“Skies above,” Abedi breathed, his eyes fixed on the horizon.

  Aida felt a thrill of horror run down her spine and settle in her limbs as her gaze followed the rest of her classmates’.

  She had never seen waves this high. They utterly dwarfed the tiny boat speeding along its base, rising with the swell as the base of the wave gently, lovingly, pushed the boat forward - while at the same time the tip of the wave curled menacingly over the boat, intent on crushing the fleeing Strongholders in its wide, gaping maw.

  “What do we do?!” Tera screamed.

  “Get ready to take cover!” Aida shouted back, terror making her voice screechy as another nightmare manifested in front of them.

  Within the wall of water, a pair of glowing yellow eyes emerged, brightening as the mass of water approached. Glistening, bone-white teeth outlined the broadening jaws of the eel within, every feature becoming more and more clear as the creature approached the thin interface between water and air.

  “They’re not going to make it!” Abedi shouted, his deep voice sounding as shrill as Aida’s had been.

  Aida was shaken out of her dumbstruck terror when Dev grabbed her shoulder roughly, forcing her to look into his sharp, icy eyes.

  “Ice spear! Follow my lead!”

  “What?!”

  “Do you trust me?” Aida stared into the intense fire in Dev’s eyes, flicking her eyes to the impending disaster rolling towards them before snapping back to Dev.

  I can’t not trust him…there’s no escape at this point. Firming her resolve, Aida nodded at Dev. He nodded back.

  “We’ll have to combine our mana. Trust me.”

  What does that mean? Before Aida could formulate her question, Dev grabbed her hand and sent a prick of his own mana into her, offering her a tentative opening. After a split-second hesitation, the roar of the wave getting louder and louder, Aida flooded his channel, reinforcing their connection.

  As soon as their mana met, they merged - much more easily than she had with anyone else. But unlike the debilitating confusion and helplessness she experienced with Levi or Caleb, or the distinct separation of entities when Ezra helped her at the school’s Lake, the merge with Dev was…simple. And straightforward.

  Aida still maintained her sense of awareness, both in her own body and with her mana, but she was also aware of Dev’s senses. Where she had felt overwhelmed, smothered and stifled, losing her sense of self when drawn into Caleb or Levi’s mana, with Dev it seemed like her senses were amplified. She had her own senses, but she also had Dev’s senses as well. Instead of being confusing, it felt…clear. Much more clear than when she was on her own.

  So clear that his intentions might as well have been her own.

  As one, the two of them turned towards the wall of water with a monstrous face floating eerily in the opaque depths, looking just like a ghostly presence manifesting its corporeal form. Aida raised her wand in the same motion as Dev, pointing steadily at the center of the oncoming beast.

  There was fear, a dim awareness that standing their ground against a “dragon of the sea” while in its domain was tantamount to suicide. However, Dev’s steady mana flowed through Aida, supporting the determination that fought against the fear, making her - them - believe that there was something they could do, allowing them to focus on the task at hand.

  An ice shard formed in the wall of water, crystallizing the liquid around it, building it backward as the wave continued moving forward.

  Aida and Dev held the icicle steady, pushing back against the force of the ocean, as the eel, water, and boat surged towards them. Aida, with her enhanced senses, was aware of Ashley and Brand shouting and gesturing furiously at them to move aside, to seek cover from the tsunami, while Jaret’s expression was pinched in concentration as he controlled their boat, several exhausted Strongholders on their knees around his feet as they pressed their hands into the crystal he stood over, feeding their remaining power into the mana battery.

  Tera and Abedi had already cleared the way, taking cover behind the stone outcroppings formed by the headlands with their skiffs as the wave finally reached North Ocean Village’s first layer of defenses.

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  Aida-Dev had formed a small iceberg to stand on as they faced the oncoming eel, their ice spear piercing the back of the eel’s throat as it charged on full steam ahead.

  A muffled, but piercing, unworldly shriek emanated from the water, reverberating through Aida-Dev, making them feel like their bones were about to disintegrate. Coupled with the utter darkness as the bulk of the wave towered over them, hiding the moon and starlight, it made Aida feel like she was in an utterly alien world, surrounded completely by water.

  The eel thrashed, throwing its head into one side of the outcropping, headbutting the headlands that Tera and Abedi were hiding behind. Aida-Dev instinctively wrapped themselves in ice with the wave that finally folded over them, sending them rolling over and over underneath the power of the waves in an ice ball, their arms and legs wrapped around each other as they hunched protectively around themselves.

  Their senses were distinctly muted as the wave completely covered them, hiding the moon and starlight so that it was completely dark in their icy capsule, with naught but chaos swirling around them outside.

  After what felt like an eternity, Aida felt Dev finally disengage himself from her, though she couldn’t see anything.

  “Are you okay?” Aida mumbled, tasting the salt on her lips. She pushed herself into a sitting position, feeling carefully around her for the wall. They had finally stopped rolling, and gravity finally had meaning again.

  “Yeah,” Dev groaned. “That went better than I expected. Good job.”

  “That went worse than I expected,” Aida grumbled halfheartedly, poking at herself gingerly. Other than some minor bruising as they crashed around the ice capsule, she was fine. “But…wow, we actually took down an eel.”

  Aida couldn’t help but laugh hysterically at her summary of their situation. Eels were things she ate when she went to a sushi restaurant, yet they had nearly died just trying to protect themselves from what they called an eel here.

  Dev chuckled along with her. “I’m just glad it was one eel, and not the five we had seen earlier.”

  Aida hiccuped as she sobered. “That’s right…do you think the Strongholders managed to take down the other four?”

  “That would be ideal, though with the four Strongholders they managed to rescue I don’t think it’s likely.” Aida heard Dev shift around as he faced the ice wall. “I can’t tell if things have calmed down outside yet.”

  “Do you think Tera and Abedi are okay?” Aida asked, alarmed. “The eel knocked the cliff down on top of them…”

  “If Tera was paying attention, they should be fine,” Dev said grimly. She could finally make out a vague outline of him. He turned to face her. “…thank you.”

  “I should be the one thanking you,” Aida responded, flustered. “There’s no way I could have done what we did.”

  Dev shook his head. “What I had in mind wouldn’t have gone so smoothly if you didn’t trust me.” He spread his arms. “In fact, we’re both relatively unscathed. I guarantee neither one of us would have survived if we didn’t work together as well as we did.” He shifted forward, his voice softer but closer to her. “I get the feeling you still don’t understand your level of contribution, so let me say it again: thank you for trusting me.”

  “Well, I didn’t really have a choice then, did I?” Aida said lightly, leaning back as she tried to see if she could make out any light coming in through the ice. “It was trust you, or watch us all die.”

  Dev laughed softly as he mirrored her, also lifting his head to the roof. “That’s true. Regardless, I appreciate your willingness and lack of hesitation.”

  They sat in silence as Aida came to terms with what happened.

  They were alive. The last thing she knew, they were about to be crushed by a massive fifty-foot wave, staring into the beast’s gullet the size of a semitruck. They had gotten knocked around in their ice ball, but given that both of them were still talking…it was nothing short of a miracle.

  “How did you know what to do?” In the dim lighting, she saw Dev incline his head in question before she elaborated. “How did you know how to…connect so that we could actually be a cohesive unit when taking down the eel?” she bit her lip before she accidentally gave details of her prior mana mixing experiences, wary of how he might perceive her accidental mixing with the other boys.

  The shadow of his head turned to the side as he thought. “I didn’t. It was a wild guess. Because as you said, it was try or die.”

  Aida caught her breath, aware there was a vast unspoken acknowledgment bubbling up between the two of them. It seemed neither one of them wanted to be the first to breathe life into the topic: that they had, regardless of the circumstance, mixed their mana.

  And it hadn’t been disorienting. It had been so natural, bringing about a clarity of mind; as if she had been watching the leaves fluttering gently in the wind through a window, convinced she knew what it was like outside, and then finally going outside and feeling the wind caress her hair, as well as the sun warming her skin. Adding depth and sensorial experiences to her bland observations.

  It had felt nearly as good as when Aida finally admitted to herself that she had feelings for Ezra.

  Aida recoiled from that memory, trying to steer her thoughts towards more practical topics regarding their current predicament.

  “What’s wrong? Are you all right?” Dev was reaching towards her at her sudden flinch, and Aida moved away from his hand under the guise of pushing herself to her knees.

  “I think we’re definitely at the surface. Some light is coming through.” Ignoring his hand, Aida pressed her palm against the wall behind her, holding her breath as she slowly melted a small hole in the ice, hoping she wasn’t wrong and that water wasn’t going to gush in.

  She was lucky; as the wall thinned where her palm was, she could see the surface of the water lapping against the outside of the wall.

  Dev exhaled in a breathy laugh, melting the ice dome from the top so that they remained in a hemispherical ice boat. “Great. Let’s go see what the damage is.”