They were in a tunnel, that much was plain, for their fall brought them periodically into contact with one wall or another, bouncing back and forth like balls in a machine. Finally, their backs settled into a groove that seemed to have been carved for that very purpose, for it was smooth and polished, like a playground slide made of ice or chilled granite. Zib’s hair grabbed at the stone, in its usual, uncivilized manner, until several strands were pulled out and left behind, and the rest of her hair retreated to the safer tangles near her head. Avery howled, slapping the Crow Girl several times in his panic, so that she lost her grip on him and fell away. Almost immediately, Zib’s hand found his in the darkness, and they held each other tightly, not letting go.
Down and down and down they fell, until the air thickened into fog around them once more and their fall became a plummet, the slide vanishing from beneath their bodies, replaced by nothing but empty air. The Crow Girl gasped and burst into birds. Zib’s shrieks of delight became a howl of fear. Avery screamed harder.
Two children struck the surface of the freezing water, hard enough to force their bodies some distance below the surface, into the depths. The crows circled above it, cawing panic, even as the fog began to clear, revealing the snowcapped peaks of jagged mountains that jutted from the earth like the claws of some forgotten beast.
A girl stood on the shore, looking at the water with solemn eyes. The crows landed all around her, cawing frantically.
“Well, yes, I can,” said the girl. “But if I do, it will certainly attract attention, and I’ll need you to go and see what comes on the mountain roads. Can you do that?”
The crows cawed assent and rose into the air, dispersing in all directions, until it was as if they had never been there at all. The girl watched them go for a moment. Then she walked into the water, never flinching at the chill. She did not swim; the water offered no resistance. She simply strolled, like the improbable road was somehow rising up to meet her.
Avery and Zib, having crashed together and grabbed hold as they fell, were still holding tight to one another’s hands. This made it difficult for them to swim, and both of them knew, without being able to say anything about it, that they would have been better off letting go. It is difficult to swim when suddenly dropped from a great height into a dark, icy lake. The shock alone is more than the body wants to bear. It is even more difficult to do so when holding on to someone else’s hand, however beloved they may be. Avery and Zib had not yet found their way to loving one another, but they had more than found their way to the fear of being in this strange new world alone, and so they held on and tried to swim at the same time, deep and drowning and afraid.
When hands grasped the collars of their shirts, both stiffened but did not try to break away. Avery assumed it was the Crow Girl, come to save them once again, as she had in the mudslide. Zib assumed it was the Queen of Swords, having changed her mind about the shrillness of Zib’s screaming. Either way, it would get them out of the water, and so they stopped fighting, stopped thrashing, and let themselves be pulled from the depths.
The girl walked out of the water as easily as she had walked in, dragging the two children with her. When they were safely free of the lake, she let them go, and they collapsed, coughing and wheezing and spitting up water, while she watched from a polite distance.
Avery was the first to recover. He was very fond of baths, and laundry, and anything else that left him clean, after all, and while the lake had been colder than a winter bath, he was young and inclined to briskness. He spat out the last traces of lake water and clambered to his feet, wiping wet hands on wet trousers before turning to offer Zib his hands.
Zib, it should be said, was much the worse for wear. She was not as fond of baths, or cleanliness, as Avery was; viewed them, for the most part, as necessary evils. Her hair was matted down against her head, as heavy with water as a sponge, and her skirt clung to her legs like the scales of a mermaid. She took Avery’s hands despite that, letting him pull her to her feet, wobbling and leaning against him for the strength she no longer seemed to have.
“Where’s the Crow Girl?” she asked, glancing to the lake with some alarm. She was cold and she was tired and she wasn’t sure she’d ever see the surface again if she dove in even one more time.
“She went to scout the mountain roads,” said an unfamiliar voice.
Zib and Avery turned.
The girl was very pale, with waterweeds in her hair and tangled around her toes. Her feet were bare, and all of her glistened with a silvery sheen, like she had been dusted in glitter and set out into the world to see what could be seen.
“Who are you?” asked Avery.
“What are you?” asked Zib, forgetting her manners in the face of her awe. Avery stuck an elbow in her side, but it was too late: the question had been asked.
“My name is Niamh,” said the girl. “I pulled you out of the water. I come from a city deep beneath the surface of a lake, in a place so cold that the ice only thaws once every hundred years.”
“People don’t live under lakes,” said Avery. “There’s no air. Only water. People don’t breathe water.”
“Oh, but you see, the people where I’m from don’t breathe at all.” Niamh smiled, showing teeth like pearls. “And only when the ice melts do we come up to the surface to see how other people live. But while I was on the shore gathering stones, a storm came, and the Page of Frozen Waters appeared, and snatched me up, and carried me to the King of Cups. He’s a very cruel king, and he kept me for so long that the ice froze solid again, and now I’m just a drowned girl with no city at all, until the next time the thaw comes.”
“A hundred years is a very long while,” said Avery. He couldn’t let himself think too hard about the way her skin glistened, or her claims to come from a place where people didn’t breathe. Surely she was kidding. “Won’t you be too old then to swim?”
“Not at all. When I’m home, I don’t breathe, and when I’m here, I don’t age. That way, I can always make it back to the ice, if I’m clever.”
Zib, though, had what felt like a more important question. “Who is the Page of Frozen Waters?”
Niamh sobered. “She is the worst of all the King’s subjects, because she loves him and hates him at the same time, and would do anything to please him. She commands the crows, and they do her bidding. For him, she gathers every strange thing that comes into the Up-and-Under, even stealing them from under the nose of the Queen of Swords, who is wicked in her own way, but never so much as the King of Cups. The Page will gather you, if you’re not careful.”
Avery and Zib exchanged a glance and stepped closer together, suddenly afraid of this glittering girl, and of everything her presence might entail.
Avery thought of the Crow Girl, of her promise that the skeleton key and its lock would allow them to pass over the protectorate of the King of Cups without attracting his attention. But here they were, soaked and cold and on their own, and he knew—knew—that they hadn’t passed over the King’s protectorate at all. They had fallen right down into the middle of it, and the Crow Girl had vanished.
Zib thought of the Crow Girl as well, but she thought of the way the girl had tried to help them, the way she had broken into birds and fled, the way she had balked at the idea of control by kings or queens of any kind. The Page of Frozen Waters must have been her greatest nightmare, and if she never came back, Zib didn’t know if she’d be able to blame her, and if she never came back, Zib didn’t know if she’d be able to forgive her, either. It was all so complicated, and she was cold. So cold.