A big form walked out of the building and stood, staring, it seemed, directly at us. But then he turned and walked around the corner.
Jacques leaned closer. “If I wasn’t up to myaissellesin water, I’d be sweating buckets.”
I didn’t want to know what an aisel was. “Yeah. Just keep thinking like a bleedin’ branch,” I whispered.
Something huge passed between us and the moon, and my lips peeled back from my teeth in an unconscious snarl. Bloody Dragons.
“You know they can sense life essences.” Jacques sounded slightly strangled. “Why didn’t he know we were there?”
“This river is full of life,” Anna said from my other side. “And some of it is pretty big.”
“It is?Sacré bleu,” squeaked Jacques, trying to stare into the midnight-black water.
“Most of it isn’t interested in you,” she added, sounding a bit distracted.
“Most?” the Satyr dug his feet into the silt and almost brought us to a halt.
“They’re following me,” she said.
“Mon Dieu,” Jacques moaned.
“Grow some,” I snarled, tugging us along. “You’re the one who wanted to come.”
“Wanted is debatable. Althoughcomingis something I actively pursue every minute of the day.”
I shot him a look that effectively silenced him, just as another Dragon guard walked out of the forest to stand on the far bank.
We all sank into the water. I struggled to keep the branch floating as naturally as possible.
We passed no more than fifty feet from him. He stared at the opposite bank rather than the water, but all the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
I leaned close to Anna. “The strainer should be bloody close now. Just around this bend...”
Haki had told us what to expect. The river curved, and there it was—a grated partition designed to screen larger materials out before the river was channeled beneath the fortress.
It was well maintained. Only a few branches were pushed up against it. Ours bumped into it and stopped cold. Just beyond lay the mouth to the tunnel.
The water here was up to my chest. Climbing the bank would expose us to whichever guards might be looking this way. Haki had suggested we do as he did, and go under. The grate had a gap at the bottom, just enough to skitter through if you were careful.
“Me first,” I said, and vanished before Anna could protest.
I ducked beneath the water, feeling along the metal to where it ended, and then pulling myself through. My chest scraped on the bar along the bottom, and I squirmed beneath it to pop up on the other side.
“Okay,” I whispered to Anna. “Go through where I was standing, it’s clear.
She didn’t waste any time disappearing under the water. I ducked back down, feeling for her in the murky darkness and guiding her beneath.
We popped up together.
“How big is the gap?” Jacques breathed.
“I fit through it,” I said. “Hurry up, or we’ll leave you here.”
It had the intended effect—it pissed him off enough that his bushy hair vanished into the water.
I ducked again to help him through, heading off the potential for panicked thrashing.
He surfaced, shoving his soaked hair out of his face. “I have nowofficiellementcompleted the drowned-rat look.”
