As my eyes tried to close, the same type of thoughts I had every night hit me. Was I enough? Was Meredeath flirting with me or was that just Meredeath? Six inches is respectable. Are the ammonites just extra-large nautiluses? What would be the best way to unload a wagon of wood with flying leaf shrapnel falling from the sky?

  [Self Critic] had triggered, and even under the influence of a skill, I would not sleep anytime soon.

  How did I only get credit from the fish that swallowed me? Why wasn't I enough for Minvi? Was Share settling, or did she really love Fennel?

  Everything about Leo.

  The echoes of all of my doubt reverberated in my head, refusing to let me sleep.

  I mentally pried my eyes open, taking stock of the situation. Not much had changed. Leyla had fallen face first, drool wetting the sand around her mouth. Meredeath had fallen backwards, her teal hair splayed out like a siren of the deep. She snored loudly enough that it should have knocked Argin and Ash from their conversation.

  "Do you see this strand here? I didn't exactly see where it hooked up, but that's got to be a feedback loop in case the main line overloads." Ash's voice was incessant. The man just didn't stop talking. He was hyper-focused on his diagram. Neither of the two had moved except as his pencil added new lines or erased errors, or Argin pointing at some new revelation in the schematic.

  Against the white of Meredeath's skin, her red lips twitched as she dreamed. Nothing had changed dramatically. I stepped closer, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. Her nose was perfect. I'd never had that thought before.

  Kneeling before my goddess, my hand clutched the sand. It was all I could do not to touch her again. To straighten her leathers, and trace a line down her neck. To lean in and smell her patchouli and mint fragrance. I wanted to bottle her up, squeeze the life out of her, suck the essence from her body and revel in its youth like I'd only dreamed...

  Except I’d never dreamed that. Shaking my head, I tried to banish the intrusions. The Tuli Monster’s desires intertwined with mine. It wanted to end our lives, to steal our essence, not me.

  Failing to get me to join them in sleep, the beast attempted to force a different compulsion on me. Infatuation, obsession, some mating instinct twisted with a bit of its own hunger.

  It was all I could do to stay rooted in place. I had to fight the urge to consume Meredeath. I had to break the spell I was under.

  "And if the outflow matches the inflow, then you have a stabilized matrix. But that's not the case with him. See, there's a thread here that goes back into his body. I think this is going to adjust as he heals. Tandy really is a genius. This means that the power source is internal to Cole, but external to the iron lung. I just don't know of any biological mechanism that would power a maganical construct like this... Wait, wait... What if we flipped the diagram and..." Ash just kept going and going. I yawned, bored with details I didn’t understand. Argin was making the sounds of someone fascinated by a lecture. Like Leo when an [Adventurer] told us a story.

  Pulling my attention away, I didn't want to be trapped like Argin. That was its own sort of hell, and I'd already spent hours in the caravan listening to him ramble about his latest idea. I refocused on Meredeath. At least if I were going to get eaten by a giant sea monster, I could enjoy the delicious view. By the Everbear, I had to stop thinking about eating Meredeath.

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  As my gaze dropped, however, it was Leyla that caught my eye.

  She was beautiful in her own unapproachable way. Her breaths were shallow, harsher than Meredeath's. I knew immediately what the problem was—the damn corset. Her face was puffy and red as she drooled in the sand. I frowned as I saw her blue lips. They weren't that color before, were they? This wasn't some glamor of nobility. She wasn't getting enough air. I reached over, feeling her clammy face, and feeling the skipping, shallow breath. I had to resist feeling for the vein in the neck, knowing the Tuli in my head wanted my hand to wrap around her neck.

  Better to be safe. I grabbed one of Meredeath's daggers. With a breath, I resisted plunging the knife into her juicy body. Instead, I quickly flipped Leyla onto her stomach to expose the silk ties running along her back. I couldn't move faster, but the tingle of panic told me she was seconds away from death. Shaking, I held the knife above the ties. I would not cut her. I was not the monster.

  The monster was not me.

  I put the knife against the lace of her dress and jerked down.

  The knife sliced through the green silk ties like a heated butter knife. The corset snapped apart. A thin whalebone poked out of the casing. It looked like the denizens of the deep had it out for us.

  Flipping Leyla back over, I watched her chest waiting for her breathing to deepen. Her curly hair tangled, and her emerald dress was a mess. She was freed from her confines, but still breathed shallowly. A shadow seemed to have fallen over her, stealing each breath before her lungs inflated. Were her lips darker?

  I gripped the dagger in my hand, resisting the urge to peel open her chest. To expose her lungs to air. White-knuckled, my hand vibrated with the weight of restraint and need.

  The enclosure had grown colder. Darker.

  My iron lung cast a dull light against Leyla's aristocratic nose. She looked like a ghost, as though any moment Meredeath's green magic would dance against her bones. That her ghost would sit up and insult me, demanding I give her life back.

  Under the murmur of Ash explaining the interference, I fought for Leyla's life and my soul.

  Wrenching my head up. I told myself that I could get a better view of Leyla reflecting in the ceiling of our bubble. I got the first up-close eyeful of the Tuli Monster. Serrated teeth lined a bulbous pincer as it evaluated who it wanted to snack on first. Its elongated neck was in the enclosure with us.

  Panicked, I tried to bring Meredeath's dagger up. But the part of my mind that controlled my muscles didn't care about the Tuli Monster. It worried about Leyla, sweet blue-lipped Leyla. My eyes betrayed me, flickering down to her face, the elegant curve of her neck outlined in lace. I knew she was a jerk, but my mind could only focus on how blue lipstick was a pleasant contrast to her green dress. That she looked better without the corset compressing everything. Even as I hated every thought, and I panicked over our assured destruction, I could not force myself to move as the Tuli Monster's mouth sniffed above us.

  "And you see, Argin." Ash's voice broke through my struggle as the monotony of his explanation gave way to excitement. "This part right here, right in the base where his chest glows the brightest, that's the weakness. You hit that with any force and the magic gradient gets out of sync and he explodes like a popcorn kernel in a fireball!"

  I stood up to get a better view of Leyla. Was she breathing better? I moved to the left, my hand brushing the long neck of the Tuli Monster.

  Its appendage about to grasp Ash, snaked backwards in shock at my touch.

  I looked up. The nostrils of the monster sniffed once, and the mouth lunged forward, fetid breath encompassing me before the teeth descended.

  My last twisted wish was that Leyla would open her eyes, close her drooling mouth and look at me. That she'd lean up and give me a farewell kiss. Or allow me one bite. Before I saved her life.

  Serrated teeth pierced my back, destroying my last wish as the Tuli Monster whipped me into the air.

  Spinning, I clutched Meredeath's knife, waiting for the moment.

  It grabbed me again, teeth ripping into my gelatinous body, cutting through bone. My legs, mercifully, went limp. The creature bent its neck, teeth holding me steady, bringing me towards its alien eyes.

  They sat perpendicular to the beast’s body, mesmerizing me. Giving me mercy. Sleep.

  I chose vengeance.

  Meredeath’s dagger pierced my lung smoothly.

  [You, Cole Thornfield, are [Dead].]

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