The first thing that occurred to her was that she should have checked with someone exactly how long she had to sink for her to be declared Not A Witch.

The second thing that occurred to her was nothing at all, because the overwhelming shock of the ice water knocked all the sense out of her skull. If she hadn’t already taken a huge gasp of air she’d have inhaled the lake water through sheer shock, that was how brutal the cold was. It pierced every inch of her body at once like a thousand knives — her hands and feet immediately went numb, and her body stopped shivering as it went into emergency energy preservation mode. She was actually going to die of the cold before she drowned, Cora thought.

But she had a job to do while she was down here. It was difficult to maneuver with her hands bound, but Cora had done the right thing by jumping in the water herself instead of letting the man push her — it meant her head was angled toward the bottom of the lake, and all she had to do was swim ‘forwards’ to keep getting deeper. Cora wasn’t overweight, but she certainly wasn’t a thin woman, and the way her body composition functioned, she knew that she would naturally float. So she kicked her legs, gently so that she wouldn’t cause too much disruption on the surface and give herself away, and swam down, down into the darkness of the water. It wasn’t long before her outstretched hands brushed the mud at the bottom of the lake. Wrinkling her nose in disgust at the sludge and various unidentifiable threads of plant life and general assorted matter, she took a great handful of plant life to anchor herself and tried to calm herself.

The shock of the cold had worn off — she was well aware that hypothermia was still a risk, but for now her body was doing a decent job at conserving her remaining body heat. She had a big lungful of air to sustain her, and she knew scientifically that it would be a few minutes before she experienced actual damage as a result of oxygen deprivation. That didn’t mean she didn’t already want very badly to swim to the surface and take a huge breath of fresh air. Panic began to war with her determination to stay at the bottom of the lake for as long as possible, and she fought it down, closing her eyes against the oppressive darkness of the lake floor and trying to think of positive things. Kittens. Flowers. Ian’s face… their last night together….

There was an odd tug on the rope. She waited, hopeful that it was them yanking her back up to the surface, satisfied already that she wasn’t a witch — but no. They must have just been moving it. Or maybe Ian was fighting the Inquisitors…she wouldn’t put it past him. Worry gnawed at her stomach. She hoped he wouldn’t do anything rash…it would be a shame for her to die and for a whole host of trouble to come to the MacClaran clan regardless.

How long had she been down here? The panic was rising — a hot pain had started in her chest, and she could feel the muscles flexing and straining against the effort she was making to keep herself under and her breath held. She let out a little of the breath she was holding in the hopes that relieving the pressure would ease the discomfort, but that only made the desperate need to inhale worse. She squeezed her eyes shut, focused on her heartbeat, felt herself getting dizzy. Mind over matter. Pure willpower. She’d rather drown at the bottom of the lake than go back up there and be burned…

How fascinating. A whole host of tiny lights were beginning to swarm and dance around her vision. How magical. Perhaps they were some Scottish wildlife she hadn’t learned about yet. Cora’s grip began to loosen on the plants, her consciousness revolving away into the darkness…why was she holding her breath, again? She should just take a nice, deep breath…that would be nice, wouldn’t it…a nice, relaxing breath of air…

Later, Ian would tell her what had been happening on the surface. Later, he would tell her that the jerk on the rope she had felt was the guard readying himself to haul her in, knowing that she had almost passed the required time at the bottom of the lake. The Inquisitors were nodding to each other, clearly satisfied that Cora had sunk — the second one had looked a little disappointed, but he gave the signal to the guard to haul her in.

That was when Cotswold had lunged forward, a knife in his hand, and held it to the guard’s throat, screaming that she was a cunning witch who’d found a way to beat their test.

“She escaped the burning, didn’t she? Of course she’ll con her way out of the water test too — they have mastery over all the elements! Leave her down there! The only way to abolish her evil from the world is to let her drown!”

There they all stood — frozen in a standoff as time slowly ticked away…