Page 131 of Kingmakers, Year Four

My mother told me that.

I wheel around to face her, seeing that she already heard both sides of the call.

“What do we do?” I ask her.

“We go in. Right now.”

“What if Marko called them?”

“I don’t care if he has,” my mother says, fiercely. “It’s now or never. We’re getting Ivan back.”

We pile into our respective Jeeps, my mother heading for the tunnels, our car driving to the point in the Ile river where we can access the outflow pipe leading up into the mine.

As we jostle around in the back of the Jeep, Nix catches my eye. Her face is pale and rigid. We’re both thinking the same thing, without either of us speaking aloud:

Marko Moroz could be on his way here right now.

“AmI going to grow another set of arms swimming in this shit?” Adrik says, eyeing the outflow pipe distastefully.

“The mine is supposed to be decommissioned,” Freya says, fitting her mask onto her face.

“It isn’t, though,” Adrik says. “Even if they’re not actively digging, they’re still extracting yellowcake from the ore. And selling it to god knows who.”

“Well,” Freya shrugs, “The Geiger counter says it’s no worse than an x-ray. And you’re wearing a wetsuit.”

We’re all wearing wetsuits. Even Nix, who didn’t hesitate in donning hers—not with Adrik scowling at her.

He only stopped glaring at Nix when distracted by Sabrina Gallo zipping her very tight wetsuit over her hourglass figure. I’ve never seen Adrik stunned to silence over a girl. Usually he gives them about the same amount of attention as he pays to speed limits and unpaid parking tickets—a mere passing glance.

Sabrina is too intrigued by the mission at hand to pay attention to Adrik in return. She scans the map of the waterways, following the route I marked out in red.

“Don’t worry,” Adrik says. “We’ve got a list of the turns.”

“I don’t need a list,” Sabrina says. “Left, left, center, right, left, right, right, center, left, center, right, right, left, center.”

She rattles off the directions flawlessly, without glancing down.

Adrik stares at her, then snatches the map away to check if she’s correct.

“You’re still not the smartest cousin,” Leo tells her.

Anna looks pale and strained, staring down at the dark water.

I know why she’s nervous—Leo almost drowned in the sea caves below Kingmakers our first year at school. Actually, it was Dean who almost drowned him. As the cousins have reconciled since then, I’m guessing we won’t have to worry about overt sabotage. Only all the other things that might kill us down there.

“Do you remember how to use the regulator?” I ask Nix.

“Yes,” she says, snatching it out of my hand. “Probably better than you do.”

She aced Environmental Adaptation, with a higher score on her SCUBA exam than I managed to scrape in all four years.

“Fair enough,” I say, fitting my own mask in place.

We drop down into the water: first Adrik, then Kade, followed by Sabrina, Dean, Leo, Anna, and Hedeon, then Nix with me right behind her, and Freya bringing up the rear.

Freya is a strong swimmer. Still, I keep glancing back over my shoulder to make sure she’s right behind me.

The water’s freezing, even through the wetsuits. My headlamp only illuminates a small radius in front of me.

---