The manta rays pulled their chariot over to the large, pale white balcony overlooking the city, which reminded Desmond of the wraparound balcony of the wooden cabin in Whittier, which he had recommended to Kayla only yesterday. It had only been a day, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Once the chariot had settled, Desmond and Arrluk climbed out and the other two men joined them. He was the only one to touch the ground: the others hovered above it by a good inch, towering over him. The ground felt rather peculiar. It was soft and fragile, but remained firm under his feet.

"It's sea foam," Arrluk said. "Mixed with whale blubber — rather rubbery substance — to keep it from breaking apart."

Desmond was deeply impressed with the increasingly high levels of ingenuity displayed in the Tethyians' culture. The two guards hovered silently beside the Prince, whereas the driver of the chariot remained in place, said, "Unless you require something else, I'll be returning the mantas to the stables, Prince Arrluk," and as Arrluk waved him off, ensuring that he was all right, he jerked the seaweed reins and the mantas swooped away, heaving the chariot along with them.

"This way," Arrluk said, motioning at the door in front of them, which was made of black iron. There was a glossy, yellowish haze over the door, as though it had been polished, and Desmond realized that it had been coated with a thin layer of whale blubber, clearly to prevent rusting. Arrluk pushed it open and he and the guards began to swim forward, Desmond trotting along behind them. The floor was covered in a length of thick, turquoise carpet, cottony in texture. It tickled his bare feet as he followed.

They moved through a series of long, wide corridors, whose walls were adorned with handsome ceramic portraits of what were obviously past rulers, depictions of sea monsters that looked as ferocious as the hydra, and other aquatic areas he had never seen before.

"How do you guys get to paint?" he asked, his eyes on a canvas with a pudgy-looking Tethyian grasping a glowing trident. "Shouldn't the water diffuse the ink?"

"It would, if the ink were normal."

"You use magical ink?"

"Not magic. Science. Our developments of science, of course, not yours. Our culture exists because of the many ways we've developed to adapt to life down here, applying what we've learned to what exists around us, to bring what nature can do to its fullest potential.

"Using what you would call 'bioengineering,' our scientists managed to create special breeds of certain aquatic animals, in order to create a specific kind of resource in a specifically desired way. The pipes, as you saw, were constructed from shells cultivated from specially bred crustaceans, larger than the rest of their kind, much harder shells, with non-naturally occurring patterns for decoration. The same was done for the ink. The ink these farmed octopi produce is much thicker, much more resistant to the effects of water, and comes in various colours. We also take pigments from other things, grounding seaweed, coral, the like. Even the pictures —"

"Pictures?" Desmond repeated, stunned. "You mean, you have cameras?"

Arrluk paused, turning to frown at him in bemusement. "What are camraas?"

"They're — oh, never mind," Desmond said hopelessly. "What do you use to take the pictures?"

The words were barely out of his mouth when a sudden wave of lightheadedness passed over him. He managed to remain upright by clutching the wall for support. He shook his head and looked up, frowning at the strange texture of the stone, then realized that he had not, in fact, grabbed the wall; his fingers had sunk right into one of the paintings, and the ink was now running along the corridor, dissolving into great, multicoloured blobs. "Oh — sorry."

"No matter," Arrluk said calmly. "Jino, could you —?"

The merman called Jino swam forward. He held his palm above the ruined painting and began to chant, speaking in a low, rough, rhythmic murmur. The splotches of ink froze along the corridor, then flew back into place as the ceramic resealed itself, returning at once to its orginal state.

"Cool."

"Isn't it?" Arrluk said smugly. "But that is enough sightseeing for now. Jino, fetch the chitons. I will escort him to the healers from here."

As Jino swam off, he cast Desmond a plainly mistrustful look that told him, even in his slightly disoriented state, that the guard did not think much of the idea of the Prince wandering around alone with a complete stranger.

"This way."

Desmond tried to move off, but his legs wobbled dangerously again and he crashed to his knees. It seemed the hydra poison was kicking in at last.

Arrluk doubled back, helped him up and, still clutching his shoulder, began to swim down the path again. He was surprisingly strong. His silver tail was beating the water fiercely behind them, propelling them steadily down the path. Down the high-ceilinged hallways they went, Desmond's breathing becoming groggier with every passing second. Finally, the Prince halted outside a pair of glass doors. He shouldered it open and crossed the threshold, bringing them into what looked like the underwater equivalent of a typical human laboratory: there were long counters and tables positioned around the room, made from different ceramics and coral, with a set of beautiful patterned seashell-pipes that extended into the room through a hole in the ceiling.

Stone and bone pots littered the table, with several glass cases of strange-looking sea creatures swimming around inside, looking mournfully out at them. Illumination came from several great bundles of glowing specks that hung around the room in containers that looked remarkably as though they had been made from earthen plastic, except that these lights were moving.

Arrluk directed him over to a free corner of the room, sat him down on the floor, and straightened up, staring expectantly at the door.

Within minutes it had burst open, and a small stooped merman with a tail of milky-white scales, a deeply lined face, and thinning green hair that currently looked as though he'd just escaped a violent storm, came in, yelling.

". . . made it very clear that nobody is supposed to enter my lab when I'm not here! Weeks and weeks of experiments, and if some buffoon messes it all up — oh! Prince Arrluk!" he said, his entire demeanour changing drastically as he laid eyes on the Prince.

"Hello, Ketin," Arrluk said calmly. "I hope you won't mind, but I require your assistance with something, a tiny matter of an antidote for hydra venom, if you please."

"No, of course not! No trouble at all! Er — you were injured by a hydra —?"

"No, him."

Arrluk pointed around at Desmond, still sitting balefully on the floor, watching with raised eyebrows. The aged Tethyian's eyes roved onto him, raked his figure — then he jumped so high that several scales dislodged themselves from his tail.

"Neptune's beard! Is that — I can't believe it — is it really —?"

"A human, yes, Ketin. But at the moment, he needs medical aid. You can save your excitement for later. For now, the antidote please." Arrluk's voice sounded impatient now.

"Of course, sir!" Ketin said, puffing his chest out importantly. "At once, sir!" He began to bustle around his laboratory, every now and then stealing covert glances at Desmond, at which point his age-spotted face would illuminate with excitement. Typical scientist, Desmond thought, rolling his eyes. This was how they all reacted the moment they saw something they'd never been able to study before, avidly awaiting the chance to start prodding and probing their subject.

After a moment, Ketin approached Desmond, clutching a tiny, spiraling rod. "I'll be needing a sample of your blood, Young Master," he said, with a tentative sort of eagerness. "The antidotes we have here are suitable for Tethyian subjects, of course, but obviously, the concentration might not be viable for one of your anatomical makeup." He gave a high-pitched, nervous giggle. Desmond exchanged curious looks with Arrluk, then sighed and held out his hand.

The doctor took it in his own, and raised the other. Desmond, who had expected him to be using a needle of sorts, now saw that he was clutching a small, transparent, spiny worm. "Hey, what are you —?" he began as Ketin lowered it towards his wrist, but the worm had already lunged, snapping at his skin.

Desmond watched in horror as the worm's transparent body filled quickly with scarlet fluid, his own blood, but he couldn't feel anything. Somehow, he didn't think this was a good thing. The worm suckled at his flesh, writhing around with apparent relish, then its body filled completely, the doctor touched a frill, and, with a shudder, the worm became as rigid as a statue. Ketin detached it from Desmond's skin with a tiny yet incredibly unpleasant pop, then carried the unnaturally stiff worm over to the table, laid it beside a bone bowl with exceeding gentleness, and returned with a small pill.

"It's made of algae, it will help with the bleeding," said the doctor when Desmond, who was staring at the slime-green pod in disgust, didn't take it. Again he looked at Arrluk, who grimaced in a just-do-it sort of way. Desmond took it and popped it into his mouth with a mingled feeling of exasperation and trepidation. It was surprisingly tasty.

The doctor then returned to the table, turned a tap, and a large clear air bubble blossomed from a hole in the table, hovering stationary above it. He thrust the bowl inside the bubble, held the worm above it, gave it another gentle brush with his finger, and like a very small pipe, blood spouted from its tiny mouth, landing in the bowl.

"Oh, marvelous!" he exclaimed. "So thin, so clear, so red —!"

Arrluk cleared his throat impatiently.

"Hmm? Oh — yes." Spotting the Prince's expression, he turned back to the bowl and added something to the mixture, then began to fuss around.

The glass door opened again, and in came Jino. He was holding a large, brick-shaped rock in his hands. Desmond expected the doctor to start cursing again at this unbidden entrance, but he seemed to be having too much fun with Desmond's blood to notice.

"Ah, here we are," Arrluk said, accepting the rock from Jino. "You said you wanted to know how we take pictures?" he added to Desmond, who nodded, remembering their conversation in the hall. "This is how."

He held the rock up, and Desmond saw that there were dozens of little glass-like eyes embedded all over the surface. They were roving around the room, but Arrluk ran his finger across the back and they all froze. Then, suddenly, something milky-yellow bloomed from the back of the rock. It inflated like a balloon, then a moment later it took the form of a bubble, and as Desmond watched, colour suddenly flooded the interior. Arrluk grasped the bubble as it detached itself from the rock and began to drift slowly upwards, holding it out to Desmond, who leaned forward to peer inside.

A perfect, three-hundred-and-sixty degree replica of the room was captured in the bubble, with the accuracy and detail Desmond associated with high-efficiency cameras. There was Desmond, rather pale, sitting on the floor in his scarlet swim trunks with a curious expression; Prince Arrluk, holding the rock as one would a selfie-stick; the grumpy Jino hovering a little distance away with his arms folded (Desmond glanced away from the bubble just long enough to see that neither his position nor his expression had altered in the slightest); the mad doctor fiddling with the contents of the bowl suspended in the air bubble, which was boiling above a slather of Hyrule; and the entire laboratory spread out around them, detailed in all its messiness and clutter.

"Woah," Desmond said, amazed. "That's better quality than my phone camera. How did you do that?"

"The armoured chiton has dozens of extremely hard eyes embedded in its rock-like shell," said Arrluk. "Each eye focuses on a different part of its surroundings, and on a certain command, the chiton will replicate the vision it's presently seeing, creating a bubble from a special elastic-like fluid, and using its thousands of minute ink-producing pores to effectively 'paint' that scene in the bubble's interior. Magnificent, sea life, aren't they?" he added with satisfaction, as Desmond continued to gaze at the orb with awe.

Before he could answer, Ketin straightened up with a cry of excitement. "Ah! At last!"

He swam over to Desmond, holding the same worm and the air bubble, which was still supporting the bone bowl; he dipped the worm into the fluid in the bowl, which was now a navy-blue colour, and the worm became flexible and mobile again, pulling up the antidote to maximum holding capacity before it became still once again.

He grasped Desmond's arm and held the stiff worm to his skin again.

"Ow!" Desmond yelled after a moment, feeling thousands of minuscule teeth nipping at his flesh.

"Yes, sorry about that. It's hungry," Ketin said apologetically. "We really do need to feed these Asclepiaworms more often. . . . There we are."

The worm now emptied and pulled away, with obvious reluctance, and Desmond felt the wooziness fade away within a few moments. He stood up with a groan and stretched. "Wow, thanks, Doc! I feel great!"

"Well, that's excellent. Now you can explain to me what is going on."

Everyone turned at the sound of the new voice; Jino and Ketin immediately bowed, Arrluk's face turned blank, and by the drastic changes in expression and the imposing design of the vestments he was wearing, Desmond immediately understood who was standing before them.

"Father," Arrluk said.

With no clocks in the palace — at least, none that functioned in any way that he could understand — Desmond had no reliable way of telling time. So, with an estimate of twenty minutes later, he was to be found in the spacious, sumptuously decorated dining room around an ornate, glistening table made of green coral, dressed in brightly coloured robes that had been supplied by Jino, watching silently as servants streamed in, setting the table with food.

They placed large, woven mats of seaweed and ceramic plates before the diners, Desmond, Arrluk, Jino, and King Hatak, all topped with shrimp, lobster, other succulent-looking meats, and sides of seaweed that Desmond thought resembled salads served in restaurants, along with measures of a dark purple liquid that Arrluk identified as neutralized jellyfish toxin. A huge platter of delicately fried whale meat was set down in front of him, enclosed, like everything else he had been given, by a large air bubble, but the servant who had brought it, the first female he'd seen so far, averted her eyes as she set it down, as though he was indecent to look at.

When they had all finished setting the table and bowed out of the room, Hatak indicated that everyone should begin eating. "So, Desmond, was it?" he said after a while; he alone hadn't started eating, besides Desmond, who was still struggling to adapt to their eating utensils.

"Yes . . . My Lord," he added, at a meaningful sidelong glance from Arrluk. "It is an honour to meet you, Sir," he went on, feeling as though he might as well do it properly.

"And you. The first human to set foot in our home in nearly two hundred years! How did you manage that, I wonder?"

"Er . . . I don't really know?" Desmond said, still trying to cut through the whale meat with the shark's-fang knife he had been given. It was like trying to slice a pipe with a hacksaw. "I was sort of, attacked, by one of my school teachers."

"Indeed?" Hatak looked mildly curious. "A human teacher, who had somehow managed to tame a hydra? Yes, I know about the bite," he said in response to their confused looks. "I met Ivor in the halls earlier, it's how I knew you were back."

"Well, yes, I suppose so, Sir," Desmond said. "I was in the lake, surfing —"

"Surfing?"

"A sport," he explained. "You — basically — er, glide across waves, for the fun of it. I'd been there about an hour or so, then she just — appeared. Right there in the middle of the water, standing on the hydra, as you called it. She said she'd been looking for me, that now that she found me she had to take me with her. The hydra attacked me, but that's when your son and the guards showed up."

"And you began to talk?" Hatak asked, still determinedly not eating.

Desmond shrugged. He abandoned the attempt of trying to cut through the meat and, disregarding the pretext of upholding table manners before royalty, tore off a piece of the meat with his teeth and began to chew, finishing with a swig of the viscous jellyfish toxin, which had arrived in an algae cup. It was quite delectable.

Hatak watched him, keeping his expression clear. But now he leaned forward, his grey-nailed hands laced upon the table, and said, in a suddenly sharp voice, "How are you speaking to us right now?"

"I don't understand."

"Father —"

But Hatak held up a hand to silence his son, still staring intently at Desmond; he thought he could see something like suspicion in the King's vast, black, orb-like eyes. "You cannot hear it?"

"Hear what?"

The King opened his mouth and began to speak slowly and deliberately. . . . Except that while Desmond understood everything he had said, he could also distinguish the rough, rapid, chattering tongue he had heard when he first met Arrluk in Lake Bozeman: "Listen carefully to the sound of my voice, and tell me what it sounds like to you."

"Like a dolphin," Desmond said, and he suddenly heard the same strange noise issuing from his own mouth; he clapped a hand over his lips, feeling a thrill of horror. Hatak reclined in his seat, looking grimly satisfied. "What was that?"

"You're not speaking English," Arrluk said quietly, taking a sip of his own jellyfish toxin. "You never have been."

"But then —"

"You're speaking in the Tethyian native tongue," Hatak said. "You've been doing so since I first heard you talk."

"That's not possible," Desmond said, shaking his head. "I've never met a Tethyian until today, I didn't even know your kind existed, how could I possibly know how to speak your language?"

"Ask yourself too why you haven't yet drowned," Hatak said. "Why you haven't been crushed by the water's pressure. Magic."

"Magic?" Desmond repeated in a whisper.

"Indeed. You are not the first human to arrive in our waters like this, and I doubt you will be the last. Communing with our people more fluidly than many born and grown Tethyians despite believing they've only ever been speaking English. Immune to the wrath of the seas, the low temperature, the lack of air.

"Each time a human appears in our midst, disaster follows. You are no different. Only two of your earth days ago, Arrluk received a warning from one of the oldest water spirits known to our kind — the Oracle. It revealed snippets of the future to him, dark portents that loom ahead, cryptic warnings of a tragedy he must prevent. Visions of possible allies . . . or enemies."

Desmond looked around at Arrluk, incredulous. "Is he talking about me? You . . . you saw *me*? Is that why you said you were looking for me?"

"I was going to tell you," Arrluk said, casting an irritated look at his father.

"Really? When? When this 'impending disaster' finally struck?"

"When you'd calmed down enough to listen. Obviously you haven't." He glared at his father across the table.

"You stole the boy from his home, you should at least have had the decency to tell him why, Arrluk."

"I was about to!"

Hatak slammed his fist on the table, overturning his cup of jellyfish toxin, so that it seeped across the glittering table and floated into the water around them. "What conditions were you waiting for? 'For him to calm down,' what nonsense! I knew this was a bad idea, now hear what he says, he was being targeted! What if you were followed?"

"How? We killed the hydra, we were alone when we reached the portal, alone when we went through, and alone when we closed it, immediately afterwards!"

As father and son looked daggers at each other, Desmond was visited by the suspicion that something was going on beyond the Oracle's supposed forebodings. His suspicions were confirmed almost at once.

"Do you know what I learned today, while you were off playing with sea creatures in the surface world? Your vision of a half-manatee, half-serpent beast? It's a real creature, a mythical creature — the Ophiotaurus. A creature who provides immeasurable power to anyone who manages to capture it.

"Fortunately, it has managed to remain hidden for eons, but now, the Oracle seeks to send you on a wild duck chase to find it —"

"You don't know that," Arrluk said.

"I do! And then what, you travel across the seas with your new partner" — his fathomless black eyes found Desmond — "hunting the beast and . . . and you never come back," he said wearily. The fight had suddenly drained out of him. He sank back into his chair, looking dejected, and put his face in his hands. "Like your mother."

Arrluk stared at him, clearly shocked. Even Jino was looking uncomfortable now. Hatak took a long moment to compose himself, but nobody spoke. "Forgive me," he said at last. "It's just . . . the sea is a vast and dangerous place, Arrluk. You can't imagine the horrors that swim around outside our borders. And now, with all this, it is becoming increasingly clearer that you will have to venture out into it, sooner or later. . . . I received word of a prediction today, one that had been made ages ago.

"From what it has said, it is evident to me that you . . . that both of you . . . are the Children of Prophecy."

"What do you mean?" Desmond asked. "What prophecy?"

"I'm sorry, I cannot speak of this any more. We will talk later, Arrluk. For now, you are dismissed." His tone was still weary, but there was a definite note of finality in his voice. Neither Jino nor Arrluk protested. Desmond, however, stood up.

"But what about me?" he asked. "I was supposed to be home with my grandfather by now, my family must be going crazy!"

"We'll send a message to them," Hatak said, still in that same tired yet firm voice. "But you must understand, we cannot let you leave just yet. We need to know more. You are not a prisoner," he said, but Desmond wasn't reassured. "Besides, we can't send you back just yet, knowing that whomever had attacked you could be waiting for you, ready to strike again. Like it or not — and believe me, I do not — you're as much a part of this as my son is."