She shook him by the shoulders, bubbles escaping her lips as she said again, “Tor, BREATHE!”
Unable to take the pressure in his chest a moment longer, he gasped for air—
And found it. No, not air, something thicker. Remarkably smooth in his throat. It filled his lungs, and he took another breath. Then another.
Vesper nodded. “See? Tor, you’re a waterbreather. You never have to surface.”
Something clicked into place, pieces coming together. The shadow that had been haunting him, the guilt and anger at having been given the Night Witch’s power, fell away in the water. Tor smiled wide, looking around as if seeing the ocean for the first time. “I’m a waterbreather,” he said, his words spilling seamlessly from his mouth. He said it again, so loud a fish stopped to gape at him. “I’m a waterbreather!”
Tor dove down, bubbles erupting from his every kick. He spun, and turned to float on his back, without water rushing into his nostrils. The sun was just a golden smudge far above. Fish traveled in layers, some closer to him, some near the surface—and he saw it all. An entire world above and beneath him.
He turned back around and kept swimming toward the dark below, Vesper now following him. He swam until the darkness cleared, and then he saw it.
Sandstone stretched for miles beneath his kicking feet, rolling streets of stone carved right into the seafloor. Buildings were domed in the same blue of the sea, masking the city from above, and crafted from compacted sandreal-life versions of the sandcastles he used to make on Estrelle’s shores. A palace sat at the center, made up of several smaller, circular structures, each framed by tall columns. The space between them was filled in by giant, blooming coral. Reefs of every color decorated each block of Sandstone, a rainbow trail through the city.
He had so many questions about underwater life, all of which Vesper could answer.
“What do you eat?” he asked her.
She was floating by his side. “Seafood…obviously.”
“Have you never had land food? Vegetables?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Now I have,” she said, and Tor remembered their breakfast.
“Do you have school?”
“We have elders, who teach us what we need to know. Practical knowledge.” She sighed, bubbles escaping her mouth. “Or, at least, what they believe is practical.”
She dived down, their conversation clearly over.
Tor made his way toward what must have been a neighborhood, once upon a time. Dozens of sandcastle houses sat side by side, the same size as his own home back in Estrelle. Shells had been pressed into some exteriors for decoration. Some had fallen to the ground.
Beyond the neighborhood was a market, a cluster of shops with empty windows. White marble statues filled the town square, giant carvings of a variety of sea creatures, most of which Tor didn’t recognize. What else was hidden in the waters beyond Sapphire Sea besides this forgotten city? For the first time in a long while, a spark of excitement lit in Tor’s chest. He wanted to see it all.
At the end of the road of statues stood the second-largest building in Sandstone, a swirling tower.
“It’s a library,” Vesper said. He tensed and whipped around, not realizing she had continued to follow him. She grabbed his hand and said, “Think heavy thoughts. Ships, marble, whales, anchors.” At once, they began to lower to Sandstone’s road, bubbles trailing from their mouths, as if Tor’s pockets had been suddenly filled with rocks.
The moment her feet touched the street, Vesper began walking, as normally as she had on land.
Tor still floated inches above.
Vesper motioned down. “Come on, then. We don’t have all day.”
He thought about boulders, the hydroclops, mountains, the heaviest things he could imagine. And, a second later, he, too, had landed.
Tor followed Vesper into the library, through an archway. No door. Inside the tower was a swirling spiral of bookshelves, the center completely empty, so Tor could see all the way to the sea-glass ceiling. There had to have been millions of books inside, all neatly pressed into shelves that lined the library walls.
And it was abandoned, just like the rest of the city. “Where did everyone go?” he asked.
Vesper shrugged, making her way up the stairs that went around and around the interior of the hollow tower. “If you believe the legends, one of their own went to land, after years of hearing stories of the darkness and gloom on Emblem Island, only to find it bursting with light and color. He returned to tell the rest, and they abandoned their watery home for the great wonders of island life.” She quirked an eyebrow at him. “But leave all of this?” She threw an arm up as she reached the first floor, other hand trailing along a coral-crusted balcony. “Leave this sacred, ancient knowledge behind?” She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and continued, down the rows of books, seeming to be looking for something. “I don’t believe that.” Vesper stopped suddenly, so quickly that Tor almost bumped into her back. She turned to face him, expression serious. “I think they fled.”
Tor blinked. “Fled what?”
She shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you. A curse by the Night Witch? Pirates? Invaders? It happened hundreds of years ago. I don’t think anyone knows. And these things aren’t written down in Swordscale.” Vesper bent to look at a row of books, brow scrunched. “They didn’t go to Emblem Island, though, that’s for sure. There would be a lot more people with waterbreathing markings if that was the case, and there aren’t. I’d be able to sense it.”
“So where did they go?”
She looked away from the shelf to glance at him. “Another hidden underwater world, of course. One so secret it’s not written about in pirate books.”
He leaned down, too. “What exactly are you looking for?”
Frustrated, Vesper straightened again, continuing around the long halls of the tower to the second floor.
