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So instead of using my powers to try and blast ure out as going on, I could thinkand decided to skewer ain, this tiers It was an open weave, the material fashioned into squares with centers that I could stick h and then watch as they came out on the other side I poked and prodded at it a little bit, tried to figure out if there were any openings bigger than the one-inch-by-one-inch squares, but I didn’t find any And that’s when it hit ht In a net

Before I could panic, Sabyn stepped up to ainst et away, there was nowhere for er and I felt a sharp pain I looked down and saw a little splash ofI saw before the world went dark

Chapter 15

When I woke up, it was dark I was sitting on the ground, s hitunderwater Two, that there was so s instead of a tail And finally, that I was crazy sick--head throbbing, sto in about aif I’d so else, I sed five or six tiet the nausea under control I’d puked once underwater, right after I had become a mermaid, and it had been a terribly unpleasant experience and one I definitely didn’t want to repeat … especially considering I was chained to a wall

When sing back the nausea didn’t work, I tried the old deep-breathing trick, but water didn’t work quite the way oxygen did and I ended up choking, which only made my need to hurl aexceptionally sorry for ainst the wall and tried not to cry It wasn’t easy After all, I had completely screwed up this time around The only positive side was that Sabyn hadn’t killedfor Tiamat, who probably wanted to do the honors herself And since I was pretty sure I hadn’t developed any neers--like ripping chains out of walls withfor her

After I got over the panic, which I adure out where I was I couldn’t see hoas going to ht? And since anything was a step up fro chained in a bikini by a et

It was still dark, the only light co froh, probably because I was, so the purple glow it cast didn’t go very far But it was better than nothing, so I turned my head and strained to see

I followedthe wall, found an iron cla into the stones It rapped around ht wrist had been given the same treatment and that chains extended from both cuffs and wrapped around e metal loop e was for sure I ell and truly bound

Next I gave myself leave to explore whatever other parts of the rooh stone floor beneath my butt and the wall next to me, which had another set of restraints e correctly And they looked ancient, at least as old as the ones holding eon, a small rabbit warren of rooms that had been carved into the ocean floor centuries before I was even born I’d been down here only once before, when I had been exploring the castle and had taken a wrong turn I had freaked out when I sahat looked like medieval torture chambers, complete with equipment, and had all but flown to Hailana to demand ent on down there She’d reassured me, told me that they were just a part of the castle’s history and that no one had been held down here for well over a century

Trust Sabyn to decide to change all that

Now that I knehere I was, panic was creeping in, replacing the sickness and the self-pity with an ani every ounce of self-control I had not to strain and thrash against the chains The only thing keeping e that it wouldn’t work--and that I’d only end up in worse shape than I was already in Sooing to get ht hiood shape