Breakwater

Calm flowed from her into me and my breathing slowed along with my heart rate. Lifting a hand, I brushed it along her coat, the fur sticky with salt water. “You aren’t useless. Don’t you believe it for a second.”

She sneezed and wiped a paw over her face. “I know I’m not useless. I’m a cat. I’m purrrrfect.”

I laughed softly and then rubbed a hand over my face, as if I could clear away the last few minutes. First thing’s first, and that was getting out of the cells. Ash’s death would have to wait. I would grieve him later.

“We need to find a way out. Who else do we have to work with us?”

Loam laughed. “You think you can get us out of here? Child, for that is all you could be with a belief so foolish as that, there is no way out. This is an oubliette, we cannot reach our powers here.”

A shadow moved behind the wall on the opposite side of me and a hand splayed on the glass, palm pressing against it. His voice echoed as he spoke, making me think I heard a ghost, and I struggled to understand how it could possibly be him.

“How do you plan to do that, exactly? A half-breed bastard who throws her only ally into the cells isn’t someone I’d think of trusting again.”

“Ash?” I threw myself forward, the water slowing me down as I slammed into the wall between us. “How, they said you died!”

“Barkley died last night. He was the one they spoke of. He was too old and had been in here too long.”

I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall. A part of me wanted to apologize for putting him into the cells in the first place. But the other part . . .

“Why in the name of the mother goddess didn’t you tell me what was going on? Could you not have just shown me the note, you fool?”

“I was trying to protect you!” He slapped both hands on the wall between us, the force of it reverberating into the water, making ripples like a stone dropped into a pond.

“How’s that working out for you?” Peta snickered on my shoulder.

“Shut up, cat,” Ash snarled, the words hovering in the air. “You aren’t exactly winning familiar of the year sitting in a tank of salt water with your ambassador.”

She puffed up on my shoulder, her fur standing on end as a low growl trickled over her lips. “It’s a familiar’s job to protect and aid. But we can’t stop our masters from doing stupid things. Like spilling your queen’s secrets on your lover’s breast.”

Loam gave a strangled cry. “You are the worst familiar in this whole wretched world. I hope you are fed to the fishes!”

Peta leapt from my shoulders up to the slats and stalked back to her master. They argued in lower tones, so I only caught a word here and there. Fiametta. Conquest. Cat piss. I shook my head.

“Ash . . . I think my father sent us here to be killed. You know that, don’t you?”

A thunk reverberated as he dropped his head against the glass. “I feared it. Which is why I came.”

I spread my hands over the slick glass. Glass made up of sand. I’d pulled the sandstone door apart, why would the glass be any different? It shouldn’t. But that would mean connecting to the earth and I wasn’t angry in the least.

But maybe I could change that. “Loam, we’re likely to die here, aren’t we?”

“Well, that’s not very optimistic, is it?” Peta stared down at me from the ceiling once more, her green eyes flashing.

I ignored her. “Does your queen still have ties with Cassava? What are they plotting?”

Behind me, Ash made a choking noise. “You don’t think he’s actually going to tell you, do you?”

Shrugging, forgetting that no one could see the movement, I didn’t answer Ash. “Loam?”

“Terraling, why would I tell you? Hmm? My queen trusts me.”

“Obviously that didn’t go so well considering what Peta said,” I pointed out.

“I hate Terralings,” he snapped, and walked away from the wall connecting us.

This conversation wasn’t going the way I wanted. I spun around and knocked on Ash’s side. “I need you to make me angry.”

“What?” His shadow looked up like he was trying to see over the top to me. “Why?”

Sliding my hands over the slick glass, my frustration built, and that wouldn’t do me a stick of good. “Can you do that? Can you say things to make me angry?”

“Why would I help you? You had me thrown in here like a common cur.”

“Ash, just do it. Please.”

“Ridiculous. I was right not to trust you.” His words were like a slap, stinging me. “Your father has the right idea. Kill off the ones who cause him the most trouble before they breed like rabbits, spitting out their spawn like demons come to eat the world whole. You and Belladonna, you’re exactly the same. You both hide behind your mothers’ legacies so people won’t think you’re a matched pair of bitches in heat.”

For just a moment, I believed him, and anger, hot and sure shot through me. I grabbed hold of my connection to the earth. I spread my hand over the glass in front of me, sliding the power through it, breaking down the glass to its simplest form.

Sand.

It fell in a shimmering cascade of clear sand tinkling into the water, fish falling through the air like tiny wriggling stars dropping from the heavens.

Ash stared at me, no longer a barrier between us, golden eyes wide with shock. “How did you do that? How is that possible?”