Mouse squinted through the murky water, trying to make out more than the dark outline of the well.
“I think I see a hatch down there,” she said, pointing. Thornwooddove beneath the surface, popping back up moments later with a wide grin.
“You are right,” he said. “The water is not deep, but we should be cautious, as we do not know where the magic might pull us. Do not let go of my hand. If you need to return to the surface, squeeze three times. And please, do not do anything reckless.”
Mouse nodded, and Thornwood clasped her hand. His skin was cool to the touch, like the surface of a windowpane after a storm.
With a final breath, they both dove beneath the water. Mouse squinted, trying to make out shapes through the blur while keeping up with Thornwood’s pace. His hand clenched around hers and did not loosen even when they reached the bottom of the pond. With his free hand, he reached out for the hatch. Even with her fogged vision, Mouse could see the stone handle in the hatch’s side.
The moment Thornwood’s fingers touched the stone, the hatch opened, and a pulse rippled out of it through the water, followed by an angry jet of bubbles. The force nearly dislodged Mouse’s grip, and she had to admit that Thornwood’s Faerie strength likely kept her from flying to the surface with the wave that billowed around them. Still, it knocked the air from her lungs and clouded her vision.
She squeezed Thornwood’s hand once, twice, and then a third time. He squeezed back hard. Together, they pushed off the muddy pond floor and toward the light above. The journey to the surface felt eons longer than the way down had. Mouse started to see stars behind her eyes by the time they finally made it up into the air.
Gasping and coughing in turns, Mouse scanned the water for any change. The first thing she noticed was that the path back to Thistlemarsh Hall had disappeared. The mermaid was also gone. In its place was a pavilion floating on the surface. Mouse thought of the magic room where they’d encountered Smudge, tucked into a dent in the boiler. This one was so much bigger, with water going off as far as shecould see in every direction. It was shocking that another world this intricate could exist at the bottom of a pond.
“Let’s get out of the water. I don’t trust that mermaid statue,” Thornwood said.
They paddled to the pavilion. Mouse lifted herself onto the tiled floor. Her chemise clung to her, cold and sticky, and she hugged herself.
Thornwood did not shiver or even have the decency to look bedraggled.
Mouse saw a deep hole in the center of the pavilion, as big across as a train carriage.
“Well, I think that the spell is oh so subtly directing us down there,” Thornwood said. Mouse nodded, and they moved toward it.
The opening was just large enough to accommodate a spiraling staircase leading down into its gaping mouth. Silver light bathed the top, but it dimmed into darkness before it reached the bottom.
Thornwood opened his hand, and an orb of his magic formed before popping like a soap bubble.
“Lovely,” he sighed. “It seems as though my magic is bound here as well. Shall we?”
They both looked down into the dark. Mouse took Thornwood’s hand. He jerked, but she pretended not to notice as he took a long step down into the well.
The lower they went, the damper the air became, heavy on Mouse’s skin. The light above was nearly gone. The stairs thinned, uneven and crumbling. The persistent sound of water lapping against stone rolled up the walls.
Thornwood froze as he stepped down into dark water. Mouse stopped, too, grasping his arm with both hands.
“Stay here,” he said. “As I said, I can hold my breath longer than a human.”
Mouse did not have time to respond before he slipped into the water and out of sight.
She waited, and every second her desperate thoughts came closer to the surface.
Thornwood could not have been gone more than a few minutes, surely? He said that Faeries could hold their breath longer than humans, but how much longer? Seconds or minutes? She did not know if she should be worried, which made her even more anxious.
“Thornwood?” she called. Her voice echoed back to her, but he did not respond. She hovered on the step before sliding into the water. Or at least trying to slide. Her feet were heavy and stuck in place, sending her upper half pinwheeling for balance before she fell backward across the steps above.
She landed hard, the stair edges digging into her neck and hip. The pain cut through her thoughts, and it took her a moment to remember why she fell in the first place. She looked down at her toes.
The soles of her feet were rooted to the stone. At first, Mouse thought the gray tint on her skin was just a trick of the light, but as she watched, the color spread further up her ankles. Terror flooded her before her nursing training fell into place over her panic.
With practiced calm, she eased her upper body down until she was balanced and crouching above her feet. Up close, she could make out a raised scale pattern that got smaller below her ankles.
The gray skin was cold to the touch and hard as stone.
Itwasstone.
Mouse focused hard on her breathing even as icy horror set in.