I lowered us until our feet settled into the sand, then let the spell go and took a breath.
Mei looked up at me.
Of course she noticed.
I just wanted her to ignore me for a while. Pretend I didn't exist so I could reboot or something.
"What do you wanna do, Tero?"
"I, um… Just a second, okay?"
She nodded and looked toward the water.
The waves came in gently, spreading around our feet before pulling the sand out from underneath them. Farther along the shore, little birds hurried after whatever the water left behind.
Mei watched them.
I stood there trying to make myself want to speak.
This was kinda what I'd asked for, but now I was wondering whether she was quiet because she understood or because I'd made her uncomfortable.
"We, um… could swim if you want."
My voice was as dead as the tutorial zombies.
"…Of course."
Hers had lost some light too.
I wanted to say something better. Put an arm around her, kiss her, do any of the things I'd been thinking about before the date.
Instead, I watched a bit of foam disappear into the sand.
"…Can I show you something?"
She asked carefully enough that it made my stomach tighten.
"Of course, Mei."
I walked closer.
She went to the water's edge and started singing.
I couldn't understand the language. I wasn't even sure there were words in it. The sounds flowed into each other, carrying little changes in mana that I could feel against my skin.
I listened.
After a while, something moved beneath the water.
A broad, dark shape approached through the shallows, disturbing the sand as it came. Then a massive crab pulled itself up onto the beach.
Its back was obscenely large.
There was enough space for both of us to sit on it comfortably, and its claws looked capable of taking apart a carriage.
Mei rested a hand against the edge of its shell.
"…You called a ride?"
A little laugh escaped me.
She smiled.
"Mhm."
She climbed onto its back, finding places for her feet between the ridges.
"But that's not the thing…"
"A true secret, then?"
"Yah."
I lifted myself up beside her and settled onto the shell.
It was warmer than I expected.
The crab shifted beneath us, its legs finding place in the wet sand, and Mei leaned close enough that our shoulders touched.
"It's because I, um… You met our elder, right? Gunther?"
"Yah. He was interesting."
"I asked if I could tell you. Our tribe found something in the Abyss."
I turned toward her.
"A raid."
"A raid? Really?"
"Mhm. Miles and miles out. There was a door at the bottom of the sea."
"No shot."
I laughed again, sitting up straighter.
The dullness in my head cleared enough that I could actually think of things I wanted to say.
A door.
At the bottom of the fucking Abyss.
Whatever lived down there had to be insane.
"Do you know the levels? What's in there?"
The crab started moving toward the water.
A faint shimmer spread over its shell, rising around us until it formed a clear dome. The first wave broke against the outside and slid away.
Mei watched me for a moment before answering.
"Level sixty. There were different kinds of leviathans, at least just inside."
"Ohh, man. I've wanted to hunt one for a while."
I leaned forward as the crab carried us beneath the surface.
"What a challenge. Imagine getting a whole group together for something that big."
"Well… they're all different."
She rubbed her fingers along a little groove in the shell.
There was something else she wanted to say.
"What?"
"Leviathans are smart creatures, Tero. Don't just go killing them."
"…You know humans can, like, see souls, right? It's kinda all the same."
She went quiet.
Then nodded.
"…Okay."
That was it?
I wished she'd fight back a little. Tell me what she meant instead of leaving me to figure out what I'd apparently brushed off.
Was she talking about all of them? Certain ones? Were there whole groups of giant fucking sea creatures we were supposed to leave alone?
I didn't know.
This was a Jane question.
I looked out through the dome while Mei kept her hand against the crab.
Sunlight moved over the sand in bright, uneven bands. Little fish scattered ahead of us, gathering again once the crab passed. A pale ribbon of bubbles slipped up the outside of our shelter and vanished overhead.
For a while, I could still see the shore through the water.
Then the ground started dropping away.
The crab followed it.
Sand gave way to darker stone, with long strands of growth moving in the current. The light thinned until everything outside was the same dull blue.
I looked up.
The surface was farther away than I expected.
"Hey, um… How deep are we going?"
"I don't know."
I turned toward her.
"You don't know?"
She was looking outward, though I couldn't tell what had her attention.
"I feel like down here it's kinda… perfect."
The crab kept moving.
Behind us, the last patch of pale sand disappeared.
"Maybe. I prefer the sky, though. Up there, it's freedom in any direction. You can see the whole world."
"…I don't think I want all that."
Her fingers brushed my arm.
"It's just too much."
"That's too much, but the depths of this terrifying ocean aren't?"
She didn't answer immediately.
The dome gave a soft creak.
Or something outside did.
I couldn't tell, which made it considerably fucking worse.
"It's nice down here," she said eventually. "Billy will have our backs if anything happens."
"Billy?"
"The crab."
"Oh."
I looked down at the shell beneath us.
Billy was a reassuringly solid thing to sit on.
He was also a crab.
I wasn't entirely sure how much protection I should be expecting from a crab if one of those ship-sized shadows decided to come over.
The light kept fading.
Mei's hand moved against the shell, but I lost sight of it before she finished.
A few seconds later, I could barely make out her face.
Then that went too.
I tightened my grip on the edge beside me.
Nothing outside the dome was visible anymore. I could still feel us moving, hear the occasional scrape of Billy's feet, but there was no way to judge how far we'd gone.
Or how much farther the seabed might fall.
There could have been a wall ten feet away.
There could have been nothing for miles.
Something touched the outside of the bubble.
A little tap.
I turned toward it instantly.
Nothing.
Probably a fish.
Probably.
I started gathering mana before I'd even decided what I wanted to cast.
A light would have helped me see. It would also have made us a very noticeable little glowing snack in an otherwise pitch-black ocean.
Fuck that.
I let the mana settle again.
"Who, um…"
I stared into the dark.
For a second, I thought I saw two pale points looking back.
I blinked.
Gone.
"…found it?"
"The raid?"
"Yah."
"I don't know. I only found out when the chief told me."
"Ahh. Okay."
Her voice came from right beside me.
That helped.
Then something low and distant passed through the water.
It lasted long enough that I stopped breathing to listen.
A groan, maybe. Something shifting against stone. Something alive.
I waited for it to come again.
It didn't.
The dome felt very small.
I'd been in dark caves before. At least in a cave, I could find a wall. Put my back against something. Know which direction an attack would have to come from.
Here, I couldn't even see the thing keeping the ocean out.
Mei leaned against my arm.
I could feel her softness, the weight of her shoulder, her hand settling over mine.
That was the only way I knew where she was.
"…Hey, Mei?"
"Mhm?"
She hugged my arm a little closer.
"I'm sorry… Can we go somewhere with a little more light?"
There was a pause.
"…Okay."
I couldn't see her expression.
Her hand stayed where it was.
Billy changed direction beneath us, and I held still, waiting for something outside to become visible again.
It took longer than I wanted.
First, the dark turned blue.
Then I could make out the edge of the dome.
Then Mei's shoulder, her ears, the side of her face.
She was looking ahead.
I tried to read something from that and got nowhere.
By the time we reached a shallower shelf, I could finally breathe without thinking about it.
"Here?"
"Yah. Here's good."
Billy settled beside a broad patch of seagrass.
Small fish moved through it in flashes of silver, disappearing between the blades whenever his shadow passed over them. Farther away, red and orange growth covered a low ridge of stone.
Mei leaned against me again.
This time, I put my arm around her without having to think so hard about it.
"Thank you."
"Mhm."
We watched the fish.
One came close to the dome, hovered there, then darted away. Mei followed it with her eyes.
After a while, she started humming.
Very softly.
Billy shifted one leg and settled farther into the sand.
I looked down at him.
"Did you ask him to stop here?"
"Yah."
"Does he mind?"
She rested her palm on his shell.
"He would tell me."
I watched her hand for a moment.
There was something about her appreciation of nature that felt different from what I'd seen in the druids.
Jane could turn a room into a forest if she had enough mana. Grow something to shelter us, bind an enemy, or keep a wounded person alive. Her magic reached outward with a purpose, and she always seemed to be watching what needed protecting.
Mei had sung, and Billy came.
I hadn't seen a command in it.
Whatever passed between them, I'd only caught the edges.
Sheral's magic felt different again. I'd heard her voice change when she prayed, felt the certainty in it when a barrier formed around somebody she refused to lose.
Merlin could catch a falling slab of stone and hold it there. I could follow the forces involved, even when I couldn't have managed them myself.
And Rowan…
I'd watched him keep feeding a flame until whatever resisted it finally gave way. He meant what he said about imposing his will.
We all used mana.
But somewhere beneath the spells and the numbers, each of us seemed to understand what we were doing differently.
My own magic was full of paths, anchors, and things I wanted to connect. I could spend hours working out exactly where a line should go, then feel ridiculously pleased when it behaved the way I'd imagined.
Mei sat beside me with her hand against Billy's shell, humming while little fish wandered through the grass.
I wondered what casting felt like to her.
Whether she thought about any of this at all.
Maybe she had rules and structures I just couldn't recognize yet. Maybe Billy's answer was as clear to her as a spell circle was to me.
I looked out across the shelf.
A fish vanished beneath a rock. Something with too many little legs hurried after it, then apparently reconsidered.
Mei laughed quietly.
I felt her shoulders move against me.
For once, I didn't need to think of something to say.
I could sit here.
Hold her.
Watch.
And looking around, the magic of nature felt far more beautiful to me than the magic of my mind.