Glowly had chased the same rumor for a year, and it still gave her nothing she could walk toward. The relic sat in the world's deadliest ruin. She meant to take it. But every trader told a different story, and no two agreed on where the ruin even stood. She climbed the rope ladder to her treehouse and spread her maps across the floor. Faded wood creaked under her knees. The little porch groaned in the wind outside. She had marked four possible sites in charcoal. This morning she crossed out the fourth. A river guide had sworn it held only mud and snakes. Three maps left. Three guesses. Guessing wrong meant weeks of walking into empty country. She had no coin left for a wrong week. Glowly pulled out the crate she kept under the workbench. Inside lay everything her father had gathered before he vanished chasing the same relic. Old rope. A cracked compass. A leather journal she had opened a hundred times and never finished. She opened it again, past the pages she knew, into the water-stained back. There she found a torn map corner she had always skipped. It showed no roads, no names. Only a coastline and a single inked mark far past it, beside three words in her father's hand: "below the drowned steps." Her breath caught. She pressed the corner against her largest map. The coastline matched the southern shore exactly. The mark sat where no trader ever pointed, because no trader had ever come back from there. That was why the rumors scattered. They circled the ruin and never touched its center. Her father had touched it. He had drawn it. Then he had gone quiet forever. Glowly sat still and let the fear pass through her. She had wanted a lead, not this one. This one meant walking the exact path that swallowed him. But it was real. It was a place on a map, with a direction and a distance she could measure. She traced the route with her finger. Down to the southern coast. Along the shore until the land dropped into the drowned steps. Twelve days, maybe more, through country she did not know. She rolled the maps together and tied them with the old rope. Then she packed the cracked compass and the journal into her satchel. Her hands did not shake. The vague rumors were gone. In their place sat one true line to follow. Glowly climbed down the ladder before she could talk herself out of it. She had a place now, and a direction, and a father's grave to reach before she reached the relic. The next twelve days would tell her whether she was ready for what killed him.

Six days south, the jungle thinned and the ground turned to salt mud. Glowly smelled the sea before she saw it. Then the trees fell away and the coast opened in front of her. The land she stood on ended at a wide flat of water. Beyond it, low and dark, lay the shore she needed to reach. She dropped her pack and studied the crossing. The water was shallow now, dotted with mud banks and the tops of drowned rocks. But the surface had a line on the far rocks, high above her head. That line was where the tide climbed. She had read the coast wrong. She had packed for the jungle, not for this. She checked her gear again. Rope. Compass. A blanket that would soak and drag. Boots made for climbing, not for wading fast. If the tide came in while she crossed, the water would swallow her before she reached the other side. She needed to move faster than the sea, and nothing in her pack would let her. Glowly walked the edge of the flat and watched the water. It crept toward her, slow and steady. She timed it against her own breath. She had maybe an hour of low water. The crossing would take longer than that on foot, dragging a soaked pack through mud. She needed to float, not walk. She looked back at the jungle behind her. At the tree line grew a thick tangle of vine, twisted and heavy, studded with long thorns. Glowly drew her knife. She cut lengths of the vine and stripped the worst thorns with the blade. The thorns tore her hands anyway. Blood ran between her fingers. She kept cutting. She bound the green coils into a wide bundle, thick enough to hold her weight on the water. Her hands shook now. Not from fear. From the sting of a hundred small cuts. She tied her pack to the top of the bundle so it would ride dry. Then she pushed the raft to the water's edge. The tide had already crept past her first mark. She had less time than she thought. Glowly climbed onto the vine bundle and pushed off with a broken branch. The green coils held. She poled hard across the flat, aiming for a mud bank halfway over. Water rose around the drowned rocks. It covered the low banks she had counted on. She poled faster. The sea reached her knees where she had planned to walk. If she had walked, she would be under it now. Her raft scraped the far mud as the last bank vanished behind her. Glowly dragged herself and her dry pack onto solid ground. She lay flat and breathed. Her hands bled onto the sand. But she had crossed. She stood and looked south. The drowned steps were still days away, and this was only the first tide. She would have to cross worse water than this, and now she knew the sea was hunting her.

By the next morning Glowly was back on the water. The second tidal flat was wider than the first. She had cut fresh vines at dawn and bound a new raft, bigger this time. She poled hard across the open water while the sea climbed the drowned rocks behind her. Then she felt the raft shift under her boots. A knot slipped. The green coils spread apart, and cold water pushed up between them. Glowly dropped to her knees and grabbed the loosening vines. The thorns bit her palms again. She pulled the coils tight and lashed them with a length of rope. It held for a moment, then another knot gave. The raft sagged in the middle. Water covered her ankles. The far shore was still too far to swim, and her pack would drag her down if she tried. She poled harder, aiming for a low mud bank ahead. The raft was sinking faster than she could push it. "You're going to lose it!" a voice called. Glowly looked up. A girl crouched on the mud bank ahead, watching her. She was thin, in patched tights and a huge brown coat that hung off her shoulders. Her hands were white with chalk. She had no boat and no gear, only a coil of thin rope looped over one arm. Glowly had thought this coast was empty of people. Everyone who came here died. "Throw me your rope!" the girl shouted. "Now, before it goes under!" Glowly did not know her. She had no reason to trust a stranger on a route no trader survived. But the raft was breaking apart under her feet. She untied her own rope, weighted the end with the broken branch, and threw it. The girl caught it clean. She wrapped it twice around a stump of drowned rock and dug her heels into the mud. "Come on! Walk the vines while they still hold!" Glowly grabbed her pack and crawled forward over the sinking coils. The rope went taut. The girl leaned back with her whole small weight and pulled. Glowly's boots slid on the wet vines, then found mud. She dragged herself onto the bank as the raft folded and slipped under the water behind her. She lay on the mud, breathing hard. Her hands bled onto the ground. The girl coiled the rope and grinned down at her. "Nova," she said. "I've been stuck on this bank since the tide came in. No raft, no way across. You're the first fool I've seen out here." Glowly sat up. Her raft was gone. The next tide would rise before she could cut and bind another. But she was alive, and she was no longer alone. She looked at Nova's coil of rope and the wide water still between them and the southern shore. "Then we're both stuck," Glowly said. "Unless we build one together."

Glowly wiped the blood from her palms and looked at the jungle behind them. Both rafts were gone. To cut new vines she needed the thick tangles that grew inland, past the tree line. She stood. "We need more vines. Come on, before the tide turns." Nova hopped up and followed, her big coat dragging on the mud. They pushed into the green. Thorns snagged Glowly's sleeves. She reached for a low vine and yanked. It tore free with a wet snap. "Faster," Nova said. She scrambled up a slick trunk like it was a circus rope, balanced on a branch, and cut a high coil no one could have reached from the ground. She dropped it at Glowly's feet and grinned. "Chalk hands. I don't slip." They worked until their arms were full. Then a low growl came from the shadows. Glowly froze. A cat slid out of the ferns, taller than a dog, its dark fur marked with pale stripes. Its yellow eyes fixed on them. It stepped closer, slow and silent. "Don't run," Glowly whispered. Running would end them. The cat crouched to spring. Something moved between Glowly's boots. A small wolf pup pushed forward, gray and black, smoke curling off its fur. It had trailed her since the jungle's edge, and she had not stopped it. Now it planted its paws in the mud and bared tiny teeth. It looked ridiculous, half the cat's size. But it did not back down. The striped cat paused. The pup snarled, high and furious. Glowly used the moment. She swept up a fallen branch and swung it hard, shouting. Nova dropped from the trunk beside her, screaming and waving her arms, her coat flaring wide. The cat flinched at the noise and the sudden size of them. It turned and vanished into the ferns. Glowly's heart slammed. The pup trotted back and pressed against her leg, shivering. "Grab the vines," Glowly said. "Now." They ran back to the bank with all they could carry. Glowly knelt and lashed the coils together, tighter than before. Nova pulled each knot square with her chalky fingers. The pup watched, ears up. When the water began to climb the drowned rocks again, the raft was done and it held. They pushed off. The new raft rode low but steady. Glowly poled while Nova leaned into the current, and the pup sat at the front, ears flat against the wind. The far shore grew closer. Glowly could see it now, dark against the sky, and beyond it the drowned steps her father had marked. The raft grated onto solid ground. Glowly stepped off onto the southern shore for the first time. She had crossed the flats. But the water ahead ran deeper and faster here, and something long and green watched them from the shallows, its ridged spine breaking the surface.

Glowly stepped onto the southern shore and felt her legs shake. The crossing had drained her. She reached for her pack to eat, but her fingers found only crumbs and an empty flask. Her food was gone. Her water was gone. The sun beat down on the dark ridge ahead, where her father's drowned steps waited. She needed to search that shore, but she could barely stand. "We can't go on like this," she told Nova. "No food. No water. We'll drop before we find anything." Nova pulled her big coat tight and scanned the rocks. "Then we don't search yet. We find shelter first." She pointed inland, past a shelf of gray stone. "There. See the shadow?" Glowly saw it. A cave mouth opened in the cliff, framed by tall stone fingers. She had no strength for hope, but she followed. The wolf pup trotted ahead, nose down, tail stiff. It reached the entrance and did not growl. That meant no danger inside. They stepped in. Glowly stopped. The cave was not empty. Someone had lived here. A lantern hung from a hook, still holding oil. Wooden crates stood stacked against one wall. A shelf held clay jars, cloth bundles, and small sacks tied with string. A shovel and a rope leaned in the corner. A rolled blanket sat ready. Nova whistled low. "Somebody set this up. And left it." Glowly opened a jar. Dried fish. She opened another and found strips of salted meat. Her hands shook harder now, from relief. Nova lifted a sealed clay pot and pried the lid. Water sloshed inside, clean and cool. "Drink slow," Glowly warned. But she gulped first, then passed the pot to Nova. The pup lapped from Glowly's cupped palm. The three of them ate on the cave floor while the tide roared outside. When the shaking stopped, Glowly looked around with clearer eyes. The supplies were old but sound. Someone had built this place to last. She ran her thumb over a mark carved into a crate lid. A rough shape, like a doorway with steps going down. Her breath caught. She dug in her pack and pulled out her father's map corner. The same shape. The drowned steps. The mark on the crate matched the mark in his hand. "He was here," she said. "My father stocked this cave. He made it this far." Nova leaned over the map. "So he lived. At least long enough to build a camp." Glowly filled the flask and packed dried fish into her bag. Strength came back into her arms. The cave had saved them, but it did more than that. It proved her father had reached this shore alive. His path did not end at the water. It went on, toward the ruin below the steps. She stood and faced the cave mouth. Beyond it lay the deeper channel, and the long green shape still waiting in the shallows.

Glowly stood at the cave mouth, flask full and pack heavy with dried fish. The dark ridge waited across the channel. She took one step toward it, then stopped. Her knees buckled. Nova caught her arm before she fell. "You can't stand straight," Nova said. Her chalky hands gripped tight. "Look at you. Look at me." She held up her own arm. A long scrape ran from wrist to elbow, crusted and red. "We crossed on nothing but fear. Push into that ruin now and we drop inside it. Nobody drags us out." Glowly wanted to argue. Her father was close. The steps were close. But her vision swam, and the ground tilted under her feet. Nova was right. The crossing had wrung them dry. The cave had food and water, but it could not heal bruised legs and torn skin in an hour. "One day," Glowly said. The words hurt. "We rest one full day. We eat. We sleep. Then we go." Nova nodded and steered her back inside. They spread the rolled blanket on the cave floor. Glowly cleaned Nova's scrape with fresh water and bound it in cloth from the shelf. Nova wrapped Glowly's swollen ankle the same way. The wolf pup curled between them and slept. That was when Glowly heard the scratching. Something small moved behind the crates. She reached for the shovel. Nova raised a hand to stop her. A head poked out. It was a little dragon, no bigger than the pup. Blue scales, small folded wings, a spiked tail. It blinked at them with wide orange eyes. It had been hiding in the cache, thin and hungry. "Easy," Nova whispered. She tossed a strip of dried fish. The dragon snapped it up, then crept closer. It sniffed Glowly's bandaged ankle and made a low, warm sound. Heat rolled off its body like a coal. Glowly held her breath. The little dragon pressed against her wrapped leg. The warmth sank into the sore muscle. The ache eased. She looked at Nova. "It's helping," Glowly said. They rested through the day and the night. The dragon curled against their hurts, and its heat drove the stiffness out. Glowly slept without waking. She ate until her hands stopped shaking. When morning came, she stood and put weight on her ankle. It held. She tested it again. No buckle. No swim in her sight. Nova rolled her arm and grinned. The scrape had closed to a thin line. "We're ready now," Nova said. Glowly packed the last of the fish and filled a second flask. The little dragon climbed onto her shoulder and settled there, warm and light. The wolf pup stood at the cave mouth, waiting. Glowly looked across the channel to the dark ridge and the drowned steps below it. "Now we search," she said. This time her legs did not shake.

Glowly crossed the channel with Nova on a short raft. The dark ridge rose ahead, but the shore below it split into a hundred tracks. Sand, mud, tangled root. No sign said which way her father had gone. She turned in a slow circle. Every path looked the same, and each led into thick jungle. Her flask was full now, but full flasks emptied. Wander too long and they would starve here. "He came this way," Glowly said. "He built the cave. He knew the road. But he left us nothing." Nova wiped chalk from her palms and studied the treeline. "People who know a road don't need signs," she said. "They mark it for someone else. Someone they hoped would follow." Glowly's chest tightened. That someone was her. She walked the shore again, slower. The wolf pup nosed the sand. The little dragon lifted its head on her shoulder and made a low warm sound. Then it leaped down. It scrambled toward a stone slab half-buried in vine, wings buzzing. Glowly followed. She tore the vine loose and stopped. Behind the stone stood a tall case, set upright in the earth. Weapons filled it. Long blades, curved axes, a slim spear. Their edges glowed faint blue and pink in the shade. Runes ran down each shaft. The metal shone clean, kept dry, kept whole. Her father had built this, the way he built the cache. A display meant to be found. "These are his," Glowly whispered. She touched the tallest blade. Carved into its base was the same symbol from the crate. Her throat burned. "He wanted me to see them." But a case of weapons was not a road. She stepped back, frustrated, and the dragon buzzed at the spear again. Glowly lifted it from the rack. It was light and true. When she turned it, its glowing tip pointed inland, and something on the shaft caught the light. She held the spear flat. Fine lines were scratched along the metal below the runes. Not decoration. A path. A curve of shore, a fork, a mark where two trees crossed. A route drawn into the weapon itself, hidden where only a hand that lifted it would find. "He didn't mark the ground," Glowly said. "He marked the spear. He knew whoever came would need a weapon first." Nova leaned in and traced the scratched line with a chalky finger. "Then we're not lost," she said. "We just weren't holding the map." Glowly slung the spear across her back. She took a curved blade too, and passed a short one to Nova. The wolf pup pressed against her leg. The dragon settled warm on her shoulder. She read the scratched route once more, then faced the jungle where the two trees crossed. Her father's road ran under those branches, straight toward the drowned steps. "This way," she said, and walked.

The scratched map on the spear led them into thick jungle. Glowly walked point, the wolf pup at her heel, the dragon warm on her shoulder. Nova trailed behind, chalky hands trailing on wet bark. The path was narrow. Roots split it thin. They could only walk single file, spread out in a long line. The pup stopped. Its ears flattened. A low growl came from deep in its chest. Glowly froze. She heard nothing but dripping leaves. Then a branch snapped far to her left. Something big moved parallel to the path, keeping pace with them. She caught a flash of stripes between the trees. "Nova," she said, low. "Close up. Now." But Nova was twenty steps back, bent over a root tangle. The path curved between them. Glowly could not see her. The striped shape shifted, sliding toward the gap. It was hunting the space between them, waiting for the line to stretch. Glowly understood. Strung out like this, they were easy meat. It would take the straggler first, then the next. She had to pull them into one knot. "Everyone to me!" she shouted. She drove the spear butt into the mud and grabbed the curved blade from her back. The cat broke cover. It launched at Nova, who was still fighting free of the roots. Nova threw herself sideways in a tight roll, quick as a spring, and the claws raked bark instead of skin. She came up running toward Glowly. "Coming!" Nova yelled. She snatched her short blade as she moved. The pup planted itself in the path and barked, buying two seconds. The dragon shot off Glowly's shoulder. It hovered above the cat and blew a jet of hot breath at its face. The cat flinched and swatted air. That pause let Nova reach Glowly. They stood back to back now, blades out, the pup at their feet, the dragon circling above. One tight cluster. No straggler left to pick off. The cat circled them once. It found no soft edge, no lone target. Glowly stepped forward and slashed the glowing blade across its path. The runes flared blue. The cat hissed, backed off, then bolted into the green and vanished. The jungle went quiet. Nova bent double, breathing hard. "You called us in," she said. "Smart. It wanted us split." "It almost got you." Glowly's hands shook. She sheathed the blade and pulled the spear from the mud. Then she looked at the ground where the cat had crouched. Its claws had torn the soil open. Beneath the ripped roots lay flat stone, worn smooth, edged in old carving. Glowly knelt and brushed the dirt clear. Steps. A wide stair, descending into dark, half swallowed by the earth. Water pooled at the bottom. "The drowned steps," she whispered. "We found them."

Glowly cleared the last of the dirt from the top step. Below her, the stair dropped into black water. A dead leaf floated on it, then spun. It spun faster. She looked back toward the shore and understood. The tide was coming in. Nova crouched beside her at the stair's edge. "That water's moving," she said. "It's climbing." Glowly watched the pool at the bottom swallow another step. Six years she had read about this place. Every account ended the same way—people went down and stayed down. Now the sea itself wanted to seal the door. "If we wait, the flats flood the entrance," she said. "Then we lose it until the tide drops. Maybe a day. Maybe more." Nova stood and wiped her chalky hands on her patched tights. She peered at the runes on the wet stone. "Or the whole stair drowns and doesn't come back." She said it plainly, not scared, the way an acrobat reads a rope before a jump. "We go now or we don't go." Glowly's chest tightened. She thought of her sister, better prepared than anyone, walking down steps like these and never climbing back. She thought of her father, who reached this shore and vanished. The smart choice was to retreat and try tomorrow. But tomorrow the water might win for good. "Now," she said. She grabbed the spear and the curved blade. The wolf pup pressed to her leg, whining at the dark. The dragon dug its small claws into her shoulder. Glowly set one boot on the second step. Cold water climbed over her ankle at once. "Stay close," she told Nova. "One line, one knot. Like with the cat." Nova nodded and drew her short blade. "Behind you." Glowly went down. Each step took her deeper. Water rose to her knees, then her waist. The pup swam beside her, paddling hard, ears flat. Behind them, the sea poured over the top step and filled the space where they had knelt. The entrance shrank to a bright slot, then a line, then gone. They were under now. No light but the runes on Glowly's blade. She raised it. The blue glow spread across a low stone tunnel that ran deeper into the earth. Carved walls. Old air. Nova caught her arm. "Glowly. Look back." Glowly turned. Water filled the whole stair behind them, up to the roof. There was no climbing out that way. The tide had shut the door. "We can't go back," Nova said quietly. "No." Glowly gripped the spear tighter. Her father had walked this same drowned throat. So had her sister. Neither had returned. "We only go forward now." She lifted the glowing blade and stepped into the tunnel. The dragon's warmth pressed against her neck. The pup shook the water from its coat and followed. Ahead, the carved passage sloped down toward the ruin, and toward whatever had kept everyone who entered it.

The tunnel forked. Glowly lifted her blade, and the blue runes threw light on two black openings. One dropped into flooded steps. The water there was still and deep. The other passage stayed dry and sloped up. She could not tell which way led deeper into the ruin. "Which one?" Nova asked. She wiped her chalky hands on her patched coat, the huge sleeves dripping. "Pick wrong and we waste air we don't have." Glowly held the blade close to the flooded fork. The glow died at the surface. Past it, only black water. She thought of every account she had read. People went down and stayed down. Maybe they had guessed here too. "The steps go down," she said. "The relic is below the drowned steps. That's the way." The wolf pup growled low. Its shadow-dark fur bristled. It stared not at the water but at the dry passage above. Glowly followed its gaze. Two yellow eyes floated in the dark. A cave panther stepped into her light, sleek and striped, shoulders rolling. It had come down through some crack the tide could not reach. It blocked the dry path. Glowly raised the blade. The runes flared bright. The panther flinched but did not run. It crouched, tail flicking, ready to spring. "It won't back off," Nova whispered. "There's no cluster to scare it with. Just us." The dragon left Glowly's shoulder. It spread its small wings and dropped in front of the panther. Then it opened its mouth and breathed heat. A wave of hot air rolled off its body, the same warmth that had healed her ankle. The panther jerked back from the blast. Its ears flattened. It hissed, spun, and fled up the dry slope into the dark. Glowly let out her breath. The dragon flew back and gripped her shoulder, sides heaving. "Good," she told it. "Good." But the panther's flight showed her something. It had climbed down the dry passage. That passage led up and out, toward air. The flooded steps led the other way. Down. She turned back to the black water. "Down is right," she said. "The dry path just goes back toward the surface." Nova stared at the flooded fork. "You want to swim into that? Blind?" "I have light." Glowly gripped the spear and the glowing blade. "I hold the runes under. They'll shine through the water. We follow them down." She waded to the first drowned step and lowered the blade beneath the surface. The runes glowed on. Blue light spread through the water, and she saw stone steps falling away below her feet, down and down into the deep. She could see the way now. Glowly took a breath and pulled the pup close. "One line, one knot," she said. Then she stepped off the edge and swam down into the lit water, into the ruin's throat, with no way back but forward.

Glowly swam down the drowned steps, the pup pressed to her side, Nova a shadow above. The blade's runes lit the water blue. Then something moved in the dark below. A shape longer than three men slid off a step and turned toward the light. Its eyes caught the glow. Scales rippled along its back. The crocodilian creature she had seen in the deep waters had found them here, and the blade had drawn it straight up the stairs. Glowly's chest already burned. She kicked backward. The creature snapped, and its jaws missed her leg by a hand's width. Nova grabbed a fistful of Glowly's collar and hauled her sideways behind a broken pillar. They pressed there, out of the light's reach. The beast circled, hunting the glow. Glowly understood then. The runes were killing them. Underwater they shone like a lure, and every predator in the ruin would come for the light. She could not fight the thing. She could not outswim it. Her lungs squeezed. She jammed the blade against her chest and smothered the runes under her arm. The water went black. The creature slowed. It had lost its mark. Glowly grabbed Nova's sleeve and the pup's fur. She remembered the steps she had already seen lit below, four of them, then a gap, then a dark opening to the left. She counted them in the dark with her free hand on the stone. One step. Two. The creature's tail struck the pillar behind them. Three. Her fingers found the gap. Four. She swept her hand left and touched an open passage. She shoved Nova through first, then the pup, then folded herself in after them. Stone scraped her shoulders. The passage was narrow, too tight for the beast. She heard it thrash outside, blind and furious. Then she uncovered the blade. Blue light filled the tunnel. Ahead the passage rose. Her head broke the surface into a pocket of stale air. Nova came up gasping beside her. "You put out the only light we had," she said. Her chalky hands shook on the ledge. "In front of that thing." "The light was the problem," Glowly said. She coughed water. "It follows the runes. I can't hold them under anymore. Not down here." Nova stared at her, then at the blade. Understanding crossed her face. The tool that had guided them was now the thing that hunted them. Glowly pulled herself onto the ledge. The pup climbed up and shook. The dragon dropped from Nova's coat and clung to Glowly's arm, warm and small. She lifted the blade and looked down the new passage. It ran dry and level, deeper into the ruin. No water. No steps down. "We're past it," she said. "But I don't know if this still goes down, or if we just climbed away from the relic." She had escaped the creature and lost her only sure path in the same breath.

Glowly crouched on the ledge and counted heads. Herself. Nova, dripping beside her. The dragon on her arm, warm and small. But the wolf pup was gone. She had shoved it through the narrow passage in the dark, ahead of Nova. It should have been here. She swept the blade's blue light across the water. Empty stone. The pup had not come out. "Where's the pup?" Nova asked. Her chalky hands still shook from the swim. She was the acrobat who had caught Glowly's rope on the mud bank and hauled her out of the tide. Since then she had followed Glowly into a sealed ruin she had no reason to enter. Now her eyes moved over the black water, fast, like she was searching for a net that wasn't there. "I pushed it through first," Glowly said. "It should be here." Her voice cracked. The passage behind them was narrow and flooded. Somewhere in it, a pup that had stood its ground against a jungle cat for her was drowning, or already still. Glowly lifted the blade to go back. Nova grabbed her wrist. "That thing is out there," Nova said. "The light brings it. You told me yourself." "Then I go dark." Glowly pressed the runes against her chest. The tunnel went black. She slid into the water and felt along the stone with one hand, counting. She remembered the pup's fur under her fingers as she'd shoved it in. It had been kicking then. Her lungs shrank. She found the low point of the passage, a dip where the stone bowed down. Her fingers touched something soft. Fur. Wedged where the tunnel narrowed, pinned by its own panic against the rock. She grabbed a leg and pulled. It came free. She kicked back the way she had come, blind, one hand on the wall, the pup clutched to her ribs. Her head broke the surface. Nova hauled them both onto the ledge. The pup lay limp. Glowly pressed on its small chest with the heel of her hand, once, twice. Water ran from its mouth. Then its ribs jerked. It coughed, shuddered, and dragged in air. Its bright eyes opened. Smoky shadow curled off its wet fur. Nova let out a breath and sat back hard against the wall. "It's breathing," she said. She almost laughed. "You went back in the dark for it." "I wasn't leaving it," Glowly said. She held the pup while it shook. When its shivering eased, Glowly lifted the blade again and looked down the dry passage ahead. The floor sloped upward, not down. She had counted on stairs descending toward the relic. Instead the stone climbed. The way past the crocodile led up, away from the depths where her father and sister had gone. She had saved the pup, but the only path forward now carried her group back toward the surface, not toward the relic below.

The dry passage climbed away from the water. Glowly held the pup close and stared up the slope. Her father and sister had gone down, not up. The relic waited somewhere below, in the flooded dark she could not enter. Her blade was the problem. Its runes lit the way, but that same light dragged the crocodile up the stairs. She needed to see the depths without the blade. She had no other torch. She sat on the wet stone and pressed her palms to her eyes. "We can't go down blind," Nova said. She crouched beside Glowly, chalk still white on her fingers. The acrobat had followed her into a sealed ruin for no reason Glowly understood. Now she chewed her lip and studied the black stairs below. "And the second you light that thing, the big one comes." "I know." Glowly's voice was flat. "I've read every account. Nobody ever solved this part. They all needed light. The light killed them." Nova stood. She dug into a pocket of her oversized coat and pulled out a small stone, cracked and scorched. "When I ran the circus tents, I lit the shows," she said. "Not with a blade. With this." She struck the stone against the wall. A ball of flame bloomed in her hand, bright and floating. It hovered off her palm, then drifted a few feet away and stayed. Glowly lifted her head. "You can make it move." "I can throw it," Nova said. "It burns wherever it lands. Doesn't need me to hold it." She looked at the water. "The croc goes for the blade because the blade's on you. What if the light's over there instead?" Glowly stood. Her mind moved fast now, sorting the plan. If the fire floated away from her body, the crocodile would chase the fire, not her. She could descend in the dark beside it, following the glow from a distance. "You throw it down the stairs," she said. "Far as you can. The creature follows the light. We go down behind it, in the shadow." "And when it figures out the fire isn't food?" Nova asked. "Then we throw another one." Glowly wrapped the pup in her coat and set it on the high dry stone. The dragon curled beside it, warm. Both would wait here, safe from the water. Nova drew back her arm. The fireball streaked over the black stairs and struck stone deep below the surface. Light bloomed through the water. Down in the flood, the long shape stirred and slid toward the glow, away from the ledge. "Now," Glowly said. She slid into the water with her dark blade sheathed. Nova followed. They swam down the drowned stairs in the moving light, the crocodile ahead of them, drawn to a fire that was not them. For the first time, the depths lay open. The way down was hers.

The fireball burned deep below, and the crocodile chased it. Glowly swam down the drowned stairs in its dim shadow. Nova kicked beside her. The light showed the steps for only a moment before the crocodile carried it farther away. Glowly stared into the black water below. She still could not tell how deep the relic lay. Somewhere down there, her father and sister had gone and never risen. The fire was leaving. Seconds remained before the crocodile circled back. "It's too far," Nova gasped. She surfaced against a stone ledge and clung to it. Her coat dragged heavy in the water. "Your fire went with the croc. I can't see the bottom." Glowly gripped the ledge beside her. Her lungs ached. "I need one throw that stays put. Not moving. Just down." Nova wiped chalk-white fingers on her soaked sleeve. "If I aim it straight down and it lands, the light stays. But the croc comes back to it." "Then we look fast," Glowly said. "One breath. We count the steps to the bottom and get out of the water before it turns." Nova nodded once. She struck her scorched stone against the ledge. A ball of flame bloomed in her palm. She drew back and hurled it straight down into the flooded shaft. The fire sank, spinning, and struck stone far below. Light bloomed and held. Glowly saw it all in that instant. The stairs did not stop. They dropped past the fire's glow into a dark doorway. The bottom was deeper than any account had guessed. No swimmer could reach it and return on one breath. That was why they all drowned. The long shape turned in the far dark and slid back toward the new light. "Up," Nova said. "Now." They hauled themselves out of the shaft onto the ledge. The crocodile's tail broke the surface where they had floated. Glowly pressed her back to cold stone and breathed hard. "We know how deep," Nova said. "That's something." "It's too deep," Glowly said. "On our own lungs, we die like the rest." She thought of the high dry stone above, where the pup waited wrapped in her coat and the small blue dragon curled beside it. The dragon breathed fire and drove back things in the dark. But it could not carry them air. Glowly looked at the doorway far below, still lit by Nova's fire. Her father had reached it. Her sister had reached it. Neither had come back. The way down was open now. She just could not survive it yet. "We go back up," Glowly said. "To the pup and the dragon. There has to be a way to breathe down there." She had measured the drop at last. The relic lay one held breath too far. Now she had to find the breath.

Glowly and Nova climbed back to the dry stone above the flooded shaft. The wolf pup pressed against Glowly's leg, still shaky from its near drowning. The small blue dragon lifted its head. Glowly knelt and stared at the black water. The relic waited past a doorway too deep for one breath. She needed a second dive with the fire held still at the bottom. But the crocodile had learned the trick. It no longer chased the fireball into the far dark. It circled below, waiting for the light to drop. "Watch," Nova said. She struck her scorched stone and flung a fireball across the shaft. It floated and drifted. The crocodile barely turned. Its long shape stayed near the doorway, guarding the deep. "It knows now. My fire won't pull it off the bottom again." Glowly's hands curled into fists. Every plan she had led back to the same wall. Then a voice spoke from the dark passage behind them. "You keep throwing light at a hunter and wonder why it hunts the light." Glowly spun. A figure stepped into the fire's glow. Red-scaled skin marked his arms and chest. Small wings folded at his back. A tail swept the stone behind him. He was half dragon, half human, and he watched the water like he had studied it for years. This was Taker. Glowly had read of a scaled diver in one failed account, dismissed as a rumor. Now the rumor stood before her. "Who are you?" Glowly said. Her hand found her blade. "Someone who's watched three fools drown in that shaft." Taker crouched at the edge. He dipped one clawed hand into the water without fear. "Your fire is bait. Stop baiting. The creature guards the doorway because it can't leave the deep for long. It breathes water down there, air up here. Split its attention." "With what?" Nova asked. Taker looked at the little dragon, then at the pup. "Heat drives it up. Cold dark holds it down." He nodded at Glowly's blade. "Your runes call it. Good. Light them at the surface and hold them here. The crocodile climbs toward the light it can reach. While it climbs, someone dives past it in the dark." Glowly saw it at once. The old liability became the lure. "It rises to my blade. We drop below it." "I dive," Taker said. "I breathe the water. You couldn't reach the doorway and rise. I can." Glowly gripped her blade. She had spent six years trusting only herself. But she had measured the drop, and no lung of hers could cross it. "Show me the doorway first," she said. "Then we plan the rest." Taker smiled, sharp-toothed. He slid into the black water and vanished without a splash. The crocodile turned toward the ripple. Glowly lit her runes high and steady, and the creature began to climb. The way down was open at last. Now she had a diver who could reach it.

Taker's head broke the surface. Water streamed off his red scales. "I found it," he said. "The doorway holds. But the crocodile guards it close." He hauled himself onto the stone and shook his wings. "Now we try the real dive. You lure. I go past in the dark." Glowly nodded. Her plan was simple and cruel. She would raise her glowing blade at the surface. The crocodile would climb toward the light it could reach. While it climbed, Taker would slip below into the black and reach the doorway. But she saw the flaw at once. She could not watch him from above. She could not tell when he reached the deep doorway. If she pulled the crocodile up too soon, it might turn back down and find him. Too late, and the beast would already guard the door. "I need a signal," she said. "I can't see you down there." Nova crouched at the edge. Her chalky hands twisted together. "I can throw fire straight down," she said. "But the fire is what taught the beast to guard. If I light the deep, it stays deep." Then the small blue dragon stirred. The wolf pup pushed against Glowly's leg and whined. Glowly looked at the pup. Its smoky fur trailed thin lines into the dark. She remembered the dragon's heat, how warmth drove the crocodile up. "Heat drives it up," she said. She turned to the dragon. "You breathe heat at the surface here, on my mark. Not fire in the deep. Heat where the beast can reach it." The dragon flexed its wings. Taker studied her. "And the timing?" Glowly gripped her blade, runes dark for now. "You tug the rope when you reach the door. I feel it. I light the blade and the dragon breathes. The crocodile rises. You slip past below." She tied her rope to Taker's wrist. He tested the knot with one claw. "Good," he said. "Blind, but with a hand to speak through." He slid into the water. The rope paid out through Glowly's fists, hand over hand. She counted. The pup pressed close. The dragon crouched, throat swelling. Nova held her scorched stone ready as a last resort. The rope jerked twice. Sharp. Glowly's heart slammed. She lit the runes high and bright. "Now!" The dragon loosed a wave of heat across the surface. The water hissed. Below, the long shape turned and climbed toward the blade, jaws working. The rope kept sliding, steady and fast. Taker was going down past it, into the door. The crocodile broke the surface, snapping at the light. Glowly held her ground and kept the blade high. The rope went slack. Then it pulled hard, once, from deep and to the side. Taker had reached the doorway. He was inside. The crocodile thrashed at the surface, fooled, far from its post. The way to the relic stood open at last, and Glowly held the line that led to it.