2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

putrid water. I scanned the passage at the foot of the stairs. “There’s a hall, and a chamber
beyond that. All clear.”
“Then hurry the hell up,” Amren said.
Bracing myself, I stepped into the dark water, biting down my yelp at the near-freezing
temperature, the oiliness of it. Amren gagged, the water nearly up to her chest.
“This place no doubt fills up swiftly once the tide comes back in,” she observed as we
sloshed through the water, frowning at the many drainage holes in the walls.
We went only slow enough for her to detect any sort of ward or trap, but—there was
none. Nothing at all. Though who would ever come down here, to such a place?
Fools—desperate fools, that’s who.
The long stone hall ended in a second lead door. Behind it, that power coiled,
overlaying Tarquin’s imprint. “It’s in there.”
“Obviously.”
I scowled at her, both of us shivering. The cold was deep enough that I wondered if I
might have already been dead in my human body. Or well on my way to it.
I laid my palm flat on the door. The sucking and questioning and draining were worse
this time. So much worse, and I had to brace my tattooed hand on the door to keep from
falling to my knees and crying out as it ransacked me.
I am summer, I am summer, I am summer.
I didn’t shift into Tarquin this time—didn’t need to. A click and groan, and the lead
door rolled into the wall, water merging and splashing as I stumbled back into Amren’s
waiting arms. “Nasty, nasty lock,” she hissed, shuddering not just from the water.
My head was spinning. Another lock and I might very well pass out.
But the faelight bobbed into the chamber beyond us, and we both halted.
The water had not merged with another source—but rather halted against an invisible
threshold. The dry chamber beyond was empty save for a round dais and pedestal.
And a small, lead box atop it.
Amren waved a tentative hand over the air where the water just—stopped. Then,
satisfied there were no waiting wards or tricks, she stepped beyond, dripping onto the gray
stones as she stood in the chamber, wincing a bit, and beckoned.
Wading as fast as I could, I followed her, half falling onto the floor as my body adjusted
to sudden air. I turned—and sure enough, the water was a black wall, as if there were a
pane of glass keeping it in place.
“Let’s be quick about it,” she said, and I didn’t disagree.
We both carefully surveyed the chamber: floors, walls, ceilings. No signs of hidden
mechanisms or triggers.