“The water won’t listen,” I told him. “I don’t know why.”
Maybe I just needed to find the right music. I tried another tune—a song meant to draw the water out of the monster itself and leave it parched and dry. The only thing my singing accomplished this time was to attract the attention of the monster. Through filmy eyes it searched for me, trying to find the source of the sound.
“Stop.” Nat flung out an arm, as if to shield me. “If you keep singing, it will find you.”
At another time, I might have been moved by his desire to protect me. But right now I didn’t want to be shielded. While some boats had made it to safety, others were still midriver, full of terrified passengers. I needed to defend them. I needed to defeat the monster.
How could I do that? Looking out to the edge of the landing, where several skiffs were tethered, I had an inspiration. Ducking past Nat, I ran down and jumped into one of the boats. Even as my ankle bumped up against the bottom, making me wince, I was reaching for the oars.
As I cast off, Nat leapt into the skiff, nearly knocking the oars from my hands.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I shouted through the rain. “Are you crazy?”
“No, but I think you are,” he shot back. “You should fight the beast from land, where it can’t get you.”
“No good,” I gasped out, pulling hard at the oars. “Must try and get closer, see what I can hear.”
Maybe I’d convinced him—or maybe he simply saw there was no turning me back. At any rate he took up one of the oars, helping to take us through the choppy seas toward the monster. I sang to the river to speed us, and when it obeyed, I felt hopeful. Yet before I could turn my magic on the monster, its fearsome jaws snapped at the nearest boat, a ferryman’s sturdy craft. The gleaming teeth crunched through the timber, splintering off the prow. The passengers screamed as they went sliding into the cold, churning waters.
How could I not sing them to safety? Passing my oar to Nat, I knelt in the bottom of the boat. Soaked through by seawater and rainwater alike, I used my music to float the monster’s victims to shore.
By the time I was done, the creature had me in its sights again, the long slavering tongue flicking like a battle flag in the heavy rain.
“Look out!” Nat cried. “It’s turning!”
There was no time to think. The beast was racing toward us, open-jawed. As Nat pulled hard at the oars, I leaned out over the livid waters and let out a volley of song.
The monster writhed and dived under the water, as if anticipating the force of my blow. But when it came up, sleek and stinking, from the bottom of the river, I felt my music shatter on the back of whatever protected it. A sudden blare of noise made my ears ring. Then, from deep within the water, I heard the faint strains of music, a song with a cadence and resonance like Chantress magic but even richer, with odd tunings all its own. A song as slippery as water. A song full of rage.
Blasted by its intensity, I rocked back in the boat. For a moment, the smell of magic was so strong that I was choking on it. As I tried to catch my breath, the sea serpent thrashed its massive tail and set the waters whirling. Our skiff went spinning.
“The oars!” Nat clutched at one, but the other was lost.
Knocked against the bottom of the boat, I smelled a blast of putrid breath. Turning, I saw the monster closing in on us. It snapped its massive jaws, baring serrated teeth. I heard the glamour of the raging music glistening all around me. Was it one voice, or two, or three? The water distorted the song and magnified it. Or perhaps that was just the confusion in my own head.
How could I defeat this? We were done for.
“Stay down!” Pulling me back, Nat snatched a dagger from his belt. Against the coiling length of the great serpent, the dagger looked laughably small—a matchstick next to a dragon. But when Nat lobbed it at the scaly head, the beast shrieked.
Nat had aimed at the eyes, but at the last second the monster twisted away so that the dagger struck the scales on its back,