Page 82 of Magick and Lead
The idea that I could fail here, after everything I’d been through… When I was so close to helping Essa get her revenge? I couldn’t let that happen.
I swam harder, pulling my way forward with every bit of my strength.
But the current was just too strong. Spots danced across my vision. My limbs felt leaden. The world seemed to be shrinking, encroaching darkness and cold narrowing my vision to a point.
I was going to pop to the surface and get my head blown off.
I was going to pass out and drown.
Essa!I tried to call, but all I did was cough a mouthful of bubbles as the cold and dark around me drew its noose tighter. My legs were cramping worse now, my left hamstring going taut as a fist, making the leg barely usable. My lungs sizzled. My mind rang with the alarm of an air raid siren. I’m going to drown. I’m going to drown. I’m going to?—
The hell I am. I’m the goddamn Silver Wraith.
But flying a plane was one thing. Swimming was another.
The blackness closed on me like the mouth of some terrible beast, and I knew no more.
37
ESSA
Iclambered up onto the slick rocks beneath The Mint and turned back, looking for Charlie to emerge from the black river behind me. But he wasn’t there.
I started to call his name, then stopped myself. If people on the deck above heard me, we’d be finished. Instead, I stared down at the river, watching as the lights from the buildings around us glinted off its inky surface. Seconds slipped by, and with each one, my feeling of unease grew.
He’s gone,I thought, horror and disbelief filling me, my heartbeat galloping.
I took a few panicked steps forward, ready to dive back into the river. Suddenly, a head emerged from the dark water, then a torso. Charlie stumbled to his feet, sputtering and coughing, and I rushed to him, putting an arm around him to help him walk on the uneven boulders.
“Sorry,” he croaked. “I got caught up in a conversation with a codfish.”
I rolled my eyes at his stupid jest, but my heart still thundered in my chest. My hands trembled, and not just from the cold. It was terrifying that the thought of losing Charlie—though it had lasted only a second—had rattled me that much.But there was no time to chastise myself for my emotions. The mission awaited.
Together, we made our way into the deeper shadows beneath The Mint, where we had less chance of being spotted. There we both sat on the stones to catch our breath as Charlie unslung the waterproof bag from his shoulder. We slipped out of our wet clothes and into dry ones. Mine were ill-fitting pants Charlie had called “jeans” and a button-up shirt of soft fabric he’d gotten from some drawers at the farm.
As he peeled the wet shirt from his body, I couldn’t help but glance over and marvel at the striated muscle of his shoulders, the statuesque, bricklike solidity of his chest, the shadow-traced grid of his abs, forming a V of muscle that plunged down into the pants he was now buttoning. Then he was pulling a T-shirt on, hiding himself from my view, and I quickly looked away before he caught me staring.
We strapped on our weapons. Daggers for me. A pistol for him.
“Now to figure out how to get in,” he whispered, tilting his head back to look at the bottom of The Mint’s floor.
The plan was for Othura to smash through and create an opening for us to climb up. Hopefully, we’d emerge in some private place like a bathroom or a coat closet, not, ideally, in the middle of the dance floor.
I checked in with Othura. No words were exchanged, but I could tell where she was. Still perhaps a mile away…
I looked up. Heavy beams ran above us, and between them, the straight lines of the wooden planks that formed The Mint’s flooring. Within the pattern of those wooden planks, I saw a faintly outlined square of light.
Charlie saw it too, and we looked at each other. I could tell we were thinking the same thing. It couldn’t be this easy. They couldn’t have left a trapdoor unblocked…
Charlie stood on a boulder and pushed upward on the square with both hands. It didn’t budge. He shifted, getting his feet securely situated on rocks below, then he braced his back against the hatch above and pushed. With a sudden creak of wood-on-wood, the thing unstuck and swung upward. Charlie gave me a grin of disbelief, then peeked his head up.
“It’s a pantry,” he whispered, jumping and pulling himself up through the opening.
I hurried to stand beneath the trapdoor, looking up into the darkness after him.
“Maybe we should wait for Othura…” I whispered.
But even as I said it, I was already changing my mind. The sooner we could get in and take out Kortoi, the better. If we lingered down here, we might miss the perfect opportunity.
