For a second, or perhaps a minute or an hour, nothing happened.
Then something changed in the air, as if all the dampness in the grotto ceased to exist. The metallic hues lining the rock came to life. They pulsated with bright light, running up and down the length of the formation like rippling sand, the reflection of moonlight over water. Droplets of silver detached from the rock and hovered just above its surface like raindrops frozen in time.
In the dead silence, a faint whisper rose, making the hairs on the back of Emory’s neck stand. It beckoned her forward, as if the rock called to her. The others didn’t see her as she stepped onto the platform and picked up a discarded knife to slash her own palm, nor as she wedged herself between Romie and Travers and pressed her hand against the rock.
A tendril of silver mixed with the blood that pooled from her wound. It wrapped around her wrist, tethering her to the rock, and it was the cold of a thousand stars and the deepest of oceans, flaring like a brand so painful it brought tears to her eyes, tore a soundless scream from her throat.
Something prickled against her magic, and bright silver light flooded the Belly of the Beast.
Someone screamed.
Emory tried to wrench her hand from the rock but was rooted to it, to that burning cold liquid searing her skin.
Then all at once the light vanished, and Emory brought her trembling hand up to her face, blinking at the silver spiral inked on her blood-streaked wrist, a mirror image of the glyph on the rock, still aglow with its strange light.
Romie stood before her, eyes wide with terror, an identical spiral on her own wrist. “Em,” she breathed, voice raw, “what the fuck are you doing here?”
Everyone stared at her, and for a moment the cave was deathly quiet.
“She shouldn’t be here,” Travers said at last, a look of horror on his face. “What if it messed up the ritual?”
An echo of that earlier whisper was the only warning before another sound rose in the depths: a great, deafening roar as the rising tide rushed in.
Time had slipped away from them, and the tide seized its opportunity. Hysteria crested over them before the water did. Someone swore, another burst into tears, and a few had the good sense to scramble to the nearest puddle to try to call on their magic through bloodletting. Romie simply looked at Emory, mouth open on words that were drowned by the roaring of the tide.
And then:
Darkness. A sea of swirling stars. Emory’s name whispered in the night, and those spirals bleeding black on the corpses on the sand.
And Keiran. Keiran, who was the first to find her on the beach in the dead of night. Keiran, who had the same mark they’d gotten in the caves. Keiran, who looked at her now with brows slightly furrowed, as if he could see the memories running through her mind. Beside him, Virgil and Lizaveta watched her intently, waiting for her answer.
Why had she gone into those caves? How had she survived what others more magically gifted than her had not?
Even if she could explain it—if she remembered what happened once the sea rushed in, how she’d ended up on the beach with four corpses strewn around her, the other four lost to the churning depths of Dovermere—it wouldn’t matter. The only thing anyone wanted from her, the reason all these students kept stealing glances her way, was a good story. A way to build up the myth and mystery surrounding Dovermere.
Emory knew what Romie would do in her place: if people suspected there was more to the story, she would gladly let them make their assumptions, would feast on their curiosity and let it mold her into an enigma everyone wanted to solve. Perhaps that was exactly what Emory needed to do. Let them believe what they would. The truth remained a mystery even to her, and she owed no one the slivers of knowledge she did have. Those fragments were her only bargaining chip to be used when it counted.
She gave a coy smile and what she hoped was a nonchalant shrug. “You know us first-years. Must have been all that foolishness got to our heads.” She peered at Keiran and asked, in the most innocent of tones, “Surely you must have done the same during your freshman year?”
Tension crackled in the air like sparks from the fire.
There was a challenge in Keiran’s eyes. “Now, what makes you say that?”
She was spared from answering when a girl suddenly plopped down in the sand next to Virgil. “Sorry we’re late!” She handed him an unopened bottle of wine. “Brought gifts.”
Virgil beamed. “Ife, you magnificent creature!”
Ife shoved him off with a laugh when he kissed her cheek. She swept her mass of long, tight braids over a shoulder and said something to another girl who sat beside her, whom Emory recognized all too well.
Her heart dropped as their gazes met.
“Emory, hey,” Nisha Zenara said with a tentative smile, a note of surprise in her voice. “How’ve you been?”
Keiran raised a brow. “You two know each other?”
Nisha looked as uncomfortable as Emory felt. “We met once or twice through a mutual friend.”
Her blood boiled. Mutual friend. More like the friend Nisha had all but stolen away from her.
Emory had been there when Nisha and Romie first met. It was their first week at Aldryn, and Romie had been dragging Emory all over campus, so eager to see everything their new life had to offer. Her excitement had been infectious, and when they’d stumbled upon Nisha in the Crescens Hall greenhouses where Sowers practiced their botanical skills, Romie being Romie had walked right up to her, and the two of them had instantly bonded over their love of plants—all while Emory stood back, feeling entirely out of place. She’d heard nothing but Nisha this and Nisha that for the better part of the following weeks, before Romie grew so secretive and distant that she barely spoke to Emory at all.
And if Nisha was friends with Keiran…
Was she a part of it too, whatever Romie had been involved in?
Her throat closed. She couldn’t handle this. Facing Keiran was one thing, but Nisha she hadn’t accounted for. She suddenly felt terribly out of place. Coming here was a mistake; she would have better luck confronting Keiran when he was alone anyway.
“I’d better go.” Emory grabbed her shoes and shot to her feet, wiping the sand from her trousers. She read the question in Keiran’s expression, felt the awkward silence hanging over the others. “Thanks for the wine,” she said lamely.
How pathetic.
She headed for the water’s edge without a backward glance. The waves lapped at her ankles, the squishy sand between her toes making her feel unsteady. She took a deep breath in, berating herself for not being able to go through with her plan.
“Ainsleif, wait up.”
Keiran was heading her way. Maybe she hadn’t so completely messed up after all. He caught up to her just as a wave slammed into her shins, knocking her off-balance. She yelped in pain as she stepped onto something wickedly sharp. His hand shot out to steady her.
“Are you all right?”
“I— Oh.”
Blood trickled down her foot where a piece of broken shell had pierced it, still lodged in the soft pad near her toes. Balancing on one foot, with Keiran’s hand around her elbow, she made to pull the piece out, swearing in anticipation of the pain.
Keiran’s hand closed over hers. “I’ve got it.”
He was standing so close, she could smell the subtle notes of his aftershave, see the warm greens and golds of his irises. At Emory’s nod, he tugged the shell clean out. She winced, but half a thought had the wound already closing.
A decent enough Healer, but nothing special.
Keiran flipped her hand over to rest the jagged, bloodied conch in her palm, the spiral shape echoing the mark on her skin, the matching symbol on his own wrist.
She regarded him squarely. “That mark you have. How did you get it?”
Another wave hit them then, stronger than before. They gripped each other’s arms as they lurched at the impact. She dropped the shell in the water.
The wind picked up, and Emory swore she heard a voice carried by the breeze, dark and teasing and lovely.