrust out a wet hand. Prunella grasped it at once, though she winced at the sting of the poisoned water.
“What can I do?” she said.
“Give me your magic,” gasped Zacharias. That meant a gulp of too much water. He coughed, struggling for air, but Prunella’s small hand was solid and warm in his. He cast out his drowning consciousness like a net, and drew in magic through her.
Prunella had never experienced such a peculiar sensation. The world was brilliant with colour and light, and everything looked strange, but truer than it had ever been. The monstrous bulk of water turned into a furious woman, with trailing green hair, a lashing serpent’s tail and long-nailed fingers throttling Zacharias. Zacharias himself was a silvery salmon thrashing in her coils. Mak Genggang, hovering above the fray, looked exactly the same.
She saw all this in a flash. Then there was no more Prunella: she was one with all the fleeting imps of the air. Magic rushed through her, like water through a pipe, into Zacharias’s hand.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the salmon wriggle out of the woman’s grasp. All at once Prunella’s bones and muscles seemed to turn to jelly. She collapsed, and Zacharias fell on his knees beside her, brown water showering down on them. He was free.
“A spell for untangling,” he gasped. “The water had me in a binding charm. The counter-formula is no more difficult than untying a knot, but it requires force. I could not have done it without your aid.”
