The Empress shouted, a water-filled burble that hit Vivia’s skin. Blood still streamed from her nose as she shook her head, eyes bulging. Then a hundred tiny pricks pierced Vivia’s biceps. Painful, sudden, and jolting. Vivia blinked, and this time, she focused fully on Vaness.

The Empress was drowning. She didn’t have the lung capacity Vivia did. She hadn’t spent half her life surrounded by waves or riding rivers to their falls.

Vivia glanced up, at the wild silhouette of the Lioness descending. Even if they could make it to the surface, only pistols and flames would await. Never had she wished for Stix more, to help her, to lift her, to guide her because Stix always knew what to do. How to make everything better. But Stix wasn’t here, and Vivia had only herself to do what needed doing.

So she did the one thing she could think of that would keep the Empress alive in this tiny cocoon of safety: she pulled Vaness to her and kissed her.

As the Queen of Hawks and the Queen of Foxes vanished beneath the roiling sea, Stix, Ryber, and Kahina watched in silence from a stretch of gravel beside the Origin Well.

“Are you ready?” Kahina asked. Smoke curled from her pipe, mingling with the acrid stench the battle. She had shed her admiral’s coat and boots.

“Yes,” Stix answered, and she turned to Ryber. “Safe harbors. We’ll return soon.”

“Safe harbors,” the Sightwitch replied, and her lips twitched with a rare grin. Then she held out the Giant card for Stix to see. Its gold back winked in the morning’s coral light. “Do not take too much magic from Her.”

“No.” Stix wagged her head. “We’ll only take what we need.” She walked to Kahina’s side, her own bare feet rolling over tide-worn gravel, and together, the Paladin of Hawks and the Paladin of Foxes walked into the sea to help their queens as the Sleeping Giant—the goddess at the heart of everything—wished for them to do.

It wasn’t a true kiss. Or Vivia didn’t think it was. Later, she would agonize over that distinction, but during the panicked moments while it happened, while she pressed her lips to Vaness’s and shared every remnant of breath in her lungs, while the Empress crushed her lips back and drew in air like the drowning woman she was, Vivia saw it only as a way to save the Empress and buy them more time beneath the waves.

Because the undertow’s song wasn’t finished with Vivia yet—Become us, become us and attack. It sounded like Stix. Vivia didn’t know how, she didn’t know why, but it was as if her Threadsister were right beside her, pumping her fists and urging her on.