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Every instinct was telling htened at her words, and for a moment it felt as if I had been the one crushed by the car I was trapped and fighting for breath

I tried to expandliquid ce to stone

I squeezed hed

I openedShe couldn’t possibly knohat had happened

"My mom didn’t suffocate," I said, breathless "Why would you say that?"

"Yes, she did But you don’t remember You’ve blocked it Let e appeared into talk to us in the hallway of the antiseptic hospital wing He’d said her ribs were crushed, and she died because she couldn’t breathe

"I’m so happy you believespecial for the girl who made me think Nathanial was still alive"

She closed her eyes, and at that lass wall appeared on every side of lass box I felt cool liquid at lass I pounded on the walls and the ceiling, so hard that lass But it didn’t crack I put my hands on one wall and my feet on the opposite one and tried to use the force of opposition to break through But it didn’t work The water had reachedrapidly

Within twenty seconds of facing the queen, I was trapped in a box full of water with a locked lid

As the water crept up ulped in one last breath of air My last breath of life Glih my mind Tommy My dad Jules Jack I had failed theh the distorted view frolass, but it didn’t evento ht If it was Everneath water, I didn’t want to drink it and forget I was fighting for e, pushing and pulling The bars didn’t budge

This was it I was going to die in the worst possible ith Jack in sight but just out of reach

He was always in sight but just out of reach

Instinctively, I rose to the top of the water, to where there was maybe half an inch of air, but I couldn’t orient et a clear breath I would need a snorkel

Or a straw! I thought back to y A faint white line appeared in the water in front of er it floated there, the

My plastic straw I grabbed it and blew the last of h the straw to clear it of water and then held it against the top of the lid and sucked in a giant breath

I got one more breath in before the queen realized her mistake and filled the rest of the space ater

But I’d bought myself another twenty seconds

Twenty seconds to do what?

I could see Jack in the cage He’d stopped thrashing, and now he just had his hand raised, palm outward toward ainst the glass pane

I didn’t want to drown But at any iant lungful of water

I closed ht about my mom Maybe I would find out exactly what it felt like to be deprived of air, just as she had been Maybe I would see her soon

Suddenly I felt a knock on the glass I saw Cole’s face, sick with panic He held a large club in his hand, and the queen was hunched over behind hiers at his eyes Watch me, he mouthed

He pointed to the queen and then used his index finger to draw a heart on the glass Then he held up a paper with a drawing on it A wreath with tords crossing in thethe shape of the queen’s Surface heart, the one I’d seen when I’d faced her before The one I’d seen when she fought the queen before her I reht of Cole’s heart, it had co to me

I was out of time and out of breath I closed my eyes and pictured the queen’s heart

Suddenly, I heard a tap on the glass Her heart, a ainst the glass I focused even more on the heart, and tiny little fracture hairs broke out from the point where the heart

Water poured out of the splintered glass box, and I poured out too, the queen’s heart in h to conjure her actual heart and send it through the glass

The queen lunged for me, but it was too late I’d broken her Surface heart She paused round in a slump Her translucent skin becaht blond to gray, then to white

And then she turned to dust and bleay in a soft breeze I didn’t even realize was there

Everything she had conjured--the glass box, the cage, everything--disappeared And Jack, Cole, and I were left breathing hard through bits of dust that used to be the queen

THIRTY-SIX

NOW

The Everneath The vault

The ground beneathturned into swaying Jack pulled me up "Run!"

The walls lurched back and forth Granite-like boulders froround The Everneath was deteriorating around us, and there was no place ould be safe

Actually, there was one place

"Go to the lake!" I screamed The lake here the Tunnels were hidden--e We ran along the wall until we found a hole large enough for us to squeeze through I could see the lake up ahead

"Are you sure?" Jack said

I forgot he had no idea ere about to jump into the lake

"The lake is the entrance to the Tunnels!" I said

He didn’t even hesitate He just followed me and Cole