"Shit."

Gav reached her at a full sprint, dropping to his knees beside her so hard his kneecaps cracked against stone. Her lips were blue. Her skin was the color of ash. Blood was on the ground around her in a pattern that told a story he never wanted to read.

His jaw clenched so tight the muscle jumped.

He didn’t ask. He didn’t hesitate.

Gav unzipped the top half of her training suit with swift, precise fingers, then unzipped his own. He pulled her against his bare chest and wrapped his body fully around hers, arms locking tight, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other pressed flat against her spine. The heat of him was immediate, scalding compared to her frozen skin, and her body reacted before her mind could catch up: she curled into him, face pressing into his chest, fingers clutching weakly at his sides.

She didn’t have the strength to move or argue or pretend she didn’t need him. His arms held her as though the world itself had no right to take her.

"I leave you alone for five minutes," he said lightly. "And this is what I find."

"Thank you," she whispered, barely shaping the word.

Her breath was warm against his skin. The shivers wracking her body transferred directly into his, and he absorbed every one, holding tighter, pressing his warmth into her as though he could reverse what the lake had done through sheer physical will.

"The mages are going to be upset that you beat them here," she added, voice still a whisper. "You finished the puzzles the second fastest."

"Don’t tell anyone, Frostborne. I have an image to maintain."

She let out a laugh that turned into a cough.

Gav’s throat tightened. His jaw ached. She was so thin in his arms. So light. The woman who had cracked open a continent and negotiated with a foreign queen and walked off a ceiling and dove into a frozen lake was shaking against his chest like something breakable, and the disconnect between what she was and what she weighed threatened to undo him in a way he was entirely unprepared for.

"Fuck, you’re cold. Can you use your magic to heat things? Assuming you’ve tried, but hey, I don’t want to rule anything out."

She lurched away from him, staggering towards the cave wall, braced her hands against the stone, and threw up blood. Red blood. Not gold. Violent. Wrenching. The sound of it echoed off the crystal walls, and Gav was beside her before the echo faded.

"Serena."

She tried to push him away, her hand trembling against his chest, weak enough that a child could have held her there.

"I’m here." He put his hand on her back and held it there, steady and warm, refusing to move. "I’m right here. I’m going nowhere."

Gav had seen her use magic hundreds of times. He’d seen her pass out and be pushed past her limits before. He hadn’t seen her throw up blood like this. This was something else. Something that made alarm bells ring in his mind.

Serena straightened slowly. Unsteady but upright. Her breath was ragged. The color had returned to her lips, barely, but her eyes still held that glassy sheen of a woman running on fumes.

She pulled her training suit over her arms, then zipped up the back, hands shaking. Gav zipped his, without looking away from her.

She turned towards the lake.

He caught her arm before she could take a step.

"Serena. Are you pranking me right now? I need you to know if you are, it’s working."

"I wasn’t able to get the token. We need it like the last one, Gav." Her voice was quiet. Raw from blood and cold. "I have to go back."

"I’ll get it," Gav said immediately. He already knew the answer, but the words left him before the logic could intercept them.

Serena shook her head once. "It will only release for me."

"You don’t know that."

"I do."

He stared at her. She stared back. Behind her eyes, beneath the exhaustion and the pain and the glacial composure she wore like armor, there was a certainty that didn’t bend. She knew because she knew, the same way she knew which direction to run in the blizzard.

"Give yourself a minute," Gav said. More command than request. "Just breathe."

She nodded faintly, though he could see in her eyes she was only agreeing to keep him from worrying.

She took three long breaths. Four. On the fifth, the color in her face steadied. She looked at the lake. The ice was two-thirds of the way across the surface now, closing fast. In another few minutes, the window would be gone entirely.

"Gav," she said, without looking at him. "If I don’t come back up—"

"Pick a different sentence."

"Gav."

"I said pick a different sentence, Serena. That one doesn’t exist. Did you really think I would let you go down there alone? Obviously I’m swimming for the both of us. Like we did last time."

She looked at him. Something moved behind her eyes that he couldn’t name and she wouldn’t let him see.

"Okay," she said softly. She couldn’t do it alone, even with her magic. She had met her limit and she knew it.

She held his gaze for two seconds.

At that moment, Aeron was pushed through the stone wall, violently. He rolled on the ground smiling the entire time.

Serena and Gav looked at one another.

"Are you alright?" Serena asked.

"I’m excellent," he said. He stood. Dusted himself off. Then his eyes landed on Gavriel. "Hyran thinks you have the intelligence of a chimpanzee."

"He’s mentioned it a time or two," Gav said lightly.

"You have him fooled. Not me. I always knew it." Aeron looked at Serena next. "You I expected to win. Though I thought we’d at least tie for first place. But I’m still the smartest mage so I suppose that’s a win."

"Can you warm her with magic?" Gav asked. "We’re on a time crunch."

"Oh yes," Aeron said, making his way towards them.

At that moment, Dex, Fin in wolf form, Hyran, and Maelor were shoved through the wall Aeron had just come from, the maze spitting them out with the force of a building clearing its throat.

Xeon’s eyes found Serena first, his entire body rigid. The fury that ripped through their matebond was so hot Serena flinched. He was upset about something.

Dex’s eyes found her second, the color of molten wolf-gold.

"Whatever you did, Serena," Maelor clipped from the ground. "Caused both of your boyfriends to shift. Only one has shifted back."

"She’s my wife," Dex growled, his voice no longer singular.

Before anyone could speak, the lake moved.

A massive tentacle shot out of the water, moving in a blur of shadow. It hooked around Serena’s waist, the impact knocking every ounce of air from her lungs, and yanked her off the shore, pulling her under.

She vanished beneath the freezing water in a flash of white hair and sapphire light.

Gone. Just like that.

Gav was closest to her and didn’t think.

He dove.

Xeon tore through the chamber at Alpha speed and launched into the lake.

Dex dove in behind him.

Three men. No magic. Freezing water. A creature older than the temple holding the woman all three of them loved in the dark at the bottom of a lake.

They went anyway.