Baikuana was nowhere near as large as Tethyia, nor was it as visually striking. It was a long stretch of crude stone dwellings, stained with algae and dotted with many large holes that allowed light and water to permeate the homes of the residents, who dwelled much deeper inside the rocks. Many of them had drawn boulders over the entrances, and others were outside, conversing or sheperding herds of sea creatures, all operating by the sparse light of the massive balls of Hyrule that flickered high above the city, casting their light feebly through the unnaturally black water to the settlement below. The Neptune's Treasure glided through the deep, following the line of guards ahead.

Many of the Baikuanans were emerging from their homes to look up at the ship, but unlike the Tethyians, who had all gazed up at it in awe, these crude-looking merpeople were leering up at them, hissing, even brandishing weapons in their direction.

Arrluk had been here, once before. Back then, he had been with his mother, there to do the same thing they had come here for now: passing through the Oxidaze Tunnels. Neither city nor residents were much, but Baikuana, like many other small settlements, was in possession of a useful attraction that brought in a steady stream of visitors from other lands. The Oxidaze Tunnels were a massive, interconnected, glacial structure, with vast passages that ran to many different parts of the seas. The enchanted water that flowed through them moved at incredible speeds, carrying them through the immense lengths of the tunnels, which would, under normal circumstances, take days or even weeks, in mere hours, minutes even, depending on your destination.

They continued to forge through the water, while Arrluk thought back to that day. He had been accompanied by Jino as well, his personal bodyguard for nearly a decade. His mother had also brought a fierce female guard who Arrluk remembered was called Oshawa. They had been on an urgent trip to visit his mother's father, who had fallen severely ill, in her home country, which was a full three weeks' journey away; when she had married Hatak, she had moved away from their village of Osios to Tethyia.

The king of Baikuana, a round-belled merman with short, sharp teeth like a shark's, had summoned them into his chambers after a violent confrontation with the border guards, much like the one they had just had in the present.

He had initially refused their request for a passage, despite the overwhelming load of precious sea stones, lapis lazuli (their most valuable jewel), and ornamental shells that they had hauled with them for payment. Indeed, he had seemed far more interested in his mother than any of the treasure they had offered. Even the harsh Oshawa had found herself visibly repulsed by the crooked king's advances, but Arrluk's mother had remained polite and clear on their wish, yet firm. Eventually, seeing that he had no chance of obtaining anything but the desperately needed fortune that Jesa had presented, he accepted.

For this very reason Arrluk was skeptical of their chances of getting through now — though he had taken the liberty of changing up their offering. He had a feeling the king would like what he had to trade for passage now.

The ruler's palace swam into view, a huge, weathered, and extremely dirty stone pillar that rose into the dimly lit water like an admonitory finger. Black bubbles were oozing from an opening at the topmost level, seeping into the already heavily polluted water. It was exactly as he remembered it.

"This place is disgusting," Desmond said, screwing up his face as he stared around. "Did you say a king lives here?"

"Indeed," Arrluk replied.

"King of what, the bottom-feeders?"

Arrluk repressed a laugh. "If you think this is bad, wait until you see the interior."

"I have no intention of seeing the interior," Kayla said from behind them. "So you guys can just tell me about it when you're done — or, you know, don't."

"Unfortunately, you don't have a choice," Arrluk said flatly. "He'll want to see us all, might even check our belongings, before he agrees to give us passage."

"No way!" Ethan said. "I don't want some filthy fish king raking through all my stuff."

"Why? Got something to hide, do you?" Desmond said teasingly.

"I agree with Ethan," Arrluk said, just as the former made to respond; his reply seemed to take everyone else aback, even Jino and Duat, by the looks on their faces. "We can't have him searching this ship, this journey is a sensitive one. Remember, we're setting out to prevent disaster. Knowing Ashay, which I unfortunately do, if he gets wind of our plans he would either leak the information to stir a panic for the fun of it, or demand to be allowed to take part in it, so that if we succeed he can sponge off the glory. Or both.

"Either way, we can't have that. Simply try to keep a level head, do not attract his attention, and if you do, you cannot divulge the true purpose of our quest, under any circumstance."

"So you want us to lie?" Desmond asked slyly.

"As if your life depended on it."

They arrived at the crest of the column within two minutes; the guards instructed them to wait while they entered, then emerged shortly after to beckon them inside. Desmond stationed his newly acquired pet shark on the lower level, so that she could swim around, while Arrluk commanded the ship to anchor itself, which it did by dropping four enormous sea urchins on all sides through the vast holes embedded in the hull, all attached by thickly woven silk threads that Arrluk recognized as having been harvested from byssuses, and they followed the King's guards towards the door. A seal-skin curtain hung at the entrance, which the guard brushed aside impatiently with his spear, and led them forward.

There was only one room, one large open space filled with dawdling workers who were sitting eating, playing games, or drinking from pearls filled with jellyfish toxin and a thick green liquid Arrluk knew to be stonefish toxin, which his father sometimes drank when he was particularly stressed. Like jellyfish toxin, the stonefish venom would normally have killed many other species it came in contact with, but to Tethyians it was more or less a pleasant drink, or a powerful hallucinogenic, depending on the toxicity.

Arrluk looked around, trying to mask his disdain. His eyes passed over the many Baikuanans, sitting completely at their ease as though they were in a tavern and not their ruler's chambers. Then he found him: he was sitting in a cement chair positioned against the frontmost wall, which was obviously supposed to be a throne; his great belly had grown even larger in the few years since Arrluk had last seen him, his dark grey hair was unkempt, his skin as unnaturally pale as his guards'. His large fish tail was as black as the stone around him, and he was holding a large black seashell in one hand from which he was smoking, expelling the huge black bubbles they had seen wafting outside, and with the other he was groping along a large leaf which held many live snails, which he was slurping right out of their shells.

"Ah," he said, as he pulled a snail out of its shell and chewed it with his filthy, unnaturally sharp teeth. "Now. Who do we have here?" he asked, eyeing Arrluk with a most unconvincing puzzlement.

"Prince Arrluk, of Tethyia, Your Majesty," said their escort.

Ashay gave a very dramatic gasp, clutching the hand with which he had been downing snails to his enormous chest: Arrluk resisted the urge to roll his eyes, though only barely.

"Little Arrluk, is it? All grown up, now, has he?"

Arrluk managed a polite smile. "Indeed," he said with a bow. "It is an honour to meet you again, King Ashay."

"Please, please, call me Your Majesty," Ashay said with a smile, as though inviting casualness. "Now, tell me, boy, what brings you to my realm? And who are these?" His bulging black eyes had found the humans.

"Well, I'm here again to request of your graciousness —" Arrluk hesitated for a split second. "— Your Majesty. We're on a very important journey, you see, not much time, and I came to ask your permission to use the Oxidaze —"

"Now, hold on." Ashay sat up in his chair, and a few more cracks spread along the base. "Just a moment, Prince Arrluk. You know full well that I don't just permit anyone through those tunnels. I know what people like you think of us Baikuanans. We're small, insignificant —"

Disgusting.

"— but then you all come back with the pretty speeches when you need something. Well, guess what? The answer is no."

Arrluk had expected this. Though his insides were burning, he piped up, with as genuine an earnestness as he could muster, "But — Your Majesty, this is of the utmost importance — please —"

He had said the magic word and he knew it: a wide smile broke out across the unsightly face. Ashay loved when people whom he saw as above him in a particular class were made to grovel. This he saw from his own quiet observation of him years before.

"Well . . . I s'pose I could make an exception. For a price, of course."

"Of course," Arrluk repeated. "I have brought you an offering, Your Majesty. Two barrels of the finest peppered, boiled, and roasted sea slugs from the city of Clarydia."

The king sat up, an eager look unfolding across his face. This Arrluk also knew from back then. Like now, Ashay had spent the entire discussion throwing slugs and snails into his mouth.

"Hmm . . ." He looked as though he wanted desperately to say yes, but something was holding him back. That something became apparent the moment his eyes flickered onto Desmond, Ethan, and Kayla again. He leaned back in his chair with what looked like a great effort. "I shall think about it," he said heavily. "Tell me about this 'journey' while I mull it over."

Arrluk gritted his teeth, but forced a smile and continued nevertheless. "We are transporting these humans," he said, gesturing at them, "to a land called Cormis."

"Why in the Seven Seas do you even have humans in the first place?"

"Their anatomy is different to ours," Arrluk said, inventing wildly, "which could prove useful. A relative of my father's is deathly ill in Cormis. Healers there believe that they can synthesize a cure by first studying the effects on the human anatomy, so we struck a deal with some of the land-dwellers. Magic in exchange for their service."

"So you used the cuttlefish to grant them immunity to the water, did you?"

"That's right."

"So why," Ashay asked, his eyes on Desmond, "do my subjects report to me that this one was not wearing a cuttlefish when you arrived at my gates?"

Triton's sake.

"That is a funny story, Your Majesty. See, the humans are quite curious of our world and the magic we possess," Arrluk reeled off, warning them with a glance not to interrupt. "We tried to explain as best as we could, but, they were still rather inquisitive. You're aware, of course, that the cuttlefish offer them protection from things such as the pressure, the lack of air, the temperature, and all of that, by bonding with them using its own magic? Well — silly one, you know," Arrluk said, half-laughing. "Wanted to see what would happen if he removed his cuttlefish inside our ship."

"And you let him?" The king's tone oozed skepticism.

"Well, of course not! As I say, reckless, you know." Arrluk was carefully avoiding Desmond's glare. "Didn't listen. Took it off before I could stop him."

"Interesting . . . interesting." Ashay scratched his stubbly, green beard, which looked as though a patch of moss had crept over his chin. "And how did you do that?" he shot suddenly at Desmond. Arrluk's heart began to pound against his chest; his surprise was such that his mask of coolness nearly shattered, exposing the shock-twisted visage that he had been carefully trying to hide.

"Er . . . how did I do what, Your Majesty?" Desmond asked politely.

"Remove the cuttlefish. They don't just pop off, as I'm sure you know. There's a process behind it. How did you remove it?"

He didn't know. Of course he didn't know, Arrluk thought angrily. He had never needed to wear one, until Arrluk instructed him to, on board the Neptune's Treasure earlier so as to throw off suspicion. Nor had Ethan and Kayla ever thought to remove theirs.

Ashay was waiting, tapping his hand against his stubby knee. Desmond did not respond: he was glancing nervously around, as though wordlessly requesting help. They were in trouble now and Arrluk knew it. He could see it in the king's beady black eyes.

"So!" he said, rising and glowering down at them all. "You thought you would come here to deceive me, did you, Prince Arrluk?"

"No! Of course not! He knows, of course he does —"

"Then why hasn't he done it?"

"He's — he's scared, obviously. He'll die, if it's remo —"

"He didn't die on your ship, though?"

"Because —"

"This your final chance, Prince Arrluk," Ashay said, his voice deadly calm. "Tell me what is really going on here, of your own accord, or I shall find out myself, and you can turn back now and find another route to save your 'dying relative' — another lie, I suppose?"

There was silence. For the first time, no words occurred to the Prince. They were caught at it, but he couldn't tell the truth. . . . How could he, seeing who was listening?

Before he could devote any more thought to the matter, the king spoke again.

"Very well. Do not tell me, Young Prince. Achiyaz!" he barked, and at once, long, thick ropes of seaweed flew up from the many cracks along the dirty floor, wrapping tightly around their entire party.

"What — what is the meaning of this?" Arrluk demanded, struggling against the vines. "How dare you? Release me! I am the Prince —"

"— of Tethyia," sneered Ashay. "You're a long ways from home, boy. You have no authority in my land. Remove the fish!" he ordered one of the guards.

"No!" Arrluk shouted. "He won't survive, he'll —!"

But his desperate attempts at dissuading the king proved fruitless. The guard that had seized Desmond now took to rubbing the part of the cuttlefish that was still exposed, humming out a low tune. To Arrluk's horror, the greyish sheet surrounding Desmond's skin faded away, and the guard pulled away the cuttlefish, wriggling contentedly at the soft touch and the small offering of music, leaving Desmond floating in the water, unscathed, breathing perfectly, unaffected by the pressure.

"So!" Ashay said again, triumphantly. "'He'll die! He'll die without it!'" he added, in a high-pitched imitation of Arrluk's voice. "Such lies, Prince Arrluk. Has your father taught you nothing? Deception in a king's court is punishable by death!"

He swam forward, his blackened tail beating the water as he moved towards Desmond, examining him with a mixture of avidity and suspicion. "A human that breathes underwater! How very interesting! And what of these?" His eyes had fallen on Kayla and Ethan. "Can you, too, breathe beneath the seas?"

"No!" Desmond said quickly, shuffling in front of the king to divert his attention from the other two. "All right, Arrluk lied, but he was just protecting me. I can breathe underwater, but they can't. If you remove the cuttlefish they really will die."

Ashay seemed to recognize the earnestness in his voice beneath the urgency. He scrutinized him, then after a slight pause, he said, "Very well. You I believe." He shot a nasty glance at Arrluk, then turned back to Desmond. "I'll tell you what? I'm feeling in a very generous mood today. So, I will release your friends — even the lying Prince — in exchange for those barrels of slugs, a reasonable sum of money — and, of course, you."

A shocked silence filled the room.

"Me?"

"You. You, you, you. The first of the surface-worlders to breathe underwater! What else can you do?" he added eagerly.

"Uh —"

"Oh, no matter!" he said, waving an airy hand. "We can figure it out together. You see, my kingdom is not of particularly high class, Mr. . . . ?"

"Desmond."

"Desmond. Most of our income is brought in through the Oxidaze Tunnels, Desmond, but not many people take this route these days. Not much traveling done at all, you know. To see a human such as yourself, however, I'll have hundreds — thousands — piling up at my borders —"

"No deal!" Ethan shouted. "You're not taking him!"

"Definitely not!" Kayla said. She looked terrified, yet determined,

"If I'd cared for your opinions, I would have asked," Ashay snapped. He turned back to Desmond and his anger melted away. "Now, what do you say, Desmond?"

"I say . . . unfortunately, not."

Ashay's smile flickered. "Not?"

"Not."

"What do you mean, 'not'?!"

"I mean, someone else has already called dibs on me," Desmond said, now smiling.

"Dibs? Dibs? What is this 'dibs,' who called it?"

Desmond, still smiling, managed to raise a hand and jerked his thumb behind him. "Her."

For a moment, everyone in the room was confused — then they understood as the serpentine tail shot through the opening and smacked Ashay hard across the face, sending him flying across the room.

Desmond turned, his grin still fixed in place. "After all the flack you gave us for coming to class late, I would have thought you'd be a bit more punctual," he said casually, as the Rasulka that had so recently posed as his English teacher came pelting into the room.