Like that, I thought, as the strands I had been trying to grasp suddenly disappeared, fading into nothingness in my hands. And leaving me at the mercy of the crazed little taxi I was now stuck inside, without knowing how much air I had left or where I was going. Or what the heck that was, I thought, peering through the rippling surface at something in the distance.

It didn’t stay distant for long. That was concerning not only because it was huge, a dark, oblong shape that I couldn’t see very well in the gloom but also because it appeared to be able to give a whale a decent run for his money. Only whales didn’t have teeth that big, did they?

I didn’t think they had teeth at all, just a screen for filtering krill and why was I thinking about that when we were about to get eaten? Because we were, we very definitely were, and the blob finally appeared to wake up to that fact. And started churning up the water with its tentacles.

But they were short and stubby, and the Not Whale was still coming, and the little burst of speed we’d put on was only doing us the dubious favor of allowing me to see our pursuer better.

That didn’t help because I still didn’t know what it was. I didn’t want to know what it was. It looked like a cross between a whale and a shark, with a tremendous body and a gaping maw, and why did every freaking thing in Faerie have a gaping maw?

With teeth larger than me, by the look of them.

I had a second to stare at the biggest set of chompers I’d ever seen when suddenly, I was no longer trapped. Because my little friend had decided that it was every demon for himself and shat me out before hauling ass, zipping off into the darkness like a fleeing jellyfish. And leaving me as the sole hors d’oeuvre on the tray.

How did I get here, I thought, staring at looming death. And wondering if the set of armor that my dress was quickly transforming into would save me from those teeth. It was dragon scale, but I supposed that even that had limits and—

And shut up, shut up, shut up, you’re about to die!

That was undoubtedly true, as the giant creature was now on top of me, the maw was gaping even wider, and I was about to find out how Jonah had felt—

When what looked like a human fist, if it was fifty times the size and made of golden light, popped out of nowhere. And crashed into the creature’s jawline, hard enough to send several of those teeth flying. One of them shot past me, disturbing the water, but not half as much as when the whole great body flipped around, tail thrashing, and sent me tumbling head over heels, lost in a wash of bubbles and a current that left me feeling like I was being torn apart.

But the armor held me together, although it did nothing for my burning lungs because I had no air. And what little I’d had that encounter had forced out of me. Leaving my vision darkening, my body flailing, and my brain telling me that I should have listened to Pritkin and gone home.

Because Faerie was just one big way to die.

And it would have been, but the portal took that moment to cycle back to Earth, and my power immediately reached out to me. It found me just before I lost consciousness, enveloping me in warmth and shooting magic down to my fingertips. And a second later, I had a new enclosure, which smelled much better than the old one.

This one smelled like loamy earth and wildflowers and the rich greenness that permeated this part of Faerie, but not because I’d shifted up there. But because I’d reached out and shifted it down to me. Or a portion of it, anyway, with crumbly soil under my feet, a bunch of little river rocks that threatened to trip me up, and a branch full of leaves that promptly fell into my face.

Not that I cared because air.

I gulped it down, my lungs greedy and seemingly impossible to satisfy for a moment, maybe because the damned branch kept getting in the way! I spat out a mouthful of leaves, heaved in a deep, satisfying breath, and coughed much of it back out because I already had a lung full of water. Then, I breathed in more clear, sparkling breaths that a few seconds ago had seemed like a mirage in the desert and something I would never experience again.

Before looking around and realizing the fight wasn’t over.

The fight was just gearing up, in fact, and the Not-Whale was pissed.

The fist had just made it mad, so I decided to make it madder before my power cut out again, and it succeeded in eating Pritkin. Because that had been his fist, a massive extension of his tiny-looking body, which was still going to town on whatever part of the bastard it could find. But it didn’t seem to be making much of a difference.

There was too much blubber in the way, which cushioned the blows, and when Pritkin decided to go for the mouth again, his impressive fist got introduced to the chompers from hell.

And they didn’t give a damn about his magic.

Try mine, bitch, I thought, and sent a spell speeding through the ward encasing my air pocket and out into the open water.

It didn’t change the water as water doesn’t age. But the same could not be said for the Not Whale. I once thought that Faerie’s creations were eternal, but apparently not.

Because a large section of its scarred old hide suddenly burst outward, as if from decaying gasses, blowing a hole big enough for me to see what was happening inside. It wasn’t pretty. Entrails were churning and dissolving into soup, ribs were cracking and blackening and falling to pieces, and the great spine was liquifying as the spell, shot at an angle, boiled through to the other side and punched a hole there as well, bisecting the creature that was no longer looking quite so angry anymore.

In fact, it wasn’t looking so much like a creature anymore and more like something called lunch. Because out of nowhere, the formerly empty water was churning with life, as a myriad of weird aquatic . . . things . . . came zooming in, determined to get a piece of the pie. Or of the whale. Or of something I didn’t care about because my power had just cut out again.

Son of a bitch!

The ward I’d been sustaining popped, letting the water rush in and slap me in the face. The tree branch decided it had had enough and floated off, but not up because things were too churned up thanks to the feeding frenzy to obey gravity. And while I had a lungful of air this time, as there was no longer anything to force it out of me, it wouldn’t last.

How many minutes had it been between cycles of that portal? I thought frantically. And didn’t know, having been busy almost dying that whole time. And was about to do it again, and that wasn’t fair.

We’d won, damn it!