Chapter 24
Dark and drowning. My mind clamored with terror as the last precious bubbles of air slipped between my lips. My final regret was that I could not say goodbye to Mama.
Then something wrapped around me, a coil of blue fire pulling me from beneath the waterfall’s grasp. Up, and up.
And finally, out.
I broke the surface of the pool, crying and coughing. Whatever carried me deposited me on the shore, several paces from the deadly waters.
Thorne bent and pounded me between the shoulder blades. I coughed up even more water, hacking, my nose and eyes streaming, dimly aware of Neeve holding my hair back from my face.
“Breathe,” Thorne said urgently. I heard fear in his normally calm voice.
I managed a ragged, gulping breath. The air sawed my lungs and my body shuddered with the in
