An orange light flared then went out. Alabastair’s response bounced around the cavern, specific syllables lost within the echoing of my strained breathing, thrashing legs, and overwhelming panic. The arm holding me never wavered.
My boots filled with water, loosened, and slipped off of my feet. The moving mass of threads knotted their way over my heels and arches. The chest piece continued forming up toward my throat and around the back of my head.
I was so cold. And the magic-filled threads were making themselves into clothing or armor, or maybe this was a stress response and I was about to be the lucky recipient of a water-logged body stocking.
That no one in the world would ever see because I was probably going to die.
Another series of orange blips flashed from the tunnel just as the creature hauling me away from my sisters swam us around a corner. I squeezed its arm more tightly and let loose the garbled, strangled sounds that had been collecting like bubbles in my upper chest. “Please” and “Stop” and “Mom.”
I forced myself to shut my mouth when the threads covering my throat and chin crept across my jaw, cheeks, and eyes. I sucked in a breath, choked on the water, and spat it out. Another hand pressed on the top of my head, forcing me under the surface.
Never one to pray, I prayed. The arm crooked around my neck relaxed its hold. A hand gripped my shoulder, slid down my arm, took my wrist, and drew me deeper. Everything went black. Fingers nudged my chest. A mouth pressed to mine and forced oxygen into my mouth and lungs.
At least, I think it was oxygen. Whatever it was came as a lifeline, a gift wrapped in terror and tied with the ribbon of death.
Clementine, one of these days you’re going to get into trouble, get in way over your head, and neither of us is going to be around to fix it.
That day had arrived. Beryl’s and Alderose’s voices continued in my head, back and forth, over and over, their tone changing from the adoring—
It’s not her fault, she’s only four, she’s so cute.
To the frustrated—
Damn it, Clemmie, you cannot chase that boy, that skunk, that—whatever off-limits thing had snagged my attention and was running away from the glare of my curiosity and impermeable sense of safety.
That net was gone.
I should have listened to Alabastair.
I should have listened to Beryl.
I should have—
The creature’s other arm circled my belly, right underneath my rib cage, with enough force to push my breath out hard. My lowest ribs poked at the nearest organs. I drew my knees toward my chest, reflexively protecting the most vulnerable part of my torso. Other arms hoisted me up and out of the water by the waist of my pants and tossed me onto a mound of sand.
“Cherchez-la!”
I was patted down, roughly. They started at my hands and fingers, moved onto my hips, the fronts of my thighs, and down my legs. The same chuffing sound that preceded my capture sounded from the creature giving the orders.
Fingers pinched the covering over my eyes and lifted, allowing a knife or the tip of a claw to slice across my eyebrows. The action was repeated at my mouth. I kept still, my heart a loud, erratic drum in my ears.
A female with hair the color of oxidized copper and light brown skin flecked with opalescent patches stared at me. Her figure and features were human, except for the single gill coverings on either side of her neck.
“You are one of Moira’s daughters.”
I nodded. My jaw had started to shake and I couldn’t get it to stop.
“The youngest,” she continued.
“How do you know that?”
“The threads chose to bring you to me rather than see to your drowning.”
That was sobering. The female leaned closer and cut away more of the matted threads covering my face. I was just getting my shivering under control when she stroked the tip of her knife down the side of my neck. She almost punctured my skin when she came to the spot where Rémy’s silver sigil had embedded itself. Her hand began to shake.
Leaning forward, she positioned her lips right at my ear and whispered, “Do not fail me.”
Confused, I opened my mouth only to have her grab a fistful of my hair, expose my neck, and scrape the tip of her knife across my skin. I screamed and dug my heels into the ground, trying to push away, get back into the water, anything to put distance between me and this—this creature. My efforts only ground the back of my skull deeper into the sand and pebbles and highlighted the futility of trying to escape.
My head and neck throbbed. I smelled my own blood, felt it coat the side of my neck.
I couldn’t see any other of her kind. Though I heard muted sounds of approval.
She kept a relentless hold on my hair and spoke. “You are a daughter of Moira Brodeur. I am bound by the tenets of my kind to do you and your sisters no harm.”
Before she released my hair, she drew her knife along my jaw.
“Do it,” echoed from the wall behind her.
She ignored the voices. “Stand up,” she said, nudging me with her foot.
I balanced myself on wobbly legs as quickly as I could and faced her. The female lingering in the shadowed walls behind her could have been her sister—they shared the same eye shape, same features, same build—but for her neon-orange hair and the vitiligo that gave her darker brown skin pinkish patches around her mouth and down the front of her throat.
“Who are you?” I
