"It's Thomas Caldwell," I said, "my betrothed."

The Baker took this in without blinking, then went to the oars and began rowing with gusto. Marisa and Havella each took a seat as well, though the addition of their strengths was less dramatic. I picked out a charcoal stick and looked for a container I could use to catch the wind.

The nets were no good, I couldn't write on them, and a crate would prove too heavy.

"I need to borrow this," I said, grabbing Havella's satchel and pouring out its contents. My hand moved in rapid, precise strokes, outlining a basic compass on the canvas flap.

The others mostly ignored me, as their full efforts were barely preventing the larger ship from gaining on us. But when I began waving the bag around and calling out in my native language heads were turned.

"Spirits of the wind, I am in need." It had worked once, hadn't it? And Hikami had been an accident. I would have used him to burn up Thomas's sails if there had been a way to get him across the water. Lacking that option, it couldn't hurt to try.

"In the name of my ancestor, Yao Longue, I command you!" This was becoming embarrassing. There were sixteen famous spirits of the air and I invoked each by name and rank. The problem being that they were all ostensibly beneath Ahriman, and he wasn't likely to extend me any courtesy at the moment. In fact, our own sail fell limp at the exact moment I finished the final invocation.

With the wind gone, and the oarsmen tiring, our lead began to visibly dwindle. The Baker was still putting his back into the work, and with each stroke the longship seemed to judder forward, but it wasn't enough.

I got on one knee, thrust my hand in the dark green water, and closed my eyes.

Deep Ones, is this still your realm, or does Ahriman rule here as well? There was no response. I was just wet. This wasn't how they did business. Among Havella's belongings there had been a small knife she used for shaving parchment and general book repairs.

I grabbed the knife, which had flecks of glue on it, and slashed the meat of my thumb without thinking too much about what I was doing. The skin parted, I'd gone deeper than I'd meant to, and blood immediately welled out of the wound. Not wanting to waste any, I slammed my hand back into the ocean. and felt the bite of saltwater immediately.

"What are you doing?" Havella had given up rowing, and she tried to pull me away from the rim of the longship. Hikami came out to greet her and she backed away into her seat.

Is anyone down there?

I had the sense of my arm being in a different world. It wasn't merely out of sight, it was somewhere else entirely. A presence was stirring, roused by the scent of sorcerous blood.

We can bargain, I thought, though I don't have much to give. I need to escape the ship that is chasing us, and arrive safely on the shores of the lost kingdom of Leethia.

The response wasn't immediate, and the others were all watching me hold my hand in the water, or they were watching the flame spirit who was riding my shoulder and watching them in return.

Then I felt the pull, a current dragging me halfway off of the boat. It was a vice grip around my hand, and I couldn't pull it free. Marisa grabbed me and tried to help, she wasn't afraid of Hikami, but it was as if I'd been buried in thick mud, the boundary of the water had tremendous weight and suction.

Dizzyness washed over me, and I nearly lost my grip on the boat. My hand was somewhere cold, gelid, and my face lost its color. My breath was coming in shallow bursts.

Hikami flowed under my clothes to warm me, and Tokar appeared, trying to heave me out of the water, but in this his strength was no more use than Marisa's.

My shoulder popped, and I screamed. My vision fuzzed, and I was suddenly on my back looking at the sky. Marisa was looking worriedly down at me.

"What happened?" I said.

"You did it," she said, "whatever you were doing."

"She's awake?" Havella crowded her out of the way. "Good. I'm going to have Tokar reset your arm, okay?"

What did that mean? My head was still fuzzy, and I was desperately thirsty, but there was a comfortable warmth on my chest that I knew was Hikami. I'd been worried the ocean would have been harmful to him, but as long as he didn't touch the water he didn't seem to be bothered.

Then Tokar jerked my arm out straight and my shoulder popped again and my vision went white.

I hadn't meant to cry, but it happened.

When I was up and about I learned we'd put the Kanton ship well behind us. Apparently, as soon as I passed out my arm had come free of the water and we'd gotten wind in our sail. Thomas's ship might as well have been standing still.

Havella treated my palm, which had been cleaned well enough by salt water, but the slice I had made wasn't the only wound. There was a crescent of tiny punctures on both sides of my hand.

Was that a mark of the Deep Ones? I had touched something under there, but it hadn't been very communicative. Would it take us where we needed to go, or would there be a greater cost? I had no idea, but it had seemed like our only option to escape, and we were all alive and apparently healthy, so maybe the Deep Ones weren't as bad as they were made out to be in legend. Regardless, I didn't have enough blood into me to ask for them for any more favors in the near future.

I vomited over the side.

We left Gracia and all of its satellites behind us, steering relatively close to the continent. The backside of the Atlan mountains was white limestone standing out of the ocean like a bone plinth and lifting up the clouds that surrounded my homeland. We'd curved around Euphoria and could see only the bare edges of the rolling highlands that had once been the heart of the empire that had threatened my ancestors and led to our bargain with Ahriman.

The Baker had brought bread, but it would not last long, and there were meager provisions on board. The longboat could survive extended journeys if it needed to, only they had never needed it too. Baker had used it as a short range smuggling vessel to quickly maneuver around Garcia's complex island chain. As rowing was no longer necessary, they set up a few fishing poles and hoped for a good catch.

We had another problem, none of our maps were marked with a kingdom beyond Kanto. The Kantons had conquered most of the continent outside of Euphoria's direct influence. At least a dozen smaller societies had been swallowed up by their empire. Those peoples and cultures still largely existed, except they were all under the umbrella of Kanto's law, which meant a strict adherence to contracts and charters, imperial taxes and the liege lord hierarchy. Every man who owned property had to swear to obey the local manorial lord, called a landgrave or a lord knight, who in turn had to obey a regional duke, whom was under a baron, and all of them bowed to the emperor. In practice, the emperor allowed adopted regions to govern themselves largely as they always had, but when there was a conflict he would act with swift violence to restructure the leadership. The map we were using had non-Kantonese names for large sections of the coast, which meant it was out of date.

Thomas's father was a baron, a part of the pre-imperial ruling caste, so he could do pretty much whatever he wanted. If we landed and my identity slipped, we'd have half the country after us. Luckily, red hair was common in central Kanto, and I spoke the language fluently, so if we had to stop for supplies, it probably wouldn't be too much of an issue.

Our helpful wind eventually died, and though the current did seem to be pulling us in generally the right direction it required some reinforcement and correction from the oars. Sponga and his two smugglers weren't enthusiastic about this. They suggested taking a longer route that would make better use of the winds and currents, but Baker countered that they weren't real sailors and they would almost certainly have us lost at sea. Three days on the ocean had us out of bread and fresh water, which meant we had to turn to land. Sponga caught a squid and ate it raw, it turned my empty stomach.

By early afternoon, all our throats were dry and we were sliding up to a small dock. It was no more than a fishing village, which gave me a sense of security that we wouldn't be discovered. The women went up the dirt path with Tokar to bargain for supplies, and met with an older man who seemed to have some authority.

His hair was a ragged white crown around a bald pate, and he was effectively the headman of the village. "You're an odd bunch," he commented.

"Please," I said, "we were caught in a storm, we just need a few supplies to be back on our way home."

"Right," he said, "and you want me to give it to you cause you're all so pretty?"

"We have money," I said.

"Paper money?"

"Coin."

"Good. Kantons all use paper money. Does my heart right to see some real silver now and again."

"Aren't you a Kanton?"

"Well there's Kanto, and there's Kanto." He old man balanced an equation with his hands. "So what have you got?"

Though we were speaking another language, the headman reminded me of the merchants in the Gracian bazaar. It put me at ease, and I told him I'd show him the money after we agreed on a price, which led to a discussion of everything we needed.

As it happened, I was the only speaker of Kantonese in our crew apart from Havella, who knew enough for introductions and to ask directions. Tokar and Marisa looked around the village, observing the people at work in their daily lives. There wasn't much to see, and he kept in sight of me on the off chance that something might happen.

We collected flat bread and dried fish and jugs filled with freshwater from a nearby stream and I paid him with the few remaining feathers from my shopping day. I also asked about maps.

"No," the headman said, "nothing like you're talking about. What do you need to see the whole country for if you're going back the way you came?"

"We were thrown off course," I said, "so it would be helpful to know as much as we can. But really it's just for my curiosity. I'm training to be a scholar back home, and I'm always curious about local legends. Have you ever heard of a Lost Kingdom to the south-west?"

"What do you mean lost? Like they lost a war?"

"Like people forgot about them."

He scratched his bald spot. "Why didn't you say so. You're a scholar, right, and schooling's important for you. How much is this worth?"

"You know something?" It was hard to keep the interest from my voice, which only assured him that he could squeeze more coin out of me.

"Might I do."

I showed him three feathers, all I had left, but didn't hand them over.

"Right," he said. This lost kingdom stuff is starting to sound familiar."

I waved Tokar over. "He knows something about the Lost Kingdom, could you give me more money to pay him?"

Tokar gave me steady look. "No."

"But you have the box," I complained.

"Look around." Tokar didn't. "This place is nowhere. You have already given him more money than he sees in many months in exchange for water and cheap bread."

It was probably true. The structures here had roofs thatched with straw, supported by clay bricks and wooden poles. He clothing they wore was patched and piecemeal, and there wasn't any sign of livestock.

"Okay," I said, "then what should I tell him?"

"Tell him to take what you offer or I will bash his skull in." He demonstrated this last suggestion with his hands and fierce looks. The headman listened to our exchange, unable to understand a word, but he flinched nonetheless.

"I'm afraid this is all we have," I said, offering the three feathers again.

The headman took them and sucked his lip. "Right. So we've got a story about this lost kingdom of yours. They say the whole land done sunk under the sea, and that's why it isn't on no maps anymore. They say there used to be this great kingdom to the west, and they had everything you could ever want there, but they kept it all to themselves. They were so proud and arrogant and big headed the Deep Ones got offended, and they pulled the whole land down so deep that the tops of their highest towers was beneath the waves. When it happened, the people of the lost kingdom said they would rather die than give up any of their pretty crowns and jewels, so they used their magic to try to kill the Deep Ones. They created a fire that could be seen all the way from here, and the smoke and ash filled the sky for a month, and afterward the land was gone."

"Thank you." His story, though a tad confusing, had contained a lot of new information that I would have to go over with Havella. What if the place we were trying to find didn't exist anymore?

We returned to the longship ready to sail again, only to be told that it was in need of repairs. Sponga said that the bottom had scraped a rock on the way in, and it had sprung a leak.

I didn't trust Sponga, but the Baker confirmed the damage, so we were stuck for the night until they could apply the gum sap with a patch and let it dry. The headman offered us places to stay with the villagers, and I felt obliged to accept. Havella and I bunked with the headman and his deaf wife, who shrieked at us at every courteous opportunity.

"FISH SOUP!"

"No, thank you, I've had enough."

"FISH SOUP GOOD FOR BABIES." The elderly woman topped off my bowl despite physical protest, and the headman nodded approvingly.

"Sounds like a volcano," Havella said after I translated the story for her.

"A fire mountain?"

"Yes, they're known to erupt unpredictably. If the Lost Kingdom was an island volcano, I could see how a massive eruption would blow the whole thing back under the sea."

I tried to imagine an entire mountain exploding. It was impossible. There were a couple of fire mountains in the Atlan range, but they never did more than smoke and spit.

"How does that fit with what we read about Leethia?"

"Legends are often a civilizations way of explaining the past with grand stories. They change as they are passed down and spread from wherever they originated. What I believe we can be sure of is that there was a civilization that predated the Kanton empire. The story of the brother and sister could be a metaphor for the people and the volcano, or the volcano could be a metaphor for the war between brother and sister. Both legends agree that there was a kingdom and that they were very advanced. What I don't know is I we'll be able to find anything relating to your Leethian diagram."

"It's the only hope I have."

Havella was pensive, stirring her soup. "What do you think you'll be able to accomplish? Even if you find more information, the spirit you're looking for clearly lost whatever battle it was fighting. Do you really plan on going home when this is done?"

"I do," I said. "I can't abandon Euphoria, but I have to find another way to help them."

"You mean a way that doesn't rely on child sacrifice."

"Yes."

"As queen, couldn't you ban the custom?"

"It's more complicated than that."

One of the other townspeople called the headman outside, and his wife cleaned up the table.

"YOU CAN FINISH!" She pointed from me to a second helping of soup, and I reluctantly began eating again. It tasted like seaweed and salt.

Ganjo returned, rubbing his pate. "There is someone outside who'd like to see you."

I was so grateful for an excuse to avoid any more fish soup I followed him without question.

There were a dozen men arrayed in the orange spray of twilight. Half of them carried long spears, wearing leather jackets with pants and chaps. The leader was flanked by two women, both in pastel hoop dresses and carrying parasols. He was a man in his thirties with short cropped hair and a neat mustache. His white suit was pristine, though his boots were scuffed and dusty from the road, and a sanso sword rested on his hip.

"Mercy me," the man said. "what luck to come across a rare peony in this arid land. My name is Robert Paulson, and I happen to be the landgrave in this territory. When I heard we had visitors, I thought I'd be remiss if I didn't stop by to give my greetings."