Ethan draws his gun. “Back up,” he says, like he gives a damn about shards hitting me.

I do it anyway.

The blow digs out an inch of glass.

“How many bullets do you have?”

“Not enough.”

The water laps at my waist and I grit my teeth to stop them from chattering.

“Look,” Ethan says.

I follow Ethan’s finger to a bit of flashing gold near the top of one of the walls. We move toward it. The water pushes against me, fighting my every step.

Fear, colder than the water, bites into my bones. I can’t swim. Ten minutes. I calculate ten minutes until I’m drowning.

We stand together, looking up at the one and only anomaly in this glass wall—a solid gold keyhole. I pull the key from my pocket. “Looks like the magic loves me best.”

“How are you going to get to it?”

There are no footholds to climb, nothing but smooth, unyielding glass. The keyhole itself is buried two inches beneath the glass.

“We can wait until the water rises enough to take us there,” he says.

“We can’t risk it. We’ll only have seconds before the water fills in.” Plus, I’ll be dead by then.

I plunge into the water and pull two of my thicker knives from my boots. The water steams off them as I pour heat into the metal. I plunge one at chest level and the other above my head. The glass takes the blades and leaves the flat hilts visible. My wet boots and hands slide as I try to pull myself onto them.

“Help me,” I grit out without looking at Ethan. I try not to wince as his hands grip my waist, giving me the height and stability to place my boots on the knives. The hilts slide against the heels of my boots, keeping me as stable as possible.

Ethan braces my calves as I pull out one of my smaller wrist knives and plunge it through the wet glass. The water turns the handle slippery in an instant, but I only tighten my grip. Carefully, I lean down and grab another knife, placing it as high as I can reach.

“Let go!” I shout down to Ethan. I grab another wrist knife, digging in and pulling myself up at the same time before I can overthink my movements. My left foot hits a knife and slides off. I jerk my right foot out, searching for grounding as the smaller knife and my right arm take my full weight.

Ethan yells something I don’t hear. My left hand grabs a knife from my wrist and connects it with glass. Dangling, my feet claw until they find the knife hilt. My arms shake as I regain my balance.

Three more knives in my boot. Three more at my wrist.