When Arrluk opened his eyes, he found himself hoping, a little desperately, that it had all been a dream, that his mind, for some reason he could not comprehend, had managed to so vividly construct such an unpleasant experience, and that now he was finally waking, free of the horrible consequences those images had wrought.

It only took one glance around to realize that he had been entirely wrong, however. Jino and Duat were, unsurprisingly, already up, and tending to Kayla, who was unconscious, while Ethan stood behind them, a great crimson slash across his forehead, watching her intently.

As Arrluk pushed himself up, Kayla stirred.

"Thank God," he heard Ethan mutter. "You okay?"

"Yes, I'm — I'm . . ." She paused in the act of reaching up to grasp Ethan's outstretched hand, then looked up at them all and demanded, "Where's Desmond?"

"Gone," Ethan croaked. "Mrs. Hathaway — the Rasulka, whatever — it took him."

She looked aghast. She took his hand and pulled herself up, spluttering, "But that's —" and fell silent as she looked around. Arrluk followed her gaze. Charybdis was nowhere in sight. The water around them was a clear, sparkling blue, the colour of lapis lazuli, with schools of fish zooming merrily around their ship. They had left the Gulf of Panora behind long ago.

"She took him," Kayla whispered. "That horrible woman — she took him. We have to go back, we have to —"

"We can't," Duat said. He too looked crestfallen, but his voice was quite steady. "We have to keep —"

"We're not leaving him behind!" she screamed, sounding a little hysterical. "We're not leaving him with that — that thing. You have to turn around and —"

"And go where?" Jino said. "We have no idea where she took him. We have no idea where we are. Charybdis's wave brought us much further out than we could have expected. As it is, we're lost."

"That's . . . that's not . . ."

"We'll find him," Arrluk promised. "Of course we will. But for now, there's something I must do."

"Oh yeah?" Ethan said aggressively. "What's that?"

"Return you two to the surface-world."

"You what?" Kayla gasped. "Return us? For what?"

"Desmond made me promise him, just after we'd set out, that if anything happened to him, I'd bring you back home safely. He didn't want either of you to get hurt as well. I gave him my word —"

"Your word?" Ethan sneered. "We don't give two shakes about your stinking word! We're not going anywhere!"

"Desmond said —"

"Forget what he said," Kayla said shrillly. "This is about what we said, and we say we're not going anywhere unless he's going back with us!"

Arrluk was raised to be polite in his bearings, to be reasoned, yet firm. But even now, none of what his father had taught him mattered in the slightest. The looks on their faces were so fierce that he knew attempting to argue would be a waste of time. Besides, he thought, suddenly seething, his father's advice had been completely useless back in Ashay's court. Why should it be any different now?

"Very well," he sighed. "Though if we do find him, remember to tell him that I did try to persuade you." He looked at the accompanying guards. "Can you pinpoint our location on the map?"

"The map was washed out when the water flooded in," Jino said, pointing to the deck floor. The hole that the Rasulka had made there, Arrluk saw, had closed up, but there was still a visible dent there, fading slowly. "Along with most of our Grindylows."

"Good," Kayla said. "I was so sick of them looking at me like I was a platter of meat."

"No, not good," Jino said. "It means we'll have to do the work ourselves now. There's also the fact that most of our other supplies went with them, and Desmond's pet shark is also gone."

"What?" Ethan and Kayla said together, goggling at him.

"It seems she chewed her way out of the lower deck. We don't know where she is."

Kayla took a deep breath; she had the air of one barely keeping it together. "Okay," she said, in a voice of forced calm, "this is a heavy blow, definitely, but we can get past it. First we need to find a place where we can restock. There must be a village around here somewhere. . . ." And she started to look around as though one would suddenly materialize in the water.

"While you keep a lookout," Ethan said, looking at her skeptically, "I've got a question. I don't know why I never thought to ask before but now it's pretty crucial, I think: how do they keep finding us?"

Arrluk considered the question. He had never given it much thought before, simply chalked it up to them using powerful dark magic the likes of which they were unfamiliar with. . . . But now he saw that he had been incredibly lazy, that he should have contemplated the issue more carefully, that maybe if he had, they could have found a way to avoid it, and Desmond would still be with them. . . . What was happening to him? Was he perhaps losing his edge, without his father around to steady him, to remind of the grooming he had received to be the proper heir to the throne?

"I don't know," he said, finally. "It doesn't matter now, though, does it? They won't be trailing us anymore."

"I still can't understand why they would want him, though," Kayla said, still glancing around outside. "They came for him even before we found out about all of this Ophiotaurus stuff, which makes me think that it's not necessarily what they're after."

"True, but remember, we're still as yet unaware of all Desmond is really capable of doing, besides surviving unaided in the water and being able to engage in speech with different marine species," Arrluk said. "For all we know, they could be after something much, much different."

There was a short silence, while everybody avoided looking at everyone else. Then, suddenly, Kayla shouted, "Over there!"

Arrluk moved forward and peered off the bow. A small town grew out of the distance.

"Thank God, we can find out where we are, restock, and set off for Amphitrite's Star again," Ethan said.

"Erm . . ." Jino began.

Ethan looked at him suspiciously. "What?"

"I may have forgotten to mention . . . but we lost our money in the upsurge as well," Jino said.

Ethan swore loudly. Arrluk sighed.

"Just take us there, Jino."

They arrived at the town within minutes. It was a cheery little place built almost entirely of yellow bamboo, which they discovered was called Emorig, and which lay a good distance from the Gulf of Panora. The people there did not know who Arrluk was, having never heard of Tethyia itself, but they were certainly capable of recognizing the obvious genuineness of the fine silk and vibrant, regal hues of his robes and the sparkling pieces of lapis lazuli that adorned his figure.

They brought him to their mayor, who welcomed them graciously, and after a short, pleasant meal, where they explained somewhat truthfully that they were on an important journey and unfortunately stumbled across the vengeful Charybdis, he directed them towards the stores around the city, where they could replace their lost items. Though they had no money, the shop owner was willing to trade for the desired objects. It was not much of a sacrifice to hand over his garments, seeing that he had many more back on the ship, all of which were just as superb as the ones he was wearing, but the jewellery Arrluk sported was his most precious, the most expensive. Still, he swallowed down his sentiments and traded.

They received a fine amount of preservable food and a new map in return. After finding the nearest route to the city, they were off again, and Arrluk started to think of where Desmond was now.

He remembered his father telling both of them, ages ago, it seemed, that they were the Children of Prophecy, destined to either save or decimate all life under the waters. They had to get to Amphitrite's Star, for what, they still didn't know, but somehow the two things were linked in his mind: reaching Amphitrite's Star would somehow lead them to finding Desmond.

So they pedaled through the water as fast as they could. The mood aboard the ship was beyond grim, as though they were preparing for a funeral. The shortest path to the city lay beyond a winding rocky trail that could only be accessed by first crossing the Boiling Sea (Ethan had rolled his eyes at the name, clearly — and correctly — interpreting the name as a sign that the waters were both enchanted and dangerous).

The trail was so rigorous that the ship could hardly move without scraping its underside against the enormous rocks, or rubbing against the vast clumps of poisonous algal blooms that grew atop them; Jino and Duat had been forced to swim ahead of them, scaling down the vast stalagmites and dispersing the toxic blooms with magic to allow easier travel, as Arrluk took the wheel and led them forward, the magic of the ship working to repair the damage done by the rocks and the poisonous fumes: with an ominous feeling, Arrluk noticed that the ship seemed to be doing its work rather slowly now. They spent nearly the entire journey in silence but for the shattering of rocks outside, the groan of the ship, and the rush of the waves. Desmond's capture had dampened the crew's spirits so thoroughly that Arrluk doubted whether they would ever recover unless they found him again.

At last, after almost two hours, they emerged into a wider stretch of caves where they had ample space to maneuver, and Jino and Duat reentered the ship, rather tired now. Less because she wanted to and more because she needed to do something to distract herself, it seemed, Kayla set off to prepare some food. Duat went with her; the Grindylows had used certain magic in their cooking to keep the meals from sogging, which Kayla didn't have access to.

Jino, apologizing most profusely, went below deck to rest, leaving Arrluk and Ethan alone on the deck. Though Arrluk could easily have set the vessel to pilot itself, he too wanted to remain on the deck, but with the atmosphere so tense and gloomy, he found that he would rather keep his hands firmly on the wheel and his eyes fixed ahead so that he would not be forced to interact with the scowling Ethan.

They continued like that in that strained silence for a few more moments, then Arrluk, inwardly cursing himself, decided to speak.

"You can go and get some rest if you'd like, too."

Unfortunately, this was the wrong thing to say.

"Thanks," Ethan said, his tone icy, "but I think I'll do that when I'm back in my own bed, on land, with both of my best friends."

Silence again, longer this time.

"I'm sorry," Arrluk said.

"For what?"

At last, the Prince directed the ship to continue forward of its own intuition and turned to face Ethan. "For everything. This has all been my fault."

"How? Not like you gave Desmond his powers, is it?"

"No," Arrluk sighed. "But I persuaded him to stay, to go on this pointless journey with me. It is also my fault for never truly looking into how they were managing to locate us. Perhaps if I had . . ."

"It's no use playing the Blame Game," Ethan said roughly. "Besides, we're all at fault here. Dez chose to stay, and we decided to go with him."

"Yes," Arrluk said. "You did. Funny, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Despite the obvious danger of the situation, the clear disbelief and fear you felt knowing what this trip could have had in store, you decided to come anyway."

"Yeah, well, someone has to keep that knucklehead out of trouble," Ethan muttered grudgingly. "I'm sure your friends would have done the same for you."

"I don't have friends," Arrluk stated, so baldly, so casually, that Ethan looked taken aback. "I have acquaintances, from my youth and at the school of magic that I attend, but in general, my life is much too busy to afford time for friends. I am a Prince before anything else."

"That's dumb," Ethan said bluntly. "Everybody needs friends. People they can relate to, laugh with, share their burdens with. Especially people with a workload like yourself."

"Yes . . . I suppose that would be nice. I've seen you with Kayla and Desmond. The worry, the musings you share. The closest I've come to something like that in my life is Jino, but he's more of an . . . elder brother, if anything."

"Maybe you can start working on something new when we get back," Ethan said.

Arrluk noticed the change in his voice, which was much gentler than before, as well as the definiteness in his choice of words, and said. "That does sound nice."

They lapsed into silence again, but it was less strained this time, and soon Kayla and Duat returned with platters of boiled scallop shells.

"Finish those quickly," Arrluk said, his eyes ahead of them again. "We're approaching the Boiling Sea."