I haven’t had the opportunity to do much thieving recently, after all. So maybe if I just lick the point of one…Hm. I’ve never taken this orally before,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I wonder what it tastes like.”
“Well, I’d scrumming hate it if your apprehensions about flavor doomed us all, Sancia!” snapped Orso. “Just lick the damned thing!”
Sancia pulled a face, then opened her mouth and sucked the point of the dart. “Ugh. Tastes like fish. But then, I guess it would.” She swallowed and looked around, waiting.
“How do you feel?” asked Berenice.
She thought about it. “Not bad,” she said. “I feel…the same, mostly.”
All three of them made bewildered faces. Sancia suddenly noticed her mouth felt very thick, and the world felt very bright and pleasant.
“Uhh,” said Orso. “What was that nonsense she said?”
“I believe,” said Gregor, “that it is working.”
“What do you mean, nonsense I said?” asked Sancia—or that was what she meant to say. Now that she was listening, she realized it came out as, “Whaa d’ye min, nunseye seed.”
She noticed the world was leaping back and forth, and realized it was because she was staggering around, unable to keep herself upright. She stumbled back, unable to tell which way was up. “Gonna fall. Someone please…catch m…”
She fell forward. She saw Gregor jump forward, arms outstretched.
But he didn’t need to catch her, she thought dreamily. Because then she plunged into the water.
* * *
—
Sancia plummeted down into the dark waters, sinking like a stone, the black depths flying by her as she tumbled.
Where…Where did these waters come from?
She wasn’t sure. But she knew she needed to breathe. Her lungs burned, her ribs ached, her head pulsed with every beat of blood, but she couldn’t open her mouth now, couldn’t let any little rivulet of water invade her body…
Then she saw something below, seemingly at the bottom of this strange, dark sea. It was a bubble of some kind—and it appeared to be glowing.
Sancia shot down toward the bubble, burst through its walls, and shut her eyes, bracing for impact. But she did not strike sand or stone—rather, she just abruptly stopped, and hung in the air as if suspended in an invisible hammock.
She opened her eyes. She was within the giant bubble, the gray sands of the sea floor below her, and the vast, dark waters above. She could barely see any light filtering through the waves. She found it was intensely unpleasant to be within the bubble: she not only felt queerly nauseous here, she also felt thin and stretched, like her very being was trapped in a moment of exhausted, anxious indecision.
But she was not alone. Someone was at the very edge—someone vast and golden, sitting in an awkward, cramped position.
Whatever force was allowing her to stay suspended in the air suddenly vanished. She cried out, fell the remaining handful of feet, and struck the sand below.
“Ugh!” she said, standing up and brushing herself off. “Shit…” She shivered—there was something just terribly wrong about this place—and then she looked up.
Valeria sat crouched at the edge of the bubble with her back to Sancia, staring out at the dark waters. Sancia saw she had not chosen to manifest as she’d first seen her—not the nude, golden woman she’d originally glimpsed on the Candiano campo—but was instead the massive, hulking, armored statue she’d seen during the night of the Mountain. She did not react as Sancia stood.
“V-Valeria?” she asked.
There was a long silence.
“Is that you?” asked Sancia. She took a step, feeling nervous. When she’d seen Valeria the last time, in the Mountain, she’d been almost inconceivably powerful. Now Sancia couldn’t help but feel she seemed…diminished. “Do…Do you know what’s happened?”
The giant, golden figure seemed to sigh, despondent.
Sancia was surprised. She heard the voice in her head, much as she had heard Clef. It had been a long time since she’d engaged with anyone like this. It was like hearing a language you hadn’t heard since childhood.