by E. G. Foley
Teddy, still muted, went running over to greet her as Lil ran out onto the beach, but for once, the younger mermaid ignored him.
“Where’s everybody gone?” she cried, her long hair blowing as she hurried over to Dani.
“Your sister found out where Davy Jones has brought Archie and Nixie, and they’ve all gone off to rescue them.”
Lil’s jaw dropped. “They just left? And they didn’t even say goodbye? Not even my sister?”
Dani was taken aback at the instant look of hurt outrage on Lil’s round, sun-kissed face. “We didn’t want to wake you,” she said. “Last night was hard on all of us. We figured you needed your sleep.”
“I’m not a baby!” Lil bellowed with nothing short of royal fury, and Dani couldn’t help noting it was the same thing she had just said to Jake.
Apparently, the younger princess had had enough of being protected and confined, too. “Where did Sapphira go?” Lil demanded.
“I told you, to show Jake and Maddox and Isabelle the way to Davy Jones’s Locker. Then she’s sneaking into Coral City to try to find Tyndaris so maybe he can help.”
Lil threw up her hands. “Maybe somebody should’ve asked me what we should do! I had an idea, and nobody even asked or cared or gave me a chance to tell it. They just left me! Doesn’t anybody care what I think?”
“I do,” Dani answered, mystified by her rant. Usually naps put people in good moods.
“No, you don’t! You’re just saying that to be nice to me!”
Dani tried not to look impatient. Fine. “What was your idea, Lil?”
“I’m not telling!” she flung back, folding her arms across her chest. “You’d just try to stop me, anyway.”
“Liliana—what are you doing? Come back here!”
“I’m a royal princess and you can’t tell me what to do!” she thundered.
And before Dani could catch her, Lil charged into the waves, stumbled, fell underwater with a splash—and promptly changed back into her mermaid form.
Dani drew in her breath, aghast.
“Liliana, what have you done?” She began hurriedly taking off her shoes so she could follow at least as far as the shallows. “Come back here!”
As soon as the words left her lips, Dani realized the order was in vain. She had not the means to turn Liliana back into her human shape. She had no idea how to make the Landwalker spell work—and even if she did, she would not dare try it on a royal princess. Not with her luck when it came to magic.
Lil was completely ignoring her protests anyway, splashing about, visibly rejoicing to be back in her element.
“Weeee heeee heeeee!” She frolicked through the waves for a few seconds. “This feels great!” Then a shriek of glee escaped her when her beloved seahorse pony came sea-galloping over to her through the waves.
“Wallace!” Lil threw her arms around his neck. “I’m back—at last! Oh, I missed you! You’re such a good boy! Want to go for a ride?”
Dani folded her arms across her chest, glaring at the girl. “Lil, don’t you dare go riding off on that seahorse. You were supposed to stay on land!”
“I don’t care! I’m sick of it!” With whatever saucy mood this was that had come over her, the mermaid princess splashed Dani with a rude flick of her showy pink tail. “I’ve been good for long enough!” she declared while Dani looked down angrily at the splotches of water on her day dress. “Sapphira isn’t the only one who gets to have adventures! I know what I’m doing and I’m going to help.”
“How? Liliana, get back here!” Dani shouted frantically when Lil started swimming away with Wallace. “You can’t go out there—it’s too dangerous!”
“I’m not afraid! Davy Jones already got what he wanted. He won’t bother with me anymore. Besides, I’m the only one who really knows what to do. Not that anybody ever asked me,” Lil added with an offended royal huff. “All you older kids think you’re so superior. I’ll show you all!”
Dani shook her head, at her wits’ end. “Lil, you have to come back here!”
“I hate to pull rank, Daniela,” Lil said sweetly, “but I actually don’t have to do what you say, for you see, I’m a royal princess and you’re just a commoner. So, ciao!” With that, Lil dove underwater and disappeared as Dani gasped.
“Liliana!” Holding her dress up as high as was decent, Dani waded out to water up to her knees, shouting the mermaid’s name a few more times, but it was no good.
She’s gone. Dani shook her head in disbelief, heart pounding. One simple job they gave me! Watch the kid. And I couldn’t even do that!
She suddenly had a whole new respect and sympathy for Miss Helena. Being a governess must be awful. Especially when the kids went off and did whatever they pleased…
Dani shook her head, dazed. Surely the mermaid would resurface if she just kept watching for her.
Teddy pranced around on the sand nearby, scampering forward and then walking backward to avoid getting his paws wet as the waves rolled in and washed back out again. He was barking all the while for Liliana to come back and play with him, but no sound left his mouth.
Dani absently had to admit she was rather grateful for Nixie’s muting spell at the moment—his yipping would’ve made it even harder to think what to do now. She couldn’t just let Liliana go off by herself at a time like this.
Still scanning the beach for any sign of her escaped charge, her gaze suddenly homed in on the sailboat that came with the villa.
Maddox was usually the one in charge of sailing it, but he had taught her the basics about how it worked.
That’s it, she thought. I’m going after her.
Jake had given her the simplest, least dangerous, egg-worthy job. If she failed even at that, he’d probably let her have no part at all in future adventures.
“Come on, Teddy!” Hurrying out of the shallows, she grabbed her shoes off the sand and ran back up the stone steps.
A sense of excitement filled her mind as she hurriedly changed into her modest sea-bathing costume. She dashed off a quick note to Lady Bradford in case the baroness woke up to find everybody gone, then gathered a few supplies—a canteen of water, a towel, Archie’s telescope. Then she deputized Teddy as a guard dog and set him on the foot of Her Ladyship’s bed.
The Elder witch was still unconscious.
She looked almost, well, dead. With a worried grimace, Dani extended her palm about an inch over the old woman’s nostrils to make sure she was still breathing. The slight puffs of air she could feel on her hand reassured her that it would be all right to leave. She didn’t think this would take long. She had watched what direction Lil had gone; she figured she would just sail out a ways until she spotted her and at least made sure the royal brat was safe.
Then she’d return and run the message up to the telegraph office in Taormina so the clerk could tap it in. She’d be sending their plea for help across the wires to the Order’s London headquarters at Beacon House, since none of the kids knew how to contact Merlin Hall by ordinary means, for it lay behind the Veil in what was officially the fey realm. Beacon House, however, was the Order’s public face, located on the Strand in London, right beside the River Thames.
“Be good, Teddy. I’ll be back soon. Watch her for me.” Dani pressed a kiss to the top of her little dog’s fuzzy head, then hurried back outside, ran all the way down to the beach, and headed for the sailboat.
She had just stepped, barefoot, into the surf when she realized the one essential thing she had forgotten. A hat!
With her Irish skin—forget being an egg, she’d soon turn into a tomato out there on the open water, blasted by the Mediterranean sun.
She heaved a sigh, hating the time it would cost her, going all the way back up to the house. But then a dark object lying on the beach caught her attention.
She narrowed her eyes. Aha…
Hat.
A black tricorn that one of Davy Jones’s pirates must’ve lost in the fray.
Dani retrieved it, shook the s
and off it, and placed the pirate hat resolutely on her head.
Then she marched out to the sailboat and climbed up onto it, commandeering the vessel. It took her a few minutes to get started, but she pulled up the anchor, unwound the ropes–sheets, she corrected herself, having heard this so many times from Maddox.
She let down the mainsail and carefully unfurled the jib, then laid hold of the tiller to steer. She wasn’t sure if she was thrilled or terrified to be doing this alone, but before long, she was sailing out of the cove into the great turquoise Ionian, her face resolute beneath the shadowed brim of her pirate hat.
Ahead of her, the morning sun lit up a watery golden highway, showing her the way.
Standing with one foot propped on the bulkhead, one hand on the tiller, the other holding the telescope to her eye, she braced herself against the rocking of the waves and sailed out onto the open water, keeping watch for any sign of Liliana. It was the most wonderful feeling of freedom…
But with the sea so big and blue and vast in all directions around her, she had never felt more alone.
# # #
Swimming along with Jake and the dolphins, Sapphira wasn’t ashamed to admit it: she was grateful she’d been hit by that wave on the beach last night.
She’d had more than enough of dry, heavy land life. It felt wonderful to be back in the water again, weightless and gliding and free.
But that was the only good thing about their current circumstances, considering what Davy Jones meant to do with the orb once Archie got it working—as he no doubt would.
She hadn’t been too perturbed at first about the possibility of humanity drowning en masse. Their fate wouldn’t affect the merfolk, she had reasoned. And with all the damage their kind inflicted on the seas, it wasn’t as though she’d felt terribly sorry for them.
Her sojourn among these landers had softened her bias against them, however. She had seen the humans’ good side. They’d become her friends. By Poseidon, she’d be dead herself if it weren’t for Dani, and Lil would’ve remained a prisoner of Davy Jones all this time if not for Maddox and Nixie.
The whole group of them had looked after her and her sister and made them feel welcome, so perhaps it was no wonder they had grown on her.
Having given the three dolphins their coordinates, she parted ways with Jake, wishing him luck. With the sharp half of her broken spear in hand, she waved goodbye to Maddox and Isabelle following in the sub.
Then she dove into the depths and headed for Coral City to carry out her part in all this—bringing reinforcements. Her mission was to find Tyndaris and pull together a squadron of troops, then take them to the Locker. Jake and his friends could not fight Jones’s crew on their own, if it came down to another battle.
Until then, she sincerely hoped the boy knew what he was doing with this mad scheme of his. One wrong roll of the dice and his fate would be very different than what it was now.
Her concern for him was negligible, though, compared to her intense worry about the sort of state in which she’d find her beloved home once she got there.
She knew the situation must be dire or they’d have heard something from Father by now. They hadn’t, of course, so just how bad was it?
Her heart beat faster, knowing she was about to find out. Near the edge of the Seaweed Forest, she paused on the high ridge overlooking the sandy plain where Coral City sprawled in the distance. The damage from Jones’s shelling was still visible in broken coral spires here and there, but things looked calm enough.
Not taking any chances, she pulled up the hood of the cloak she’d taken from the shipwreck, hiding her face as she advanced.
Approaching the outer edges of the capital, where the streets faded off into white sand, she spotted a listening conch scuttling along the seabed. She darted over and picked it up.
“You! Tell me what’s been going on around here.”
The little crustacean cowered in its shell.
“Don’t try to hide,” she chided. “Come on. I need information!”
Then she lifted the shell to her ear, and the listening conch divulged its secrets. Her eyes slowly widened with stunned rage as she heard all about what had been happening in Coral City in her absence.
It told her that the palace had been under occupation by half of Jones’s pirate horde ever since the Flying Dutchman had returned after failing to locate the orb at the bottom of Calypso Deep.
The violent marauders that Jones had stationed here had cowed and intimidated the populace. When they weren’t roaming the streets demanding riches and amusing themselves by frightening the common people, they lounged inside the palace, only keeping a few of their kind posted at the doors.
“But where’s my father, then? And Tyndaris?”
When the listening conch gave her its reply to that question, it left her in shock. How dare they…?
Absorbed in the creature’s report, she had only just lowered the shell from her ear and was still drifting there in a state of stunned fury when a high-pitched voice suddenly cried, “Look, Mama, it’s Crown Princess Sapphira!”
With a small gasp, she snapped out of her daze, only now realizing that her hood had fallen back in the slight current. She hadn’t noticed that—nor the small crowd of peasants and townsfolk who had come out of the surrounding shops and houses, going about their business as the morning got underway.
But a curly-haired mer-child had recognized her and was pointing excitedly. “I know it’s her! She came to our school and gave us a speech about doing our best!”
Sapphira looked over, startled. She didn’t think the children ever paid attention to the boring school speeches that were part of her royal duties.
The mother put an arm around her child and drew him closer. “Hush!”
But many had heard the child’s exclamation, and now people were starting to stare at her, swimming closer, craning their necks, whispering amongst themselves.
Sapphira hesitated, knowing she had been recognized. Her heart began to pound. For a moment, self-doubt flooded her—but she had long yearned to prove herself as a leader to Father and to her people.
After the dire news she had just heard from the listening conch, she knew the time had come.
Making no further effort to hide herself, she swam forward into the middle of the street. She cleared her throat a little and hoped her voice sounded strong. “It’s all right. The child is correct. It is Sapphira, the daughter of your king. Please, come out. Gather round. I want everyone to hear me.” She beckoned to them, and the merfolk cautiously swam out to hear what she had to say.
“Your Royal Highness, where have you been?” someone called. “We thought you and your sister were dead!”
“No, no. We’re both all right,” she assured them. “After the city was attacked, my father sent Liliana and me to safety, to the one place where Davy Jones could not reach us. On land.”
They murmured in amazement at this. Most ordinary merfolk would have considered the dry world anything but safe. But given Jones’s power over the whole underwater realm, what choice had they had?
“Commander Tyndaris promised the palace would send for us when it was safe, but we never heard from him…and now I see why. I’m so sorry I was not here to help you before now, my dear, good people,” she said, gazing around at them in regret. “I was trying to be obedient to my father…”
For once, Sapphira thought. “But circumstances have changed,” she continued, “and I could no longer stay away. Now that I’m here, this listening conch has told me how you’ve suffered in the meantime under these shark-faced bullies who’ve taken over our beloved home.”
She gritted her teeth with fury at the next part. “As you may or may not know, His Majesty has been placed under house arrest inside the palace. Likewise, Commander Tyndaris and even Professor Pomodori have been thrown into the soul cages Davy Jones fashions for his captives. This will not stand.”
Her face hardened. “Unfortunately, Jones is a bigger threat
than ever right now. He must be stopped. The landers who helped me are working against him even as we speak. But to succeed, they’re going to need help from Poseidonia—help we cannot provide with our palace taken over and our king trapped in a cage. We have to do something.”
“But what can we do, Princess?” a fellow asked. “We’re just simple folk, not soldiers!”
“We are merfolk! And besides, there are more of us than there are of them,” Sapphira said in a loud, unyielding voice. “If you will join me, I know we can take back the palace, free the king, my tutor, and Tyndaris, and then drive these pirates out of our city for once and for all! Once we have them on the run, I tell you, I will personally lead our troops in pursuit of these invaders until we’ve chased them all the way back to the Locker!”
They were considering her words, but they still looked worried and uncertain.
“I know they are fearsome,” Sapphira told her people, “but I am your future queen, and I am not afraid! By the time we’re finished with them, Davy Jones will never dare sail past the Pillars of Hercules into our waters again! But I cannot do this alone. So who’s with me?” she cried, raising her spear.
A throaty cheer arose from their midst, much to her relief.
“Good.” Sapphira looked around with a sense of regal pride, lifting her chin, squaring her shoulders. “Then fetch whatever weapons you have and follow me!”
She cast off the cloak, gripped her weapon, and, with a flick of her tail, headed for the palace to free the king. Armed with pitchforks, shovels, and spears, a growing crowd of angry merfolk of all shapes, colors, and sizes followed in her wake.
CHAPTER 31
Wagers
Jake tried not to think too much about the confrontation ahead as he held on to the dolphin’s curved dorsal fin. Moving at a leisurely pace, the powerful marine mammal carried him along at the surface with two other members of the pod flanking them a few feet behind.
It was very peaceful except for the steady, mechanical din of the Turtle chugging along at a respectful distance behind them, propellers churning.
