Chapter 28
Istare down into the black water of Salem’s Fall Harbor where Silas disappeared seconds ago, my heart pounding as snow collects on the pier around me.
My shaking hands are wrapped around the lever as I fixate on the rope, terrified I’ll miss the slightest movement signaling he’s had enough and needs to surface.
The clock has begun its counting.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
At fifty, the first bell rings. Wren is hauled up almost immediately, coughing before the chair has fully cleared the surface. Lena curses at the lost points, but she’s already at Wren’s side, freeing her from the restraints and pulling her close as Wren dissolves into hysterical sobs.
At sixty seconds, another bell sounds and the blonde woman with the icy blue eyes comes up.
At ninety, the third chair rises. Rowan has tapped out.
At first, I’m thrilled that we beat Rowan and it’s just me and Van remaining. Van gives me a look of hatred, and I stare back, grinning, imagining how pissed he’ll be when we win.
Just a few more seconds to go. The cold water alone must be becoming unbearable. Breath-holding abilities aside, anyone still underwater can’t possibly last much longer before ringing their bell.
I stare at the clock.
Ninety.
One hundred.
Silas still does not ring.
I lean over the railing, but the harbor gives me nothing. Only black water fractured by lantern light.
One hundred twenty.
Across the pier, Van’s partner finally rings his bell. I’m about to let out a victorious yelp when I realize Van is not moving.
His partner’s bell rings again, harder this time, more insistent. The submerged chair jerks beneath the surface, the cord shuddering.
“What are you doing? Bring him up!” Lena screams.
Van keeps one hand resting lightly on the lever, his eyes on the clock as it passes one hundred fifty seconds. The bell becomes frantic, each strike colliding with the last until the sound is almost continuous. Every person on the pier is watching Van now. He looks bored.
“Mr. Hawthorne,” Professor Nightwing says, though whether it’s a warning or merely an acknowledgment, I can’t tell.
Van’s mouth curves. “He can hold longer.”
I’m horrified as I realize what Van is doing. He’s going to keep his partner underwater until Silas rings first, no matter the risk. And Silas…
My eyes snap back to Silas’s rope, still unmoving. That stubborn bastard. He’d rather die than ring the bell and lose.
The clock reaches an unbearable one hundred sixty seconds.
For any normal person, being submerged in cold water for this long—even with our protective suits—seems almost impossible, but perhaps Silas can stay under longer than most. Perhaps this is another Blackhollow advantage, another secret he’s decided I don’t deserve to know. And yet—
I’m unwilling to take the chance with his life. He may be Silas Blackhollow, but he’s still only human. I don’t think he can survive like this much longer—if he is even still alive.
I seize the lever and pull.
My heart races uncontrollably as Silas’s chair breaks the surface. His skin is bloodless with cold, his dark hair plastered against his forehead, but his eyes are clear.
Thank God. He’s okay.
Relief hits so violently my knees weaken.
Van’s partner surfaces seconds later, his lifeless body hanging limp in the restraints, head fallen forward, water streaming from his open mouth. Van watches without expression.
“You brought me up,” Silas says between controlled breaths as I untie him. “I told you not to.”
I’m so angry I have to resist the urge to slap him. Again. No man has ever inspired this particular impulse in me as often as he has.
“You could have died, you idiot!”
“Yes.” His smile is real, though faint. “It’s nice to see you care.”
“You were underwater for almost three minutes in freezing cold. How did you do that?”
He just shrugs.
“I’m a good swimmer,” he says, which is an answer, but not one part of me believes it’s the truth.
Professor Nightwing’s voice carries over the pier. “One hundred seventy seconds,” he announces. “Station One leads the first round.”
Van’s partner’s body has barely been covered with a tarp before Professor Nightwing calls for the second round. No one protests. No one asks for more time even though one of us has already died a horrible death.
I want to be brave like Silas was when he gently helps me into the chair, but the sight of the strap across my chest and the restraints closing on my hands and legs makes me start to shake uncontrollably. It is humiliating, but I cannot stop.
“You don’t have to prove anything down there,” he says softly. “Ring the bell. Don’t try to win.”
The earlier sharpness is gone from his voice. So is the distance. The concern in his eyes is so unguarded it almost hurts.
“But you said that was the entire point,” I murmur.
I clutch the cord, my fingers digging painfully into the rope as the other three competitors are buckled into their seats. I’m going down with the scarred man whose name I still don’t know, Georgina, and Lena. Van, having murdered his own partner, gets to sit this lovely experience out.
Silas steps closer.
“Mercer.”
I force myself to meet his eyes.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he says, his hand covering mine over the bell cord. “I don’t lose what’s mine, Jack.”
For one dangerous heartbeat, I almost let myself believe the words are about more than just him winning The Rites.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Professor Nightwing lifts his hand, and the platform drops beneath me, my chair swinging out over the harbor.
The world turns to terrifying darkness immediately.
Water crashes over my knees, my chest, then closes above my head with enough force to tear the breath from me.
Every muscle locks, my body trying to gasp despite the water pressed against my face.
Panic surges so fast that thought becomes impossible.
I squeeze my eyes shut and count, because that’s what I told myself I would do.
One.
Two.
Three.
The chair continues sinking until the chain finally catches. The sudden stop jerks my shoulders against the restraints. Above me, the surface is a warped silver plane. I can see nothing of the platforms or of Silas. Only the dark column of chain disappearing upward.
Ten seconds.
My lungs already hurt.
At twenty, the cold becomes pain.
At thirty, the pain spreads beneath my ribs and along my spine, sharp enough to feel almost electrical. Every instinct inside me screams for me to pull the bell, but I resist. Silas has already put us in second. If I can last long enough, we can win. Not Van. Not some other pair.
Us.
Sixty seconds.
A shadow rises several yards away as the first chair is hauled toward the surface. Despite everything, a fierce little spark of triumph shoots through me. One pair out.
The pressure inside my chest grows vicious. I clamp my lips tighter, as though determination can keep my lungs from collapsing on themselves. I think of Silas at one hundred sixty seconds.
Impossible.
I will never reach that.
Eighty seconds.
My vision sharpens strangely at the edges, every glint of light above me too bright. The bell cord cuts into my palm as someone else surfaces. A fierce excitement takes hold. Only one chair remains to my left. If I wait until they go up, we win the round. The thought is almost enough.
Almost.
But my diaphragm spasms so badly my body jerks involuntarily against the restraints. Panic tears through every stubborn scrap of pride. I can’t help it—
I pull the cord.
I cannot hear the bell ring beneath the surface, but I feel the vibration traveling down the line into my hand. I wait for the chain to move and for Silas to yank me up like he said he would.
A second passes.
Then another.
At first, I think maybe he didn’t feel it. I yank the cord again. Harder this time. Then again.
Nothing.
My thoughts begin to spiral. I realize with a horrifying jolt that he must be waiting for the other chair to give way first. The knowledge comes with such certainty that it hurts more than the lack of air. He thinks I can last.
Or worse, he thinks the points matter more than I do.
My chest convulses and the edges of my vision begin to gray. I yank the cord again, desperately, terror clawing through me as Carter’s pale, dead face flashes through my mind, his body hanging limp in the restraints.
No.
Silas promised.
I pull again.
And again.
No help comes.
A wave of despair hits me as I finally understand. No help is ever coming. The certainty settles over me with a terrible, crushing clarity. Silas isn’t going to save me. He was never going to save me.
Everything I’d convinced myself I’d seen in him—the moments of kindness, the way he looked at me, the way he’d held me in his arms at Blackthorn Manor—none of it was real. It all meant exactly what he’d said it meant earlier on the pier.
Nothing.
I’d had Silas right from the very beginning.
He really was the monster I thought he was all along.
The need to breathe becomes unbearable. My mouth opens involuntarily, and I clamp it shut again before water can rush in. My body bucks against the cuffs, desperate for air. Darkness creeps steadily inward as my lungs scream for oxygen.
I am going to die down here.
There is no longer fear or even pain, just overwhelming, crushing, heartbreaking sadness. I think of my mother and how this will break her. And of Josh. Of every stupid choice that brought us both to Salem’s Fall.
What if he’d never come here? What if I hadn’t followed after him? What kind of life would we have had somewhere else, far away from the Veil and all these terrible secrets?
And The Rites.
What if I had managed to win them? Could I really have brought Josh back?
Could I have saved him?
I’ll never know now. I’ll never know anything, ever again…
Then—
Something crashes through the surface. A shape cuts downward through the black water, fast and powerful, coming straight toward me. For one disoriented second, I think I’m imagining it.
Then I see his face.
Silas.
I’ve never been so fucking grateful to see someone in my entire life. Relief hits so hard it nearly breaks me.
He came for me.
He has not forsaken me, after all.
His hands go first to my chest strap, then the wrist cuffs. Though his movements are controlled, his face is not. His eyes are wide, furious, afraid as he points urgently upward toward the chain and shakes his head.
I understand immediately. The mechanism broke—it’s not moving.
He grips the release pin beneath the right cuff and pulls, but nothing happens. The iron has jammed under pressure. He changes position and braces both feet against the chair frame, wrenching at the lock until the tendons stand out along his hands. It does not open.
My momentary relief gives way to a new kind of terror as I realize I’m trapped in the broken chair. My lungs seize again, my thoughts growing distant and strangely disconnected. I’m losing consciousness.
Silas looks at me, and I see the moment he understands how little time remains for me. Something in his expression changes. Not panic.
Decision.
He presses one palm flat against the water between us. For half a second, nothing happens. Then the harbor… moves.
I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s as if the current gathers beneath his hand in a tight, spiraling pull.
Water folds around his arm like fabric drawn by invisible fingers until the pressure against the restraint makes the iron groan.
The locking pin tears free and the cuffs spring open, then the strap across my chest snaps loose as if cut by a blade.
A force surges beneath the chair, driving us upward with the violence of an underwater geyser.
The water carries us to the surface, and we break through into freezing air.
“Jack!”
Silas drags me onto the scaffold and rolls me onto my side. He looks terrified, his face gone completely pale. His hand closes around the back of my neck, steadying me as a spasm tears through my chest.
“Goddamn it! Breathe, Jacqueline!”
Finally, I drag in a ragged breath. Then another. I cough, choking on water, my lungs flayed. Some of the panic leaves his face, but he stays kneeling beside me, soaked and shaking.
“You moved it,” I whisper, staring at his fingers and the harbor still dripping from them. “You moved the water.”
“You were drowning,” he says simply, as though that explains the impossible.
Above us, the clock has stopped as the final chair rises from the harbor, the scarred man from the fifth station still strapped lifelessly inside.
His partner, the blonde, blue-eyed woman, looks devastated, guilt written across her face.
Like Van, she made a grave miscalculation.
They both took a chance, pushing their partners too long for the win, and misjudged the line between endurance and death.
That gamble cost two competitors their lives.
Professor Nightwing calls the remaining contestants forward to announce the winners. “With the survival bonus applied, the highest combined score belongs to Station Two,” he says. “Both contestants completed the trial. Both demonstrated restraint.”
Rowan and Georgina exhale in relief.
“Station Four places second,” Professor Nightwing continues, and I give Silas a startled look.
I thought we’d lost when he jumped in to save me.
“Mr. Blackhollow’s first-round time remains the second strongest individual performance.
Ms. Mercer’s second round was forfeited physically, but the trait the West demonstrates most strongly is wisdom.
Mr. Blackhollow certainly showed that by going after his partner when she was in distress.
The pair’s survival bonus also preserves their standing.
“Third place goes to Mr. Hawthorne.” Professor Nightwing’s gaze settles on Van with unmistakable disapproval. “His first-round score was sufficient to advance him. However, it is not necessarily wisdom to sacrifice your partner.”
Van’s expression does not change.
I look at Silas, still unsure of what just transpired.
He entered the water believing it meant forfeiture and would cost us the round, and he most certainly would’ve won without doing so.
And I definitely don’t understand what happened in the water.
It looked like Silas somehow controlled the harbor, bending it to his will.
Except… that makes absolutely no sense. I was seconds away from losing consciousness, so who knows what I actually saw?
Still, whatever else he has lied about, whatever else he is still withholding from me, one truth has become impossible to deny. When given the opportunity to win or save my life, Silas chose me.