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My pulse hitches with panic. The image flashes before my eyes of the arrow smacking into Ivy’s skull the way the other did the guard’s chest.
No.
I flail at the churning water, but I can’t push myself any closer to her. My waterlogged clothes drag at my limbs.
She’s too far beyond my reach.
I can’t let them hurt her. My Ivy. My little vine.
The arrow arcs through the air—and hits the water just shy of Ivy’s shoulder. Instead of relief, more panic surges through my body.
It was so close. So much closer than I am.
They could murder my precious woman right in front of me.
I lift my arm to try to hurl some of my crackly magic at our attackers, even though I’m not sure how much damage I can do from this distance. But the shifting currents throw my aim off-kilter.
The sizzling light I fling out smacks into the riverbank instead, slashing black streaks across the stones.
Another arrow flies at us, and another. We swing around a second curve in the river.
For a second, I find myself spun around, unable to even see Ivy.
As I claw my way through the water to face her again, a thicker fear wraps around my chest, squeezing my lungs.
If we can’t make it out of this—if I lose her—all the pain that burned inside me after Lothar took her will wrack me again. Worse than being pierced with a hundred arrows.
I don’t know—I can’t even wrap my head around the thought— What am I supposed to do?
How can I save either of us?
Watching that man hold a knife to her throat the other night was bad enough. At least I could see right away how to blast him away from her.
Now I’m as caught up as she is. Nothing I can do is making a difference.
Ivy’s mouth dips below the level of the water. She sputters and waves her hand toward me. Whatever she says is lost in the swell of desperation that’s engulfed my body.
I stiffen and sink. My legs jerk automatically, sending me back to the surface with a sputter of my own.
Petra shouts something too, from off to my left. Casimir glances back at me, his brow knitting.
One of the men on the bank hurls a knife at Ivy’s head. She flinches to the side, but a protruding bit of its hilt smacks her temple.
My mouth opens with a wail of protest building in my throat, and her gaze snags on mine, startlingly blue compared to the murky water. Finally, her voice penetrates the haze in my head.
“The grate!” she calls out. “It’s time!”
Understanding snaps into place.
I have to carry out my part in the plan—even if we were in the boat, I was meant to fulfill this task.
My fears blotted my duty right out of my mind.
With a ragged breath and a surge of shame, I yank myself around purposefully. Just a few boat-lengths away loom the thick city walls—and the bridge that arches over the river with a steel grate beneath to prevent covert travel by this route.
The opening rises only a few feet above the water—we’d have had to hunch low in the boat to pass through the space beneath the stone arch. That won’t matter now that we’re in the water, but we still need it to open.
If we hit the bars while they’re still closed, we’ll be easy targets for our pursuers.
