The coolness of the sunset is replaced by the humidity of bodies

crammed into one place. Their emotions are raging, which adds to the

queasiness in my gut. I prefer the super senses underwater, thanks.

Between the smells of beer sloshing in puddles on the creaky

wooden floor, the sea salt and sweat that permeate these sailors’

skins, lily flower and bubbly sea mead, there’s something else. I

can’t single it out and I start doing what no self-respecting New

Yorker ever does-I stare.

I’m staring too long at the fishermen playing cards while drinking

amber liquid from dirty, chipped glasses. They could use a bath or a

shave or eyedrops because their eyes are so red. One with graying hair

and skinny scars around his eye, like the points of a compass, stares

back at me. He licks his ringed fingers, looks down to shuffle his

cards, looks back up at me.

Gwen pulls me closer to the bar. “Get over here.”

I pat my dagger for the familiarity of it.

Kurt walks the length of the room, searching for the same thing I

am-great, big, glaring mermen with their entourages. So far, there are

plenty of fishermen and wimpy young pirates trying to make out with

some fairy girls, but no champions. He takes a barstool beside me.

“They aren’t here.”

“Really?” I mutter. “I hadn’t noticed.”

A tiny part of me is glad. The knot tying my insides starts to

loosen. What would I have even said to someone like Dylan if I saw him

again? Hey, good to see you? Say, I know we’re both searching for the

same trident pieces, but let’s compare notes. Your family probably has

tons of resources, while I have a group of friends who might kill each

other before the night is over.

“There has to be another way down,” I say.

“You heard Felix,” Layla counters. “The oracle police closed

whatever entryway there was, and you blew up the other. Kurt, what do

you think? You’re the only one who’s ever seen her.”

Kurt contemplates this for a while. In our conspicuous cluster of

barstools, he pinches his chin thoughtfully. “I-I don’t know.”

And there it is.

Kurt, my greatest source of knowing , says he, in fact, doesn’t

know.

Before I have time to wallow in my premature defeat, Gwen

literally smacks me. “You’re all looking at this wrong.”

I rub the sting on my cheek. “Enlighten us, princess.”

“So other champions are gallivanting around this goddess-forsaken

cove of creatures that have nowhere to go? That doesn’t mean they’ve

found her. They don’t seem to be trying very hard if they’re seducing

locals and showing up in this shabby hole.”

“What are you suggesting we do?” Kurt’s seething through his

teeth. “ Sit here awhile and make friends with the locals some more?”

Her smile is stunning, bright as the sun yet somehow still cold.

“That’s precisely what I mean. Your problem is that you’ve got a giant

spear up your-”

“Gwen-”

“What I mean is, your approach to everything is to stab it.

Tristan doesn’t need that. His actions brought him to Felix, which

brought us here. All the creatures on this cove are linked, the way we

are on Toliss and at the Glass Castle. Let’s see, for a moment , if

there is anything worth finding out before we storm the city, shall

we?”

“She’s right,” Thalia says quietly, sitting on the side where

she’s turning an opal egg between her hands.

That smell is driving me crazy. I thought I sensed it in the

market, but I disregarded it as incense and smoke from the tents. I

smack my hands on the bar top. “You guys can’t tell me you don’t smell

that?”

“What’s wrong?” Layla asks, pulling on my pinky the way she did

when we were little. All, “Come on, Tristan, keep up.”

“There’s a certain scent-” I look to Kurt and Thalia. They should

smell it too.

“I think it’s the liquid freezing the kraken,” Thalia says.

I close my eyes. Concentrate on singling it out. There’s dew in

the wood arches of the ceiling. It must have rained just before we got

here. I find the smell of the chemicals in the beast above, but no,

that’s not it. There’s the sweet burn of molasses from the greedy

fishermen and lusting pirates. That’s not it either. Maybe I’m

imagining it.

“Never mind.” I open my eyes again, wishing they wouldn’t look at

me as if I were seconds away from getting committed.

The tavern vibrates as Reggie, the half-man, half-troll barkeep,

stomps from the far end of the bar to us. My head reaches his nipples,

which are barely covered by a thick leather vest. And here I thought

trolls were supposed to be little and hairy. I used to have tons, with

their pointy tufts of multicolored hair and tiny jewels in their

bellies. Actually, they were Layla’s. Yeah, Layla’s.

“You gonna order or sit there looking pretty for us?” says the

troll man.

“Order,” I say.

Reggie lines up glasses in front of us, doesn’t ask what we want

but starts pouring the familiar green bubbly. Except for Layla. He

gives her something that smells like roses. Kurt takes some coins out

of his pocket and lets them cluster on the table. Reggie scoops them

up like jacks and weighs them in his sausage-y palm. Satisfied, he

leaves us to our drinks.

“What the hell is this?” Layla asks. She sniffs the glass but

doesn’t take a sip. “Perfume?”

Thalia takes the flute glass from Layla’s fingers. “It won’t kill

you.”

“Milk of the rose,” Gwen says, pursing her lips at our ignorance.

“All the princesses like to drink it, of course. Better than the

disgusting burping you get from sea mead.” She arcs her back and snaps

her fingers at the trollish bartender.

“What are you doing?” Layla whispers.

All we need is for Reggie to snap at us and we’ll never get any

information.

Gwen smirks with her pretty pink mouth. Reggie takes her in for a

moment, and whatever he sees in her eyes, he seems to decide he

doesn’t want to argue with her. The movement, the command, the way he

switches her drink without ever asking why. It’s all impressive. It’s

so very Gwen.

I lean into her ear and whisper, “What did you do, bewitch him?”

She elbows me jokingly and says to us, “Sometimes you have to show

your claws a bit. Try it.”

“I don’t have any claws,” I say.

She glances back at the gambling fishermen, then back at me. “Grow

some.”

“Are you quite finished?” Kurt asks.

Gwen touches his nose with her fingertip. “You’re no fun,

Kurtomathetis.”

“You’re not helpful, Princess Gwenivere.”

“Oh, many pardons, Kurtomathetis,” she says, taking a dainty sip

from the flute. “Best make myself helpful.”

I don’t even want to ask what she’s doing. Gwen takes on a charm

she hasn’t shown any of us the past two days. Or ever.

“Reggie!” her voice is as delicate as crystal, rid of the dry edge

she uses on Kurt.

I don’t know anything about trolls, but now I know that when they

blush, they look like they’re farting. His face is scrunched up,

sinking into his shoulders. If he were a turtle, his neck would’ve

popped back into his shell. He comes back to our side of the bar.

“M-me?”

Layla rolls her eyes as Gwen reaches out a slender hand to lightly

graze Reggie’s hairy arm.

“Of course, you,” Gwen says. “We were just looking for our

friends. They might look like these strapping young men-” she nods to

Kurt and me “-probably lascivious and followed by many, many ,

beautiful girls.”

Okay, I get it . All the other champions have a bunch of