Ch. 139

Ch. 139
The water is cold and viscous, clinging to my legs like something sentient. It's barely knee-deep, but walking through it feels like trudging through half-set concrete. Something slick and quick brushes against my calf and I bite back a scream, hurrying to keep pace with Perris.
He leads us toward one of the larger trees, its massive roots forming a natural island that rises a few feet above the swamp water. With surprising strength, he helps me climb onto the gnarled surface, then hauls himself up beside me, both of us gasping with exertion.
For the first time since we fled the chamber, I get a good look at Perris Lanore. His once-perfect hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat and grime, streaked with dust that has turned muddy in the damp air. A cut on his cheek still oozes inky blood, and his dark designer clothes are torn beyond salvation. Mud coats him from the knees down, and his hands are scraped raw from our desperate climb to safety.
I must look even worse. My entire body aches from impacts I don't remember taking. My lungs burn with each breath, and my legs tremble with the aftermath of adrenaline and terror. When I touch my face, my fingers come away smeared with what might be blood or simply dirt—it's impossible to tell in this strange, gloomy light.
"We should wait here," Perris says after a moment, his voice rougher than I've ever heard it. "Professor Bellamy knows we took the eastern corridor. He and Coach will come for us when they can."
The words are meant to be reassuring, but they stir the worry I've been trying desperately to suppress. I turn toward the twisted opening we emerged from, half-expecting to see Coach's massive crimson form squeezing through to find us. The passage remains empty, silent except for the distant rumble of continuing collapse.
"What if they never do?" The question escapes before I can stop it, small and frightened in the vast strangeness of the swamp.
Perris considers this, his usual arrogance replaced by something more thoughtful, more human. "I'm pretty sure that the only thing that can beat a dragon is another dragon," he says finally, "and that big blue fucker's got that plus a sorcerer on his hands." He pauses. "Claws."
It's a terrible joke, but something in the delivery, or maybe just the sheer absurdity of our situation, pulls a sound from me that might be a laugh or a sob. My lips curve into what feels like a cheerless smirk, but it's genuine all the same.
"Thanks," I murmur, not specifying whether I'm thanking him for the attempted humor or for saving my life back in the chamber or simply for being here now. Maybe all of it.
He nods once, sharp and businesslike, then turns his attention to our surroundings. The swamp pulses with life around us—strange croaking sounds that might be frogs but somehow don't quite fit, ripples in the water that suggest movement beneath the murky surface, shadows that shift and change even when nothing seems to be moving. Every now and then, a bubble rises from the depths and bursts with a soft pop, releasing a puff of luminescent spores into the already glowing mist.
We sit in tense silence, backs pressed against the trunk of our refuge tree, watching and waiting as the swamp breathes around us. I strain my ears for any sound that might be Coach or Bellamy approaching, but hear only the alien symphony of this impossible place—and beneath it all, the distant, continuous rumble of the vault collapsing behind us, burying our way back.
The silence between us stretches thin as spidersilk, fragile and tense. Perris shifts on our gnarled tree island, his expensive shoes squelching with swamp water as he repositions himself. When he finally breaks the quiet, his voice is carefully neutral, as if he's asking about the weather and not upending the foundations of his reality. "So... Coach Caldere is a dragon."
I nod, not trusting my voice yet. My throat feels raw from breathing in dust and screaming during our escape, and the words seem to stick there, reluctant to emerge.
"And you knew this," he continues, his tone still conversational, though I catch the slight tremor beneath it.
I nod again, wrapping my arms around my knees as I watch ripples spread across the murky water. Something is moving beneath the surface—something large enough to displace water in slow, deliberate patterns.
Perris runs a hand through his ruined hair, leaving it sticking up at odd angles. The gesture is so far from his usual calculated perfection that it momentarily distracts me from the danger of this conversation. "How long have you known?" he asks.
I clear my throat, wincing at the scratch of it. "Do you remember the igneous lizard incident during the decathlon ceremony?"
His eyes widen slightly, recognition flaring behind the exhaustion. "That was months ago. Put the Dean in a tailspin. He had the student council up for days running crowd control."
"Yeah, well, you have Coach to thank for that," I say, picking at a loose thread on my mud-caked pants.
"Wait." Perris turns to face me fully, his moss-green eyes searching my face. "Are you saying Coach knew about the lizard?"
The corner of my mouth twitches in what might be amusement under different circumstances. "He was the lizard," I correct him. "He came onto campus looking for me, but Professor Bellamy glamoured everyone into thinking it was just a harmless accident."
Perris's jaw goes slack, and for once in his privileged life, he seems completely at a loss for words. I watch the information work its way through his brain, rewriting his understanding of a million different interactions he’s had since that day.
Then Perris Lanore stares at me as if I’ve utterly lost my mind.