The woman's scream was cut short as she was dragged beneath the water. She had been too close to the shore, unaware of the danger.
"Get up the hill!" Syrce ordered, but there was no need.
The soldiers were already scrambling to take a defensive position behind what was left of the palace's outer wall.
The water creatures had gotten bold. Having snagged a few of the spiders, they must have tried their luck with taking humans, too.
Noble watched the water in silent contemplation. Something was wrong. No other tentacles groped the rocky shore. Noble couldn't even sense the creature that had made the attack.
What she did feel after a moment made her eyes go wide. Something was shooting toward the surface like a rocket.
Suddenly, the soldier surfaced, gasping for air near the middle of the lake.
Noble didn't give her time to swim to shore. She immediately lifted the Awakened woman into the air and brought her to the waiting arms of her friends and colleagues. The woman fell to one knee with her hands wrapped around her ankle.
"Acua!" Syrce pushed her way through the crowd. "What happened?"
The woman looked at her commander, still reeling from the shock. "I am not sure. I was dragged below the water. That itself was not an issue. My power allows me to get air from the water."
Noble's eyes opened wider as she heard the claim.
'That's a power anyone in the House of Night would be overjoyed to have.'
Acua coughed, and water spilled onto the ground. Even if she hadn't needed to breathe, it seemed her body had still tried.
When she regained her composure, she continued.
"I was pulled deep, as if the thing that got me was unsure how to swim and was using me as a buoy, but instead we both sank like an anchor. I thrashed against it in the dark water, but it would not release me. But then…" Acua paused, trying to collect her thoughts.
Noble tried to wait, her instincts telling her that there was no time to waste.
Syrce was anxious too, glancing over the wall at the eerily still water. "But then?" she coaxed.
"I am not sure how to explain it. About the time I felt I should have reached the bottom, gravity seemed to shift. Up was down, and down was up. I know that is what happens underwater naturally as you lose directionality, but this was different. I could feel the shift and how it was pulling on me."
Acua's hair dripped against her face, the clear water cascading down her cheeks like tears.
"I looked down to where the ground should be and instead observed the full moon, whole and beautiful like a shining pearl a the bottom of a sea. When I looked up, I could make out the broken moon here."
Noble furrowed her brow. She and Flint had noticed the discrepancy in the moons two nights before, but only from the surface.
"I hovered between the up and down, pushing against my attacker when my sword finally caught up with my sinking body." Acua lifted the blade with one hand. "I took it and slashed at the creature in the dark, freeing myself from its clutches. Then I swam with all my might toward the broken moon. Somehow, I escaped to make it back here."
The tale was odd, but Noble what was even more concerning was the red liquid mixing with the dripping liquid.
"You are bleeding," Noble pointed to the woman's closed palms.
"That's not my blood," Acua shook her head. "I cut the monster, but part of it held onto me."
The woman pried the object from her ankle and held it up in the moonlight. She screamed a second time, only to be cut short as Helie lunged and covered her mouth.
Acua dropped the object on the ground.
It was a human hand.
"I…didn't know! I thought it was a monster!" She spoke through Helie's hand between hysterical sobs.
Her horror was real. Had she somehow murdered one of her companions who was only looking for someone to bring them to shore?
Thankfully, the woman's hysteria was cut short as the hand began to dissolve into a black mist. It snaked towards the bundle tucked under Noble's arm, disappearing without a trace.
"An Other?" Syrce whispered.
Acua pushed away Helie's hand from her mouth. "A what?"
"The monsters from the mirror. That was one of them. Or at least part of one of them. But how?" Syrce continued to stare at the spot where the hand had been.
All traces of blood were gone.
"The moon…" Noble muttered.
"What?" Aether looked up.
"The full moon powers this place in some magical way. You assumed the only way to get from one version of the land to the other was by pulling us through. But what if there is another path between them?" Noble felt Roan's emotions spike.
"The lake?"
Child of Promise nodded. "I saw that the moon looked wrong the other night, but I assumed it was a trick of the water or an illusion. Now I think I was really seeing straight through to the other side and the other moon."
"You are saying that the two worlds are connected through the water? How can that be? There used to be a city there, didn't there?" Roan had been to Bastion many times in the present day. He had seen the bottom of the lake for himself.
"The moon. It powers the connection. It must also connect the two places through the reflections of the water." Syrce reached for her now-absent necklace.
She seemed to be missing the Advisor and his wealth of information about the palace.
Noble frowned, her eyes opening a little wider. "You can't still hear him, can you?"
Thankfully, the Saint understood her question without her having to explain.
"No, but I can almost feel him. I am still connected to him, but I'm blocking him out."
Noble was concerned about that development, but she was far more concerned about the implications of all they had just found.
An Other's hand on this side of the two worlds meant that Syrce had not sealed the terrifying copies in false Bastion like she had believed.
And if one Other could push through…
Suddenly, the water began to boil.
"Uh, guys?" Noble gripped her sword.
"We can see it too," Helie lifted her bow, which she had summoned before they even reached the shore.
A feverish battle seemed to be going on beneath the water.
The soldiers steadied themselves, unsure of exactly what was happening beneath the waves. The news was spreading, but most had not heard about the hand or its implications.
"Looks like we will be battling tonight sooner than we thought." Syrce's eyes glowed with energy.
Roan, Helie, and Aether braced themselves for whatever would be victorious in the underwater skirmish.
Taking a deep breath, Noble gritted her teeth.
"We have a second…third?…problem."
Her cohort paused, grim resignation passing across their faces.
"Don't tell me…" Syrce sighed.
Noble nodded and glanced toward the sky. "I'm afraid so. The Remnant is awake."