She inhaled sharply at the cold constricting her legs. She reached for the low branch of a hazelnut tree to steady herself as she moved forward. The water rose to her chest, not deep enough to use her thunderstone shield, not shallow enough for her to move confidently. The current was strong, rushing against her, urging her to join its flow, like a crowded high school hallway.
She slipped and lost her grip on the branch. She tried to put her feet down, but the current moved too fast. Her thunderstone floated along the surface as she swam hard for the far bank.
Sharp rocks struck her underwater. Something bit her lower back. A huge loggerhead turtle had clamped its jaw around her hip. The pain was excruciating. Eureka thought of Madame Blavatsky and her turtles and wondered if Madame B had come back from the dead to chide her for all the ways she’d failed her destiny. The turtle’s eyes were wide, yellow green, determined. Eureka made a fist and pounded the turtle’s head until its jaw slackened and it dropped off into the swirling stream.
She wasn’t far from the bank, but she was in pain and knew her back was bleeding. She imagined Cat striding happily to an inviting, deadly spring. That horror helped her thrust her body forward, until at last her fingers scratched the muddy edges of the bank. The soggy earth she clung to crumbled into the stream, sending her flowing farther from the now distant purple glow.
Her body struck a tree trunk. She wrapped her arms around it before the current pulled her away. She steadied herself. She lunged at the bank again. This time she grabbed slimy roots that held fast enough for her to pull herself up. At last she heaved herself out.
She collapsed on the bank in the rain, and considered never moving again. Then the amethyst glow grew dimmer. Eureka sprang up and ran toward it. She rounded the corner of a muddy path. She climbed a staircase of steep boulders lit by Esme’s glow.
Just when she began to fear that this was an evil prank, that this path led to a cliff overlooking rocks that stood like spears, the glow fell on a large, round pond. Rain fell on its surface, but the Glimmering was as smooth as a mirror. A spring bubbled gently in its center. Slender conical mountains rose beyond it. Doves cooed in nearby trees.
The pond was surrounded by a bright amethyst ring of flowers. Tall, purple-lobed, gossipwitch orchids. Purple flamingos struck curious poses as they stalked the enchanted border of the enchanted pond.
Eureka turned her good ear toward a happy moan she recognized from many after-party rides home with Cat. Her friend leaned against the trunk of a pine tree near the Glimmering, wrapped in the Poet’s arms.
Something drew Eureka’s gaze above Cat and the Poet, to the limbs of the tree they leaned against. A shadow shifted on a branch. Eureka didn’t need moonlight to recognize Brooks. How long had he been up there, watching Cat, waiting … for what?
For Eureka, of course. She knew Atlas’s plans now. She knew her role was to undo the Filling. She knew where his precious robot was. All this gave her power she didn’t yet know how to use.
Hang on, Brooks, she yearned to say. Just hang on a little longer.
His legs dangled over a thick pine arm. He knew Eureka saw him. Very slowly, he drew his pointer finger to his lips.
“Dare I suggest a skinny-dip before we fill the jugs?” Cat said to the Poet. Leaning in the wet grass at their feet were four clay drinking vessels they must have brought from the Poet’s cave.
“What is ‘skinny-dip?’ ” the Poet asked.
“Allow me to demonstrate.” Cat crossed her arms and began to remove her sweater.
“Cat!” Eureka called. “Stop!”
“Eureka?” For a moment a smile lit Cat’s face. Then it disappeared. Eureka realized that Cat would have been happy to see the girl Eureka used to be—but not the murderer standing before her now. “What are you doing here?”
Eureka thought about the way she’d just treated Ander. What did she think she was holding on to? What good would it do to say she’d been worried about Cat? Anger flashed in her eyes. She was mad at herself, and at Atlas, but Cat was in her line of fire.