I heard my name from across the square and opened my eyes. Zach was on the doorstep of some poor soul’s house.
Seeing him, hearing his voice, yanked me back to reality. This was the first enchantment. It made me at ease, made me think the exact opposite of what I had been thinking: the amulet was here.
I couldn’t move, my body relaxed from the weight of the spell, but I had to reach Zach before my mind was captured by serenity once more.
“Zach! It’s here! It’s in the—”
A black tendril of water wrapped itself around my head, covering my mouth. It was like a slimy black tentacle, freezing my cheeks and lips as it jerked me over the wall of the well and into its depths. Dimly, I heard Zach scream my name as wind roared in my ears. My back slammed into the water and shock ripped through my spine, knocking the wind out of me. I submerged, my heavy clothes dragging me as if I were sliding down a tube made of ice, pulling at me. I screamed, but black water filled my mouth and choked me.
Drowning. I was drowning in this cursed water. It had come to life and taken me down—either from sensing my magical blood or the threat to its existence.
I tried thrashing in the water and kicking up to the surface, but it was not normal water. It clung to me like rich, sticky honey, dragging me, restraining me, binding me. The harder I yanked and kicked, the tighter it pulled.
I screamed for Zach in my head. But somehow I knew he was already coming for me, like he had come for me in the forest with the griffin, like he had stepped in when my mother was ripping me apart after the battle at the wall. He’d told her he wanted to be my partner. Just when I thought I’d been drowning from grief and self-doubt, he pulled me up. So I knew that at any moment, he would pull me free from this cursed water.
Zach.
His name brought me comfort. The water around me lost its pull, and it became easier to move. My panic wasn’t as strong, although fear was still there. I moved slowly but didn’t try to breathe, not yet.
I kicked, and the water gave way to lighter consistency. My head broke the surface, and I gasped, blinking.
Now that I wasn’t drowning or consumed with panic, I was able to think clearly. Zach wouldn’t be coming for me. He was smarter than that—he’d get me out another way.
Then I heard a splash next to me.
Or maybe not.
He had jumped in to save me. Although he shouldn’t have—as dangerous and stupid as it was—I was happy he had. The thought was incredibly selfish and illogical, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking it, just like I couldn’t stop the sun from setting.
At once, he started to sink, made worse by his thrashing. He was consumed, as I had been, by the enchantment. I wrenched my arms free from the water, even though they screamed at me, and hooked them under his arms, trying to haul him up. I couldn’t. The cursed water was dragging him down. So I did the unthinkable—I ducked back under the water.
My senses were clogged, and ice gripped my limbs and insides. Still, I held on to Zach, clutching his head to my shoulder, burying my cheek in his short hair. His arms wrapped around me, like it was the most natural thing in the world, his palms resting on my shoulder blades and his forearms wrapped against my ribs. Together, we kicked, and our heads broke the surface.
We gasped and retched, our bodies heaving and convulsing together, but we never let go of each other.
“Where is it?” Zach gasped, his voice above my shoulder.
I blinked and tried to focus on the light from above. Distantly, Millennia’s calls drifted down to us. But she was too far up.
I coughed again. “In the water—it has to be at the bottom.”
The panic once again crept up my throat like the water lapping against my neck and jaw. As it did, the water squeezed itself around me, pulling me back down. “We’ll drown.”
Zach tightened his grip around me. “We won’t. We’ll make it.”
His heart thrummed steadily against his chest, and I willed my pulse to mirror his. The water loosened once again.
He pressed his forehead into my shoulder, hugged me, and then looked down into the black water. “There’s a rope around my waist. Tug on it if I stay down too long. Okay?”
I felt around for the rope in the water, my numb fingers grasping it. “All right.”
He stared hard at me, and for a moment I thought—hoped—he was about to kiss me, but then he dove under. The inky black water splashed onto my face as I began counting seconds.
Thirty went by, and I heaved on the rope. He came up, coughing and shaking his head.
“Nothing.”
Before I could stop him, he went under again, and I started counting.
I let forty pass by, then yanked hard. No response. Panic seized me, and the water felt like clay baked in the sun. I tugged and tugged.
There was nothing.
“No—” I sucked in a breath and dove. Expecting total blackness, my eyes stung by the sudden onslaught of bright green light. Floating, illuminated by something small and green, was Zach. His eyes were open and staring at the jewel at the bottom floor of the well. His hand was outstretched, fingertips touching the cursed emerald, while his entire body was encased in some kind of green glow.
Three enchantments dealing with three powerful emotions. The first had been peace, the second, panic, and the third… I had no way of knowing until I touched that jewel. If I did, I’d be sucked into the same enchantment Zach was now battling. Defeat the last enchantment, just like we’d beaten the water by pushing down our panic, and we’d break the curse.
Before I reached out to touch the jewel, knowing there was never a question of leaving Zach there, the only comfort was that we wouldn’t drown. The jewel’s curse would suspend us in time, keeping us there forever unless we defeated it.
But the little girl didn’t have forever. She had maybe ten minutes.
I squeezed my eyes shut, reached through the clinging, mud-like water, and my fingertips grazed the cool surface of the emerald.
…
The chill in my bones forced my eyes open, and I shuddered. The world was black but growing lighter by the second, changing from midnight to charcoal, then to the color of hazy smoke. I blinked and pushed myself up onto my hands and knees.
Where was I?
With focus, my brain cleared. Zach and I were stuck inside the final enchantment. Our real bodies were floating in that black liquid, trapped. Everything here was a projection, not truly real.
The gray around me had faded into a blurred scene, like looking through a foggy window. I was in a field with an orange hue, as if the world were stuck in the autumn season, the ground growing cold under my hands.
“Zach?” I called out, scanning the umber landscape, desperate to find him.
Not ten paces in front of me was a young boy. He was breathing hard as if he’d just sprinted a mile. He stared through me, hazel eyes wide with terror, his brown hair swept away from his forehead by a rush of wind.
Then there was a great black blur and a splash of red. A woman suddenly lay next to me, blood pouring onto the dying grass.
The boy fell to his knees, screaming…screaming.
Under the screaming I caught the dying woman’s final word: “Zach.”
The blurriness shifted around me and then I was inside a tiny dirty house. The same young boy was huddled on the middle of the floor, shaking.
My heart went out to him. This emotion was all too familiar to me. An overwhelming oppression that I knew well from my childhood. A feeling that made even the smallest movements seem as though the sky was collapsing.
Loneliness.
I stared at the child on the grimy floor, his lone figure small and weak, then gently touched his back. “Zach.”
The child stopped shaking, his back still to me.