The monster whirled around. More hands came through the bars. In the center of each palm was a lidless eye.
“Come on! Right here, sea scum! Let’s go!” Serafina shouted.
The monster released the incanta and struck at Serafina. It was fast and powerful, but Becca’s deflecto, well-sung and solid, protected her.
While Serafina distracted the creature, Becca tried to pull the wounded incanta clear of the waterfire. The monster saw her.
“No!” Serafina shouted. Without thinking, she swam around the deflecto and slapped the water noisily with her tail.
The monster turned from Becca and rushed at her again. She shot backward, but not fast enough. Its claws caught her tail, opening three long gashes in it.
Serafina bit back the pain. “Ava, talk to me!” she shouted. “Can you see anything? What’s it afraid of?”
“Light, Sera! It hates light!”
“Neela, frag it!”
Neela bound the lava’s light tightly, then hurled it through the bars of the gates. It hit the floor and exploded, forcing the monster back. Only seconds later, though, the creature was reaching through the gate again, seemingly unharmed and fueled by a new fury. The bronze bars groaned as it shook them. One started to bend. The waterfire was rising, filling the room with blue light, but it was still weak. Becca, cradling the wounded witch, added her voice to the incanti’s and the waterfire flared higher.
“It’s going to get out!” Neela yelled. “The flames aren’t strong enough!”
Suddenly, a blur of black and white flashed past them. It was Astrid, moving with the deadly speed of an orca. “Not if I can help it,” she growled.
“Astrid, no! You’re too close!” Serafina shouted.
But Astrid didn’t listen. With a warrior’s roar, she swung her sword at the monster, the muscles in her strong arms rippling. The blade came down on one of its outstretched arms and cut off a hand.
The monster shrieked in pain and fled into the depths of the prison. Its severed hand scrabbled in the silt. Astrid drove the point of her saber through it. The fingers clutched at the blade, then curled into the palm, like the legs of a dying spider.
Becca, eyes closed, songcast with all her might. As her voice rose, the flames of the waterfire leapt. Astrid backed away from it.
“Of all the stupid moves!” Serafina shouted at her. “You could’ve been killed!”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Astrid shouted back.
“Songspells do, too. Ever hear of those?”
Astrid didn’t reply. She swam to a wall and leaned against it, panting. She had a deep cut across one forearm. Her left temple was bleeding.
She saved our lives. All of us, Serafina thought. Even me. It wasn’t what she expected from the daughter of the man who’d invaded Cerulea and it made her feel off-balance and unsettled.
Becca was sitting on the floor with Vr?ja, who was cradling the wounded river witch.
Serafina turned her attention to them. “How is she?”
Becca shook her head. The incanta’s eyes were half closed. Blood pulsed from a deep gash in her neck. She was trying to say something. Serafina bent low to listen.
“…so many…in blood and fire….I heard them, felt them….Lost, all lost….He’s coming….Stop him….”
And then her lips stopped moving and Serafina saw the light go out of her eyes.
Vr?ja raised her head; the grief in her heart was etched on her face. “Odihne?te-te acum, curajos,” she said. Rest now, brave one. Sera’s own heart filled with sorrow.
More Iele, drawn by the creature’s roars, hurried into the Incantarium. Vr?ja asked two of them to carry their sister’s body away and prepare it for burial, and for another to take Ling’s place in the circle and keep the chant going. And then she rose wearily. Becca helped her.
“It has been growing stronger, but I had no idea how strong until just now,” Vr?ja said.
“Was that—” Serafina started to say.
“Abbadon? Yes,” Vr?ja said.
“It’s here? In the Incantarium?” Becca asked.
Vr?ja laughed mirthlessly. “It’s not supposed to be,” she said. “Only its image. We watch over the monster with an ochi—a powerful spying spell. Abbadon broke through the ochi just now, and the waterfire, too. That is bad enough. But it also manifested physically in this room, which is far worse. Such a thing is called an ar?ta. Until now, it was a theoretical spell only. Though many have tried, no one—not even an Iele—has ever been able to cast an ar?ta. The monster’s was weak, thank the gods. Had it been stronger, we would all be dead, not just our poor Antanasia.”
“I knew I should have stayed outside,” Neela said.
“Oh, no, bright one,” Vr?ja said. “If you had, I never would have seen it.”
“Seen what?” Neela asked.