Stix grabbed hold of the prisoners, her fingers digging under their arms, then she used every piece of power that still remained inside of her to shoot for the sky. Up, up, they flew through the water until they broke the surface.

And up, up the foxes flew too. Three sets of fangs, of fur, of bloodied entrails from a prisoner lost. They were clever in their ascent. Cleverer than Stix had been, belying a sentience she hadn’t realized they possessed.

One rushed beneath her. One swam behind. And one moved between Stix and the exit.

She and the prisoners were trapped. Rain fell against her face while she treaded water. Clean and new and surprising—she hadn’t noticed the storm clouds rolling in.

The sea fox below Stix was readying for an attack: diving low where it could then build momentum toward the surface. Even if Stix could build an ice wall between her and the monster, such raw animal power would ultimately win. These creatures were too huge, too ancient to be contained, even by the Water Brawler.

So of course that was the moment the voices decided to come. So sudden, so clear, Stix didn’t have time to be surprised. They simply sang, No whistling when a storm’s in sight. No whistling when a storm’s in sight, and the water and the Ring burst away.

“I can stand by no longer,” Stix says. “The people can stand by no longer. We have to end the Exalted Ones’ reign.” She pins her eyes on Eridysi, as does everyone else in the room. Bastien, Midne, Rhian, Saria, and the Rook King’s damnable bird.

Eridysi, a willowy woman with pale hair and paler skin who spends more time lost in her head than she does speaking or even acknowledging that the Six are in her workshop, curls in on herself. “I am working as fast as I can.”

Stix believes her; her workshop, never tidy on a good day, has descended into utter chaos with heaps of paper or books or, lately, dusty stones.

“Work faster,” Bastien growls, and Stix cuts him a sharp look. He only glares in return from behind his mask. He is the least patient of all of the Six and has been urging Eridysi to hurry for weeks now.

“What is it you lack?” Saria asks in her quiet, still way. She is becoming more distant each day, more statue than human. Stix understands. She herself has become more and more mercurial like the tides. It is the only way to endure what the Exalted Ones make each of them be: to sink more deeply into the magic Sirmaya gave them.