Page 64 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

“They’re amazing,” I told Rieni, with awe that I didn’t try to conceal, which seemed to mollify her a bit.

“I’m glad you think so. You’ll be riding one soon enough.”

“I’m already riding one,” I said, half disbelieving, as a pale green reached out a tail to brush filmy fins over my extended hand. I closed my grip slightly as the softer-than-silk mass trailed over it, like a handshake from another world. And grinned, pleased to a ridiculous degree and equally enchanted.

These creatures were amazing!

“No, I mean in the race,” Rieni said, tossing the last of her shrimp to the green one who had greeted me so nicely.

“What?” I asked.

“The next challenge,” she said impatiently. “If you and the prince are competing, you’ll be riding. It’s a race.”

I just sat there, or clung there to be more accurate, staring at her. Until she harrumped like an old man and turned back around. And kicked our ride into high gear.

“I hope you’re a quick learner, goddess,” she shouted as we tore through the water like a speedboat. “They’re a bit hard to control!”

I would have had a reply to that, but my brain was busy screaming.

Chapter Nineteen

The journey ended in a rush of water that surged onto a dock ahead of us like waves crashing onto a pier and splashed a group of dignified-looking types who were slightly less so after being drenched. Seahorses stopped on a dime, but the wave didn’t and also soaked me pretty well with the backwash. Maybe it’ll help the smell, I thought, as I labored up some stairs after Rieni.

Who was being roundly chewed out by someone.

The people here looked more like the polished perfection of those in the palace and less like the beaten-down workhorses in the kitchen. I didn’t see anyone who couldn’t have bought a house with what they were wearing. A big house.

The robes that weren’t drenched were in fluttering silk so gossamer-fine that they looked like a captured breeze. Gems, rings, and shiny things decorated the robes and the people wearing them, including enough strings of pearls to make a jeweler weep. And there were elaborately braided hairstyles on men and women alike, which had weathered the dunking pretty well and made me wonder if that’s why braids were preferred here.

People did seem to get soaked pretty often.

But none of them looked happy to see me, making me wonder if taking rides with random nautical babies had been my best move. But then I spied Pritkin. He was heading for us down a wide corridor to the left and being trailed by the Brain, who had flushed a darker shade of blue than usual and was all puffed up like a pissed-off bouncer.

That probably explained why everyone was giving them a wide berth.

Pritkin looked like he’d just come from the fight himself, with the blingy scuba pants torn, his hair rumped, and what looked like slashes of dried blood on his bare chest. I hoped they were someone else’s and weren’t covering wounds, but I didn’t get a chance to find out. Because I was suddenly swamped by more people I didn’t know coming out of the same girthy tunnel.

They’d exited alongside Pritkin, but I’d been too relieved to see him to notice. Until they surged ahead, flying at me like overdressed bats all in black, and had me backing up toward the edge of the pier and Pinkie lashing out and thumping them wildly with his stubby “arms.”He hit pretty hard, I thought, as a couple of courtiers who had gotten in the way went stumbling backward.

A voice cut through the din, saying something in a low but penetrating tone that my translator didn’t know, and the black-clad army peeled off. And reformed into a muttering wad a little way off that I couldn’t see too well because the darkness of their robes seemed to absorb the light around them, leaving them looking like a bunch of fey-shaped black holes. But, judging by the occasional flash of weapons, they were probably guards.

“Well, you shouldn’t have been standing on the edge, should you?” Rieni was saying to someone, her voice matter-of-fact and unperturbed by the chaos. “You know how Starlight is.”

“Starlight,” the tall man standing near her huffed. “I know how you are, and you took your sweet time!”

“She wanted to see the stables,” Rieni said before being led off by the ear.

“Are you all right?” Pritkin asked, coming up alongside me.

“Think so.” I managed to keep my voice level. “Where are we, exactly?”

“Long story. Don’t kneel.”

“What?”

But that was all the help I got before being sized up by a woman I immediately understood was A Big Deal. At her arrival, everyone else fell silent and got out of the way, even when having to move faster than dignity allowed. And then they all went down on one knee, except for me and Pritkin, which made me feel awkward and somewhat ill-mannered.

But if I’d learned anything since arrival, it was to do what Pritkin said.

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