The flood came faster than I could imagine.

  By the time the fourth coffin shut, the water had already swallowed the pedestal. The Tear was gone—lost somewhere in the whirling dark below. My bell still glowed faintly, its light flickering against the ceiling like a candle at the bottom of a gss.

  There was nowhere left to go.

  The current pushed from all sides, churning cold and heavy. I tried to brace myself against the wall, but the force dragged at my clothes and hair, pulling me toward the center of the chamber. The water climbed up my throat, crept past my chin, almost touching the ceiling.

  A hot spike of anger fred under my ribs, burning straight into regret. Some of us could've waited outside. The door would've stayed open until we cimed the Tear. It should've been safe—was supposed to be safe. The mer-beast had stolen that margin from us.

  The ceiling pressed down, rippling inches above my face—mirror-ft, waiting.

  I tilted my head back and took one st, shuddering breath.

  Then the st pocket of air slipped away, and I went under.

  The world fell silent.

  Light blurred, smeared into ribbons of gold and blue. My limbs felt sluggish, my heartbeat distant. The water was freezing but soft somehow, like being held. I turned in pce, searching for the coffins.

  Four faint glows along the wall—one for each of them.

  Lumiere's light shone brightest, pure and steady even as her palms pounded against the gss. Evelyn's was erratic, fists hammering in fury. Seraphine was trying to work a spell, runes scattering from her fingertips and vanishing before they formed. And Rocher—Rocher was shouting something I couldn't hear. His hand struck the gss until his knuckles split.

  The lids didn't budge. They were built to outst centuries—and the pressure had already sealed them tight.

  I circled the chamber again, checking for anything I'd missed—but to no avail. There was nothing left. No clever way out.

  Sensation fled my body, leaving behind only the ache of my muscles. My edges of my vision darkened.

  I pressed my hand to the nearest coffin. The light warped through the water, faces and shapes smearing together until I couldn't tell whose it was anymore. There was only motion, desperation.

  It's fine, I mouthed. You're safe.

  Bubbles slipped from my lips and floated upward, slow and shining. My chest burned. My lungs cwed for air, but there was nothing more to give them.

  At least they'd made it. At least they'd live.

  That thought was enough.

  I closed my eyes.

  The water filled my mouth first, metallic and cold. Then it poured down, heavy and final, flooding every part of me until the pain blurred into nothing.

  The st thing I saw before darkness took me was a rge hand against the gss, trembling—then it was gone.

  Rocher couldn't breathe.

  Not because the air was gone—yet—but because he could see her.

  Through the curved gss of his coffin, Cire drifted just beyond reach, her bell still glowing faintly against the dark. Her hair floated around her like seaweed, body sck, eyes closed.

  "Cire!"

  His shout came out as a muffled thud. The sound died against the gss, swallowed by the water. He smmed his fist into it again and again, feeling the vibration crawl up his bones.

  Nothing.

  The sarcophagus was built to withstand centuries of decay, sealed by magic and pressure both. Even if the spell hadn't locked it, the flood would've pinned it shut. He could already feel the walls creaking as the water pressed in from every side.

  He couldn't think. Couldn't wait.

  He drove his elbow into the gss. Once. Twice.

  A spiderweb of cracks fred across the surface. Blood streaked through the water as the shards cut his skin. He hit it again, a hoarse sound tearing from his throat—half roar, half prayer.

  The gss shattered.

  Water exploded inward, smming him to the back wall. For a heartbeat, everything was bubbles and noise.

  Then silence again, heavy and thick.

  He kicked free of the coffin, ignoring the sting in his arms, the pull of his cuts.

  Cire floated near the ceiling, suspended like a broken doll.

  Rocher reached her in two strokes. Her body was limp, her clothes weightless in the current. The sight of her made something inside him fracture clean through.

  Cire, he mouthed, bubbles streaming past his lips.

  Her lips were blue, her chest still.

  Panic tore through him.

  He wrapped an arm around her waist, the other bracing her head, and kicked off the ceiling. The chamber spun in all directions—no light, no surface, only water.

  Think. Think.

  The sealed door was gone, buried under pressure. The sluices—too narrow. The coffins—sealed.

  But the flood had to go somewhere.

  Cire said it would subside if they survived long enough.

  He turned his head, searching the current.

  There—a draft, faint but real, tugging at the water near the far wall.

  A narrow drainage tunnel, half-concealed by coral and bone, sealed by a grate—ancient iron fused with barnacle and rust.

  Cire would've seen it and moved on; no reasonable person could've forced it open underwater.

  Good thing he was beyond reason.

  He gathered her drifting sleeves and wrapped them around his torso twice, binding the fabric tight across his ribs. The knots were clumsy, but they held.

  His arms shook—he was already close to his limit—but he wrapped both hands around the bars.

  The metal bit into his palms as he pulled.

  The strain lit up every wound on his body. His vision flickered. The metal creaked but held.

  He tried again, breath bursting from his chest in bubbles. The corroded bolts groaned against his effort.

  On the third wrench, the grate tore free, spinning into the darkness. The current surged forward, catching them both.

  Rocher clutched her tighter as the pull strengthened, dragging them toward the open tunnel. Blood trailed behind him in long, dissolving ribbons.

  Hold on, he whispered, though she could no longer hear.

  The tunnel was narrower than he'd hoped.

  Rocher forced his way in feet first, boots navigating the stone as he let the current drag them deeper. His arms did the work, bracing and pulling to keep Cire tucked safely against his chest.

  The stone scraped his shoulders and back raw. But stopping wasn't an option.

  The current sucked them deeper, colder.

  His lungs screamed, ribs aching from the pressure. The light from Cire's bell flickered weakly, barely enough to see the next arm's length of stone.

  He tightened his grip, dragging at the water with his free hand while the current did the rest.

  The tunnel twisted once, then again, the walls pressing close enough to crush thought.

  His vision began to gray at the edges.

  Not yet.

  The light on her wrist winked out. The silence was absolute. The dark pressed close like a living thing.

  Then his hand brushed open space.

  A faint shimmer above—the promise of a surface.

  He kicked once more, legs burning. The pressure lifted, the cold eased, and then—

  Air.

  He broke through with a ragged gasp, dragging Cire up with him. The sound of his own breathing filled his head—ugly, raw, glorious.

  They'd surfaced into a hollow chamber, half-colpsed but mercifully open to air. Water pped at the sides where crumbled stone met glowing moss.

  He id Cire on a ft ledge and leaned over her.

  His arms nearly buckled. He steadied his shaking hands and pressed his ear to her lips.

  Nothing. No breath, no pulse he could find—just the faint glow of the bell on her wrist, still pulsing weakly, almost in rhythm with his own heart.

  Rocher swallowed hard.

  "Come on," he rasped.

  He tilted her chin, pinched her nose, and breathed for her—once, twice, three times. Her chest rose beneath his hands, then fell, limp and silent.

  He started compressions, the motion jerky, desperate. The sound of water spping the stone echoed with every push.

  "Don't do this," he muttered. "You don't get to stop here. Breathe."

  He breathed for her once more. Nothing.

  Then again.

  His throat ached from gasping, from begging air into lungs that refused to move. Blood from his knuckles streaked across her skin as he kept going—steady, frantic, refusing to let her go cold.

  The bell flickered once. Twice.

  The light steadied, glowing faintly golden.

  Rocher froze, staring at it.

  The warmth beneath his palms changed—barely perceptible, but real.

  Cire's skin wasn't icy anymore.

  "Come on," he whispered, lowering his mouth to hers again. "Please."

  He breathed once more, harder this time——and this time her chest convulsed.

  Then a full-body shudder tore through her, and she coughed hard, water spilling from her mouth in a wet, choking burst. Her whole torso seized again, fighting for air on instinct alone.

  Relief hit him so sharply his vision blurred.

  He caught her shoulders as she twisted, helping her turn to the side as she retched up another mouthful of water. Every breath she dragged in sounded thin and raw, like her lungs were learning how to work again.

  Her eyes fluttered open. Unfocused. Gssy. She stared past him at the cave walls, then the waterline, then the ceiling, as if none of it belonged to the same pce.

  When her gaze finally drifted toward him, it was slow and lost, her brows pulling faintly together like she could not understand why he was there.

  "Rocher...?"

  Her hand lifted weakly, fingertips brushing his sleeve before sliding off again. She looked dazed, disoriented, her breaths shallow and uneven. Another cough racked her and she winced, blinking like the world was still tilting under her.

  "The coffins..." She swallowed hard, eyes unfocused. "I thought..."

  The rest dissolved into another thin, trembling breath. And then, faintly, as if the thought had only just reached her:

  "You—" Her voice was a rasp. "You shouldn't have left the coffin."

  Rocher let out a strangled ugh. Of all the things to wake up worried about, of course it would be that.

  He leaned forward and pulled her against him, one arm around her back, the other cradling the back of her head so she would not slip. She was shaking, cold as the water they had come from, her breath still hitching against his colrbone. He shut his eyes and let his forehead rest against her temple, trying to steady the tremor running through his own body.

  "You shouldn't have stayed behind," he managed, voice rough.

  Cire made a small sound, not quite protest, not quite pain. Her fingers curled weakly against his chest, more reflex than strength.

  She coughed again, leaning more of her weight into him as if she could not stay upright on her own. He tightened his arm around her, holding her steady through every ragged breath.

  She was alive. That was all that mattered.

  Here, at least for now, there was air.