touch it.”
“Or they’ll die,” I add in an ominous voice.
That doesn’t get a single laugh.
Adrien steps forward and clips the rope to the weight belt around my wetsuit. “If your BCD doesn’t work like it should, and you can’t ascend on your own, just give this a yank. I’ll reel you in.”
I test the buoyancy again, compressing the red button. My jacket fills up. I look for the little ball dangling at my back and yank it to free the air. Sergeant Suffering’s warning not to ascend too fast shrills in my mind, but getting the Bends is at the very bottom of my list of worries.
Cadence holds up Adrien’s phone. “I’ll talk you through it. We don’t know how deep the connection will work, but I won’t stop talking.”
Gaëlle huddles further into her yellow scarf, the whites of her eyes glittering. She clears her throat. “Good luck, Slate. And break a leg.”
I stomp my feet again, and my bruised toe throbs. With my recent lucky streak, I might actually break a leg. Or two.
This is the worst fix I’ve ever been in. And that includes the time when Tiny Tim found out I stole his lucky rabbit-foot keyring with the key to his storage unit.
I look into the well.
Before I put on this ridiculous seal suit, Adrien and I got the firefighters to help us lug the huge pot, remove the table, and snap off the grate. I’d been expecting to see Cadence or Bastian or even poor old Spike under the surface of the water, but there was nothing except an icy pool of darkness.
Most of the ice has inexplicably melted, and the water line’s receded. It’s now a good two meters below the lip of the well. I sit on the edge, small air tank strapped to my back.
I switch on the headlamp and adjust the diving mask that smells like chemical lemon. I shove the regulator between my lips, its edges scraping my gums, and suck in, hearing the ka-shoook of the nitrogen-enriched oxygen filling my hose.
Putain. My heart is going a mile a minute.
“I’ll ease you down,” Adrien says, unspooling the rope.
There is no fucking way I am going to let him lower me into the eerie tunnel of gloom without keeping some sort of grip on the thing. I tilt forward to put one hand on either side of the interior of the well. Even through the diving gloves, the chill in the stone bites my fingers.
I slide my ass off the ledge, and for a split-second, I’m in freefall. Then I feel a jerk as the belt tightens around my middle, and I’m dangling a foot above the slick surface of the water. My headlamp shines on the dips and dents in the stones, but its reach isn’t long enough to fill the encroaching blackness.
Despite the arctic cold, sweat beads underneath my neoprene diving hood, and a crushing pain squeezes my chest. Bile rises in my throat, and I force it back down. There’s no way in hell I’m allowing a panic attack to set in. I’d rather die trying than die hyperventilating.
Suddenly, Cadence’s voice is in my ears. “Adrien’s giving the rope slack. Once you’re in the water, adjust your buoyancy. You’re doing great, Slate.”
Oh, yeah. Abso-fucking-lutely. I haven’t shit myself yet. That’s a win.
I twist my neck, catching a sliver of Cadence’s moonlit face. The backdrop of twinkly lights makes her look like a goddess in a sky of stars, if goddesses wore slouchy knit caps with fuzzy pompoms.
Lower and lower I go, first my feet enter the frigid water, then my legs, then my chest. When my head dips under, I instinctively start to hold my breath. Sergeant Suffering’s booming voice reels through my brain, “Breathe, you pussy, breathe!”
I suck on my regulator as I whirl on the rope like a leg of lamb on a spit. Around me, layer upon layer of stones stretch down into the mucky channel.
The in and out of air from the tank echoes behind Cadence’s steady voice. “So I was hesitating between a classic tale and a personal one.” She pauses. “Since I’m betting you want to hear the personal one . . .”
Damn right.
“ . . . I’m going with the classic tale.”
Tease.
“Have you ever heard of The Little Mermaid? I thought it fit the moment superbly.” I hear a smile in her voice, and it momentarily makes the entrenching obscurity less forbidding. “Far out in the ocean, where the water is as