As I approached the rim of the sinkhole, an area still roped off with yellow tape and orange cones, something moved in the shadows off to the side. My heart skipped a beat and then leaped with joy as I recognized first Grim’s tall, gaunt form followed by Hulda’s short, hunched figure.

“She’s not breathing.” I gasped for air myself, overcome with the passage of precious moments.

“Hand me the child,” Hulda said with authority.

I did so, noticing Leira’s thin face was purplish now, and she wasn’t moving.

Hulda removed a shawl from around her shoulders and laid it on the ground. She then gently eased Leira onto it, and both she and Grim fell to their knees.

“We need to grind the seeds, the carpel, from this apple,” I said, removing it from my pocket.

A look passed between Hulda and Grim. They clearly questioned the source of the offering. Hulda then nodded to Grim, who dragged forth her medicine bag, the one she had used once upon a time to heal Jack’s burns. She opened it and removed a mortar and pestle. Meanwhile, with the sleight of hand of a magician and the skill of a surgeon, Hulda sliced the apple in half with a pocketknife and lifted out the five-pointed carpel. Grim was at the ready with the pestle and pounded at the small brown specimens, no doubt envisioning it was my head she was pummeling to a pulpy mash. She had that look in her eyes; one I recognized well.

When the seeds were ground, Hulda scooped the paste onto the tip of her baby finger and, opening Leira’s mouth, ran the substance along her gums and tongue. Nothing happened. I choked with fear and anger. Hulda and Grim proceeded with an eerie chant. Whatever it was, it made the funereal screech of a murder of crows sound light and snappy.

Then, sitting back on her heels and raising her arms to the sky with one final appeal to whatever or whomever she and Grim were beseeching, she bent down, took a deep breath, and blew one blasting puff into Leira’s tiny blue lips.

I saw her chest rise and fall like bellows, after which her mouth trembled and her entire body flinched as she gasped and sucked in air with two or three rattling breaths. And then she wailed with all the subtlety of nails on a chalkboard. Never had anything sounded so wonderful.

I thought of what the nurses had said about the ability to cry being a good sign, and I choked in my own attempt to take in air with everything else: disbelief, gratitude, relief, and joy.

“Praise be,” Hulda said, falling forward in exhaustion.

“Too close. Much, much too close.” Grim tsk-tsked and shook her head back and forth, but she dropped her arm across Hulda’s shoulders in a display of camaraderie that took me by surprise.

Hulda and Grim weren’t the only ones who were exhausted after the ordeal. I felt faint and weak; even my arms seemed too heavy to support and swung like thick chains at my sides. I was so out of it, in fact, I barely registered the fact that from behind, someone had thrown their arm around my waist in support. Jack. I had no idea how long he’d been there or where he’d come from, but it didn’t matter. He was there and, as usual, had my back. But the ordeals of the evening hadn’t been without their costs, even to him. His face was gray and tightly drawn, and he slapped at his biceps as if trying to get some circulation going.

“So it’s true, then,” Hulda said, shaking her head sadly. “You’ve both lost your powers.”

My head snapped up. Although it was as I had suspected, this was confirmation. “I . . . It . . . How did you know?”

“You are altered, Katla,” Hulda said.

There was such melancholy in her voice as she said this that I felt glum, too.

“And Jack,” she continued, “I believe, has shared in your fate, as he was destined to do.”

The mention of fate and destiny knocked the wind from my pipes. Just yesterday it had been Leira’s fate to die and take her rightful place in line for Vatnheim’s throne. Yet here she was before me, squirming with life. And, once upon a time, Hulda had told me a Native American legend about Sky Girl, who, by destiny, had been drawn to an apple tree as the ground split open. According to the tale, she had been saved by being borne away to Water World by swans. So many elements of that legend — a part-bird, part-female creature, deliverance by swans, a Water World, apple as the tree-of-life symbol — were significant. And Jack. He had once told me of an unshakable sense of fate since the moment he laid eyes on me.

“Is it permanent?” I asked, reaching for Jack’s hand.

“Yes, I suspect it is,” Hulda said. “Let this sacrifice during an act of great heroism be your consolation. I myself shall be sorry not to witness one of such potential rise in our ranks. I felt sure you were the harbinger of change our flock awaited. But your powers were meant to serve other purposes.”

Leira stretched and began a fresh volley of wails.

“It is time to return this one to the hospital,” Hulda said. “Suspicions will be roused already.”

I hadn’t thought about that. What possible excuse could I have for running off with her? The truth — healing her at a power place — wasn’t going to fly.

“Let’s go,” I said to Jack. “I’ll think of an alibi on the way.” I turned and gave Hulda a wave. Something in the sad nod she returned made my eyes well with tears. Grim stood stonily at her side. After all we’d been through, with everything I was willing to risk, I’d hoped for some small sign on her part. Oh, well. I could save the world, but other things, like Grim, were beyond my control.