expected and let out a keening shriek that pierced through the water, echoing.
Oh no you don’t. No calling for friends. She stabbed fast, aiming not for the spirit’s heart this time but for its throat. She felt the blade nick the soft, wet flesh. A cloud of red puffed around her hand.
The spirit clapped its clawed fingers over its throat and then spurted backward. She hadn’t killed it, but it was hurt enough to retreat.
Mayara hadn’t been fast enough, though.
A larger water spirit—this one shaped like a squid and as milky white as a pearl—was darting through the water toward her. It had heard the childlike spirit’s cry, either through the water or in its mind.
She tried to outswim it, aiming for the fissure, but it wrapped its tentacles around her waist, pulling her under. She jammed her knife into one of the tentacles. Blood stained the water, but the spirit didn’t loosen its grip.
No! I am not dying today!
Yanking the blade out, she stabbed again and again, but still the spirit pulled her deeper. Her lungs ached, her head spun, and blackness filled her vision. She heard her sister’s voice in her head: Mayara, don’t do it. Promise me you won’t.
But, Elorna, no one will know!
You know that’s not true. They’ll know. They can sense it when you use your power. It draws them like sharks to chum. You’ll make it a hundred times worse.
What’s a hundred times worse than dead?
I don’t want to find out, my little minnow.
Are you afraid? Elorna, you aren’t afraid of anything.
I’m not afraid for me; I’m afraid for you.
But she knew as she thought it that it was a lie. Mayara was afraid for herself too. The blackness was almost complete. In seconds, she’d lose consciousness. And Kelo would never see her again. He’d wake alone on their wedding day, he’d complete the dress he was making for her—the one he refused to show to anyone, not until it was ready—and then she’d never come. Her parents would lose a second daughter. Her mother rarely left their house as it was, and her father wouldn’t touch his boat, saying it was cursed with bad luck, ever since Elorna died so far from home. It rotted in the harbor. How much more would they fall apart if she died today? Mayara knew what Elorna had meant when she’d said she was more afraid for her. Because more than being afraid for herself . . .
I’m afraid for them. Forgive me, Elorna.
Mayara then reached with her mind—clumsily, due to her lack of experience—toward the squidlike water spirit. Release me, she ordered. She pushed the thought directly into the spirit, as if she were plunging a knife into the spirit’s mind. She’d never done it before, not intentionally, but Elorna had described how it felt, like a shout but silent. It sounded impossible . . . but it worked.
The tentacles unwound, and the spirit retreated.
Looking up, Mayara saw the glow of the sun in the fissure. But it was too far. She was too deep now. I’m not going to make it.
I’m sorry.
She heard a high-pitched giggle—the child-shaped spirit. Its throat may have been torn by her knife, but she still heard the giggle in her mind. The sound felt like claws scraping inside her skull.
Mayara aimed her thoughts at the spirit and shouted silently, Give me your air!
Compelled, it swam toward her.
Air—now!
The spirit clamped onto her, its tiny arms wrapping around her torso. It pressed its face against hers and exhaled. Manipulating the water as if it were fabric, the spirit created a bubble around Mayara’s head. It filled the bubble with air pulled from the water.
Mayara breathed.
Holding on to the spirit as if hugging it, Mayara kicked her legs and swam upward. The air pocket came with them.
She broke through the surface. Releasing the spirit, she ordered, Go!
With another horrible high-pitched giggle, it sank back under the surface. Mayara swam for the rocks and hauled herself out of the water. She collapsed on her back, her head resting against a mound of seaweed, and stared at the sky as she breathed in the sweet, plentiful air.
Her leg, where the spirit had bitten her, began to throb. She held up one arm and examined it. She had the barest blush of a bruise where the tentacles had squeezed her. That will be magnificent in a few hours. Worse, at some point in the fight, she’d lost her favorite knife. She’d probably left it embedded in