A memory resurfaced, just a flash. Once, when she was very young, she and some other children had gotten themselves trapped in a mining tunnel. It was a similar situation: stuck with a limited air supply, where she was the only one able to do anything. One boy had yelled at her in the dark, blaming her and her magic. She was the reason they were stuck there, she was the reason they would die. Others had tried to comfort her, but the boy had been right. She was the only one among them who could help in any way.

She’d tried to use her magic to move the rocks away, to clear a path to the surface, but she was young. Her magic was still so new. She couldn’t do it. Ultimately, it was her mother who found them and freed them.

Wynona curled her hand into a fist. Her mother wasn’t here now. She hadn’t been for a long, long time.

Wynona felt along the glass face, searching for the largest crack, the weakest point. She found a perfect candidate spattered near the bottom center. The lightheadedness began to creep in. She shook it away, fought against it, focusing all of her power on her hands.

The hum intensified in her fingers. And so did the light. There was a physical reaction in using her powers, hard to explain but substantial. It felt infinite as it flowed through her, using her as the conductor. From her fingertips, she felt the glass respond. Heard it pop and crack and creak as the pressure against it increased.

Wyn squinted against the light emanating in front of her. She wondered if it had ever been this bright before, unable to recall a time that reckoned with this, knowing she had never pushed herself this hard. As the thought passed through her, her lungs began to tighten. She couldn’t hold her breath much longer. Her cheeks puffed up, straining. Over her thundering heart, she heard Pelican’s low drone, dangerously close.

Just a little more. The words spiraled in her mind as she remembered her mother, her friends, her small self in that cave.

Crack!

The glass split beneath her fingers with a sudden burst, its smooth face clouding as it split into a thousand little fractions. With a pull, the cabin filled rapidly with water, sucking Wynona into its vacuum. It was disorienting. Bits of glass floated around her, cut her, caught in her thick hair. The glow of her hands died away instantly, the surge of her power cut off now that the glass was broken.

She fumbled blindly in the dark, hands finding the body just as the cockpit’s emergency light began to flash a brilliant red. With a sharp flicker of irritation, she considered punching the light out—where, she wondered, had it been when she really needed it? But it would be a waste of energy. They’d both run out of air if she didn’t hurry.

In the fading, rhythmic emergency light, Wyn unfastened the pilot’s belts, tugging him free. The weightlessness of the water helped, but the man was out cold and far bigger than his brother.

It was no easy task, tugging a mass with a weight twice her size towards the surface. She kicked and paddled and felt her muscles burn with exertion, but it was slow. Too slow. Unable to hold it in anymore, her last bit of air burst from Wynona’s mouth.

She looked pleadingly at the surface. So close. Nearly close enough to reach out and touch...

“Loch!”

Wynona opened her mouth as her head broke the surface, gasping for air. Salt water kicked and splashed down her throat as the boy shouted for his brother. Wynona turned to him, coughing violently, as the boy leapt from the plateau to help. She struggled to keep a hold on the pilot and keep herself above the choppy waves. But when the boy took hold of his brother’s wrist, it became easier. The weight, when shared, became manageable. Together, with burning muscles and salt-raw throats, Wynona and the boy managed to grab hold of the plateau’s softening ledge and heave themselves up.

For a long moment, Wynona coughed and sputtered, the sound of the storm raging in her ears. When she looked one way, out at the sea, the water was the darkest she had ever seen it; when she looked the other, it was to watch the boy rolling his brother on his back.

Brows knit together, the boy’s hands hovered, unsure of what to check, where to start. Wynona was unsure if the wet on his cheeks was from the rain, or if they were tears. Wynona stood, ignoring the burning pain in her hand, and staggered to them, kneeling at the pilot’s side.

The boy looked at her, gasping. “W-wait, you’re bleeding.”

Wynona ignored him. She was well aware of that fact, and had decided, obviously, to deal with it later. First she felt for his pulse in his wrist, peeling back the sticking, tight fabric of his uniform. Warm skin met cold. Unsure, she pressed her hand to his neck, and felt the flutter of heartbeat. Signs of life.

“H-he was under a long time,” the boy said, voice shaking. “Do you—”

His words were cut off as Wynona pressed two firm hands to his chest and pushed. The ocean could be callous. It could sweep a man out in a riptide, could knock your head off a person’s shoulder with a wave’s impact, could hold a person under for a second too long. It could kill. She was no stranger to that fact. More than once, she’d seen people taken. But sometimes they could be saved.

She pumped at the pilot’s chest, pinched his nose, and blew air in through his mouth, her movements quick and clinical. The boy watched in frozen silence, breath held. One round, two rounds, three rounds, four. Wynona’s arms, still aching from fighting the current, shook as she pumped at the man’s chest a fifth time, blood seeping through her makeshift bandage.

She flinched hard and fell backwards when his muscles constricted without warning under her hand.

It was as if he’d been shocked back to life. Immediate and sudden, the pilot curled in on himself, coughing, salt water spilling from his mouth. His face contorted, twisted in pain. With a groan, he opened his eyes against the falling rain, looking blearily between the two of them.

“You’re alive,” the boy sighed, relief palpable in his voice. “Oh my god.”

Those were magic words. Wynona shut her eyes and breathed an unsteady sigh of relief.

The pilot pushed himself up slowly, his brother helping to support him. He held a hand to his chest, lungs surely aching beneath his skin. He looked to Wynona questioningly, but before he could form a word of thanks, he looked with wide eyes to the ocean—to the smaller mech bobbing away in the water, and the absence of a much larger vessel.

“Where’s my mech,” the pilot asked, looking to his brother, whose smile faded a bit. “What happened? What—”

“She saved us,” the boy said, eyes flitting to Wynona. “Pelican attacked and…”

They both looked at her. The boy, with some small pride; his brother, with unsure desperation.

“Thank you,” the pilot finally said, voice grating weakly.

Wynona’s relieved smile faltered a bit. He didn’t look very relieved to be alive, if you asked her. Hesitantly, his eyes lingered on the sea, he looked more worried than anything else; aware of his own mortality, and just a little bit afraid. Wynona supposed that was normal. He did almost just die after all.

Just as slowly, the pilot said, “We’d better get back to Gwen and the others—”

“We’d better get you to the infirmary,” the boy said pointedly.

“Can you stand?” Wynona asked.

The pilot nodded, and with some assistance from his brother, staggered to his feet, both of them wet and shivering and stained with wet clay. Wynona scooped up her net from where it had caught on a rock and slung it over her shoulder. When she turned to the brothers, they were speaking quietly to each other, their words lost beneath the storm.

“Come on,” she called to them, voice contending with the pick-up of the wind. “I’ll bring you back to town. Careful. It’ll be slick.”