The first ride in the peach-pink diving bell hadn’t been an enjoyable experience, even with Coyrifan in charge of transportation. The second was much worse, involving a too-long span of moving through water so hot that the air inside the shell became warm and humid enough that it was actually suffocating, and not just so in Erin’s panicked consciousness. The third ride was absolutely terrifying.

In the damp, featureless cave where they’d left her with nothing but a small hole in the ceiling that let in a little sunlight, Erin had been unceremoniously carried by her arms by a large blond merling and an average-sized brown-haired merling. Wordlessly, they tossed her into the water, then one of them dove in and dragged her under, only to shove her up inside the giant pink shell.

Mute with fear and completely blind in the darkness, she crouched and clung to the smooth shell wall with both hands. The air inside hadn’t been refreshed since the last trip, so it already smelled stale, and carried the clinging scent of her own sweat from the stretch through the unbearably hot water.

Even with two strong men hauling it along, they seemed much less skilled and far less caring than Coyrifan had been. Every time they hit what felt almost like a solid wall even though Erin could only hear rushing sounds, the shell would tilt abruptly and let in seawater, expelling some of its precious air in exchange with a loud bloop. Her stomach dropped with nauseating suddenness every time, the girl expecting to feel the cold liquid swirling up to encompass her body at any moment.

When the water lapped halfway up to her knees, they crossed over into the place that was as the hottest bath Erin had ever endured after a day of playing out in the snow as a child. Her formerly cold toes felt suddenly full of pins and needles so sharp that she cried out, lifting one foot out of the heat, then switching to the other. Before long, she was slumped heavily against the wall, unable to even care about her feet anymore for the sweltering air that filled her lungs but seemed to do absolutely nothing. There was no light in the bell, yet Erin began to see golden sparks floating before her eyes. Her thoughts became hazy and distant, drifting off toward nothingness.

When she came back to herself, Erin wasn’t certain how much time had passed, but the water was cool again and she could just make out the shape of her hands in front of her face. They were nearing the surface, then. The air was still of terrible quality, so she stayed leaning against the side of the bell, trying to conserve what was left and hoping it would last until they had reached their destination—wherever that was.

To keep herself calm, she thought of home. A cluttered two-bedroom apartment that often had only the kitchen light on to conserve on the electric bill. Her own room, a spartan space with just a bed and a couple of laundry baskets to hold her clothes, all so that she could maneuver her chair without too many obstacles. Desmond’s room, which also doubled as the storage closet for all the random junk they’d kept from the homes of various departed family members. There’d been just a path from his bed to the hallway since the day they’d moved in. He spent most of his time in his home office working, anyway. If she opened the door and peered into the dark room, she’d see the silhouette of his head and shoulders in relief against the light of his computer monitor.

Stupid Desmond, who gave up everything so that he could take care of her.

Gosh, she loved him.

Erin was wiping tears from her cheeks when the shell she sat in lurched sickeningly upward into the light, bobbed once, then fell completely sideways, knocking her down with it even as cold seawater began to fill the space at an alarming rate. An arm reached in through the opening and clamped on her ankle, eliciting a hoarse screech from the girl. She barely had time to suck in a breath before she was yanked through, then roughly hauled through the water for several endless seconds.

All at once, she was thrust above the water and left to thrash in a panic on her own. The two merling men watched her from a short distance, calmly fanning their tails to stay in place. Beyond them was nothing but water to the darkening horizon, and below Erin was an unending blue void, the sight of which made her gasp and thrash anew, this time toward the men.

They looked at each other, then the blond one pointed past Erin. She peered over her shoulder, half expecting something to be floating right there behind her. Instead, she saw a thin stretch of sand about thirty feet away, and beyond that, a wide field of green grass. A single tree provided shade just offshore, its boughs suddenly appearing as arms spread wide to welcome the girl back onto dry land.

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Without another glance back toward the merlings, Erin swam for all she was worth.

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It had been dark for hours by the time Erin finally stumbled through the doors of the Aerie. Feet and knees hurting so badly that she was barely limping along, she leaned on the corridor wall for support and kept going as fast as she could.

When she staggered into the apartment that housed Wrath’s fifteen juvenile keets, only one of them awakened to the full in an instant, her ear-splitting yowl of welcome drowning out any other nightly sound. It gave Erin a burst of strength, and she shuffled across the room twice as fast as she’d been going before. As soon as she was within reach, she unlocked and fought the stall door open, pushing against the keet’s desperate attempts to get to her.

As the door slammed shut behind her, she dropped to her knees and threw her arms around Phoebe’s neck. The blue keet was so excited that she could only hop and screech, her wings held open and flapping for greatest joy.

“I’m back,” was all Erin could say, over and over until the words meant nothing.

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It was Kaleit who found Erin early the next morning when he came to feed Phoebe, the girl passed out cold in the straw with her head resting against her griffin’s warm side. The clunk of his meat bucket landing firmly on the ground startled her awake. Everything was immensely blurry for a few seconds, but she could definitely make out the whites of his eyes bulging with surprise at the sight of her.

“You smell like low tide after a bad storm,” he said, once his usual level of scorn had reasserted itself.

“Shut up,” she replied, ending it with a grunt as she battled the ache of unwilling muscles and got to her feet. Phoebe was already pressing against the gate, and Erin opened it for her, following the hungry animal over to the bucket. She was loathe to be physically apart from her griffin, keeping a hand on Fee’s back as the keet tore into her breakfast as if she hadn’t eaten in days. “You’ve been feeding her?” she asked of Kaleit.

“Every day.” After a beat, he added, “It was assigned as part of my daily chores.”

Of course. Always business with that one.

Erin stayed focused on Phoebe, hoping that he would take the hint and go away. It irked her deeply when he just stood there in her peripheral vision, clearly unable to tell when he wasn’t wanted. “I’ve got this, thanks,” she said. Maybe that was clear enough.

“Are you all right?”

Oh, no.

He didn’t.

“I really, really don’t want your pretend concern right now.” She fixed a choleric look on the tall boy that said in no uncertain terms just how much she meant that. “Everything I just went through? That was your fault. You told Koben about my necklace.”

“Fine, then.” He walked away.

Just like that.

Erin suddenly felt very alone, even though Phoebe’s fur was warm and soft beneath her palm.

The wearying feeling continued even after Aeriemaster Gunu and the other city officials learned of her return, and fell into their usual arguing amongst each other. Prince Koben assured the others that his trade deal for the Medelapura was still viable, even though no one had a clue why Erin had been returned to them—Erin herself included.

After a complete physician’s checkup to make sure she was all right, the Aeriemaster, prince, general, and captains discussed what should be done with her. Because of her apparent addiction to Coyrifan, it was decided that the girl would be confined to her room in Captain Tannoran’s manor until the officials were satisfied that it had faded. Whether weeks or months, it was uncertain how long that would take.

Already grieving for her repeated separation from Phoebe, Erin threw herself across her bed as soon as the door closed behind her, an external lock clicking into place a moment later. Automatically, her hand went to clasp the heart-shaped moonstone of her mother’s necklace… but it wasn’t there. She’d left it in that secret underwater cave, a last-ditch effort to prevent it being stolen. Now she would probably never see it again.

Grasping for any possible comfort, she rose and went to her dresser, pulling open that particular drawer where her tab—

It wasn’t there. She grabbed one pair of pants, shook it out, then did the same with several more. The tablet was gone.

That was about all she could take. Unable to bear thinking about what might happen now, with her only Earthly possessions both gone and no one around to comfort her, she laid on the bed and cried. She pleaded into the silence for help, for someone to come and make it all right again.

As if in answer, her uncle Desmond’s face appeared in her mind. Even if he was still upset with her for all the awful sass and teasing and burdens she’d ever given him, she would give anything to see him again. To apologize, even. He deserved so much better.

She was able to smile a little later on, remembering the good times. There had been many when they were children, and though their relationship during Erin’s teenage years hadn’t been so good, they were still close.

Continuing on in her fond reminiscence, she recalled some funny times, some exciting, some annoying, and some downright frightening. Those were adventures far removed from anything they’d been allowed to experience as ultra-sheltered kids, but they’d always come through by watching out for each other. She still had to laugh at the thought of his face when Koben—

And that was when she realized that she wasn’t thinking of Desmond anymore. She was thinking of Leslyn.