“I’m fine,” she insists. “Better than, even. After two days at sea, my gift is begging to be used.”

“Then let’s not deny it anymore,” I say, nodding toward S?ren, who doesn’t hesitate. He takes off at a run down the corridor, shouting in Kalovaxian.

“Prisoners escaping! Riot! They’re all out!” He keeps going once he’s out of earshot, luring the guards away from their posts on the edge of the dungeon and drawing them inside.

I hurry toward the cell farthest back and usher the others inside. We huddle together tightly, some part of Heron’s skin touching some part of ours.

“Ready?” I ask.

They nod, but I feel their fear. This was something we couldn’t practice ahead of time. This is a theory—a sound theory, but a theory all the same. And if it doesn’t work…I stop that thought in its tracks. It has to work, and that is all there is to it.

“Close the cell,” Maile says, but I shake my head.

“Not until S?ren’s back,” I say.

Kalovaxian shouts make their way to us, still far enough away to be mostly unintelligible, but I hold firm, one hand on the cell door, eyes glued to the dark corner of the corridor, willing S?ren to come into view.

“He might have been recognized,” Maile says. “He might not be coming. Do you really want to risk everything for a Kalov—”

“Oh, shut up,” Artemisia snaps. “We can spare another minute.”

But there’s worry in her voice as well. I never thought I’d hear Artemisia worry about S?ren, but I’m too worried myself to tease her about it.

What happens if S?ren doesn’t come back in time? It’s a question I haven’t wanted to ask myself. It’s a question I don’t know how to answer—no, that’s not exactly true. I know the answer. I know that I will do what I have to do—close the cell door and give the order for Artemisia to strike, no matter what the cost of that is.

“You are always fighting for Astrea, above all else,” Blaise told me once, and he was right. I will always put Astrea above everything and everyone else, even when I hate myself for it.

The shouts grow louder, taking shape into words.

“The cells are empty,” one guard yells. “All of them!”

“They can’t have gone far,” another one replies, but there’s an edge to his voice, and I wonder if he was one of the guards who thought the same of me when I slipped out from between their fingers.

“Theo,” Heron says, his voice uncertain. “They’re getting close.”

“Just another minute,” I say, keeping my gaze on the corner. “Come on, S?ren,” I murmur under my breath.

“You’re going to ruin everything,” Maile snaps. “All for one boy.”

“Hush,” Artemisia says again before softening her voice. “Theo, S?ren would tell you to make the call.”

“He would,” I say through clenched teeth. “But if our places were switched, he would never make it himself. One more minute. At the first sight of the guards, I’ll shut it. I promise.”

“No hesitation,” Artemisia says.

“No hesitation,” I echo.

The shouts grow louder still, and the pounding of footsteps echoes in the beat of my heart. My fingers tighten on the door and I imagine closing it, locking out any hope of S?ren surviving. I know I can do it. I know that if I have to, I won’t hesitate. But I don’t want to and I won’t do it any sooner than absolutely necessary.

A shadowed figure rounds the corner, and my heart leaps into my chest. All I can see is blond hair and a guard’s uniform.

“Close it,” he shouts, and I let out a breath of relief before I understand his words. “Close it now!” he says again, just as a mob appears at his heels. They’re close—too close. There’s no time for S?ren to reach us, to reach safety. If he gets to us, they do as well, and then all is lost.

“Close it, Theo,” he says again. “Strike now.”

I let my body act, turning off my brain before I do something foolish. I start to close the door without thinking about what I’m doing, what it will cost me. I start to close the door because I will always choose my country over anyone—my friends, S?ren, even myself.

A hand grabs the door above mine, and the owner pulls it open with a harsh curse under her breath. Before I can process what’s happening, Maile takes a few hurried steps down the corridor, reaching behind her for the bow on her back. She doesn’t hesitate before firing three arrows in rapid succession, striking down the three guards closest to S?ren and causing the others to hesitate. It only buys a couple of seconds, but that’s all it takes for S?ren to get close enough for Maile to grab him and pull him into the cell, slamming the door closed behind her.

I take hold of S?ren’s hand, press it to Heron’s bare arm so that all of us have some kind of contact with Heron’s skin.

With a deep breath, Artemisia raises her arms, and brings them down in one fluid motion, emitting an ear-piercing scream that I feel in my bones. She ushers in the tide.

Water rushes through the open tunnel door, a flood of it that pushes down the hall, knocking the guards off their feet and dragging them beneath its surface.

It reaches us as well, spilling between the bars of the cell until it covers my feet, my knees, my waist. It floods higher and higher until my head is under as well, but I’m ready for that—we all are. We know to hold on to Heron no matter what. Even when water pushes its way into my lungs, even when the tides try to drag me away, I hold on with everything I have. Just when my lungs begin to burn unbearably, when I think I can’t hold on anymore, the space just around us drains of water—or rather, Heron uses his gift to fill it with a bubble of air.

I can breathe again, and no breath has ever tasted so sweet. When I recover, I look around, taking in our surroundings.

Outside of our bubble, the dungeon is entirely full of water as far as I can see, reaching up to the ceiling. In the dark, murky water, I can make out a couple of bodies floating through it, unmoving, uniforms billowing around their limp forms.

Artemisia’s eyes are closed, her expression drawn in concentration. Her hands, outstretched, tremble with the power of what they’re doing, what they’re holding.

It can take up to five minutes for a person to drown to death, depending on a few factors. Artemisia explained this with a frightening number of graphic details back on the W?s. Though many of the guards are unconscious now, and many will have snapped their necks or hit their heads in the initial rush of the tide, if we want to be safe, she has to hold this for five full minutes, which means that Heron has to hold his bubble of air just as long.

His hand is on Artemisia’s shoulder, his other one on mine, while S?ren and Maile each have a hold on his arms.

“How long has it been?” Maile asks in a whisper.

“A minute, barely,” I say. “Let her concentrate.”

Outside of our bubble, I catch sight of a guard who is still conscious, swimming and searching for air. He makes it to our cell, almost to the bubble Heron is holding, but even though he can’t get in, he’s close enough for me to see the desperation in his eyes, how they bulge from his face, wild and afraid.

“Drowning is a horrible way to die,” Artemisia warned when we were formulating the plan.

“It’s no more than they deserve,” I replied, and no one disagreed with that.

But still, it’s a different thing entirely to see it, to watch his face turn blue, to see him overcome with a frenzy I’ve never seen before, to watch him claw at the bars separating us until his fingers bleed, without doing anything to help. To watch his face go slack when unconsciousness finally takes a hold of him, his fingers going loose around the bars as the tide pulls him away, into the darkness of the water.

Next to me, I feel S?ren shudder, and when I think how close he came to sharing that fate, I do the same.

After what feels like eons, Artemisia opens her eyes and drops her arms, sagging against Heron with a groan, and the water around us floods back out into the tunnel, dragging the bodies of the guards along with it.

“You did it,” Heron says to Art, keeping a firm hold on her shoulder even as he releases me and shrugs the others off. Though he must be exhausted as well, the air around us is charged as he uses his gift to replenish her energy and ensure that all of the activity didn’t worsen her legs.

Artemisia nods tightly, but even she manages a small, proud smile.

Heron reaches into the pocket of his trousers, pulls out a diminished lump of molo varu. Before we left Dragonsbane, I melted the full thing and separated it into four parts—one for us, one for Blaise, one for the group in the wine cellar, and one for the group in the kitchen cellar.

He tosses it to me and I use my gift to heat it. Quartered, it’s too small to write words on, but I can at least heat it so the others feel it. It’s the signal they’ve been waiting for, telling them it’s time to storm the palace.