She could still live, he told himself. If we get out of here. If we’re gone.
There was only one way out, now.
Grin grabbed her around the waist-the eel still in her-and ran toward the glass wall overlooking the plaza. The boggart gritted his teeth, dropped his shoulder, and hurled himself and Cheval at the window. It shattered with harsh music and then they were falling, tumbling over one another, twisting down through the air five stories. Grin pulled Cheval toward him, made sure he was underneath her when they hit the stones.
His back hit first. His head struck the plaza. Bones in his skull cracked like a lightning strike. Blackness swept in. As he began to lose consciousness, he felt the eel trapped between him and Cheval twisting, biting at his thick, tough skin. And he felt Cheval’s blood soaking his clothes and the cold touch of her cheek against his own. Deathly cold.
The bright sunlight over the island of Atlantis seared his eyes for a moment, and then he slipped into soothing darkness and knew no more.
Jellyfish swarmed the chamber, coming down the spiral staircase in a wave. Li had burned hundreds of them already, but with the eels now diving toward him, the Guardian of Fire could not destroy them all. A few moments were all the jellyfish needed.
Blue Jay danced in ancient rhythm, swung his arms, summoning his razor-sharp, mystic wings. He sliced an eel in two, then began beating away the jellyfish, cutting them to ribbons as they tried to attack him. Tendrils lashed his face, leaving burning streaks there. He hissed in pain but kept fighting.
A Naga arrow punctured a jellyfish only inches from his eyes and the thing sailed away, impaled. A heartbeat later, one of the Nagas fell hard upon the floor, writhing in agony as the jellyfish covered him, stinging, swarming, killing. The Naga twitched, then lay still save for the undulating jellyfish.
As he fought, Blue Jay glanced around and caught sight of another Naga down, being feasted upon by eels, their bodies waving in the air, as though underwater. A gout of liquid fire engulfed the Naga and those eels, charring them instantly. Then Li raced past Blue Jay, flames and heat flowing from his hands. But he seemed dim, somehow, and the fire weaker. Flickering. Finally burning out.
Cold wind swirled and eddied in the room.
Frost darted around that chamber, lashing out at the things that attacked them. Jellyfish fell to the ground and shattered, frozen solid.
Oliver swung Hunyadi’s sword. His arms and face were streaked with red lashes from the jellyfish, but he’d managed to keep them off of him. Frost moved toward him, helping, keeping the Legend-Born safe as his first priority.
A large section of the glass wall had become a jagged hole, warm island wind and sunshine breezing in. Blue Jay’s stomach clenched with dread, wondering if Grin and Cheval could survive such a fall.
As the room filled with more jellyfish, more eels, he knew.
“Frost!” he shouted.
The winter man and Oliver both turned to look at him.
“We’re screwed. Get the hell out of here.”
Even as the words left his mouth, they were punctuated by a scream unlike anything he had ever heard, mournful and full of surrender. He spun to see that in seconds, Kitsune had been overwhelmed by the jellyfish. They lashed themselves to her face and hair. Some wrapped around her arms. Still others moved beneath her cloak, stinging and struggling there.
Kitsune ran for the shattered window.
Oliver reached out for her as she passed him. Blue Jay saw the way their eyes met, the regret and terror in that glance. The trickster lunged after her as well, but he was too far away. Kitsune seemed almost to dance out through the broken window, for a single breath hanging in midair. Oliver planted a hand on the flat, unbroken glass above the shattered section of window, and it cracked, spiderweb fractures running through the glass as he reached out and grabbed hold of her cloak, that copper-red fur, glittering in the sunshine.
The jellyfish attached to Kitsune stung his hand, several of them in a single moment. Reflexively, he opened his fingers.
Kitsune caught Blue Jay’s eyes as she fell. Her mouth worked silently, speaking words none of them would ever hear. She might have said I’m sorry, but he couldn’t be sure.
“No!” Jay shouted.
Oliver stepped back from the gaping, jagged hole in the glass wall.
Blue Jay didn’t slow down. He barreled past Oliver and out into the air above the plaza. The beauty of Atlantis, its muted colors and gentle spires and elegant curves spread out before him, with the green-blue harbor beyond. He caught his breath, wondering if this would be the last thing he ever saw.
The trickster bent, arms outstretched, and summoned his mystic wings once more. They blurred beneath his arms and he felt-as always-the pull of his other form, the bird whose soaring flight was such pleasure to him. But the blue bird could not save Kitsune. Only the trickster could help her now.
It felt like fire. The stings of the jellyfish burned her flesh and their venom raced through her blood. The stones below rushed up to meet her and Kitsune relished their approach, the escape from pain that impact would bring.
With her fingers, she traced the air, feeling it rushing between them.
A hand gripped hers. Her legs twisted and her free arm pinwheeled and she felt herself caught, her descent slowing. New stings pierced her and she wanted to let go, to fall, but the hand would not let go.
“Change!” Blue Jay shouted at her.
Her weight dragged on him. She tried to focus, realized he was moving and dancing on the air, the only way he could stay up without becoming a bird. Those blue wings that blurred, barely visible, under his arms, were not enough.
Reaching down to the center of herself where there was no pain, no fear-where there was only the fox-Kitsune changed. Her flesh rippled. Her fur clung to her, and as it did the jellyfish were shed from her body. She diminished into the fox-her spirit did not diminish with her flesh, however. The jellyfish on her head and forelegs were still there, too.
Blue Jay touched the ground. He reached down and stripped the last of the jellyfish from her, hurling them away, then set her on the stones of the great plaza. Her veins were on fire with venom, her skin lashed and scarred. Kitsune could not rise.
On her side, the fox saw Cheval and Grin locked in a rigid embrace. There were broken limbs, tangled together, where they lay on the ground twenty feet away. The fox turned her eyes upward and looked into the sky above the plaza-surrounded by the architecture of Atlantis-and saw the body of a Naga falling, serpentine body whipping in the wind, toward the ground. It struck hard and did not move.
The sky filled with horrors. Jellyfish and eels, yes, but also several huge air sharks and dozens of octopuses. They poured from the library, but most had already been there, waiting for them to emerge. Razor fish slid across the sky. Octopuses descended, tentacles dredging toward the stone plaza.
They were dead.
The fox wished she could cry, but her pain had taken even that from her.
A sudden eruption of snow and ice burst from the broken window on the fifth floor of the Great Library. A dark figure rode the storm. The blizzard swept toward the ground and she knew that, within the snow and wind, the winter man carried Oliver to safety.
Still alive, Kitsune thought. That was good. Of course, without Smith, they would all die.
She howled, as if to call out for him.
Perhaps Blue Jay understood, for he began to bellow at the sky, screaming the Wayfarer’s name in fury. His voice echoed off of the polished surfaces of the buildings around them.
The side of the library-the place where they’d all gone out the window-became quickly engulfed in fire. The fox let her head loll back and saw Atlantean soldiers moving in from the edges of the plaza, blocking any hope of escape. Not that they had anywhere to go. They were on an island. Several sorcerers joined the soldiers.