Jade #2
“The whirlpool’s expanding toward the center. If we stay this course, we get sucked in. If we go left, we definitely get sucked in,” he says, leaving no time for argument. “Evie—hold the shield. Jade and Kieran—help me row.”
I hurry to the rowing yoke behind him, grip the handles, and row with all the strength I have.
Kieran sheathes his sword, takes the yoke behind me, and then we’re plunging the oars into the water in time with each other, pulling hard toward the right cliff.
The current fights every stroke. My shoulders are burning, and my arms are shaking. The oars keep trying to twist out of my grip, and I have to clench my teeth and pull harder, like I’m rowing through concrete instead of water.
“The vortex is moving!” Callie calls from the wheel.
I look back, and she’s right. The whirlpool isn’t just expanding anymore. It’s moved, so the center of the spiral is in the middle of the strait.
It’s exactly where we would have been if Logan hadn’t told us to turn a hard right.
Evie’s frozen, her eyes locked on the whirlpool. “Charybdis is anchored to the seabed. She can’t move.”
“Tell that to the giant death spiral trying to kill us,” Callie snaps.
“Keep rowing,” Logan says, strained but steady. “We’re almost through.”
I tear my eyes away from the vortex and row. My palms are raw, every muscle in my body screams, but I row and row and row, because the alternative is becoming fish food in the world’s most nightmarish ocean hole, and that’s really not how I wanted to end my weekend.
“Heat shield!” Logan calls out to Evie. “Full force, maximum power, for at least sixty seconds. If it flickers, we die.”
Evie raises her hands and a bright dome ignites around us, solidifying seconds before Scylla strikes again, the impact rocking the boat sideways.
I fight to keep rowing. Logan’s hands are shaking around the handles of his oars. I can only trust that Kieran’s holding strong behind me.
Scylla lunges again, and Evie’s shield doesn’t just block the head—it cooks it.
Flames swallow it whole, charring scales and splitting flesh, reducing its snarling face to smoking ruin.
The flames race down its neck, devouring everything in their path.
Scales peel. Muscle chars to nothing. The head separates from the body mid-thrash and plunges into the churning water with a wet, final hiss.
Before the splash fades, another head lunges, suffering the same fate as the first. Then another, and another.
I’m drenched in sweat from rowing inside a heat dome, my clothes are sticking to my skin, and every breath is like inhaling air from an oven. Still, I push forward, determined to put as much space between us and these homicidal monsters as possible.
“The channel’s widening!” Logan cuts through the roar. “Thirty more seconds!”
Thirty seconds. I can survive thirty seconds.
Logan will make sure we survive thirty seconds.
Scylla’s two remaining heads scream one final time, but the cliffs are pulling apart, the narrowness giving way to open water, and then—
We clear the strait.
Charybdis’s roar fades to a distant rumble. Scylla’s screams become echoes. Evie’s shield dissolves, the cool air hitting my overheated skin so hard I choke on the first breath of clean air I’ve taken in minutes.
Once sure we’re safe, I release the oars, my palms slick with sweat.
Logan releases his oars a moment later, but when he lifts his hands, they won’t stop shaking. He grips his knees to steady himself, his knuckles white, like he’s willing them to be still.
How many times did he have to jump? How far back did he have to go?
I reach for his hand, and when he raises his head to look at me, the shadows are deep under his eyes. A tremor runs through his fingers the instant mine close around them, and he holds my gaze for a beat too long, like he wasn’t sure he’d see my face again.
Before I can say anything, Evie collapses on the deck. Kieran’s at her side in seconds, checking her pulse and making sure she’s okay.
Her face is pale, her breathing’s shallow, but she’s alive, and that’s what matters.
Callie walks over to Logan and me, crossing her arms and studying Logan with sharp, calculating eyes. “How did you know?” she asks him.
“Know what?”
“About the whirlpool. You told us to go right before it started moving.”
“The current pattern changed on the left side of the strait,” Logan says, calm and measured as he gestures at the stern. “Surface tension shifts before a vortex activates, and it was activating too far right to be coming from Charybdis’s initial pinpointed location.”
“Surface tension.” Callie’s tone is flat. “You read the surface tension above a magical whirlpool and predicted that a monster anchored to the seabed was going to move.”
“I wrote a paper last year on maritime magic theory.” His expression is so open and earnest that I almost believe him. “It covered anomalous current behavior in magically charged waters. The signs were textbook.”
Holy shit.
He’s good at this. Really, really good. He holds her gaze without flinching, and he has the perfect amount of condescension in his tone, like he’s explaining basic theory to an expert.
Callie stares at him for a long moment, doubt flickering across her face. Then she frowns and turns away, walking over to where Kieran’s tending to Evie.
I should feel triumphant. Logan never trusted Callie enough to tell her about his time travel. But as I watch her shoulders hunch as she kneels beside Evie, and the way she wraps her arms around herself like she’s trying to hold herself together, I don’t feel triumphant.
I feel sick.
Because Logan lied so easily, without a single tell or moment of hesitation.
I would have fallen for it, too. Which makes me wonder… how many times has he done that to me, and I’ve been just as clueless as she was?