“No.” The word escaped Stix’s throat on a bubble of air. No, no. Currents keened against her, thrashed by foxes writhing and twirling as they fed. No, no.

The sea foxes had almost finished their feast when two more bodies plunked into the water behind her. She sensed the splashes and the displacement of water that spoke of two more lives sinking too fast. Stix would not fail them.

She kicked off the Ring floor, sucking power to her. She needed air—oh Noden, she needed air, but there was no time. She would have to make what little still seared in her lungs suffice.

She raced across the pond, fast as a shark. Faster even, and behind her, the foxes gave pursuit. They’d finished their meal; they were always, always hungry for more.

She reached the first person, and as she’d sensed, they were roped to a stone far too heavy for her to move. They flapped and bent and strained like a worm on a hook, and when Stix grabbed their shoulders—shoulders she could not see—they only fought harder.

I’m trying to help you! she wanted to scream, but she had no breath left and no sound beneath the waves.

She needed to cut these ropes, and she needed to do it fast.

She froze a strip of water in her right hand. An ice knife, complete with handle and edge for slicing. Sharp, sharp, she told the water. Cut, cut. In seconds, the rope snapped. The person was free—and the foxes had arrived.

Stix slung out her knife, and as it hurtled toward the nearest fox, she froze a hundred more. Freeze, freeze. Cut, cut.

The foxes screamed, a piercing burst of sound as every ice blade made contact. As Stix carried herself and the prisoner away. They sped through the water, and though the world was dark, worse shadows were creeping in. Stix needed air. She was going to have to surface. Unless …

Back away, she commanded the closest water—the water that haloed her head. Back away.

A small funnel formed, and the water parted. It sucked strength from Stix because, like before, the water did not want to separate. But Stix let it have her strength in exchange for blessed, beautiful air.

Her lungs billowed, two gulps as she escalated toward the second prisoner. Her head stopped spinning; her lungs stopped screeching. Then she was to the other person, and she let the waters crush over her face once more. Again, she produced an ice knife, and again, she carved away until the second prisoner was also free.

Now she had two people to protect, and three sea foxes pummeling this way. But the exit must be near. The stall she needed to reach to end this fight and claim victory.