“Amazing,” Tal breathed when he broke the surface not far away. “This is the best day of my life. It’s amazing.”

“Clean at last,” Elan chimed in, stripping off his water-logged robe. He headed back toward the shore, half walking and half using ungainly, awkward strokes to propel himself forward. He stripped off his shirt and boots and deposited them on the ground. The bandages wrapped around his torso were ragged, caked with sand and blood, and after a second he unwrapped them, revealing an ugly mess on the skin underneath.

Tal was shrugging out of his clothes, too. “It’ll be easier to get the sand out of them like this,” he said to Jae. “They’re disgusting. Yours, too.”

He had a point. Jae ducked under again, and the heavy travel clothes pulled her down. It wasn’t dangerous out here, where the water was shallow, but if she drifted any farther…It wasn’t as if she knew how to swim. Even Elan, who’d probably been allowed to swim in the enormous reservoirs at the central cities, barely seemed to know what he was doing. Best to be safe, then, and it really was a relief when she pulled the soggy cloth over her head and off. Then her pants, still out in the shallows, more modest than Tal or Elan, who had already stripped down to his underclothes. It wasn’t until she’d tossed them toward shore that she realized that now she would be standing there nearly naked in front of Elan, the son of the Highest—

But Elan had been disowned, the burns on his chest a testament to how much power he’d lost. Jae looked over at him, and found him glancing back at her. Not staring or gaping, just glancing to see where she was. He ducked his head, looking away embarrassedly, and for a moment her heartbeat sped up, blood pulsing with—something. Pride that for once she hadn’t looked away first, or hunched down in fear. No, she didn’t want him staring at her, but what did it matter? His power was gone, but it was more than that. She had power now, but it wasn’t that, either.

Elan had never hurt her, back when she’d been helpless. He’d been disgusted with Rannith and the others. He understood why she’d killed Rannith—he seemed to understand that better than Tal, who’d been shocked and squeamish. She’d thought he was a liar, cruel like the rest of his caste, but he’d listened to her, and eventually believed her, and cared about the truth enough to break his vows. He could have obeyed his father and kept his position, his title, his family. Instead he’d given all of that up, and he’d followed her.

Elan didn’t frighten her because she trusted him.

“Look, look,” Tal called, and she turned her attention to him. “If you lie on your back, just gently, like…” He leaned back in the water and floated for a few moments before he shook a little, flailed to get his balance back, and sank under the surface.

Elan laughed and followed suit more successfully. Jae didn’t bother to try, just made her way out a little farther, to where the water was up past her waist, and sank under it. She held her breath, shut her eyes.

The water was gentle around her. Warm, calming, and—

Familiar.

Sinking through the water was strange, the press of it all around her unlike anything she’d experienced before. She couldn’t quite feel up or down, and when she unwrapped her arms from her torso, they moved slowly, awkwardly. Even so, the water sang to her, like a melody she’d heard years ago but had forgotten until now. If the barrier had been her element, but infused with alien magic, then this was the opposite. Water wasn’t her strongest element, but the magic in it was the same as the magic in the fountain, the magic that made sense to her. It was magic crafted by her ancestors, the original Closest—the Wellspring Bloodlines.

She broke back through the surface and caught her breath, then said, “This is it, the middle of the Well’s magic.”

Tal looked out at the expanse of water and said, “That makes sense.”

“I think I can learn more,” Jae said. “I need to go under. I could practically hear it when I was under the surface.”

“Anything you can learn will help,” Elan said.

Jae thrashed her way out a little farther, until she could barely scrape her feet against the bottom and keep her face above the waves, not quite willing to go deeper. The magic might have been easier to sense if she had, but she’d never been underwater before. Even just ducking under had been disorienting, and the thought of moving past where she could stand made her heart beat a little faster and her chest tighten. This would have to be deep enough.

She could feel Elan and Tal watching her as she stared out at the endless waves, bracing herself. If she was going to help Aredann, she had to know more about the Well, and she’d felt magic when she’d gone under. So she would do it again.

She took a deep breath, then plugged her nose and picked up both of her feet. She curled her knees up to her chest and sank, reaching out with her senses, groping for the Well’s magic—for its binding. There had to be one, something to keep the magic working all these generations after it had been crafted.

Power glowed all around her. She reached for it, and pain exploded in her head, shocking and familiar—

The knife’s blade glowed dark red, unnatural and angry. Saize dropped it into the fire, and flames consumed it, sparking high in reaction. Then he stood back and waved, and felt the air rush in, too. The whole room vibrated; then everything went white hot as the binding took, sealing the air and fire that made up the Curse to the knife Aredann had so kindly handed the Highest. Saize winced and waited, and the stinging heat passed.

“That’s it? The binding is done?”

“Oh, yes.” Saize could feel it now, angry tendrils of magic bound to the knife, seeking out blood. Their Curse, settling across the world.

“And you’re sure it worked?”

Saize didn’t have much patience for questions, even from his allies—but he had no doubt that it had worked. The other Highest mages were waiting outside, though this was hardly a proper room. With open walls and a view of the reservoirs on all sides, it was more of a pavilion. And with no walls to muffle sound, he could hear it when Aredann screamed.

“It definitely worked.” Aredann had been their ally, but he was a traitor to his people—he’d killed his own brother. Maybe the other Highest mages trusted him, but Saize never would. And now he’d never have to. Aredann had come from the Wellspring Bloodlines, after all. He’d known what they were doing here, but hadn’t realized he’d end up as cursed as the rest of them.