Her body went limp. A wave pushed her back and she struck the wall, but hardly felt it. Then something was gripping her, dragging her upward.
Too weak to fight, Cinder let herself be carried. Her head broke into the air and her lungs expanded. She coughed. Arms wrapped around her. A body pressed her against the wall.
Cinder drooped forward, settling her head against a shoulder.
“Cinder.” A man’s voice, strained and vibrating through her chest. “Stop slacking off, would you?” He adjusted her in his arms, shifting her weight to cradle her in one elbow. “Cinder!”
She turned her bleary eyes up. Catching glimpses of his chin and profile and the wet hair plastered to his brow. She must have been delirious.
“Thorne?” The word stuck in her throat.
“That’s Captain … to you.” He gritted his teeth, straining to pull them toward the shore. “Aces, you’re heavy. Oh, there you are! How nice of you … to help out…”
“Your mouth uses up a lot of energy,” someone growled. Jacin? “Roll her onto her back so her body’s not fighting against—”
His words turned into a sharp yell as Cinder’s body slipped out of Thorne’s hold, sinking into the comforting lull of the waves.
Fifty-Four
Cress and Iko stood gripping each other on the lakeshore, watching Thorne and Jacin dive beneath the surface. Cress was shivering—more from fear than cold—and while Iko’s body didn’t give off natural heat like a human being, there was a comfort that came from her solidarity. They waited, but there was no sign of Thorne or Jacin or Cinder. They’d been underwater for a long time.
Too long.
Cress didn’t realize she was holding her breath until her lungs screamed. She gasped, the sensation more painful because she knew her companions would have been holding their breath for that long too.
Iko squeezed her hand. “Why haven’t they—” She took a step forward, but paused.
Iko’s body wasn’t made for swimming and Cress had never been in a body of water larger than a bathtub.
They were useless.
Cress pressed a shaky hand over her mouth, ignoring the hot tears on her face. It had been far too long.
“There!” Iko cried, pointing. Two—no, three heads appeared over the dark, chopping waves.
Iko took another step. “She is alive, isn’t she? She … she doesn’t seem to be moving. Do you see her moving?”
“I’m sure she’s alive. I’m sure they’re all fine.”
She glanced at Iko, but couldn’t bring herself to ask the question she knew they’d all been thinking. The live broadcast of the wedding feast had shown them everything. The trial. The massacre. Cinder jumping from the ledge and plunging toward the lake below.
Could Cinder swim?
Everyone had thought it, but no one had asked.
Together, the four of them had sneaked through the city, grateful that the few Lunars they saw were too busy celebrating the queen’s marriage to pay them any attention. Jacin had led the way, familiar with the city and the patterns of the lake, knowing where the bodies that fell into it from the throne room occasionally surfaced. There had been no hesitation between them—they all knew they had to find Cinder while Levana was reeling from the attack.
When they had caught sight of Cinder’s dark form among the waves, there was a resounding gasp of joy and relief from the whole group, but they still had no idea what state Cinder would be in.
Was she alive? Was she injured? Could she swim?
When the trio in the water was close enough, Cress let go of Iko and waded out to join them. Together they pulled Cinder’s body ashore, laying her down on the white sand.
“Is she alive?” Iko asked, half-hysterical. “Is she breathing?”
“Let’s get her to that boathouse,” Jacin said. “We can’t stay out here.”
Thorne, Jacin, and Iko shared the job of carrying Cinder’s limp body while Cress ran ahead to hold the doors. Three rowboats were stacked on brackets against the two sidewalls, with a fourth laid out in the middle and covered with a tarp. She cleared a mess of oars and fishing equipment from the tarp, making a space for them to lay out Cinder’s body, but Jacin laid her on the hard floor instead. Iko closed the doors, shrouding the room in darkness. Cress scrambled to switch on her portscreen for its ghostly blue light.
Jacin didn’t bother to check for breath or a pulse before he leaned over Cinder and locked his hands together on top of her chest. His eyes hardened as he started to pump down on her sternum with quick, forceful movements. Cress winced at the sound of popping cartilage.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” said Thorne, crouched on Cinder’s other side. He coughed and wiped his mouth with his arm. “Do you need help? We learned this in boot camp … I remember … sort of…”
“I know what I’m doing,” said Jacin.
And he did seem to know, as he tilted Cinder’s head back and formed a seal over her mouth with his own.