Lina struck the grate shoulder first. The water slammed her against the bars and spun her, one arm trapped between iron uprights. Her head went under.

Elias reached her on the next surge and drove himself into the grate beside her. Metal jarred his knees and chest. Water hammered his back and tried to peel him away. He got one hand around the vertical bar, the other around Lina’s upper arm, and pulled.

Nothing.

The current held her like she was caught in machinery.

He sucked one breath and shoved himself lower, forcing his face into the freezing rush so he could see. Her forearm was twisted through the bars, elbow jammed at a bad angle. Not broken, he thought—please not broken—just caught. He changed grip, braced one foot on the crosspiece, and hauled her arm back the way it had gone in.

His shoulder screamed. For a second blackness washed across one side of his vision.

He kept pulling.

Her arm came free in a sick slide. Lina’s body swung loose and would have shot past him if he had not clamped both arms around her middle. The force of the current slammed them together against the grate. He lost the bar. Water rolled over his head. Metal scraped his cheek. He kicked for the bank and got nowhere.

Think.

The grate anchored one side. The bank was close, too slick to climb head-on. But there was a maintenance lip built into the stone—half submerged, barely wider than a boot.

He shoved Lina upward until her face broke air. “Hold on to me,” he gasped.

No answer, but her fingers clawed at his wrap and locked there.

Good enough.