The Siren Depths

Chapter Twenty

Lithe, Malachite, and Jade stood on the slope above the carved flower at the center of the chamber. Moon approached cautiously, but there was something about the slope that made it easy for his foot-claws to keep traction. It looked slanted, but felt like an even surface.

The flower stood a few paces high, made of the same smooth material as the walls and floor. The petals folded into a rounded cone, with only a small opening at the top. If there was a door in it, like there had been in Lithe’s drawing, it was hidden inside.

“There’s no other door in this chamber,” Jade told him. “If there’s a way into the rest of the city, it has to be this thing.”

Malachite circled it. “Flowers open.”

“Have you tried poking it?” Chime asked.

“Yes,” Lithe said, sounding frustrated. She crouched and ran her hand down the petals, trying to work her claws into the folds between them. “But maybe this is what the Fell needed Shade for. Maybe it will only open for a crossbreed consort. I’m obviously not crossbred enough.”

“Except the groundlings opened it,” Moon pointed out. “They didn’t build all these things to get down here, see the flower was closed, and then run off in a panic. And some of them are dead in that hut.”

“If they didn’t open it, something might have come out, or opened it from the inside,” Jade said.

Malachite leaned down to the flower suddenly, her face almost against the white stone petals. She tasted the air so deeply, Moon heard the rattle of her breath. “Careful,” he said, part of his mind still on flowers that ate people.

She stood. “The Fell touched this, and so did Shade.”

Chime was still lost in thought. “So maybe it did open for Shade because he’s the right kind of crossbreed, but that won’t help us. But let’s say the groundlings did open it, and do what they would have done.” He sprang away from the flower and loped back toward the old hut.

Malachite frowned after him, but didn’t object. Lithe said, “I think I know what he means.” She leaned over the flower, bracing herself on the outer petals, and peered down the narrow opening at the top. She shifted to her groundling form to pull a bead off her bracelet. Concentrating for a moment, she made the bead give off a faint glow of light. Then she dropped it into the flower opening.

Moon and Jade bumped into each other trying to see, so Malachite got there first. “Clever,” she told Lithe. “There is a small slot in the bottom.”

Chime returned with the tool he had found in the groundling hut, the long bar with the flat end. He said, “This tool didn’t look like it was for working on anything in the hut.” He braced himself on the flower, and Lithe moved to give him room. She shifted back to her scaled form, which Moon thought was a sensible precaution.

Chime carefully slipped the bar down through the gap in the top of the flower. “It fits, that’s a good sign,” he muttered. “I’m just going to tap the opening… There.”

The flower petals started to rotate and unfold. Moon grabbed Chime by the spines and pulled him away as the flower opened almost under his feet.

Lithe’s glowing bead clattered down to bounce off a ramp shaped like a vine with wide leaves. It was built into a wide shaft lit by more of the blue glowing stones. The ramp spiraled down for two turns then headed out of sight towards the interior of the city. Moon took a deep taste of the air, and caught more traces of Fell stench and a sweet scent that seemed to come from the flower itself.

Malachite said, “Bring the groundling tool,” and dropped down into the opening. Without hesitation, Lithe jumped after her.

Jade growled in irritation. “It’s going to close behind us. We don’t know if the tool will open it from below.”

“The groundlings got out,” Chime said, though he looked doubtful. He shifted to his groundling form, tucked the tool though his belt, and shifted back.

Moon had come this far and wasn’t stopping now. “We’ll have Shade with us on the way out.”

Jade muttered, “I hope so,” and leapt down. Moon followed her, with a nervous Chime behind him.

Malachite and Lithe were already moving down the ramp fast but cautiously. Even though he had been expecting it, Moon winced as the flower rotated shut above them. Jade growled again and started after Malachite.

Moon bounded down the ramp to catch up. The floor material felt oddly soft under his claws. Plants grew across the walls, white mounds of petals like the air plant up in the cave. These might be air plants too, collecting air from vines that reached all the way up through the island to the surface. He thought he could hear something very distant, a faint echo of sound. He whispered to Malachite, “Can you hear anything?” A queen as old as Malachite should have more acute senses, like Stone did.

“Voices,” she replied. “Fell voices. Somewhere ahead, and perhaps below us.”

At the bottom of the ramp the walkway opened up into a bridge over a large hall. Long, thin crystalline windows looked out into the deep blue of the sea in the curved wall to their right. On the opposite side was a series of arched halls with slender pillars carved into the shapes of drifting seaweed. In this strange light the soft coral-like material of the walls was touched with faint, pearlescent colors, blues, greens. And the air currents flowed from every direction; Fell stench was everywhere, with no way to tell where it came from.

Malachite snarled silently in frustration and slowly pivoted, tasting the air. The distant voices had ceased. Moon went to the edge of the bridge with the others, looking for clues. The floors seemed unmarked by any tracks, but these halls were big enough to fly through. Large round doorways dotted the interior walls with leaf-shaped platforms below some of them, but no sign of stairs or ladders. Groundlings couldn’t get far into this place without ropes and grappling hooks, he thought. But the Fell and Shade would have no trouble at all and could have gone anywhere. “We’re so close,” he said to himself.

“We’ll find him.” Jade paced down the walkway, her gaze on the open halls. “We’ll hear them, or—or follow the trail of dead groundlings.”

“What?” Malachite whipped around. Jade pointed a claw toward a small heap of bones and rotted fabric that lay at the mouth of the farthest hall.

Jade said, “If these groundlings fled from whatever it is the Fell are looking for—”

Malachite sprang off the bridge and snapped out her wings, two strong flaps carrying her across the space. Jade grimaced at Moon and leapt after her.

Chime paused to pick up Lithe, and he and Moon sprang into flight.

They landed at the top of the hall, near the groundling’s corpse. The body was stretched out, its spaded skull lying on its side, skeletal arms outstretched. Moon didn’t see any reason why it should be dead. He looked up, but there was no platform or doorway above that it could have fallen out of. It was like something had struck it from behind and flattened it. Beyond the body, the hall stretched out ahead for about a hundred paces, then curved out of sight.

Malachite glanced over the body, then started down the hall. But Chime said, “Wait.”

Moon looked at him and saw his spines trembled. Chime said, “I just heard the voice again. It’s much clearer this time. It’s saying ‘I’ll give you the… something. Teach you power.’” Chime’s whole body shuddered, as if trying to shake off the words. “This is very creepy.”

“At least we know we’re on the right trail,” Lithe said, looking uneasily ahead.

Malachite just started down the hall, but this time she was at least moving more slowly.

They made their way through a series of turns that could have been confusing except for the three other dead groundlings they found to point the way. One hall had a long window to the outside, revealing a few rocky underwater peaks and some drifting semi-transparent creatures like flowers with fins. Close up Moon could see the crystalline substance wasn’t as clear as it looked. It was shot through with hundreds of nearly translucent fibers, like a root system. He paused long enough to lay his hand on the crystal, then jerked back. The material felt weirdly warm and alive and rippled faintly under his touch. Chime watched, wide-eyed, and murmured, “This place is even stranger than it looks.”

As they reached another curving hall, Moon heard a voice and felt his spines flick involuntarily as he recognized the progenitor. He didn’t need to tell Malachite that there were Fell somewhere ahead. She slowed and dropped into a crouch.

At the end of the hall was a round doorway looking down into another large chamber. It had more of the narrow crystalline windows streaking the outer wall. All the curves in their path had taken them some distance down and around. Moon thought they were on the side of the island facing away from shore.

As they edged closer, Moon got a view of the floor of the chamber, some fifty or so paces below. He saw the progenitor and Thedes and four other rulers, and he saw Shade, but the thing they faced captured his gaze so thoroughly all he could do was stare.

In the center of the chamber was something like the bulb of the giant version of a sea-flower, that stood nearly forty paces high. It sat on a nest of vines, some dark and pulsing, others withered and dead. The big white petals at the front had been pulled down, allowing a view of the interior. It was filled with the multitude of writhing stems that in a small sea-flower caught tiny water creatures as prey. This one had prey, too.

The creature caught inside it was big, as large as Stone’s shifted form. But it looked like Shade, like the image in the crystal piece the Fell had shown them. The same dark scales, the armored crest and huge mane of spines.

Malachite drew back from the doorway and so forgot herself as to exchange a look with Jade.

Lithe and Chime stared wide-eyed. Jade whispered what they were all thinking, “Can that really be an ancestor of us and the Fell?”

Malachite shook her head, but it was a gesture of grim realization, not denial. “But why is it here?”

Moon had to ask, “Why would our ancestors live underwater?”

“They wouldn’t.” Jade risked another peek. “Maybe this… ancestor was captured by the species who lived here, and left behind when they died.”

Moon didn’t buy that. “This place is designed for things that fly. We haven’t seen any stairs, anywhere.”

Chime nodded. “And there are these jewel lights, and all these flowers bringing air down here. They make me think of the flower lights in Emerald Twilight.”

Moon thought Chime was onto something. This place was strange, but maybe not entirely unfamiliar. “They do whole trees at Opal Night.”

Lithe said, “That’s just an ordinary mentor’s skill. At least, it is here in the Reaches. It’s been passed down forever.”

And everyone believed that mentors got their abilities from interbreeding with consorts. Moon thought, And Stone said it was the Arbora who made the seeds to transform mountain-trees into colony trees. Maybe this place had been transformed out of the rock of the island itself, with their ancestors’ equivalent of mentors’ magic.

Chime said, “But if our ancestors did build this place, who’s been renewing the spells?”

Lithe looked up at the nearest air plant, spread across the ceiling of the chamber. “Maybe they don’t need to be renewed. Maybe they’re just that powerful.”

The scales of Jade’s brow furrowed as she reconsidered. “They might have had a good reason for building it underwater. To hide something, maybe. Or hide from something.”

Lithe said, “The flower has to be magically sustaining that… person. So he was trapped inside it, all this time?”

Chime seemed uneasily fascinated by the scene below. “He must have called those groundlings to him somehow. Maybe their boat came too close.”

Lithe bounced, excited at unraveling the mystery. “But then the groundlings couldn’t let him out, because only one of his own species, or someone who was close to that species, like a Fell-Raksura crossbreed, can open the trap. Then something happened, and the groundlings fled.”

Chime bounced too. “If his body’s been sleeping, but he can still think, and he’s been here all these turns—”

“If he wasn’t raving mad when he was put in there, he is now!”

“Yes,” Malachite cut through their speculation. “But why was he put here in the first place, in an underwater prison, that only a member of his own species could unlock?”

Everyone went still, thinking over that. Moon supplied the obvious answer. “Because somebody powerful wanted to punish him, and it wasn’t safe to put him anywhere else.” The forerunner hadn’t made groundlings flee and die and Fell attack Raksura to create crossbreeds because its intentions were good.

Malachite gave him a head tilt of approval.

Jade said, “How do we know for certain?”

“Perhaps I’ll ask it, after I kill the Fell.” Malachite stood, spread her wings, and sprang out to drop to the floor of the chamber.

Chime and Lithe recoiled in shock. Jade made a choking noise that seemed to combine rage and astonishment. Moon just stared. “Didn’t expect that,” he admitted. In hindsight, he probably should have.

Jade snarled and leapt after Malachite, and Moon followed.

He landed on the floor, every nerve alert. The progenitor and the rulers had swung to face them at Malachite’s sudden appearance. The Fell were all in their winged forms but Shade was still a groundling. Thedes had caught him by the neck and held a clawed hand to his throat, probably the only reason Malachite hadn’t started ripping Fell apart yet.

Shade hadn’t shifted because he looked like he was about to drop from exhaustion. His pale skin was gray-tinged and there were dark bruises under his eyes, his clothes were torn and filthy; he stared at Malachite as if he thought he was hallucinating her. Of course, Moon thought, they haven’t been feeding him. Faced with the choice of groundling meat or nothing, Shade must have chosen nothing. The Fell could have forced him to eat by threatening Moon and the others, but they had wanted him weak.

Malachite paced deliberately toward the progenitor. Moon had never seen anyone or anything look at a Fell like that. Like Fell were intriguing prey, tricky to catch, but not impossible.

The progenitor didn’t react, though Moon thought he could see tension gather in her body. The progenitor said, “You hate us very much. We must have done something terrible to you.”

“You took my consort and destroyed my court.” Malachite tilted her head and smiled. “Don’t try to get inside my mind. I might let you.”

Moon sensed more than saw an uneasy stir among the rulers. Malachite wasn’t acting the way they expected, and it unnerved them. It’s not a pose. Malachite’s not afraid, and the Fell know it. He wondered if that was what Malachite had been doing for the turn she had stalked the Fell flight. Learning about them, learning how to resist their influence to the point where it didn’t exist for her, learning contempt for them instead of fear. Maybe that was the key to defeating the Fell, that your mental attitude was everything.

The progenitor didn’t draw back, but Moon could sense her regroup. She said, “Why are you here? It does not want Raksura.”

“You know why I’m here. You have something that belongs to me.” Malachite didn’t look at Shade, holding the progenitor’s gaze as if holding her captive, but her meaning was clear. “Why haven’t you let your guide out yet?”

“Perhaps we never meant to.”

Malachite’s spines rippled in amusement. “This is a long way to come for nothing.”

“Other flights found the way for us. Our part was easy.”

Moon threw a look at Jade and saw her attention was entirely focused on Thedes and Shade. She’s waiting for an opportunity. But Thedes might be too old and clever for that. He would know the only thing keeping the Fell alive was the threat to Shade.

Malachite said, “You took advantage of their failures.”

The progenitor inclined her head. “Yes.”

“So why have you changed your mind?”

The progenitor said, “The guide told us it could teach us new powers, give us powerful weapons to defeat the prey who have weapons of fire and projectiles. It told us it had slept for a long time, and only recently woken, and was anxious to help us eat the world.” That was hardly surprising. The only thing the Fell would be truly interested in were ways to eat groundling cities more efficiently, with less danger to the progenitors and the rulers.

“And to destroy Raksura,” Malachite added.

The progenitor seemed to feel that was just an extra benefit. “And that. But we are here and it will not teach.”

Moon couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer. He said, “Ask it what it offered the groundlings to get them here. They didn’t let it out, and it killed them.”

The progenitor didn’t look at him, but answered, “The prey could not let it out. It did not know then that the cage could only be opened by one of its own species.”

A strange prison. It could only get free if another member of its species came for it. And nobody came, Moon thought. If whoever had trapped it here had been trying to make a point, then the point had certainly been made.

Malachite hadn’t taken her gaze off the progenitor, but Moon sensed more of her attention had shifted to the creature trapped inside the flower. She said, “But what did it offer the groundlings? The same thing it offered you?”

The progenitor said, “We are people. They were prey.”

That must be a “no,” Moon thought. “Then why haven’t you let it out already? You know it’s a trick, now. You know it won’t teach you powers. You know there aren’t any weapons here. This place is empty. If there were any weapons, the groundlings took them when they fled.”

Malachite must have decided she had heard enough. In the same even tone, she said, “Give us Shade, and we’ll leave you alive.”

The progenitor was equally calm. “You would never leave us alive.”

Malachite showed her fangs in approval. “You aren’t as foolish as you appear.”

Her voice trembling with urgency, Lithe said, “Malachite, why hasn’t the forerunner tried to stop us from having this conversation?”

There was a moment of stillness. The Fell didn’t react.

Malachite’s eyes narrowed. “Shade, did anything happen when you first came into this room?”

“The flower opened,” Shade said, his voice a weak croak. “I don’t think that was a good thing.”

Uh-oh, Moon thought. Chime whispered anxiously, “Maybe it doesn’t need anything but Shade’s presence. Maybe it’s been waiting for the spell, or whatever it is, to finish.”

Malachite must have agreed. She snarled. “Give me Shade and we will all leave here alive.”

There was no warning. The flower opened. It was like a too-near lightning strike, like the explosion when the dakti had thrown Delin’s bag of projectiles into the fire, but without light or heat. A wave of invisible force crossed the chamber, flattening everything in its path. It knocked Moon onto his back and bounced him off the floor. He flashed on an image of the dead groundlings up in the hall, stretched out flat, and the others huddled in the hut they hadn’t been able to escape in.

The force passed on, leaving Moon gasping for air, shivering in reaction. He rolled to one elbow, trying to get his body to work enough to stand. His blurry vision cleared and he saw everyone sprawled on the floor, including the progenitor and the rulers. The Fell who had been closest to the flower lay like they were dead, but he saw with relief that the Raksura were dazed but trying to move. Then he saw the forerunner.

It stood in front of the sea-flower, watching them. He couldn’t read any emotion in its face or spines; it might have been a statue.

Malachite suddenly pushed to her feet, spines flared, breathing rough. She said, “What are you?”

One of the rulers rolled over and stood, its movement jerky and abrupt. Its jaw opened and it rasped out, “I am your ancestor.”

Malachite’s spines rippled in what Moon could only interpret as wary disbelief. He felt cold settle in the pit of his stomach. The forerunner was speaking through the ruler, the way rulers could speak through dakti and kethel.

Chime and Lithe both managed to sit up, leaning against each other for support. Shade still lay sprawled near the unconscious Thedes, and out of the corner of his eye Moon saw Jade push herself up to her hands and knees and stretch to grab Shade’s ankle. One eye on the forerunner, she pulled Shade toward her. The creature didn’t try to stop her.

Dazed, Shade started to fight, then opened his eyes enough to see her. He struggled toward her and Jade pushed him behind Moon, then stumbled to her feet. Moon managed to sit up all the way, but he didn’t think he could stand yet. “Are you all right?” he whispered to Shade. Shivering, Shade nodded against his shoulder.

The ruler said, “I’ve waited so long. They meant me to sleep forever, but I woke.” Its eyes were closed, its face and body slack; it looked dead. The other Fell stirred weakly. The progenitor lifted her head, her tail lashed, and she fixed her dark gaze on the forerunner.

Jade flicked a quick glance at Moon and he gave her a sharp nod. He could move if he had to and help the others.

Malachite studied the creature intently. “That’s what you told the Fell,” she agreed. “Why didn’t the groundlings let you out? You called them to you, taught them how to find this place, to use the air plants to reach you.”

Yes, that was what Moon was wondering, too. This was not going how an encounter with an ancestor of their species should go, as far as he could tell. Maybe Lithe and Chime were right and the forerunner was raving mad. Maybe it was worse than that.

The dead ruler said, “They couldn’t solve the puzzle. You are far more clever.”

Jade said bluntly, “So the groundlings ran away and died.”

Lithe shook her head. “And we didn’t do anything, didn’t solve any puzzle,” she said, her voice a bare whisper.

From behind Moon, Shade whispered, “Neither did the Fell. They just stood there, talking to it, but I couldn’t hear its answers.”

Jade said, “It’s lying. The only thing it needed to get out was for Shade to come close enough.”

The ruler said, “I will help you defeat these terrible creatures, all across the worlds.”

Malachite hadn’t looked away from the forerunner but Moon felt she knew exactly where they all were, and was thinking furiously. She said, “Then why have you conspired with them all this time?”

“I had no choice.” There was emotion in the words now, and the Fell ruler trembled as the voice was forced from its throat. “The Raksura could not hear me, and I had to be free.”

Malachite was unmoved. “We have paid dearly for your freedom.”

“I will repay my debt. I will help you destroy the Fell.”

Malachite tilted her head, but her expression gave nothing away. Jade said, “Yet you told the Fell you would help them destroy us.”

“I had to lie. Have you not lied to these creatures, to survive?”

That hit home for Moon. But looking past the captive Fell, at the forerunner itself, he thought, It stands so still. Why doesn’t it move?

It continued, “Come with me to the surface of the island. I have proof there, hidden weapons and resources. I will give them to you.”

Lithe nudged Chime. “Chime, what is it?”

Chime was staring at the creature, squinting as if it was hard to see, though it wasn’t more than twenty paces away. “It’s not… It isn’t… This is not its true form.” His voice trembled. “I can see two of it.”

Malachite hissed out a breath. She asked it, “Are you deceiving us? What is your true form?”

The progenitor lunged upright. Moon flinched back, pushing Shade behind him, but the progenitor charged the forerunner. She struck it in the chest, hard enough to stagger it back. The rulers sprang at it in her wake—and it changed.

Its body softened and blurred and flowed into another shape, larger, dark and fluid, with more limbs than it had had before. It lifted a double set of wings and bared an enormous array of fangs though its body was so amorphous Moon couldn’t tell where its mouth was. It flung one of the rulers away, the body shredded into bloody fragments.

Malachite spun and snapped, “Go!”

Moon grabbed Shade and sprang for the door. Shade’s groundling body was heavier than Moon had been expecting and he hit the bottom edge of the doorway, just able to catch it with his claws. Shade curled against him, holding on with all his remaining strength, holding his breath as if that would help. Moon hauled them both up into the corridor and Shade gasped with relief.

Lithe hit the wall below him and scrambled up without difficulty, then Chime, who must not have moved fast enough to satisfy either Jade or Malachite, flew over their heads and bounced off the floor. The queens landed an instant later and they all bounded down the corridor.

That was Moon’s first chance to think it through and he realized Malachite was right; they had Shade, all they needed was to make it out of here. Hopefully the creature would slow down to kill all the Fell before it came after them.

Chime gasped, “I don’t think that thing is our ancestor.”

Even if it was, Moon didn’t want anything to do with it. Then he heard a crash behind them, with a whoosh and a rush of water, as if a waterfall had just exploded into the chamber. Oh, no, Moon thought. It couldn’t be that stupid—

Malachite growled, “Don’t stop.”

Moon asked Shade, “Can you see anything?”

Shade looked back over Moon’s shoulder and reported breathlessly, “It must have broken the windows in the chamber. Maybe it won’t—No, the water’s coming right toward us!”

The opening into the first big hall wasn’t far ahead, but the floor leading from it dropped down, offering no refuge from the onrushing sea. Moon could feel the spray on his back.

Jade raced ahead and leapt up, clung by one hand to the top of the arch and held out the other. Moon sprang for the arch, caught it with his claws, but Shade’s weight kept him from using the momentum to swing up and around. He grabbed Jade’s free hand and she pulled, and they both scrabbled up onto a ledge no wider than his feet. Chime landed an instant later, scrambled up with a desperate cry.

Malachite hit the arch then, with Lithe clinging to her, and then the water struck them.

It rushed out below in a white-capped torrent, pouring down and into the hall. Jade crouched and grabbed one of Malachite’s wrists, and Chime grabbed the other. Still holding Shade, Moon had to watch helplessly. There was just no room to brace themselves and Jade and Chime couldn’t hold on for long.

Then Lithe climbed around and up Malachite’s back, got her claws into the ledge and pulled herself up next to Chime. Without the extra drag, Malachite clamped her claws into the ledge, constricted her body, and popped up out of the water like a jumping fish.

As Malachite hooked her claws into the wall, Jade asked, “Where now?”

“We make our way back to the outer door.” Malachite scanned the hall. “There’s a perch across there. We should be able to reach that.”

Jade’s spines flicked in assent, and she turned to Shade. “After you and the Fell came down here in the metal huts, the flower-door opened when you touched it?”

Shivering, Shade nodded. “It did. You think it won’t open for the creature?”

“I hope not.” Jade glanced at Malachite. “But if the water has already filled up the ramp to the outer door—”

“I know,” Malachite said, and for once she didn’t seem annoyed that Jade existed. “Once the water fills this place and the pressure eases, we may be able to swim through it.”

Some of us can swim through it, Moon thought. From his own experience he knew Aeriat could hold their breath underwater for far longer than most groundlings, and he knew Jade and Malachite would be just as strong in the water as they were in the air. But Arbora were built differently. And Shade was still unable to shift and seemed to be getting weaker by the moment; his skin felt chilled through his clothes.

Chime said, “Wait.”

They all looked at him. He was half-crouched at the end of the row next to Lithe. He took a deep breath, as if bracing himself for their reaction, and said, “I don’t think this is real.”

Jade and Malachite frowned. Moon decided to get the question in before anyone else did. He asked, “Which part isn’t real?”

“The water.” Chime sounded stricken. He scooped up a double-handful. “When it’s in my hands, I can’t see it.”

Lithe reached down and touched the water in Chime’s cupped hands, and rubbed her fingers together. “I can feel it. I think I can feel it.”

Heartened that they hadn’t dismissed him out of hand, Chime said, “I think… that creature knows we have Shade, that he can open the outer door. It’s chasing us there. It’s going to follow us right out.”

Shade said suddenly, “My clothes are dry. Moon, your scales are wet, but my clothes are dry.”

Moon felt the sleeve of Shade’s shirt. The light material wasn’t clinging damply, wasn’t spotted with water. If the water was an illusion, the creature could have missed a few details. “Chime, I think you’re right.”

Jade was still frowning, but she said, “You were right about that creature, Chime. There was two of it, in a way. Maybe it isn’t even a true shifter, maybe it was just making us see it as one of our ancestors.”

Lithe said, “That would explain why only a forerunner—or someone close to them, like a crossbreed—could let it out. If our ancestors imprisoned it here—”

Malachite dragged them back to the point. “The water was real enough to kill the groundlings. The creature was still trapped inside the flower, but something made them run, killed them when it caught them. If we can’t make ourselves believe the water isn’t real, it will kill us too.”

Chime nodded anxiously. “That’s the part I don’t have any ideas about.”

A sudden dark stirring in the water below them cut off that line of discussion. Malachite snapped, “The ledge, now!” and grabbed Lithe.

Moon waited, knowing they had to go one at a time, but as Malachite sprang into the air, Jade said, “Moon, then Chime, go!”

There was no time to argue. Moon crouched, leapt, and flapped for all he and Shade were worth. He made it to the perch across the hall, snapping his wings in on the landing. Malachite caught his shoulder to steady him. Chime was right behind him, but as Jade sprang off the ledge, a dark clawed arm shot up from the water to reach for her. Moon gasped but she twisted at the last instant and flapped across the hall. As she landed, Moon snarled, “It almost had you!”

She snarled back, “I know.”

Malachite said, “Children, quiet.”

Moon followed her gaze and saw the dark shape move just under the surface. Something about it was more like a swarm of sea creatures than a single being. And it seemed to have more limbs than it had started out with. It fetched up against one of the seaweed-carved pillars and climbed out of the water, then swung to face them.

Chime made a strangled noise of horror in his throat.

Moon stared, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The creature had killed the Fell, but had merged their bodies with its own, somehow. Clawed arms, legs, a leathery wing, a tail hung from the fluid shape of its back and sides. The progenitor was attached to its chest, her body partially melded with it. Moon could glimpse one of her wings, half unfurled, through the creature’s gray semi-transparent flesh. Then her right arm, still free, twitched and she tried to lift her head; she was still alive.

Malachite hissed slowly, in mingled disgust and shock. Moon thought, The forerunners or whoever built this place left this creature buried alive here for a reason. They wanted to punish it for all the turns left in the span of the Three Worlds for a reason. And whatever we do, we can’t let it get out.

The progenitor said, “Why do you run? They attacked me. I had no choice.”

Moon felt sick. Her voice had a hollow effect, almost an echo. It was clear who—or what—was actually doing the speaking.

Jade called back, “You lied to the Fell and you’re lying to us!”

“I had to be free. Take me to the surface, I will still give you powers—” The progenitor choked, then her voice changed, dropping the strange hollow quality. “This place was first a fortress against it, then its prison when it was defeated.”

“That was her,” Shade whispered, horrified.

Malachite shouted, “How did they defeat it?”

One clawed limb grabbed the progenitor’s remaining arm, and ripped her out of the creature’s own body. It snapped her spine and tossed the corpse into the water. Then it dove in, vanishing under the swirling foam.

Malachite ordered, “That ledge, go!”

They made it in a mad scramble, flapping hard, newly terrified of touching the water. They assembled on the ledge near the archway that led into the next hall, the one they had to get through to reach the ramp and the outer door. This ledge was wider and higher above the water, but wouldn’t offer much protection if the creature came at them.

Moon set Shade on his feet and they both slid down the wall to a crouch. Chime, huddled at the other end of the ledge, was shivering almost as badly as Shade. Lithe squeezed in between Malachite and Jade, her spines flat in fear; Moon didn’t feel so good himself. The creature was using the illusory water to conceal itself, which made it nearly impossible for them to reach the outer door without letting it out. It could come at them at any moment, escape from its prison… What did the progenitor say? A fortress, and then a prison? Moon blurted, “It’s afraid of water.”

Jade’s and Malachite’s attention snapped to him. Jade said, “Because it’s using the illusion of water against us?”

Lithe’s frightened expression turned intrigued, and Chime’s spines shivered in excitement at the thought. Chime said, “Because our ancestors put it here?”

Moon said, “The progenitor said that this place was a fortress against it and then its prison, and then it killed her. It can’t talk to us without her, so shutting her up was more important than trying to convince us to help it. Maybe she was trying to tell us how to kill it.”

Jade wasn’t convinced. “But why would she do that?”

Moon started to answer, then shook his head in frustration. He couldn’t put it into words, the way the Fell became weirdly attached to their Raksuran prey. The Fell often seemed as if they were having a relationship with you that they expected you to reciprocate, and they became angry when you didn’t respond the way they thought you should. Maybe they were, but their complete lack of empathy prevented them from understanding the reactions and feelings of any other type of being. He just looked at Malachite and said, “She had Shade with her all that time. You know how they get.”

Malachite’s gaze turned thoughtful. “That only makes sense if we’re right about the water being a hallucination.”

“I know I’m right about that,” Chime said, more life in his voice. “And maybe that’s what this thing wanted with the groundlings. To make the huts as a way for it to get out of here. Maybe it knew all along they couldn’t set it free. It was waiting for the Fell to make crossbreeds, but once it was out, it needed a way to get to the surface without touching the water.”

“That could be it,” Lithe said. “If the forerunners had a way to get in and out of this place without swimming, they must have destroyed it when they left, to make the prison more secure.”

“So we let the water in,” Moon said.

“We’ll have to swim to the surface?” Chime shook his spines. “Can we do that?”

Jade said to Malachite, “Not all of us.”

His voice rough and weak, Shade said, “I can try to shift. Maybe if I wait till the last moment—”

Moon was pretty sure Shade was lying to keep them from reconsidering the plan. If he could shift, he would have done it by now.

Jade must have had similar doubts. She said, “If we distract it by letting the water in, we could get back up the ramp to the huts.”

Malachite said, “Yes, that’s still our best way out.” Her gaze was on the roof of the hall, on one of the round windows in the curve of the dome. The sea outside pressed against it, the water darker as if clouds had covered the sun somewhere far above them. “The rest of you get ready to go.”

“You think you can just tear through it?” Jade asked. “If more than one of us—”

“What about—” Chime began.

Water boiled in front of them. Moon pushed in front of Shade, instinctively protecting the one member of their group who couldn’t shift. The limb caught him across the shoulder and knocked him off the ledge and into the water.

Moon fell right through the surface, struggling against the illusion. He knew he was falling toward the floor of the hall, that there was no water around him, but for a heart-stopping moment his body was unable to do what his brain told it. He closed his eyes and forced his wings out, flapped with all his strength. He felt his body lifting up, a moment before he collided with a soft surface. He bounced off, slid down, and hooked his claws into it. He opened his eyes to see he was holding onto one of the seaweed-carved pillars, above the illusory water.

He looked back for the others and the creature. The water churned, and Chime clung to the wall above the ledge but Moon couldn’t see anyone else. He almost flung himself toward them but somebody had to let the real water in.

He swarmed up the pillar, and leapt from it to the curved roof, sunk his claws into the soft material and climbed across it toward the round window. It was the same as the other one, the crystalline substance webbed with translucent fibers. He struck at it with his claws and jerked back, anticipating the rush of water. His claws barely scored the tough material. You should have known this wasn’t going to be easy.

He swung out onto the window and dug his claws in, using all his strength, trying not to think about what was happening below him. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and jerked away, but it was Chime with Lithe clinging to his chest. Chime gasped, “Malachite is distracting it, Jade has Shade. We’re supposed to be with her but Lithe had an idea.”

Moon looked down, but couldn’t see anything but boiling water below the arch where the walkway was. Jade, be careful. The creature would be after Shade, knowing it could use him to get through the outer door to the groundling huts. Grimacing, Lithe stretched to reach the clear material of the window. She said, “This didn’t work on the groundling boat, but our ancestors made this.”

Moon didn’t understand what she meant until the crystalline substance started to warm under his claws. He dug them in again and leaned back, bracing his feet on the window. The material felt more permeable, but it still wasn’t tearing. Chime huffed in frustration, then climbed down next to Moon. “Please don’t kill us with your spines,” he said and wrapped an arm around Moon’s waist. Lithe hooked an arm around Moon’s shoulder.

Moon said, “All right, together. One, two, three!”

They all threw their weight back at once. And a small hole tore under one of Moon’s claws, saltwater squirting through it. Moon made a desperate hiss and said, “Again. One—” Then the whole window ripped apart.

The rush of water blew them down into the hall. They were caught in the torrent, as if the whole world had turned to water, and Moon couldn’t imagine how they had ever thought the creature’s illusion of an onrushing sea was real.

Still holding on to each other, they bounced off various hard surfaces and then tumbled to a stop, crammed into a corner. Moon shook the water out of his frills and tried to disentangle himself from Chime and Lithe. They had fallen into the bottom of the hall and the water was pouring in, streaming across the floor toward them. The illusion of water was gone and rapidly being replaced by the real thing. Moon managed to stagger upright, then something grabbed his arm from behind.

He whipped around in alarm, but it was Malachite. She shoved him toward the base of the walkway and reached to drag Chime to his feet, then Lithe.

Moon staggered through the rising water toward the nearest support for the walkway, looking up, trying to see where the creature was. There was a dark blot at the top of the hall that had to be it; it had retreated away from the water, but he doubted it would give up that easily.

Malachite landed behind him, with Chime in one hand and Lithe in the other, both still dazed. Moon took Chime, pulling him against his side. Chime revived enough to loop his arms around Moon’s neck, Malachite slung Lithe over her shoulder, and they both started to climb.

They reached the walkway. Moon saw Jade and Shade waiting at the start of the ramp, both unharmed, and felt dizzy with relief. “I told you to go on,” Malachite said, her voice a growl.

Jade just bared her teeth at her. Shade said, “I wouldn’t go without—”

High in the roof, something made a noise like a high-pitched shriek, like tearing metal. Moon looked back to see the rent in the window running into the roof below and growing rapidly larger. He yelled, “Run!”

Jade snatched up Shade and they bounded up the ramp. When they reached the outer door, Lithe had recovered enough to be set on her feet, though she was still wavering a little. Chime could stand on his own but kept squinting and holding his head. They all watched anxiously as Jade boosted Shade up. He touched the flower blocking the doorway.

Moon held his breath, but it opened just like they thought it would.

They climbed and swung up through the opening, into the big chamber. It was a relief to see the huts still there, to see the invisible barrier still held the water back. Malachite and Jade went last, and both stood beside the flower until it closed. Moon hissed out a relieved breath. Jade nodded agreement. She said, “Let’s hurry. That thing will be desperate and the further we get away the better.”

Malachite started toward the first hut. “Get in, Lithe. You too, Shade.”

Lithe stepped into the hut, shifted to her groundling form, and sat down heavily on the floor. Shade followed and sank down next to her.

Jade said, “You go with them. I’ll take Moon and Chime in the other—”

Moon heard a faint sound behind him and spun around. The flower was rotating open. He fell back a step as the creature’s dark form flowed up out of it. One clawed limb was holding a rusted metal bar—the tool the groundlings had made to open the flower.

Chime whimpered in dismay. “I dropped it, when it knocked you off the ledge, I shifted for an instant and I dropped—”

Moon figured they could sort that out later. He grabbed Chime by the spines and shoved him into the hut, then slammed the door shut and twisted the handle. He shouted, “Pull the lever!”

Malachite and Jade braced themselves, spines flared, ready to battle to the death. The creature flowed toward them.

Then the creature froze, and the lump on top of its body that seemed to be its eyes swiveled upward. Moon looked up and saw the barrier trembling like a pool that a rock had been dropped into. He thought, Oh, clever. One last defense. Their ancestors might have meant to punish the thing by imprisoning it forever, but they had left a trap if it ever got this close to escape.

The transparent barrier shivered and started to give way, releasing first a shower of water like a light rain. It struck the creature like acid, like burning molted metal. It flung its limbs wide in a silent scream and its body started to dissolve. Pieces of the dismembered Fell tumbled out and scattered across the floor. Then its flesh ran in gray-black streams and it melted away.

Moon realized later the green blur was Malachite shoving him down, flinging Jade on top of him, then throwing herself on both of them. The shock as the full weight of the water crashed down still knocked him out.

He opened his eyes, saltwater burning in his throat and lungs, choking him. For a moment all he knew was that something was holding on to him, then his blurry vision cleared enough to show him that it was Jade. She had him clutched to her chest with one arm, the other holding onto to Malachite’s tail.

Malachite was half-climbing, half-swimming up the chain and vine attached to the hut. Moon looked down and saw the round metal roof moving upward. Chime must have finally thrown the damn lever, he thought, numb. Jade was kicking her feet to help Malachite along, and Moon forced his limp legs to move.

Moon blacked out again before they reached the surface. He came to when someone dropped him on a hard stone surface and then punched him in the stomach. Moon’s lungs tried to turn themselves inside out as he coughed up water; someone flipped him over and he went to his hands and knees, choking out the last of it. The first real breath was sweet.

He shook his head and saw Jade crouched next to him, being messily sick. Moon’s body felt like his blood had turned to lead, but he reached over and squeezed her wrist. He was exhausted and wanted to shift to groundling more than anything, but he knew the longer he could hold on in this form, the faster his abraded lungs would heal.

He looked up and saw Malachite standing over them. They were on the platform in the cave, where the huts were stored. She was watching the water with concentrated intensity. Then the surface churned and the hut lifted out, its chain clanging in the support beam.

The door swung open as soon as it was clear of the water and Chime stared anxiously at them. “They’re alive,” he shouted.

They were. Moon decided he had time to pass out again while the others were sorting out the situation, and did.