From some of the grains, she caught a whisper of snow and pine. This was the sand that had once been the mighty shoulders of Constellation Range.

Stick together! Claire pleaded. Ignore the water that separates you!

And meanwhile, she would try to ignore the burning sensation in her chest and the black dots creeping into her vision. She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see the end coming.

She was running out of time.

Were her fingers tingling? She couldn’t tell. They were numb from the cold of the water. Her heartbeat seemed to be slowing, and she feebly waved a hand, urging the sand to remember its capability to traverse the currents, its ability to shift and change and adapt …

Then: something hit her hand—the one stuck to the arrow.

Claire’s eyes flew open as a great sandy beast rushed at the arrow again.

And it was either the rough scrape of sand against her skin or her utter shock at the grin of the newly sculpted Sand Dolphin, but in that moment, the connection between her palm and the Lode Arrow broke.

Claire was free.

But she was also out of air and out of time. She was too weak.

The Hollow Pack on her shoulders shackled her down, and the magic—the great, tremendous magic she’d just crafted—had wrung her out like a sponge. Reaching the surface was impossible.

There was a nudge again, this time at the small of her back, as the Sand Dolphin pushed her up with its nose. In a swirl of bubbles, it was suddenly in front of her, its backfin between her fingers. With the last drop of her strength, Claire closed her fingers around the fin and clung.

With the power of a geyser, the Sand Dolphin shot upward. And even though Claire could feel grains of sand slipping away as it pulled her up through a dozen feet of water, she still held on.

They burst from the water! For one soaring moment, the salt water and raindrops were one and the same, and Claire was a part of it all—sea and sky, water and rock and breath.

The Sand Dolphin neatly tucked itself in for the dive. They hit the surface, and the Sand Dolphin disintegrated on impact.

The grains twirled around Claire’s arms and legs, as if to say they’d had fun and they should do it again sometime. One more gentle nudge, and she realized the sand had swept her close to a beach on the far side of the Needles, hidden from the Spinners’ town. A few yards later, she was able to touch the bottom.

She dragged herself through the water and waded onto the pebbled beach, where she promptly collapsed, taking hungry gulps of air, feasting on it. She hardly noticed the rain that still poured down, even though the thunder was diminishing in the distance.