The fish dove. He swam around in circles under the surface, grumbling.
Becca stuck her face in the water. “Maybe you could help me?” she said. “I need to find a gold coin, very old, with an image of Neria on it.”
“Maybe,” the cod said. “Wouldn’t count on it, though.”
Becca sighed and regarded the nest again. She knew she had to get herself inside it, but how?
She put her hands on the ledge, ready to boost herself up, but her arms were shaking so badly, she couldn’t. Becca didn’t like leaving the water, and a tail was not much good when it came to climbing. She also didn’t like not having a plan.
This is impossible, she thought. I can’t do it.
She was going to submerge again and try to work up her courage when her eye fell on the scar on one of her palms. It was from the bloodbind. The cut she’d made had been painful and deep, but the scar tissue had closed it and made her skin stronger than before.
Just as the bloodbind had made her stronger.
Sera, Neela, Ling, and Ava—their blood surged through her. Her friends, her sisters, were with her. She might be scared, but she wasn’t alone.
Becca’s arms stopped shaking. She boosted herself up onto the ledge, then carefully worked her way up the side of the nest, using her hands to pull herself and her tail to push. She knew her next move. That was something. It wasn’t a plan, exactly, but maybe it was the start of one.
Half an hour later, she was at the top of the structure, her tail fins planted on a broken mast. She heaved herself over the edge of the nest, landing with a whump.
The fall knocked her glasses down her nose. She pushed them back up, then started to search, pulling up the boat cushions and tattered spinnakers that padded the nest. There were hollows underneath, but they contained nothing. Becca soon saw that every component of the nest served the purpose of strengthening it. Nothing was merely decorative.
Why would a coin even be in here? she wondered, losing hope.
As she continued to search, she noticed that one of her hands had started to shimmer. The transparensea pebble was wearing off.
She’d just picked up the edge of a sail when she felt it—a vibration. It was coming from the rock itself. The very walls of the cave were shaking.
Something was coming. Something big.
The cod poked its head out of the water. “I think we’ve got company,” he said. “It’s the Williwaw. It’ll kill you for sure when it finds you in its cave. So can I have my squid now?”
Becca didn’t answer him. She was leaning on the edge of the nest, looking out of the hole in the cave’s wall.
The vibrations increased. The water below her started to swirl and bubble. And then it came into view, a creature unlike any she’d seen before.
Becca blinked.
And bit back a scream.
THE WILLIWAW WAS a parched and tattered thing, death in a handful of dust.
It was a whale washed up on a beach and left to the merciless sun. A broken-winged gull hobbling across the hot sand. A deer collapsing at a dry riverbed.
The top half of its head was a bird skull, bleached white, with a sharp ebony beak, and the bottom half was human, with a wide jaw, and a gray bottom lip. Its feet and hands were tipped with talons. Bones showed through tears in the dry, leathery skin stretched over its manlike body. Trinkets dangled from golden chains around its neck. A pair of black wings sprouted from its back. Each flap brought the creature closer.
“I need to think. Come up with some ideas. I need a plan.” Becca was babbling with fear.
“Plan?” the cod scoffed. “You need a miracle!”
Becca knew she had to act. Fast. If she didn’t, the Williwaw would kill her. But she couldn’t move. She was frozen.
The Williwaw drew nearer. Becca squinted. Her glasses were strong and allowed her to make out the treasures around its neck. Gems. Teeth. Bones. And a locket—an ancient gold locket on an ancient gold chain.
It was hanging open and it held a coin.
That’s Pyrrha’s coin! It has to be! Becca thought. I bet Merrow put it in that locket, and then put the chain over the Williwaw’s head to make sure no one could ever get it.
Getting it from the spirit would be all but impossible. Calculations would have to be made. It would take time.
But Becca didn’t have time. Despair gripped her. She’d never be able to get the coin from the creature. She and the others would fail in their task and Abbadon would rise again.
The sound of rushing wind grew louder.
The cod glanced nervously at the opening. “Time to improvise, sister,” he said.
“I—I can’t improvise. I don’t know how. It’s not in my comfort zone.”
“What about death? Is death in your comfort zone?” the cod asked.
An image swam before her eyes, of the monster killing one of the Iele. Abbadon would kill her friends, and so many others. Unless she got the coin.