find either of them again, but her movements were slow, and the darkness around her was absolute.
She coughed silent bubbles. Water—she was surrounded by water. Her lungs burned. She kicked. She was moving, but she didn’t know where she was going; for all she knew, she was swimming deeper.
She put a finger up to her lips and blew a bubble. It tickled the underside of her fingertip, which meant she was upright—bubbles always moved up, toward the surface. She kicked harder. Her coat, soaked through, dragged behind her, and she wriggled free of it, then pulled the strap of her bag over her head, so it crossed her chest.
She opened her eyes, ignoring the sting of the water in search of light.
Nothing; there was nothing.
With both hands empty, it was easier to swim. Cameron had taught her to swim when they were children, at the park district pool. One summer, they had gone there every day. They had competed against each other for the biggest splash, cannonballing into the deep end.
She pulled herself up, and up, and up.
Ahead of her was a glimmer of light. Just a hint, at first, and then a circle of bright teal, blurry. She swam toward it. One of her shoes fell off. She kicked harder, legs, arms, and chest burning.
She broke through the surface with a gasp. She tilted back to float, her heartbeat sounding in her ears.
Above her was a waning crescent moon, thin as a toenail clipping, surrounded by a sky purple with light pollution. She could have sworn the moon had been waxing when she was walking toward the Dome with Needle in hand. It was as if almost a month had passed in a single breath. She slapped a hand over her eyes and rubbed them to clear them.
Not to mention the fact that Albie’s funeral had been in the morning.
She knew where she was. The smell of river water rotten in her nostrils was familiar, as was the irregular outline of the corncob building in the distance, partly obscured by the strict lines of 330 North Wabash. But in place of the monument to the Dark One’s defeat was a tower. Not Trump Tower, gleaming blue and scratching the sky with its needle, but a building unlike any she’d seen before—half straightforward glass cylinder, half undulating steel panels, like a breath of smoke spilling down the western side.
No longer desperate for air, Sloane straightened up and noticed, for the first time, a line of people standing on the shore. In the light cast by the old-fashioned globular fixtures along the river walk, she saw clothes in dark, rich colors and heavy fabrics, artfully draped. Sloane kicked to keep herself afloat as she pushed her hair away from her face. Every muscle in her body ached, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to move closer to the edge, closer to them.
“Who . . .” She spat, her voice coming out rough and guttural. It carried across the water and echoed off the concrete walls on either side of the river that held the streets back from the water. “Who are you?”
A woman—dark, thick hair, light brown skin, dressed in green—stepped forward and seemed to be about to speak when Esther burst through the surface of the water, mascara streaking down her face. Matt followed, his head emerging right at the edge of the river. He grabbed the barrier to steady himself as he vomited water at the woman’s feet. She hopped back. Her shoes were shiny and came to a point.
“What—” The woman turned to someone else, a blond man standing away from the river’s edge cradling a thick book against his chest. “Why are there more than one?”
“I don’t . . .” The man was gaping at Sloane, Esther, and Matt in turn. “I don’t know.”
“Where’s Ines?” Sloane asked Esther and Matt.
Esther shook her head. “I didn’t see her.”
Sloane gave up on treading water, swam to the edge, and hoisted herself up, her arms trembling under her weight. She fell, almost cracking her head on the sidewalk, but got her knees under her and stood. She was taller than the woman, but not by much.
The woman stepped back.
“I asked you a question,” Sloane said. Unfortunately, some of the menacing effect was lost because she had to bend over to cough up more water. It tasted like moldy peach.
“Calm down, please,” the woman said. “We—”
“The fuck she will!” Esther said from the water. She was fighting to free herself of