Page 231

Arlo braces his boots against the slick floor and drives the crate forward with a grunt, water slamming around his waist as he forces the heavy steel box into place, and I throw both hands out as soon as it hits the breach.

The crate dents under my magic.

Heat blooms across its surface, white and gold beneath the water, steam rising in thick clouds as the metal softens, bends, and spreads under my command.

The flood turns warm around my hands.

The steel melts slowly at first, then faster, sinking into the gaps between the torn hull. It’s like packing a wound with molten metal while holding the sea back at the same time.

My teeth clench so hard my jaw aches.

The ship groans around me.

The ocean presses harder.

“Ali,” Arlo says, and there is fear in his voice now. “You’re bleeding.”

I feel the warmth seep down to my lip, but I don’t look away from the hull. “We need more.”

Arlo, despite his worry about my power use, curses, looking for anything else we can melt.

“What about this?” He holds up a silver food tray, then moves back to shove it against the weakest area.

He lets out a strained laugh that breaks almost as quickly as it comes, and he pushes the tray tighter against the hole while I drive heat through the steel until it spreads over the breach in a shining, molten plate.

“Move your hands!” I shriek as he sticks more trays to the same area. I know it must be burning him. Arlo shoves back, dropping his hands into the knee-deep water.

Then I call the cold.

Not from the air—from the sea itself.

The water around the steel turns pale, frost threading across the glowing metal in branching lines, steam bursting upward as the molten seal hardens against the broken hull.

The magic snaps into place with a sound that travels through the deck beneath my feet.

The rush of water stops, and the water inside turns to steam, evaporating in front of our eyes.

A few thin streams still bleed around the edges, but the water no longer pours in, and the ship steadies.

Arlo lets out a breath and drops one hand onto my shoulder. “You did it.”

I sway, my hands still lifted, my body shaking from the force of what I just pulled through me.

“If they hit us again, it won’t hold,” I say, turning toward the stairs as shouting grows louder above.

Arlo grabs my arm. “Can’t you portal us out of here or something?”

The question hits hard because I have thought about it too, because some desperate part of me keeps reaching for that impossible escape even though I know the answer.

“I can’t move an entire ship,” I answer, pushing wet hair out of my face with a trembling hand. “I don’t even know how I did that the first time.”

His face tightens. “Then we have to keep the ship floating.”

I stare at him for one breath, struck by how simple he makes it sound, by how easily he turns fear into action, so I nod because there is no time for anything else.

We race back up, and the deck is worse than before.

Smoke rolls low across the planks, men shout through it, and vampires move in blurs. A steady arc of arrows, tipped with burning oil, streaks from our ship toward the enemy like fireflies in the dark. It would be beautiful if it wasn’t terrifying.