The air was crisp over the Alcide Sea.

  The skies were clear, the moon illuminated the world, and the winds favored the vessel that glided through the shimmering water.

  By the bow of the ship stood Thomas Julian, staring mournfully at a child’s back.

  “Penelope, I said I’m sorry. You know I’m not going to hurt you…”

  “Why did you leave us?” she whispered without turning around.

  “I had to go help the first witch, and your mother wanted to take you to your grandmother’s home!”

  “Well my mother is dead,” Penelope spat bitterly. “And I like Tam and Eli. You should have just taken me back to them!”

  “What… You don’t like me anymore?” Thomas attempted to cajole.

  Penelope was quiet for a moment, before she slowly turned back around. She stared up at Thomas, the lines under her eyes were deep, and the weariness that lay in her features made her seem old beyond her years.

  “I like you, Uncle Thomas, but the first witch… That lady… She’s going to just use me any time she wants. And she was stupid and mean to Luca…”

  Thomas couldn’t say anything really to that point, but he tried again regardless. “Things will work out, Penny. I promise. Worst case scenario, you live with me for a while! You liked when we shared that house for a couple years, right?”

  Penelope scoffed glumly. “You don’t want to live with me.”

  Perplexed, Thomas tilted his head. “Why wouldn’t I want to live with you? I’m your uncle, aren’t I?”

  Penelope gnawed on her tongue briefly before deciding she may as well answer. “You always talk about your family back in Daxaria. You talk about seeing them again, but you never talk about taking me with you. ”

  Thomas’s stricken reaction made Penleope’s eyes lower.

  Blinking himself out of his stupor, Thomas knelt down, his rumpled, tan coat fluttering in the wind. “Penelope… I never thought I’d see you again. I thought you were going away to live with your own family. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

  Penelope’s mouth twisted. Then she mumbled something that Thomas couldn’t quite hear.

  “What was that, sorry?”

  “I’m related to Tam. They are my family,” Penelope repeated without looking up.

  Thomas’s eyebrows shot upward. “What? How?”

  “My mother… She is Duchess Annika Ashowan’s niece…” Penelope clarified slowly.

  Thomas Julian lowered himself to sit on his heels as he stared at her thoughtfully. “Wow. That’s pretty incredible.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Did you look into their future?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded again.

  “And?” Thomas pressed gently.

  Penelope’s lips pursed.

  Thomas smiled. “It’s fine. You don’t have to tell me… But… Can I ask you a favor?”

  Penelope tilted her head expectantly.

  He reached out, gently clasping her hands in his own. “If something happens to me… Can you tell the duchess or her children something?”

  The two proceeded to share a private conversation as the ship continued sluicing through the waves…

  That is until the boat abruptly bobbed deeply in the water.

  Once Thomas had steadied Penelope he rose and turned to see if the winds were shifting, or if the captain was handing off the wheel…

  But he didn’t get the chance as he was quite abruptly grabbed, backed up, and pressed against the railing.

  Reaching up, he tried to defend himself against the man with the black hair and dark eyes, but he didn’t get the chance.

  He was thrown off board into the cold water.

  It was shortly after he resurfaced that he heard the shouts and screams of the crew on board, but he couldn’t quite make out what was happening… He didn’t see another ship around them, so how did someone sneak up on them?

  Thomas continued treading water.

  He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the ship, but there were witches on board. They’d sort out whatever had happened and come get him—He just hoped Penelope was alright!

  Something brushed against Thomas’s ankle in the water, making him flail and dart to the side.

  He squinted at the inky sea, but could see nothing… That is until he noticed trails of water in the moonlight as something ginormous moved toward the ship that was still heading north.

  Panic seizing him, Thomas started swimming as quickly as he could toward the ship. He had a bad feeling he knew what was about to happen…

  *

  “You’re alright?” Tam asked Penelope with a smile.

  The little girl was staring up at him looking wildly annoyed.

  Luca had his arms around her in a tight hug and was crying.

  “I’m fine! Luca! Stop being a baby! Tam? Is Uncle Thomas okay?”

  Tam straightened in surprise. “Uncle Thomas…? You knew him?”

  Penelope frowned and shoved Luca off of herself. “Yes, I knew him! I didn’t want to be taken, but I know him and he wouldn’t have hurt me! I swear if you hurt him I’ll-I’ll-I’ll-”

  Tam dropped down to a knee and gently grasped her upper arms. “He’s swimming right now. He’s alive, and once we get off the ship, I’m sure they are going to go get him.”

  Penelope’s angry expression eased back in relief, until a new realization dawned on her. “There are witches on board! You’re going to get hurt!”

  Nodding sternly, Tam rose back up. “There are. Eli’s distracting them, but we have to go. We have to get on her back and return to Zinfera. We should be able to get our own boat and start going back to Daxaria tonight.”

  “Why aren’t we just stealing this one?” Luca asked bluntly after wiping the tears from his face with the crook of his elbow.

  Tam paused as he stared down at Luca blankly.

  Right… We really need to engage in less illegal activities around the kids…

  “We need to leave this ship for Penelope’s uncle to ride. That way he won’t freeze to dea— He’ll have a place to sleep tonight.” Tam caught himself quickly before saying something else that could concern Penelope.

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  Feeling all too aware of how urgent it was that they leave before things got too violent, Tam set to ushering the children back down to the main deck.

  Eli guarded the stairs to the bow, and was snarling at a Zinferan witch that had a fireball in her hand.

  Tensing, Tam quickly said, “Start moving toward Eli. Call her name so she knows it’s you two.”

  “Got it, dad!” Luca hollered.

  Giving a hasty smile at his son, Tam slipped back into the void, and reappeared behind the fire witch. Grabbing her by the back of her silk dress, he launched her over the railing of the ship into the water.

  A sudden gust of air slammed into Tam’s side, making his eardrum ache and his vision spin as he was blown ten feet away from where he originally stood.

  He looked up in time to see an air witch. Her hand extended, her long black hair fluttering in the wind.

  Eli looked as though she were about to pounce at the woman, when Luca and Penelope’s shouts halted her.

  Tam blearily watched as Eli darted to them, and lowered herself down so that they could crawl on her back.

  The air witch, seeing this, turned her attention to them.

  Tam vanished back into the void, though his head was aching from the last attack.

  He reappeared behind the air witch, and attempted to haul her off the ship as well, only she seemed to be expecting this, as she shot another powerful blast backward. Catching Tam in the gut he was thrown brutally against the stairs that led to the stern of the ship.

  Nausea swept over Tam as he felt the telltale signs of a rib fracture.

  The air witch swung back around to face him, her hand coming up—presumably to choke the life out of him, when the ship was suddenly pitched on its side.

  Tam was slammed into the railing, his head receiving another sharp crack.

  The air witch was thrown clear across the deck, and sea water sprayed over the entire vessel.

  Fighting against the excruciating ache in his head, and clinging to the banister to hold himself steady, Tam squinted through the spindles of the railing to make sure Eli and the kids were alright…

  They weren’t on deck.

  Tam lifted his gaze, and relief caught his heart. They were airborne.

  They were safe.

  Struggling to steady his gaze, Tam tried to mark where he should reappear on Eli, when a large tentacle exploded from the water and wrapped itself around the ship.

  Shock rendered Tam immobile as, in an instant, yet another massive tentacle appeared and curled itself around the mast of the ship.

  Pushing himself up unsteadily, Tam looked to the right to see a giant, glistening eye that was as wide as he was tall peering at him.

  “Holy shit,” Tam spluttered.

  The creature proceeded to snap the mast like it was a twig.

  Tam scrambled backward up the stairs, when a third tentacle appeared behind him—this one was covered in feathers for some reason…

  A roar above Tam pulled his gaze up. Eli was over him!

  Falling back into the void, Tam didn’t try and line himself up where Eli would be flying, but rather, pitched himself out of the thin air above where she was circling.

  As Tam fell from high above the Alcide Sea, he could see the mind boggling monstrosity that was crushing the ship beneath its tentacles, but he couldn’t let himself get distracted again!

  “KASHA!” he roared.

  Like a magnet attracting its opposite, Eli swept up, and Tam landed with an ‘oomph’ on her back.

  A fresh wave of pain made Tam break out in a cold sweat as his rib protested the extra bashing.

  Eli must have sensed how rigid he went, as she began to glide over the water, away from the destruction of the ship without flapping her wings while Tam gasped for breath.

  “UNCLE THOMAS!” Penelope shrieked out into the night air. “UNCLE THOMAS IS IN THE WATER WITH THAT THING!”

  Tam, with shaking arms, slowly slid his body up Eli’s back toward where Luca and Penelope sat.

  “Penelope… I… I don’t know that Kasha is strong enough to carry all of us all the way back to Zinfera!”

  “PLEASE!” The little girl stared up at Tam as he managed to move himself into a seated position. Tears ran down her face as the wind whipped her hair into a snarled mess.

  Tam grit his teeth and scanned the water behind them.

  He noticed several fire balls glinting by the wreckage.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, he tried to think of a solution. There had to be a way to save the man Penelope cared about, but to go back would be putting them all at risk.

  “Kasha, do you think we can do it?” Tam shouted over the wind.

  Eli turned her head slightly in his direction. Then let out a low, disheartened rumble before lowering her head.

  “NO!” Penelope sobbed.

  “We’ll come back!” Tam called desperately. “We’ll take you both back and come back for him! He just needs to swim away from the ship!”

  “THE MONSTER WILL EAT HIM!” Penelope persisted.

  “He might not! The monster seems to be busy with the ship and—”

  A flash of gold caught Tam’s eye in the distance as it dove through the air back toward the chaos of the sea beast.

  Squinting, Tam could make out the telling lines of a familiar dragon off in the distance…

  “I think your uncle is going to be fine, Penelope! I see a friend of his is going to help him!”

  Penelope, turning to see the help that Tam was describing, let out another horrified scream. “THAT’S ANOTHER ANIMAL THAT WILL EAT HIM!”

  Reaching forward and resting his hand on Penelope’s shoulder, Tam did his best to ignore the throbbing that radiated from his middle from the move. “No, he won’t. That dragon is a… A friend of your uncle and the people on board that ship. I promise!”

  Penelope looked dubiously at him, but when she saw the sincerity in his eyes, turned forward.

  “You better be right!”

  Tam allowed his hand to drop away as the ache in his head made him struggle against unconsciousness…

  At least if he fainted this time it wasn’t due to a depletion of magic. It was entirely because whatever head injury he’d just sustained…

  Bracing himself, Tam still managed to call out one more time. “Kasha! We better hurry! I think Wixim is going to be wanting to find Penelope for them sooner than later!”

  Eli’s ears perked up, then began flapping her wings quickly, bringing them higher—supposedly to find swifter air currents.

  Tam rested his hands on either side of her silky fur, and continued to fight to stay in the realm of the waking. Though he did remember to thank the Gods that he managed to retrieve the children safe and sound. He also sent a new prayer up that when they returned to Zinfera, Kat wasn’t too angry about the dragon getting away from her.

  At least he hoped that was what had happened…

  Tam sincerely doubted that his sister would allow herself to be killed off by something she would most likely describe as “a fancy looking lizard.”