Eli didn’t seem to notice the tears on her face when he returned, or perhaps he just didn’t have time to address them. Either way, he said nothing as he set a log down at the edge of the water that was as big around as Mara and half as long, its edges poorly defined against the background of the water.

They worked mostly in silence, having discussed the plan while they ate. Mara set Nick carefully on the rocks and undressed herself and her son to their underclothes, cramming their boots and clothing into the spare bag while Eli lashed their packs to the driftwood. Then she simply stood, toes curling around sun-warmed river rocks, Nick once more in her arms. At Eli’s behest, she’d crisscrossed a short length of rope around her son’s torso like a harness, so she’d have something easy to grasp once they were in the water, and tied that in turn to her own waist in case the worst happened and she lost her grip on him completely. The rough hemp scratched at her own skin through the thin fabric of her soft linen undershirt, reminding her of what was at stake.

Eli pushed the log into the water where it bobbed gently in the wavelets, held in place by a length of rope that Eli had looped around his own waist. Then he came to her and checked the knots securing her to Nick.

“Ready?” he whispered.

“No.”

His teeth caught starlight as he smiled, and then he took her by the elbow, helping her balance as she stumbled and minced her way into the water.

Warning signals shot up from her feet, her toes aching with cold before the signals even reached her brain. It is cold! They shrieked. Dank and festering depths, it is cold! Turn back! Turn back! It is cold!

Shuddering, she ignored the shrieking of her nerves and obeyed the gentle but insistent press of Eli’s hand on her elbow, urging her forward. The water lapped at her ankles, her shins, her knees. She clenched her jaw.

“An energy meditation might help,” Eli whispered to her, and she wondered if he was just trying to get her to breathe. Regardless, her lungs refused to inflate in the smooth motion needed for a proper meditation, instead jerking the air in and out of her in spasmodic gasps.

He drew them to a halt, his hands a burning heat on her shoulders. Warmth spread from his touch down into her chest, cascading through her belly and down her legs. The sensation was almost ecstatic, utterly unlike anything she’d felt before–to be enveloped by cold and consumed by heat. Her muscles unclenched, but she still couldn’t draw a full breath.

“Mara.” His hands tightened. “I promise to keep you safe, but you cannot panic. If you panic, you’ll drown us both. I’ll have to use persuasion. Do you understand?”

She jerked her head in a nod, realized he probably couldn’t see her, and managed a strangled, “Yes.”

“Take a breath for me. It’s okay if it’s shallow.”

She sucked in a thimble full of air.

“Good. Now another one, and breathe out fully. Use your belly.”

She pulled in another shaky breath and pushed the air out through pursed lips, using the muscles in her abdomen and imagining the deeper pockets of her lungs emptying out. She didn’t need his prompting to repeat the cycle again, and again. And with control of her breath came control of the wild panic lighting up her mind. Closing her eyes, she reached out and snatched the strobing thoughts, stuffing them down through her body, through the soles of her feet and into the rocks.

She opened her eyes. “Okay. I’m okay now.”

His hands fell away from her shoulders and he took her elbow once more, leading her deeper into the water. It reached her thighs, and it must have lapped at Nick’s feet because he tensed with a squirming whimper before going limp once more, lulled by Eli’s magic.

Then it reached her belly, and her muscles clenched, this time with cold rather than panic. She forced herself to breathe through the onslaught.

Eli’s hand moved from her elbow to her wrist. He waited for her to shift Nick’s wait fully into her left arm before guiding her hand to a loop of rope he’d tied like a handle in the middle of the log. “Once it gets deeper, try to keep your elbow over the log,” he reminded her. “With our bags lashed on, it shouldn’t want to roll, but if it does, don’t panic. Let yourself go under, keep hold of the rope, pull yourself up, and roll onto your back.”

“Got it,” she said through chattering teeth.

“Good. The ground will drop away suddenly. I’ll be right here. I won’t let anything happen to you, but keep your hand on that rope from here on.”

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“Okay.” She nodded, for no reason. He couldn’t see her. She couldn’t see him–just a warm shadow against a background of stars.

Already the current had grown to an insistent push against her body, buffeting her so that she drifted sideways with each step forward. She tried not to let it worry her. If he didn’t think they could make it to the far side before the current carried them into danger, they’d be starting the crossing farther upstream. She had faith in his assessment.

Between one thought and the next, the ground beneath her disappeared, leaving her floating in the cold, submerged up to her chest. With a gasp, she yanked Nick against her and tightened her grip on the rope, rough wood scraping the underside of her arm as levered herself farther up out of the water. She pointed her toes, reaching instinctually for the ground, but found only cold darkness to stand on. Eli was still beside her, his shoulder butting against hers as the current tossed them gently about.

“Once we start moving, start kicking. You’ll have a sense of which direction we’re going, and where the current is. Kick against the current or kick with me. Whichever is easier. You got Nick?”

“I got him,” she sputtered, teeth hammering against each other so hard she feared they’d crack.

“Worst part’s over,” he said, and his hand pressed to the back of hers, warmth rushing through her veins. Then his touch disappeared, and she felt Nick’s body heat up against hers as he received the same treatment. “I’ll check on you every few minutes. Just keep kicking. Keep breathing. If the log rolls–”

“Don’t panic. Roll onto my back,” she finished for him. “I’m okay. Go.”

Without another word he simply disappeared beneath the water, and for a terrified moment she thought he’d been snatched by some hidden whirlpool and was drowning somewhere beneath her feet. But then she felt the log shift, tugged against the gentle but relentless sweep of the current.

She was sitting too low in the water to see much beyond the log beside her face and the undulating waves of darkness around her, but she could tell they were moving in the right direction by the way the water gathered around her body, little rumbles and bubbles against her side as the downstream flow broke against her, her body moving across the current rather than with it.

With nothing else to do, she began to kick. It took a moment to find the right rhythm. If she kicked too hard, the motion lifted her body up to parallel with the surface, which made it harder to keep Nick’s lolling head out of the water. If she kicked too feebly, the current snatched at her legs and tried to whip them around and under the log.

Even when she found a good, steady rhythm, it still wasn’t enough to keep her warm. At first the chill was merely uncomfortable, the worst pain in her fingers and toes. But as time went on, the cold seeped into her bones, calcified her muscles, seized her lungs, muddied her sense of up and down. The worst, though, was the warmth of Nick’s body washing away with the current, his slow breaths coming ever farther apart.

“Doing okay?”

She blinked. Eli’s sudden appearance would have startled her if her brain hadn’t been half frozen. His head just popped up out of the water beside her, his hand on her elbow.

Heat. Blessed heat, crawling slower up her limbs than it had before. She wondered, distantly, if the change was a reflection of his own fatigue or a precaution. She knew from experience not to warm people up too fast when they were badly chilled.

His touch left, and Nick warmed against her.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“What do you do if the log rolls?”

She pried the words loose from the ice. “Let myself go under. Roll onto my back. Don’t panic.”

“And hang onto the rope. You’re doing great, Mara. Keep kicking.”

He disappeared again before she could respond.

Eli had estimated that it would take them less than thirty minutes to make the crossing, but it felt like at least an hour just between each check in. The cold slowed down not only the blood in her veins but the passage of time itself. Each kick was a lifetime of effort, each beat of her heart a second stretching into a year. She fought to keep her eyes open, fought to keep her mind on her objectives: hold the rope, keep Nick’s head above the water, kick. Hold the rope, keep Nick’s head above the water, kick. All else faded. Even Eli’s check-ins drifted into background noise. The heat he brought was welcome, but no longer touched the deepest parts of the cold. Her soul itself was webbed in icy tendrils, the chambers of her heart pumping slush into her veins, the marrow of her bones frozen through.

“Mara.” The voice came from far away, but she forced her head toward it. Her neck was stiff. A dark shape that must be Eli hovered close enough she could feel the heat of his breath. She wanted to hold her numb hands to it like a fire. Then he grasped her hand, and heat trickled up her arms, seeping slowly into her chest. “Mara,” he said again, more urgently, and she nodded, laboring to hike Nick higher on her shoulder.

“Hm?”

“There’s an Order patrol coming toward us from downstream. We need to get lower in the water.”

No. Please, no. But she complied when he helped to pry her fingers loose from the handle. Her hand clenched reflexively around nothing as her body plunged deeper into the frigid dark. She gasped, sputtering, flailing as she fought to keep Nick up, to pull herself up. What was it he’d told her to do? What was it—”

Warmth banded around her, and she realized only distantly that it was Eli’s arm, pressing her hard against his body. The world spun, and she was blinking at the stars, Nick resting limply against her chest.

“Stay quiet.” Eli’s breath burned the frostbitten skin of her ear, and she felt the words rumble in his chest against her back. Heat suffused her everywhere they touched, and she didn’t know whether it was his magic or just him. Either way, it calmed her, warmed her enough that she was finally able to register what was happening as light swept across the surface of the water at their feet--a pure white beam of it, turning the waves silver.

Her cold, stiff heart seized, and Eli’s arm tightened around her. “It’s okay. Just a routine patrol. Close your eyes and keep your breath shallow.”

She obeyed instantaneously. Not his magic, she knew. She knew, now, how that felt. No, this was something much more insidious. More dangerous.

Trust.