Page 103

“Pleasedon’t leave me alone,” she whimpered, voice breaking. “I beg you, don’t leave me alone. She’ll come for me. She’ll make me pay for what I did.”

“Who?” said Fern.

“I don’t want to die alone. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.”

The alchemist clung to Fern like a frightened child, shaking with sobs. Her long hair clung onto Fern’s cheeks and lips like cold seaweed. Her arms had the brittleness of seashells. Fern, wrapped into that febrile, desperate embrace, realised almost distantly that Emmeline had probably never been alone in her life. She’d always had Edmund right there at her side.

“Emmeline, listen to me.”

Ignoring her own terror, her own despair, Fern took Emmeline’s face in her hand, smoothing back the sodden hair, wiping the hot tears away.

“If I stay here, we’ll both die. This is our only chance. I’ll come back for you. I swear it on everything I hold dear. I’ll bring Edmund, he’s been worried sick about you. He loves you and misses you, he just needs to find out where you are. Don’t you want me to go get him?”

Emmeline nodded frantically, swallowing back her sobs.

“I’m coming back,” said Fern firmly. “Alright? All you need to do is wait for me. Can you do that?”

Emmeline nodded again. Fern imitated the gesture. “Good. Alright, it’s time for you to let go of me.”

She took Emmeline’s arm and pulled it gently away from her. Emmeline let go, her chin trembling. She was trying to hold back her sobs, trying to mask her sorrowand fear. It made Fern’s guts twist painfully to see the alchemist so transformed, so broken.

“I’m afraid too, Emmeline,” she said quietly. “But all will be well. I promise you.”

And with a great gulp of breath, she pushed away from the pipe and fell into the whirlpool.

Letting go was the hardest part.

After that, everything happened too quickly for fear.

Chapter fifty

The Rock

The undercurrent sucked Fernin, dragging her to the other side of the pit in seconds. She fought for a moment, taking in a huge gulp of air before letting the water engulf her.

The world became a void. There was nothing but the rush of water, the absolute darkness, the crushing terror. Fern was dragged through ice-cold water. She was falling, sinking.

Hell was not fire; it was this vortex of black water. It was the claustrophobia of knowing she could not breathe, she could not see, she could not escape. It was the burning of her airless lungs.

She opened her mouth, desperate for air, and water rushed inside her with terrifying speed, filling her mouth, her throat, her lungs. She was going to die. She was going to die, swallowed and crushed in the bowels of Carthane, consumed and absorbed. She was going to die.

Then Carthane spat her out.

Fern went flying through a chaos of water, wind and rain. The roar of a raging storm and the flashing of thunder surrounded her, became her world for that instant. A black, heaving wave rose, bloated and gleaming, to meet her.

Fern crashed into the sea. Crimson pain flared through her entire body, quickly fading in the darkness of her panic. She was overwhelmed, nauseous, disoriented. A ferocious current pulled her under. She was exhausted and in agony, but she was alive. She was alive, and she was out of the sewer. She had surrendered her fate to chance, and now she was back in charge. Nobody would save her. The ocean owed her nothing.

It was time to fight.

She broke through every barrier of terror, of exhaustion, of pain. She kicked and struck out, pushing herself up, fighting the waves that kept pushing her back down. Breaking through the surface with a scream, gulping in a breath that choked her.

She coughed, sinking back down. Her lungs were full of water. She needed to be more careful. She kicked herself up once more, forcing herself to take long, deep breaths.

Around her, the storm raged on, its fury implacable. Rain slashed from the sky, whipping the sea. Black waves rolled and crashed, flashing white in the flare of sudden lightning. The air was a deafening roar of thunder and water.

Fern stared desperately around. She could barely see anything. The tide was pulling her forward, dragging her in. She turned. A flash of lightning illuminated the craggy wall of the black cliff face. The waves were draggingher towards the cliffs, towards the jutting teeth of rocks awaiting at the bottom. Her body would be crushed in seconds.

She fought. She was too far from the shore to swim to safety. The storm was too powerful, the night too dark. She needed to find a way to wait out the tide, the storm and the night. She had come so far. She only needed to survive.