Another bell stroke rolled through the water while Jiang still had no air to spare.
He felt the sound through his breastbone. Green panes trembled in their drowned wall. The tide ray folded both fins and began a turn that pulled the trapped carrier bell, two living routes, and Jiang toward the hall below.
Its first ring had called the animal. This one opened shutters along the floor.
Water rushed through the exposed slots and joined the downward pull. Weighted masks swung from their niches. One struck glass, faceplate first, and released a stream of old trapped bubbles.
Whatever the drowned guild had built the bell to do, Gredudande had found a way to make it happen with the wrong caller attached.
His lungs wanted the spill mouth behind him.
The Antarctic bar flashed along one edge of the broad strip. The two-moon line shone beside it, thinner now, with the returning female's shadow moving beyond the crack.
Jiang let both go.
