I was starving. My stomach was a bottomless pit filled with ache. I’d kick myself for not gorging on something delicious while I was in the Keep that morning, but it would waste too much energy. I had to conserve every drop. Hang in the water. Last. Survive.

When the cold got to me, I untangled myself from my belt and swam. The exertion burned through what meager supplies of energy I had left, but it made me feel warmer. Until the shivering started again.

“We’re going to die here,” Ghastek said.

“No,” I told him.

“What makes you say that?”

“Curran will come for me.”

Ghastek laughed, a brittle sour sound. “You don’t even know where we are. We could be halfway across the country.”

“It doesn’t matter. He’ll come for me.” He would turn the planet inside out until he found me—and I’d do the same for him.

Ghastek shook his head.

“You have to will yourself to survive,” I told him.

He didn’t look at me.

“I’m not dying in this hole. Curran will come for me and we’ll get out of here. This isn’t how it ends. Hugh doesn’t get to win. We’ll survive this. One day I’m going to ram my broken sword right through his throat.”

Ghastek peered at me. His voice was hoarse. “Let me reiterate. We’ve been teleported to some unknown place probably thousands of miles away from everyone you know, possibly on another continent. The man who put us here likely teleported as well, taking the knowledge of our location with him, so nobody we know has even an infinitesimal idea of where we might be. We have no way to communicate with the outside world. Even if we could communicate by some magical means with those we know, we would be of no assistance, because we don’t know where we are. We’re floating in cold murky water.”

“It’s pretty warm, actually.”

He raised his finger. “I haven’t finished. We have no food. We have been here for at least forty-eight hours, because the hunger pangs I’m feeling are now less intense. Right now our bodies are burning through what meager fat reserves we have, which will result in severe ketosis, which in turn will lead to blood acidosis, bringing with it nausea and diarrhea. Soon faintness, weakness, and vertigo will follow. As our brains are deprived of the necessary nutrients, we’ll begin to hallucinate, and then we’ll suffer catastrophic organ damage, until finally we will die of cardiac arrest. It’s a brutal and torturous death. Mahatma Gandhi survived for twenty-one days when campaigning for India’s independence, but considering that we’re in the water and our bodies are going through nutrients at an accelerated rate, I give us two weeks, maximum.”

“If you ever decide on a career change, I’d avoid motivational speaking.”