The rippling pond suddenly fell still.
The air turned damp and cold, the kind that crawled down her spine and made her heartbeat sound too loud in her own ears. Even Glimora stopped breathing, tail curling around Isabella's arm like a scared ribbon.
The sound of the waterfall dulled, like someone had turned down the world's volume, leaving only the faint drip of water and Isabella's sharp inhale.
Her eyes darted to Bubu, whose face had dimmed again into its hovering cube form. "…Okay," she whispered, "don't tell me that was a false alarm."
Bubu's eyes flickered, running faint calculations in the air. "Negative. There's movement beneath the surface."
"Movement," Isabella repeated dryly. "Fantastic. Maybe it's another snake. Maybe I'll just faint now."
But then she saw it—something shifting in the water. The faint outline of a body, glowing faintly under the blue.
"Oh." She blinked. "It's him."
"Correct," Bubu said.
"The phoenix man."
"Correct."
