‘No, she didn’t.’ Hailey’s chair clattered to the pearl floor as she shot to her feet. ‘We came up with the plan on our own.’
‘This is an example of what will happen to anyone who defies me,’ Jake informed the hall before flicking his eyes to the soldiers patrolling the rows of tables. ‘Arrest them.’
Six soldiers surrounded Hailey’s table within three seconds. ‘Hands behind your heads,’ Scorpion ordered.
Hailey interlocked her hands behind her head. What will happen to us? Her mouth turned dry and her hands trembled at the thought of Jake torturing the truth out of them with his hunting knives. Can he do that? Would he do that?
‘I asked them to do it.’ Madam Grayson rose from the teachers’ table. ‘Amathia wasn’t involved, and those five students shouldn’t be punished. It was all me.’
‘She’s lying.’ Aaron’s hands rested on the top of his head. ‘It was our choice.’
‘Enough!’ Jake bellowed. ‘Everyone who claims they were involved is officially under arrest. The rest of you remain seated while I deal with this situation.’
‘Move,’ Scorpion barked.
‘Why are they arresting the Zeus?’, ‘What do you think they did?’, ‘Are they really taking them to a dungeon?’. The students’ whispers and wide-eyed stares followed Hailey and her friends as the soldiers marched them from the main hall. They stopped in the entryway, bedside the glass statue of Poseidon, where they waited for Amathia, Madam Grayson, and Jake.
‘Dad, let them go.’ Aaron dropped his hands from his head. ‘It was all me.’
Jake ignored him. ‘Let’s move.’ He led the way through the left archway, and they obediently followed, surrounded by a posse of guards.
Where is he taking us? Was he serious about there being a dungeon? Please let that have been a scare tactic. Hailey’s stomach unclenched when the soldiers ushered them into Poseidon’s stable. She’d happily accept being locked up with the horses.
Jake stomped to the centre of the stable, where he nudged some dried seaweed away with his boot, revealing a crystal hatch.
Demi’s eyes lit up. ‘Cool! A secret door.’
Jake threw open the hatch, the door clinking against the pearl floor, and glared back at Hailey and her fellow prisoners. ‘Down you go.’
Amathia glided in front of Hailey and her friends. ‘Colonel, please, I beg you to release the children.’
‘I will, if they tell me where the necklaces are.’
‘No.’ Aaron set his jaw. ‘We won’t let you destroy the palace.’
‘Then down you go.’
The soldiers pushed the tips of their guns into Hailey and her friends’ backs, driving them forward. Amathia descended the stairs first, and then Madam Grayson. Aaron moved to go next, but his dad put a hand out to stop him. ‘You have no idea how much you’ve disappointed me.’
‘I don’t care.’ Aaron shoved past him and disappeared down the stairs.
Hailey didn’t move. She didn’t want to go into the dungeon, especially when the hatch reminded her of the one Hades had pushed her and her friends down, where they’d been trapped in darkness with water to their waists. She shivered and took a step back.
A soldier shoved her from behind. ‘Wrong way.’
Hailey stumbled forward and gazed down the hatch to the crystal staircase, which descended into a room cast in a blue glow. Her pulse quickened. ‘Please don’t make me go down there.’
‘Okay,’ Jake agreed. ‘But first you have to tell me where you hid the necklaces.’
‘I can’t.’ Be brave, Hailey told herself and clutched her heart pendant as she staggered onto the stairs, slowly making her way down. The light from the stable faded with every step, until a faint blue glow replaced it.
Cold swept over her when she reached the bottom and walked onto a squishy ground that reminded her of the bluish-green grass at the back of the palace. She gasped. The dungeon wasn’t like a dungeon at all, more like a tank. The walls were transparent, and the sea swirled around outside with fish darting about.
An enormous sea-anemone grew in the room’s centre and glowed fluorescent blue, casting the room in a dim glow. Hailey spotted six figures standing at the other end of the dungeon, roughly fifteen yards away. The nereids!
‘I really don’t feel very well,’ Hailey heard Demi say from above. She sneezed. ‘See, I’m sick. Can I please be under dorm arrest?’
‘Move.’
Demi trudged down the stairs. ‘Oh. This isn’t actually that bad. It’s like an enormous fish tank.’
The hatch slammed shut.
‘What were you thinking?’ Madam Grayson demanded. ‘I told you not to do anything. To leave it to us. What you did was stupid. Really stupid... but smart. Although you didn’t hear that last part from me.’
‘Leave them,’ Amathia’s voice warned. She was standing in the middle of the dungeon, with Nemertes attempting to skirt past her.
Nemertes crossed her arms. ‘I don’t want them here.’
‘They did not ask to come here,’ Amathia retorted. ‘Leave them alone.’
‘Or what?’
‘I will banish you.’
‘The palace is not yours anymore, sister. You let the humans take it from us.’
‘I will take it back.’
Demi sneezed. ‘Ugh, being sick in a dungeon sucks.’
A nefarious smile curved Nemertes’s lips. ‘Feeling a little ill, human?’
‘Why do you care?’ Aaron snapped, stepping in front of Demi.
‘Any suffering a human endures is good,’ she said simply, and retreated back to the other nereids.
Amathia glided over to Hailey and her friends. ‘You should not have done what you did.’
‘We saved the school,’ Demi protested.
‘And I appreciate that. But it was not your responsibility. This dungeon is not a place for children.’
Jayden shrugged. ‘We’ve stayed in worse dungeons.’
‘Still, I do not like you being down here with my sisters.’
‘They won’t attack us, will they?’ Alec glanced at the six nereids, who glared back at him. He gulped.
‘I will not let them,’ Amathia assured him
‘Nor will I,’ Madam Grayson added. ‘Colonel Wynton can’t keep us down here for long. There’s not exactly a bathroom.’
Reluctantly, Amathia pointed to the wall adjacent to them, where a small hole had been cut out of the ground. ‘Unfortunately, there is. A force field keeps the water from flooding in.’
‘That’s not happening.’ Hailey hugged her arms. She’d hold her bladder forever if she had to.
‘That’s just gross. I’m not staying here,’ Demi declared, and raced up the stairs.
‘No!’ Amathia cried, but Demi was already banging on the hatch.
‘Let us out! This isn’t humane.’
The sea-anemone flared red and one of its tentacles shot out, wrapping around Demi’s ankles. Demi yelped and smashed into the staircase, clawing at the steps as the tentacle dragged her down.
‘Demi!’ Jayden flew forward and yanked the tentacle. ‘Ah!’ He ripped his hands back. ‘It stung me.’
‘And it’s stinging my legs!’ Demi squealed, lying at the bottom of the stairs, trying to kick free. Another two tentacles shot out: one wrapped around Demi’s wrists, and the other around Jayden’s. ‘Get it off me!’
Hailey bolted forward with Aaron to help her, while Alec moved to help Jayden.
‘Stop.’ Hailey glanced back at Amathia. ‘It will tie you up as well if you help.’
‘This is so embarrassing. I’m a Demeter and a plant is attacking me.’ She wriggled her legs and tried to tear her wrists apart.
‘Stop struggling,’ Madam Grayson instructed.
Jayden dropped his arms. His jaw clenched and sweat covered his brow. ‘It still stings.’ A few seconds passed before the tentacle uncurled from his wrists.
‘Oh, thank the Tyches,’ Demi sighed when the tentacles unwound
from around her and shrank back into the sea-anemone, which changed back to blue. Cough. Cough. Cough. ‘Argh, this is the worst day ever. I just want to go to bed.’
Jayden helped her up. ‘Come on, Dems. You can have a nap in the corner. The ground is nice and soft.’
‘Whatever.’ She let him pull her to her feet and walk her a few yards away, where she sank down on the ground and closed her eyes.
‘I need to check my sisters aren’t devising anything.’ Amathia headed to the other side of the dungeon.
‘Why’d you say you told us to steal the necklaces?’ Aaron asked Madam Grayson.
‘I’m your overseer,’ Madam Grayson replied. ‘It’s my job to protect you, even when you’re guilty. Although if I’d known your father would throw you in here no matter what, I might have kept quiet.’ She smirked.
‘I’m sorry about this.’ Aaron dropped his head. ‘Again, it’s my fault.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Alec countered. ‘It’s your dad’s. He manipulated you, and now that you are thinking for yourself, he’s punishing you.’
‘Alec’s right,’ Hailey agreed. ‘Your dad doesn’t like you not following his every command.’
Aaron shrugged. ‘I guess. But it still sucks he’s related to me. I wish he wasn’t my dad.’
‘He loves you.’ Madam Grayson put a hand on his back. ‘I could see how upset he was when he found out about the cyclops’s attack. He was so worried he wanted to enter the forest that night and look for you. We convinced him it was idiotic and to wait until morning. He stayed up all night pouring over a map, trying to figure out where you’d be.’
‘He threw me in a dungeon,’ Aaron protested. ‘How many loving parents would do that to their kid?’
‘He had to, to keep control,’ Alec explained. ‘You admitted to stealing the necklaces in front of everyone. If he’d let you get away with it, then the students would have thought PET were bluffing about the dungeon and stopped listening to them.’
‘I don’t really care.’ Aaron sank to the ground. ‘I just hope he doesn’t keep us down here long.’
A door slamming open ripped Hailey from her dreamless sleep. Jake was trudging down the stairs, balancing four chalices on top of four stacked plates.
Everyone stirred awake, except Demi, who was curled into a ball in the corner, snoring softly.
‘What do you want?’ Aaron demanded, meeting his father at the bottom of the steps.
‘All prisoners get food and water.’ Jake dropped the plates and chalices; they made a soft clatter as they hit the squishy floor. ‘You’ll have to share.’
‘Thanks,’ Jayden said, standing up from beside Demi. ‘I don’t suppose we can leave? Demi’s really sick and should be in bed.’
‘You should have thought about that before you stole the necklaces.’
‘Colonel,’ Madam Grayson snapped, her voice bordering on fury as she approached him. ‘She needs rest in her own bed. It’s freezing down here. She’ll get pneumonia.’
‘If that happens, I’ll send the nurse.’
‘This is—’
Jake cut Madam Grayson off. ‘I will let everyone go—except the nereids—if you tell me where the necklaces are. We haven’t found them yet, but we will, so it’s better if you tell me where they are now.’
‘We’re not telling you.’ Aaron crossed his arms.
‘Fine. You can rot down here.’ Jake stomped back up the stairs, slamming the hatch behind him.
Demi jolted awake. ‘What’s happening?’ She struggled into a sitting position.
‘Food,’ Jayden said, grabbing a plate and handing it to her.
‘Yay.’ Her voice was thick with sleep. ‘I’m thinking pancakes.’ She sneezed.
‘Definitely not,’ Madam Grayson admonished. ‘You’re sick. You need to eat something healthy.’
‘I was going to make them blueberry,’ Demi argued.
‘Something healthy,’ Madam Grayson repeated.
‘Fine. Chicken soup it is.’ Demi closed her eyes. Her plate curved into a bowl brimming with steaming liquid. The soup’s salty delicious scent made Hailey’s stomach grumble.
‘Here,’ Alec handed her a plate.
‘Let’s share,’ Hailey said. ‘What do you feel like?’
‘I…’ Alec’s eyes grew wide.
Hailey whipped her head around, expecting to find the nereids surrounding them. What she saw was much worse.
A hundred-foot sea-serpent swam past the glass. A webbed-fin ran down the length of its back, and long spikes covered the end of its tail.
‘Finally,’ Hailey heard Nemertes mutter at the other end of the dungeon.
‘Awesome!’ Demi exclaimed, rushing up to the glass and tapping on it. ‘Here, sea-serpent.’
‘Demi, stop!’ Alec begged, backing up towards the staircase. ‘We don’t want that thing anywhere near us.’
‘Nemertes, please don’t. They could die,’ Amathia pleaded, standing beside the glowing sea-anemone in the centre of the room.
‘I hope they do.’
‘Please,’ Amathia repeated, voice desperate.
‘Humans were meant to be food for the gods—or at least their worship was. I care nothing for them. They destroyed our world. I will gladly watch every last one of them die.’ Nemertes made a hissing sound like a snake.
‘GET AWAY FROM THE GLASS!’ Amathia shouted. At the same time, the sea-serpent released a piercing cry, and its spiked tail swung around, smashing into the walls.
22
An Icy Shock
Two walls shattered in an instant, glass spraying into the sea as a wave roared into the dungeon. At least it started to, and then it stopped, lingering in front of them like a wall of water.
‘I can’t hold it back for long.’ Jayden’s arms were extended towards the wave, but they were drooping inch by inch. ‘It’s too strong.’
‘Time to die, little humans,’ Nemertes sung, grinning at the right wall where long cracks were snaking their way down the glass.
‘Swim for the school,’ Madam Grayson instructed them, right before the glass imploded and the ground fell.
Hailey sucked in a breath before the icy water swarmed her. The cold was intense, and felt like thousands of daggers burrowing into her skin. Her muscles tightened, screaming with pain. She glimpsed Nemertes for a single second, a wicked smile on her face, before she became a blur in the water, swimming away with the other evil nereids. Amathia grabbed Alec’s wrist and vanished out of sight too.
Hailey looked to see where her friends were. Demi and Jayden were already swimming upwards, and so was Madam Grayson. Aaron wasn’t far behind them. And to Hailey’s relief, the sea-serpent was slithering down, returning to the darkened depths below.
Hailey fought through the pain in her legs and kicked herself upwards. She managed to move all of two feet before something stung her ankle. She stared down, expecting to see the sea-monster she’d spent all of last year dreaming about. But it wasn’t a spiky tentacle grabbing her. It was a red tentacle from the giant sea-anemone, which was sinking towards the bottom of the sea, dragging Hailey with it.
She reached down to pull herself free. Ah! she screamed in her head, the tentacle stinging her like a jellyfish the second she touched it. Hailey didn’t want to risk another tentacle wrapping around her hands, so she decided to swim with the damn thing attached. Her lungs burned and she knew she didn’t have much time before they forced her to inhale.
Adrenaline washed away Hailey’s pain and fired up her muscles. She launched up. Or tried to. But the stupid sea-anemone was still dragging her down. GET OFF ME! she screamed in her head, kicking furiously, feeling like she had a sack of stones attached to her ankle. A hand touched her wrist. She looked up at Aaron. He brought his hands up and then dropped them to his sides as he mouthed relax.
Relax? Is he insane? A freaking sea-anemone was drowning her, and she had about twenty seconds of air left, which was definitely not enough to get her to the palace.
> Aaron acted out the moves again, but added a NOW!
Fine. Hailey forced her legs to stop kicking. Her brain screamed at her to move. To swim for air. But she fought her instincts and stayed still, trying not to think about the intensifying burning in her lungs.
It felt as if centuries passed before the sea-anemone released her ankle, its heavy weight no longer dragging her down. Aaron grabbed her arm and kicked, pulling her up. She kicked her legs, too, and willed her lungs to hold on a little more, to give her just a little extra time to reach the school. But the school was at least thirty feet away. No way could she make it. She didn’t even think Aaron could.
But she kept kicking. And then two things happened at once: her lungs surrendered, forcing her to inhale icy water; and Amathia appeared, her gown flowing gracefully around her in the water, sparkling like fish scales. Aaron’s grip tightened on Hailey’s wrist, and he reached his other hand to Amathia.
The sea blurred around her as she shot through it like a torpedo, and suddenly she was being yanked into the grounds and coughing up water. She heard Aaron’s sharp inhale of breath beside her.
Hailey gasped for air the first chance she got. It took a few more breaths before her lungs stopped burning. She hugged her arms tightly as her teeth chattered.
‘You need to get to a warm bath.’ Not a single drop of water clung to Amathia. ‘The others are already in the bathing rooms.’
‘Aaron! Aaron, are you all right?’ Jake was sprinting towards them.
Aaron ignored him and helped Hailey up.
‘Aaron, talk to me.’
‘Ge-e-e-t awa-a-a-a-y fro-o-om-m me-e.’ Aaron shoved his dad back. ‘C-c-come o-o-o-n, Ha-a-aile-e-y.’
***
Hailey and Demi walked towards their dorm, successfully having fought off hypothermia—not to mention frostbite—thanks to a Hecate potion added to their bath water. Hailey was getting a little tired of almost drowning, but as long as she never actually drowned, she supposed she could live with it.
Considering what they’d been through—and the fact there was no longer a dungeon—Jake had “un-arrested” them.
‘Ah, home sweet home,’ Demi said, throwing their dorm door open.
Poseidon's Academy and the Deadly Disease Page 22
