Only to reemerge a second later, gasping and shaking his head—his very wet head—because he’d just been dunked underwater. And I finally realized why the whole area looked like it was lit by flickering orange flames: the fire was being mirrored in the waves. And waves they were, already knee deep in the lowest areas of the camp and rising, as all the water from the higher land surrounding us flooded in.
The camp was in danger of becoming a small lake. And one that none of the increasingly frantic crowd had a chance of escaping, no matter which way they ran. Because the walls were still up.
Pritkin started forward, but I hung on to his arm. “Wait. I have to—”
“The palisade!” he yelled, gesturing at it.
“I know!” I bellowed, because anything less than a hundred decibels was inaudible out here. “But there’s something I have to do!”
“What?”
“Your . . . The creature I was with. I have to go back for him—”
Pritkin shook his head violently. “You stay with me!”
“I’ll be right behind you!”
“No!”
“I have to!”
He just looked at me, eyes wild.
“What?”
“I have the strangest feeling you’re going to disappear, and I’ll never see you again!”
“You’ll see me.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“You’ll see me!”
“Then meet me back here. Right here! I’ll come for you!”
I nodded, but he just stood there, looking torn.
And then he kissed me, sweeping me up off the floor, body hot and hard against mine while Armageddon swirled all around us.
Leaving me breathless and staggering when he put me down. Although that was probably just . . . just the wind. I gave him a push. “Go!”
He went.
I turned and sloshed back across the room, to the entrance to what I now understood to be a portal. It was snapping and cracking, and stinging my skin when I ducked inside. And found the whole place deserted and silent, except for rumblings from the still-shaking walls. Huge boulders were on the floor, and heavy oak beams were slanted across the hall, turning it into an obstacle course. One carpeted in dust that slid underfoot, adhering to my wet feet and ankles, and hanging suspended in the air.
I grabbed a lantern off the wall and held it out. “Rosier!”
Nothing. And the farther I went, the worse things got, as the dim light from the portal faded. Leaving my one, flickering flame as the only thing to illuminate whole corridors impassable from rockfalls, and a darkness so heavy I almost felt it on my skin.
Even worse was the thought that maybe there was nothing to find. That Rosier was so small and so vulnerable, and the fey had been so angry with me. And that maybe Pritkin would have thought to bring my “familiar” if there had been anything left to bring.
“Rosier!”
Nothing.
I picked my way through the rubble, cutting my hands and bruising my heels, and wishing that, just once, I’d go on one of these stupid things with a decent pair of shoes. But I didn’t have shoes, and more importantly, I didn’t have a map. Because, whatever freaky place this was, I guessed the fey knew it by heart, but I didn’t.
I leaned against a wall for a minute, facing the inevitable. I was never going to reach Rosier like this. I was just going to have to hope that Gertie couldn’t read through whatever magic the fey had on this place, and that I wasn’t going to fall over from the strain, because this was really going to suck.