The water is rising faster now--no, boiling upward--and every push of my body against the stone door feels like lifting a mountain. My shoulders scream, muscles splitting, blood slipping down my forearms as I strain to hold it open.
"Go!" I roar, choking on the bitter water already lapping at my throat. "Go!"
Evadne is first, crown clutched to her chest as the chamber groans around us. Soraya follows, then Fawn, and Altheira--but the water is up to my chin now, and I can't breathe.
"Lyra--"
"Don't look back!" I push harder. The door shudders. It's closing. I'm closing.
Then something moves beneath the surface--a hand, skeletal and cold, wrapping around my ankle. Another. A dozen more. I know it is an illusion, the powerful wards around this place bringing horrors to life, trying to pull me under as it has been for the lot of us in the last four hours, but it doesn't make the danger any less imminent.
