Amaya Tidecrest's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Amaya held the cloth strip until her knuckles paled. The warning told her where the danger was. It did not tell her what waited in the deep channel. She looked at Finn. He knew this lake. He had lived in and around it his whole life. If anyone could explain the danger, it was her cousin. "You have to tell me what's down there," she said. Finn stepped back. His webbed feet pressed into the mud. "You should leave the lake alone." "I can't." Amaya raised the cloth. "They wrote my name. They warned me for a reason. I want that reason." He crouched at the water's edge and dragged one hand through it. The current still tugged leaves toward the dark stretch. A small brown creature crept out of the reeds, twitching its round ears, its green tail curling. It sniffed Finn's ankle. He did not look at it. "Your parents died in the deep channel," Finn said. His voice dropped. "Poison seeps up from the bottom there. It kills the water and everything in it. Kai and Serin tried to seal the source. They didn't come back." Amaya sat down hard on the broken dock. A plank groaned under her. She had wanted a father to find. Instead she had a grave. "That's why my family searched for you," Finn went on. "We knew you carried their blood. We knew you'd come here one day. I hoped I'd reach you first." "Reach me before what?" "Before you swam into it." Amaya looked at the water. Her gills opened and closed at the cold, sharp smell she now understood. The poison. Her parents had breathed it trying to stop it. "Then help me finish it," she said. "Show me the channel. Not to swim in. To see it." Finn was quiet for a long time. The creature climbed into his lap and settled there. He rested a hand on its fur. "You look like Serin," he said. "She never listened either." He stood. "I'll take you to the edge. Not past it. If you go past it, I pull you back. Promise me." "I promise." He waded in to his waist and turned. "There's more than the message in that box. My father kept records of what Kai found. Charts of the channel. The source. I have them at my place along the shore." Amaya's chest tightened. Not a grave, then. A trail. "You never said that," she said. "You never asked the right question." Finn almost smiled. "You asked what's down there. You should have asked what they left behind." He swam toward the far bend. Amaya tucked the cloth into her dress, slipped off the dock, and followed. The water took her without fear this time. Her cousin had opened a door. Somewhere along this shore, her parents' work still waited, and now she had someone to read it with.