House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

The metal bathroom door, even with the book’s power sealing it, wouldn’t hold Micah for long. Minutes, if that. And the synth in Bryce’s system … How long did she have until she turned herself into bloody ribbons?

Lehabah rushed over to Bryce just as Hunt again growled at Sandriel, “Go stop him.”

No matter that even at ungodly speeds, it would take Sandriel an hour to fly there. Thirty minutes by helicopter.

A choking sound filled the air as Sandriel clamped down on her power, silencing Hunt’s voice. “This is Micah’s territory. I do not have the authority to intervene in his business.”

Athalar still managed to get out, dark eyes blazing, “Fuck. You.”

All of Sandriel’s triarii fixed their lethal attention on Hunt. He didn’t seem to give a shit, though. Not as Bryce gasped to Lehabah, “Get the tank’s feeding dock running.”

The gaping wound in her thigh finally sealed shut thanks to the synth shooting through her blood. And then Bryce was up and running.

The bathroom door shuddered. She didn’t so much as look back as she sprinted, still limping, for the stairs to the tank. She grabbed a knife off the ground. Micah’s knife.

Ruhn had to remind himself to take a breath as Bryce hit the stairs, ripping a piece from her torn shirt, wrapping it around her thigh to bind the knife to her. A makeshift sheath.

Declan switched the feed to the small chamber atop the tank, the water sloshing through the grated floor. A three-foot square in the center opened into the gloom, the small platform on a chain anchored to the top of the tank. Lehabah floated at the controls. “It’s not attacking him,” the sprite wept. “Syrie’s just limp there, he’s dead—”

Bryce knelt, and began taking swift, deep breaths. Fast, fast, fast—

“What’s she doing?” Queen Hypaxia asked.

“She’s hyperventilating,” Tharion murmured back. “To get more air into her lungs.”

“Bryce,” Lehabah pleaded. “It’s a—”

But then Bryce sucked in one last, mighty breath, and plunged beneath the surface.

Into the nøkk’s lair. The feeding platform dropped with her, chain unraveling into the gloom, and as it raced past Bryce, she gripped the iron links, swimming down, down, down—

Bryce had no magic. No strength nor immortality to shield her. Not against the nøkk in the tank with her; not against the Archangel likely only a minute away from breaking through that bathroom door. Not against the synth that would destroy her if the rest didn’t.

His sister, his brash, wild sister—knew all that and still went to save her friend.

“It’s her Ordeal,” Flynn murmured. “This is her fucking Ordeal.”





79

The frigid water threatened to snatch the precious little breath from her lungs.

Bryce refused to think of the cold, of the lingering pain in her healed leg, of the two monsters in this library with her. One, at least, had been contained behind the bathroom door.

The other …

Bryce kept her focus upon Syrinx, refusing to let her terror take over, to let it rob her of breath as she reached the chimera’s limp body.

She would not accept this. Not for a moment.

Her lungs began burning, a growing tightness that she fought against as she bore Syrinx back toward the feeding platform, her lifeline out of the water, away from the nøkk. Her fingers latched into the chain links as the dock rose back toward the surface.

Lungs constricting, Bryce held Syrinx on the platform, letting it propel them up, up—

From the shadows of the rocks at the bottom, the nøkk burst forth. It was already smiling.

The nøkk knew she’d come for Syrinx. It had been watching her in the library for weeks now.

But the feeding platform broke the surface, Bryce with it, and she gasped down sweet, life-saving air as she heaved Syrinx over the edge and gasped to Lehabah, “Chest compressions—”

Clawed hands wrapped around her ankles, slicing her skin as they yanked her back. Her brow smashed into the metal rim of the platform before the cold water swallowed her once more.

Hunt couldn’t breathe as the nøkk slammed Bryce into the glass of the tank so hard it cracked.

The impact shook her from her stunned stupor, just as the nøkk snapped for her face.

She dodged left, but it still had its talons on her shoulders, cutting into her skin. She reached for the knife she’d tied to her thigh—

The nøkk grabbed the knife from her hands, tossing it into the watery gloom.

This was it. This was how she’d die. Not at Micah’s hand, not from the synth in her body, but by being ripped to shreds by the nøkk.

Hunt could do nothing, nothing, nothing as it again snapped for her face—

Bryce moved again. Lunging not for a hidden weapon, but another sort of attack.

She punched her right hand low into the nøkk’s abdomen—and dug inside the nearly invisible front fold. It happened so fast Hunt wasn’t sure what she’d done. Until she twisted her wrist, and the nøkk arched in pain.

Bubbles leaked from Bryce’s mouth as she wrenched its balls harder—

Every male in the pit flinched.

The nøkk let go, falling to the bottom. It was the opening Bryce needed. She drifted back against the cracked glass, braced her legs, and pushed.