“This is where you grew up?” said Simon to Jam, who had his eyes closed as if he were pretending they were anywhere but here.
“Sort of,” he mumbled, cracking open an eye. “We’re almost to the harbor.”
“How are you so pale?” said Winter. “If I lived here, I’d be out in the sun every day.”
“And you claim you’re nothing like the other reptiles,” said Ariana with a smirk. That made Winter’s expression sour, and she turned to face her.
“You know Avalon’s on an island, right?” she said nastily. “And you know what that means, right? We’re gonna have to go on a boat.”
Oh. That’s what Ariana had been talking about, Simon realized—Jam had said that Avalon was off the coast of California, not on it. No wonder she was so anxious.
Nolan, who sat on the other side of Jam, laughed. “That’s right. You’re afraid of water, aren’t you?”
Now it was Ariana’s turn to pale, and she crossed her arms. “I’ll be fine,” she muttered, even though she didn’t sound it.
“Uh-huh. How many times do you think she’ll puke?” said Nolan to Simon. “I bet you it’ll be at least twice—”
“Let it go, okay?” said Simon. “Unless you want me to tell them what happened when you jumped into the polar bear enclosure.”
Nolan gave him a nasty look, but at least he shut up, and they spent the rest of the drive in relative silence. By the time they reached the harbor, Ariana looked like she would be proving Nolan right, and this time she didn’t protest when Simon carried her suitcase to the speedboat that was waiting for them.
A man who looked eerily similar to a pirate with his stringy black hair and leathery skin stood on the stern, and he helped them over the gap between the dock and the edge of the vessel. “Benjamin,” he said with a curt nod as Jam hopped aboard without any help.
“Dampier,” said Jam dully. “These are my friends. Simon, Nolan, Winter, and Ariana, and the Alpha of the mammal kingdom, Malcolm Thorn.”
Rather than greet them, Dampier merely sniffed and pulled up the anchor effortlessly. “Best be on our way. The General’s in a foul mood today.”
“How long until we get to Avalon?” said Malcolm, following Dampier to the controls.
“Forty minutes, with this weather,” he said, eyeing the waves. “Best hold on.”
“Forty minutes?” said Ariana, turning a sickening shade of green. Dampier took one look at her and tossed her an empty bucket.
“If you get my deck dirty, you’re cleaning it up, missy.”
Ariana clutched the bucket and didn’t say another word throughout the trip. She was, however, sick in it twice and once overboard, and Simon felt so sorry for her that he held her hair back every time. It was his fault she was here, after all, even if they’d all known they would have to get the underwater piece of the Predator eventually.
It was the longest forty minutes of Simon’s life—and probably Ariana’s, too. By the time the silhouette of an island came into view, he was fairly sure she was minutes away from passing out. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from staring as the boat neared a circular harbor and the little town of Avalon.
It looked like something out of one of his mother’s postcards. Dozens upon dozens of boats floated in the sparkling blue water, and green mountains loomed above the town, as if sheltering it from whatever lay beyond. Avalon itself was tiny compared to the cities Simon was used to, and he couldn’t help wondering where the rest of it was.
“This is where the General of the underwater kingdom lives?” he said, skeptical. As stunning as it was, especially in the bright California sunshine that had made the back of his neck grow hot, it didn’t look much different from any number of seaside towns Simon had seen in movies. He couldn’t imagine this being the center of one of the five Animalgam kingdoms.
“The General?” Dampier snorted as he navigated the boat to a pier near the edge of the harbor. “He only comes here when he has to. Don’t know much about us, do you?”
“Not really,” said Simon. But considering he’d only discovered Animalgams existed four months ago, he thought he was doing pretty okay so far.
Ariana was the first off the boat, practically taking a flying leap onto the marina. Simon followed, watching the colony of seagulls that was beginning to circle them. Maybe that was normal seagull behavior, but considering Orion was close, Simon doubted it. A shiver ran through him. How long would it be before the Bird Lord knew they were in Avalon?
“Might want to keep that bucket, missy,” said Dampier as he helped Malcolm with their luggage. “This was the easy part.”
“What’s he talking about?” said Ariana to Jam, who pursed his lips and averted his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s against the law to tell anyone. It’s how we keep outsiders away.”
“Away from what?” she demanded. He shuffled his feet. “Away from what, Jam?”
Just then, a huge swell rose up not ten feet from the dock. At first, Simon had no idea what it was, but as they all stared, the water slid away, leaving a submarine bobbing on the surface.
“My family doesn’t really live in Avalon,” said Jam. “We live in Atlantis.”
“Atlantis?” she said, her voice trembling. “Like—like the underwater city?”
Jam nodded, and before anyone else could say a thing, Ariana fainted.
5
ATLANTIS
Ariana wasn’t unconscious long, but once she came to, it took another twenty minutes for Malcolm to coax her into the submarine. By the time she shakily climbed aboard, tears streaming down her cheeks, Dampier was grumbling about schedules, and Simon was struggling to resist the overwhelming urge to sock him in the nose.
“It’s not that bad,” said Jam desperately as the submarine descended underneath the surface. Ariana clung to Malcolm, hiding her face in his chest as her shoulders shook with silent sobs. “It’s all enclosed. You can walk around and breathe like normal.”
“Except it’s surrounded by water,” said Winter, who, despite their bickering in the car, was suddenly on Ariana’s side. “We could have let her stay in Avalon, you know.”
“I’m sorry,” said Simon, feeling about as guilty as Jam looked. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have—”
He stopped short. He couldn’t say he wouldn’t have asked them to come if he’d known, not in front of Malcolm and Nolan. Besides, he knew Ariana. Despite her phobia, she would have come anyway. It was the surprise, he thought, that probably affected her most—the lack of time to prepare herself for facing her greatest fear.
It didn’t matter what he said, anyway. It wouldn’t make a difference. Simon sat nearby as she continued to hide in Malcolm’s protective embrace for the entire trip below the surface, which lasted nearly as long as the boat ride had. And when he looked out the porthole and his heart fluttered with excitement at the dark water around them, he somehow felt even worse. He had no right to be enjoying this when it scared Ariana so badly.
The tension broke abruptly, however, when Nolan shouted from the other end of the submarine, where he hovered near a porthole. “Guys, come check this out!”