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Jack was going to be the death of me if I survived this.
I would definitely be the death of him. The second we were out of this damn lake, I was going to kill him.
First of all, the lake was not as soft a landing as water should have been. I’ve fallen off a roof and been in less pain than after smacking into this lake.
Second of all, there seemed to be no bottom. We kept sinking, tossing and turning so much I lost track of the way to the surface.
Third of all, I didn’t know how to swim.
My chest already ached from lack of air, and we were still going down. Maybe. I wasn’t sure where we were going anymore.
Also, I didn’t know where Jack was. I lost my grip on him when we hit the water.
Something, hopefully Jack, grabbed the back of my shirt and yanked. I risked opening an eye. The water burned, and I regretted it. But I did glimpse Jack towing me up towards the sunlight with him.
It was impossibly far away. My lungs burned, demanding air. There was no way I could last that long without breathing. How could Jack last this long? How was anyone able to hold their breath like this?
The thing about needing to breathe when underwater was that even though I knew opening my mouth wouldn’t help, that there was nothing to breathe but water, I still wanted to, desperately. My body demanded air, and it wouldn’t listen to my head telling it not yet.
Pressure burst in my chest, and I let out the breath I was holding.
Water rushed into my mouth and up my nose. I grabbed at my throat.
Jack kicked out wildly next to me, moving us faster.
I coughed, trying to spit up the water, but it didn’t do much good. Any attempt at a small breath made things worse.
Of all the stupid things I’d done in my life, this was how I was going to die. Unbelievable. I should have died trying to save Sara, not lost devils only knew where in the kingdom.
Jack tugged on my arm, and then, instead of being pulled up, we were falling again, crashing onto a roof and tumbling over the edge to land in overgrown bushes.
“King’s beard, come on, Ace!”
I was still trying to figure out which way was up when Jack dragged me out of the bush and onto solid ground. Air had never tasted so good, even if the smell of sap overwhelmed everything else.
“You’re okay,” Jack panted beside me. His head dropped on my shoulder. “You’re okay.”
I coughed again. “Did you swear?”
He grimaced. “You’re a terrible influence.”
“What happened?” I asked. My throat felt like I’d garbled broken glass, and my voice didn’t sound much better.
Jack sat up and pushed his hair back. His left hand clutched his pocket watch. “I transported us. Used the last of my magic, though, so we’re stuck here for a while until I recharge.”
‘Here’ was beside an old forgotten church. The windows were broken. Ivy and moss climbed the sides of the stone building. Trees and bushes had grown around it, hiding it from view. Through gaps in the trees, I saw other vague building structures. This whole area probably used to be some sort of village before it was abandoned for whatever reason.
“Recharge?” I asked.
He showed me his watch. A sun and moon overlapped each other in the design on the cover, and when he flipped it open there was only one hand on the clock face, pointing right next to the twelve. “Magicians are always leaking magic, but watches like this can catch it and store it. Then the gears inside convert the raw magic into something more malleable that I can cast spells with. All the transporting around the kingdom drained what I had stored, and it’ll take me a few hours to build it back up.”
I blinked at the watch. Looked at Jack. Looked back at the watch. “That makes no sense.”
“Magic rarely does.”
That was not an explanation, but okay. I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to figure out if my headache was because of his magic or everything else. “What now?”
“We either wait here while I recharge, or we start walking and hope we find help,” Jack said.
Neither option was appealing. We didn’t know what direction to walk in or what was around us, but waiting to transport again wasn’t guaranteed to be safer.
Jack pushed his hair back again. “I think we should rest here for a while. You’re still recovering, and now you’ve nearly drowned. We can spare a few hours to rest up.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
His mouth twisted. “No. But you need to take it easy, so we’ll make do. Come on, let’s see what the inside of this place looks like.”
He stood up and brushed off his pants, holding a hand out to me.
Sighing, I accepted the help up. My vision spun, for once unrelated to his magic. A little nap might not be a bad idea after all.
“Easy.” Jack steadied me and kept close as we searched for a way in.
Old wooden doors had rotted away, and moss covered most of the inside. We startled a few rabbits when we tripped over the steps at the threshold. The inside of the church was several feet lower than the ground outside. The broken windows and holes in the ceiling left plenty of light to see, and the center of the floor was taken up by a large pond. Dull windchimes dangled from what remained of the ceiling, but ivy strangled any sound they might have made.
“This place must have been beautiful before,” Jack said.
“They put a building around a pond,” I stated.
“Yeah, that’s a little odd.”
One of the corners furthest from the door was still intact and mostly free from debris, so I curled up with my back to the wall. Sitting was a huge relief, and closing my eyes helped my headache.
“I’ll keep watch,” Jack offered, still studying the church.
That shouldn’t have comforted me as much as it did, but I admitted knowing someone else would be awake in case anything happened was a huge relief. With any luck, there’d be a way back home when I woke up.