The bad news was that the platform looked empty from their vantage point.
“Gods damn it,” Nate said. “Someone beat us here.”
Alexis felt his frustration echo, felt her own rise to match. “Iago, maybe?”
“That’d explain why he’s so much more advanced than we are.” His voice was hollow and disgusted. Discouraged. Paddling to the start of the stairs, he climbed out of the water, then reached a hand back to help her up. “Come on. Let’s see if the bastard left us anything.”
Left unspoken was the other question, equally important if not more so: Let’s see if there’s a way out.
When they reached the top of the staircase, though, Nate muttered a low curse. The space had been stripped clean; hell, it even looked like Iago—assuming it’d been him—had swept on his way out.
There was no evidence of a doorway, either. The walls were seamless painted murals on three sides, with the fourth open to the water, but no matter how hard they pressed or whispered the “pasaj och” spell, no secret passages revealed themselves.
“It’s a dead end,” Alexis said finally, trying hard not to let her voice shake.
“In more ways than one,” Nate said, his eyes hard with anger. “Gods damn it. I’m sick of being two steps behind these bastards.” He spun away and paced the edge of the platform, wheezing a little as the air in the closed-off space started to thin.
Legs giving out under the weight of the fear she’d held off for as long as she was able, Alexis leaned back against the painted wall and slid down until she was sitting on the cool stone floor with her knees to her chest, her body curled up in a protective ball. She wanted to ask what they were going to do next, but didn’t because she figured his answer would be the same as hers: I don’t know.
“We could probably make it back to the other chamber on a single breath if we swim fast,” she said.
But Nate shook his head. “For all we know, the chamber could be full up by now. At least here it doesn’t look like the water’s rising. We should—” He broke off, freezing midpace. “The chamber could be full up,” he repeated.
“Yes. And?”
“Where’s the pressure going?”
“The—Oh, right,” she said, remembering what little she knew of fluid dynamics, most’ve which had come from hanging out at the marina. “The incoming water is displacing air, which has to be going somewhere, or the water would stop flowing into the chamber because of back pressure.” She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “You’re right that there’s got to be an outflow. But we’re way bigger than air molecules. Nothing says we’d be able to get through.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He held out a hand, kindling a small fireball. “The airhole would be a structural weak spot, right?”
“You want us to blast our way out?”
“Would you rather stay here?”
“Hell, no.” Wary hope kindling in her chest, Alexis pushed herself to her feet and crossed to him.
As she approached, he let the fireball wink out. She stopped very close to him and looked up into his eyes, which were dark in the fading flashlight beam. “We’re betting on there being some air left.”
“You see a better option?” he asked, his words a soft touch of breath on her upturned face.
She shook her head. “No. I definitely think we should try it, but I was wondering . . . what about a barrier spell?”
“To protect us after we let rip with the fireballs? Definitely.”
“Well, that. But I was thinking more along the lines of casting one all the way around our bodies and seeing if it acts like a dry suit, keeping the water away from us and trapping a layer of air. It’d have to be a thin layer so we still fit through the tunnel, but it might hold enough oxygen to buy us time.” Grim logic said they’d be out of air when they reached the cavern. If the space was completely submerged, they wouldn’t even have a chance to try the underwater-fireballing theory.
“A shield like that would be a power drain,” Nate said, but it was more of a comment than a real argument. He tipped his head in acknowledgment. “I think it’s worth a shot.”
They descended the short staircase side by side, and Nate kept a protective hand on the small of her back. Alexis wanted to lean into the touch, into the man, but she didn’t because it wasn’t the right time. She did, however, make an inner vow: If we get out of here, I’m going to show him that I cared—
and I still care—about him as a man, not just a mage or a mate.
As if she’d spoken the thought aloud, he stopped and turned at the bottom of the stairs, and took her hand in his so their sacrificial scars lined up like a promise. Then he leaned in and touched his lips to hers. “For luck.”
“For luck,” she whispered when he drew back.
He palmed his ceremonial knife from his weapons belt, which had been damaged in the quake maelstrom, and cut his palm, then offered her the knife because she’d lost her belt altogether. She cut a groove along the raised ridge of flesh, welcoming the bite of pain because it meant that she was still alive, still fighting. Then she handed the knife back, and they both jacked in and called on their warriors’ shield magic.
Alexis’s shield appeared in a flash of color and a brilliant burst of power from the base of her skull.
Nate stumbled back in surprise, and would’ve fallen into the water if she hadn’t reached out and grabbed him. When they touched, the rainbow spread from her to him and back, and the shield spell strengthened far beyond where she’d been able to get it previously. Thank you, goddess, she thought, relieved by the help, and by the evidence that Ixchel hadn’t deserted her entirely.
Sending her consciousness into the magic, Alexis shaped it around her body, then around Nate’s, leaving a three-inch space between the shield and his skin, weaving the protective magic into a different form than it normally held, one with texture and flexibility. Soon their bodies were surrounded with a pulsating glow that was all colors and none of them at once, buoying Alexis with magic and light. But alongside the thrill of power was the knowledge that this was a one-shot deal, and they didn’t have a plan B. Please, gods, help us, she thought, aiming the prayer toward the back of her skull.
Then she nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
They dropped into the water together, submerged together, and stared into each other’s eyes as they each took a breath inside their force-field dry suits. Alexis had to make herself inhale, as her eyes were telling her brain that she was completely underwater. But when she breathed, she got a lungful of the old, stale air trapped within the skin-shield. It would have to be enough.
Knowing they were already running out of time before they even began, they turned and kicked for the tunnel, moving fast. Nate pulled ahead, and Alexis cursed inwardly when that meant she had to fight the turbulence from his powerful kicks. Then she moved up and found a slipstream of sorts, and the going got easier. They flashed along the wider, smoother tunnel, then turned into the narrow half loop, which was dark and claustrophobic in comparison. The flashlight must’ve died for good, because Nate let it fall as he swam, and Alexis felt a jump in the barrier flow as he jacked in another level deeper and called up a fireball. The light kindled to life up ahead, boiling the water around it and sending a cloud of steam bubbles back along the tunnel. They popped when they hit the edges of Alexis’s shield spell. For a moment she wondered whether they might help freshen the increasingly stale air inside her protective layer. They didn’t, though, killing her quick thought of somehow using fireballs to boil water and generate an air pocket. It might be possible in theory, but they didn’t have time to figure out the trick.