Emerge (39 page)

This time, I save my life.

Before Mr. Havelock can regain an advantage, I ram my knee into his side. He groans, and while he’s distracted by the pain, I grip either side of his head and smash it with all my strength against that chunk of protruding quartz.

The rage in his eyes glazes over, and they close.

When I let go of his head, it falls to the side like a stone. Is he dead? Just unconscious? I don’t have time to find out.

I get off him and transform back into my tail so I can swim to Clay.

Clay’s skin—still blue-tinged from the potion—is pasty now as he fights against the pain of the dagger. My heart pounds. He looks like death.

Even through what must be unbearable agony, he’s smart: he’s kept the blade buried in his stomach, pressing down around it to stem the bleeding. But his blood still seeps out in crimson curls that slither through the surrounding water.

Melusine wades just above him, her back to me.
“I’m getting tired of this. We’re wasting time.”

With no other warning, she draws back her tail and swings it forward, whapping it hard against Clay’s back.

“No!” I shout. I make it to Clay, but I’m too late.

His body bows forward with the impact. The blade pops loose from his stomach, arching through the water and unleashing a rush of his blood that gushes forth in a cloud of deadly red.

I reach out to catch his falling body, but then the ground shakes and I go blind.

Colorless, shining light bursts out from the cloud of Clay’s blood and radiates in all directions. It happens so fast, I don’t have time to shield my eyes from the brilliant brightness. A violent underwater earthquake rattles the entire palace. In my sightlessness, I reach forward and clutch Clay’s body tight to mine.

As suddenly as the shaking started, it’s over. I blink my eyes open, my vision returning to find the chamber engulfed in the same green glow it was earlier, as if nothing happened. To my left, Melusine’s body lies crumpled against the bottom of one of the large columns. She must have been thrown against it in the blast.

“Clay?” I turn to look at the body in my arms. He took that blade for me.

His hazel eyes, always so full of mirth and mischief, are lifeless.

“No,” I sob, dropping my head to his chest. “Why did you do it? Why did you die for me?” I convulse with sorrow.

Several long minutes later, I gather my resolve, move my hand to his face, and brush his eyes closed.

I can’t let him go. I hold his cold body against mine. Even in death, he’s so handsome. Like he’s sleeping.

A groan. It’s the softest, the weakest of sounds—and the most beautiful I’ve ever heard. I’m afraid to hope.

“Clay?”

I put my ear right against his mouth. Another small groan. He’s alive!

Barely.

Barely will have to be enough.

Blood still seeps from the gaping wound on his stomach, but it’s slow. He should have bled out long before now. As I run my fingertips over his blue cheek, understanding dawns. The potion! It’s slowed all his body’s functions so he could survive underwater—that must include his blood flow. But Melusine said it wouldn’t last long, and that was nearly two hours ago.

She and her father are still unconscious. Now’s my chance. I turn around and pull Clay’s arms over my shoulders, anchoring them against my chest with my left hand. His injured stomach presses against my lower back. Without so much as a glance back at our captors, I flick my tail through the water and let the current pull me toward the arched doorway.

The palace is a maze. I swim through it as fast as I can, avoiding sharp turns or sudden movements so I don’t jostle Clay.

“I’ll get you out,” I promise, hoping some part of him can hear me.

Room after room, until we’re in the entrance hall, then back out into open ocean. I don’t bother swimming through the streets of the settlement this time. I head straight up.

I don’t have a bond to follow now, so I’m miles out into the ocean with no way of knowing how to find my way back to Malibu, back to our home. Fear shoots through me, and I push it down; I can’t give in to panic.

I take comfort in the weight of Clay’s body against my back, in the warmth of his arms against my chest. Wait, warmth?

Without stopping my ascent into ever-higher waters, I glance down at the arms I’m clutching. The blue tinge has receded a little. The potion’s wearing off. Now, I can’t do anything to quell the fear. If the potion wears off before I get Clay to the surface, he’ll drown.

I redouble my efforts. I kick my fins as hard as I can, propelling myself upward with every stroke. I use one arm to slice through the water and push it back, while the other holds on to Clay.

“Hang in there. Please hang in there.”

But then I have no more energy for talking. It takes all my strength to keep up my speed.

After what feels like ages, the darkness slips away. The light from the sky above brightens the water around us. It means we’re getting closer to the surface—but it also means sunrise is nearly here, and the potion is nearly gone. We still have so far to go. Have I saved Clay from the ritual only to watch him die?

I fight the aching muscles in my tail and arms. They rebel against my speed, against Clay’s weight pulling them down as I force them up.

The surface sparkles above us. Almost there. I want to tell Clay, but I don’t have the energy.

Strangled gurgles meet my ears. Then choking sounds. Clay is fighting to breathe. And he’s losing.

The potion has worn off.

He thrashes against me, his body seeking air that doesn’t exist here. As he flails, he lets go of my shoulders, and his body sinks down, away from me.

I zoom downward, my muscles screaming, and grab him under his arms, his back against my chest. I pull him up. Up toward the surface, up toward the sky, up toward the air that I hope will come soon enough to save him.

A cramp bites into my side. I keep kicking.

The surface lies just above us.

Three feet.

A foot.

Inches.

With one final kick, I launch our heads out of the water.

Cold air hits my face. We break the surface the same moment the sun bursts into the morning sky. With the last bit of strength left in my arms, I hold Clay up.

“Breathe,” I say, my voice ragged. “Please breathe.”

As the sun blooms in the sky like a giant orange anemone, Clay gasps for air. Then he coughs, horrid and wet and hacking. Then he gasps again.

I keep his head above water as the pattern continues. Finally, he stops coughing, starts breathing regularly. And passes out.

It’s only then that I notice the red staining the waves around us. With the potion gone, his blood is flowing fast, and he’s losing too much of it. We’re stranded in the ocean with nothing but endless crystal water stretching as far as the eye can see. How will I keep Clay from bleeding to death?

Hopeless tears sting my eyes. How have I gotten us this far just to lose him?

Vrrrm. Vrrrm
. The blaring of a motor erupts into the isolated silence. I hear the boat coming before I see it—a tiny dot growing larger as it speeds toward us. What’s a boat doing all the way out here so early? Is it fishermen? Drug lords? Whoever’s on board, Clay will be safer on that boat than in the ocean.

I swim out of its direct path and wave one arm in the air, calling for help. The boat slows when they spot us. I close my eyes and concentrate with all my might until my legs kick below me. Now I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to meet whatever breed of human is on that boat.

But, when I open my eyes, the boat is near enough for me to see its markings, and I know there won’t be a human on board. I recognize that sleek aqua logo. A Foundation boat! The small kind we use for scouting missions and ingredients collecting.

“Goldfish!” a familiar voice cries out as the boat pulls up close and drops anchor.

Caspian reaches over the side to help me. I push Clay’s unconscious, bleeding body into his strong arms, and he hauls him into the boat. He lays Clay across the deck, then grips me by my forearms and pulls me aboard, too.

He throws me a towel and averts his eyes, waiting for me to secure it around my waist.

Instead, I kneel and press it to Clay’s stomach.

“The bleeding! We have to stop the bleeding!” My voice comes out high-pitched, foreign.

“Shh, it’s okay. I’ll do it,” he says. His large hand replaces my shaking one. But instead of pushing down on the blood-soaked towel to staunch the bleeding, he pulls it away.

“What are you doing?”

Caspian doesn’t answer. He just takes a small glass bottle from his pocket, uncorks it, and pours its contents on Clay’s wound.

The bleeding stops.

I gasp. Caspian hands me a clean towel, and he ducks his head so that his eyes meet mine. “Lia, you’ve done enough,” his voice is steady, soothing. “I’ll take it from here.”

His clear cobalt gaze begs me to trust him. And I do.

I step back and wrap the towel around my waist, then sit as Caspian uncorks another bottle and sprinkles a rust-colored powder across the gash.

All the blood smeared on Clay’s body slides across his skin and back into the wound! Even the red staining his boxers seeps upward along the fabric, back onto his torso, and into his body. Caspian takes the towel soaked in Clay’s blood and presses it against the wound once more. It comes back clean.

“Handy, huh?” he says, smiling at my slack-jawed expression. “I raided my grandma’s potion stores. She made some of this stuff years ago, in case one of us had an emergency. Today definitely qualifies.”

“How … are you here?” I stammer.

“The symbols,” he says, pushing his dark blond hair out of his eyes. “I came to your house to say I was sorry for last night,” he offers me an apologetic smile. “When I got there, your parents said they thought you were spending the day with me. I knew the only reason you’d lie to them was so you could see him. I told them I’d forgotten we were supposed to meet at the Lumber Yard mall. Then I headed to his house. I had to see you.” He meets my eyes. “I had to make things right.” Then he gestures me forward, “C’mere.”

He lifts his hand as if to touch my top, but it’s in shreds, so instead he says, “Lean forward.” I lean awkwardly over Clay’s prone body. “More,” Caspian says, pressing on my bare lower back, until I’m almost lying on top of Clay, chest to chest.

Before my eyes, the blood leeches out of my shirt and off my skin the same way it did from the towel. Clay doesn’t wake up, but he moans, and for the first time, it doesn’t sound pained. I lift myself up, my makeshift
siluess
still dirty, wet, and ripped, but free of blood.

“When I got to his house,” Caspian continues, “the front door was open. Then I saw his bedroom, and I worked out what must have happened.”

“But how did you find us?”

“I told you: the symbols. The ones all over Clay’s room. They were the same ancient ones I found in Mr. Havelock’s office. Ever since I mentioned them to you, I’ve been researching. Cross-referencing them with different texts.”

I shake my head. Of course he has. Caspian would never let a scholarly opportunity like that drop.

“And, Lia, I figured them out.” His whole face lights up. “So when I saw the symbols all over the bedroom walls, I could read them. They said the place where the human sleeps needed to be marked with the place he would sleep forever. Then they gave a location.”

That makes a warped kind of sense. According to legend, the Little Mermaid was supposed to kill the prince with that dagger while he was asleep in his marital bed—in his bedroom. Since the Havelocks took Clay from his bedroom, I guess they had to mark the place for the ritual to work.

“I knew Mr. Havelock had one of the Foundation’s boats for his ingredients dives, and I’d seen where he kept the key. Maybe I should have told someone. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. I just kept picturing you in danger.”

Caspian bends over a case covered in verdigris—his grandmother’s copper potions chest—and pulls out yet another bottle, this one larger than the others. He sits down and props Clay’s head on his leg, then pours a liquid the same rust color as the powder down Clay’s throat. Although he stays asleep, Clay lifts his head toward the bottle and drinks greedily before falling back into stillness, his face content.