Philo Amarus's Arc

Chapter 7 of 9

Philo knelt at the pond's edge and gripped the chain. It was cold, and slick with green. He pulled one link, then another, and the chain kept coming. It ran past the crack in the stone and down into a dark he could not see the bottom of. Eris crouched beside him, water still dripping from her hair. "Whatever it's tied to," she said, "it's deeper than the pond should go." Philo looked at her, then at the dark water, and knew he was going to follow it. He started to speak, but Eris was already moving. She pulled a heart-shaped plug from a pouch at her hip — pink flame flickering inside it, steady even in the wet air. She pressed it into Philo's palm and closed his fingers around it. "If the pond tries to drain while we're down there, you stop it," she said. Then she slipped into the water without waiting, the chain sliding through her hands as she went under. Philo watched her vanish past the crack, the pink flame burning in his fist, and dove after her. The pond had a bottom no longer. They were going down.