Page 57 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

“Can I get a window?” I gasped, pushing against his mucous-covered hide. He opened it up easily enough whenever he wanted to screech at someone, eat something, or tuck a person away in his middle. So, I had the idea that maybe his body was more malleable than a human’s and did whatever he—

Yep, that worked.

A porthole opened under my searching hand and widened enough for me to stick my head out. Uh-huh. Yeah.

People were shooting at us.

A lot of people. A lot of very pissed-off, fey-looking people. One of whom suddenly hit a wall and dropped behind when somebody started shooting at them.

“What is it?” Erin demanded, fighting with me to be able to see. “What is happening?”

“I think Pritkin is behind them,” I slurred, although it was hard to tell.

The fey following us seemed to be riding on something because nobody ran that fast, and they kept zig-zagging back and forth along the corridor, getting in the way of the view. I squinted, and sure enough, their feet weren’t moving at all. Instead, something clear and rippling was tearing across the gorgeous tilework while they balanced on top.

There were surfboards, I thought blearily, only there wasn’t any water under there. Unless the “board” itself was made out of the stuff. Which wasn’t as crazy as it seemed.

The fey could make manlikans, which, in the case of the Green Fey, were man-shaped creations composed of water encased inside an outer ward. The ward also directed the creatures’ actions, allowing the fey to use them as servants, ammunition mules, and spies, the latter because they could transform into almost any shape, including one flat enough to fit under a door or between the slats on a shutter. A surfboard seemed child’s play next to that.

Only these surfboards were allowing them to catch up—fast.

“Get out of the way!” Enid was beating on me now. “Let me see!”

“Make your own porthole. This one’s mine,” I said, only to have to pull back inside anyway, because a spell tore by almost close enough to set my hair on fire.

Enid took the opportunity to poke her head out, red hair flying because she’d lost her cap somewhere, and then abruptly ducked back in. She looked at me with wide, shocked eyes as if she hadn’t understood any of that, either. So much for getting an explanation, I thought, before she snapped out of her shock and grabbed me.

“That is Prince Emrys back there!”

“Is it? I thought I glimpsed him—”

“They’re going to kill him!”

“Are they? Then why’s he chasing them?”

More shaking and then a slap across the face, which I was pretty sure I didn’t deserve. It did clear my head a little, though. I took another peek.

Yeah, that was Pritkin, and yeah, he was chasing a whole group of fey down the hallway, like Han Solo on the Death Star racing after a bunch of stormtroopers. And like Darth Vader’s guys, the fey hadn’t noticed that they only had one pursuer or, indeed, that they had any at all. Maybe because they were too focused on killing us.

And then the lights went out.

I blinked in the darkness for a moment, slowly realizing that it wasn’t just the lights that had disappeared. It was the corridor, too, since we were currently traveling through a blue-black tunnel with a low, ominous thrumming sound. It was underwater, something I could tell because the sides were all but invisible, composed of wards between occasional pieces of round, metal scaffolding.

It looked like it should have been on the Nautilus as an observation corridor, only there wasn’t much to observe. A few crumbled-looking columns shone ghostly pale in the distance, shimmering behind a watery veil. A school of yellow fish, vivid enough to show up even against all that dim water, flitted by like brightly colored birds soaring through a dark sky. And a bunch of merpeople turned from a sand bar a little way off to watch as we zipped by in our crazy ride.

They were on the left-hand side, where they’d been working on what appeared to be more tunnels through the deep, which were dimly visible as they snaked off into the distance. I stared at the builders, and they stared back, their necks absurdly oversized because their gills were fully open instead of tucked against their skin as they had been in the dining hall. Now they were wafting about like the translucent ends of their fish tails. . .

Snap out of it, Cassie!

I tried to wake up, but it was a struggle, with exhaustion clutching at me like spectral fingers. I concentrated on the metal flooring underfoot, which made slight ringing sounds as Pinkie scurried across it and the occasional lights set into the metal scaffolding. There was nothing else to focus on except the endless indigo water—

And that, I thought, as another spell bolt screamed past us, exploding against the side of the tunnel and taking out one of the lights.

And spooking Pinkie, who was already spooked enough. Causing him to veer off the expansive main tunnel into a smaller side one, part of a scrawling network that resembled a rollercoaster track more than the flat, pedestrian pathway we’d just left. Enid must have thought so, too, because she immediately started clawing at me again.

“Get us out!”

“I don’t even know what we’re in,” I said thickly, pushing at Pinkie’s yielding flesh to make myself another convertible. Because I couldn’t halfway see like this.

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