Dennis panted.
Cyrus sat up. “Is this real?” he asked. “Rhodes, sure. But Ben Sterling?”
Dennis inhaled deeply. “Yes! I was sitting on a ledge listening to Misters Sterling and Rhodes talking about it, and when Mr. Rhodes left, I made a noise, and Mr. Sterling noticed and he told me to come down and have a talk, and I told him no and he told me yes and I started humming and pretending not to hear him but he pulls out a little bottle and a tiny dart and he tells me that he was saving it for later but now everyone will think I died of eating a bad apple, and he dipped the dart in the bottle and pulled off the bowl of his pipe and put the dart in the pipe stem, and he was going to shoot me right there.”
Cyrus looked at his sister. She nodded. He scrambled up to his bare feet.
“What happened?”
“I jumped,” Dennis said. “Off the ledge. Over Sterling. Tumbled in the grass. Hurt my knee, but I came running straight here. We have to find Mr. Nolan and Mr. Greeves.”
“I don’t believe it.” Cyrus flapped his dripping arms and shook his head. “Dennis, I’m sorry, but I can’t see Ben Sterling trying to shoot you with a poison dart.”
Dennis turned and pointed toward the slope. “I don’t lie, Mr. Cyrus. Ask him when he gets here.” Five shapes had crossed the airstrip and were striding toward the harbor. Sterling, black-bearded and barrel-chested, led the way on his thin metal legs.
“Run!” Dennis sprinted down the length of the jetty, and the approaching men fanned out, ready to pursue. Turning, Dennis dashed back. “Where? Where do we go? They’ll kill us right here. No one’s around. No one’s here. They’ve all gone inside. Get a boat. We should sail! I can sail!” Dennis danced in place like he needed a bathroom.
“They would sail after us,” Antigone said. “Just wait, Dennis. They might not hurt us. Anyone in the kitchen could see.”
“Mr. Cyrus!” Sterling’s voice pierced the wind easily. “I’m afraid our young porter friend isn’t well!”
The men reached the base of the jetty. Sterling had brought four surly-looking groundskeepers along with him.
“Dennis Gilly!” Sterling yelled. “Come with us, lad. You’ve been sniffing the kitchen’s whiskey again, and it’s time you were sleeping off your visions.”
Sterling lumbered half the jetty’s length, ear bells dancing in the sun. His apron was gone. His untied and unnetted black beard stuck out stiffly from his jaw. When he moved his arm, Cyrus glimpsed the flash of metal tucked up his sleeve. The four men behind him were keeping their hands out of sight.
“Seems to me,” said a quiet voice, “that now would be a great first lesson. Dive in and I’ll do the rest.”
Cyrus glanced behind him. Off the end of the jetty, barely visible in the waves, Llewellyn Douglas clicked his false teeth.
“Tigs,” Cyrus whispered. “Dennis. Follow me. No questions. Just jump in and dive down. Get below the surface.” He picked up his jacket and slung it on. He’d ditch it if he had to swim far, but he didn’t want to. He glanced at his boots. Too awkward.
“Mr. Cyrus,” Dennis said. “I can’t—”
“Now!” said Cyrus. He grabbed Dennis by the wrist and turned to grab Antigone. His sister was already gone, kicking in the air above the water.
Cyrus planted his bare foot on the end of the jetty and pushed off. Dennis’s weight tugged him backward, his feet swung up, and he landed flat on his back in the water.
Dennis landed on top of him.
Cyrus thrashed, tangled in Dennis. Tangled in cape. And then someone was pulling his arm, pulling him down. Quickly. Smoothly. Something big and dark and rough thumped against his chest. He grabbed on to it with his free arm, and it felt like a tree trunk wrapped in sandpaper — a muscled, swimming tree trunk. The bubbles cleared and Cyrus looked around. The skeleton in underwear had his left arm hooked over one of the big shark’s pectoral fins. With his right, he was dragging Cyrus by the wrist. On the other side of the shark, Cyrus glimpsed his sister clutching a fin. Dennis and his cape were dragging from Antigone’s ankles.
The shark’s tail thumped Cyrus in the ribs, and Llewellyn Douglas tugged him up to the pectoral fin. Cyrus grabbed on, and then the scrawny man threw his arms around the cruising shark’s back, slid himself up and forward of the dorsal fin, and then patted the shark’s gills.
The tail swept and the shark surged, diving into deep water.
Ben Sterling stood at the end of the jetty, staring at the water. They were kids, brand-new Acolytes. They couldn’t have gone far. Dead or alive, they’d be bobbing up soon.
“Big B?” one of the men asked.
“I have some dynamite,” said another.
Sterling shook his head. “Get back to hunting the Polygon boy. I’ll stay here.”
The men turned and began walking off the jetty. “Double time!” Sterling yelled. The men jumped into a jog.
Sterling pushed the fishing-poled wheelchair onto the middle of the jetty and eased himself into it. “Llewellyn Douglas,” he said, scanning the waves. “You’re down there, too?” After a moment, a smile rustled beneath his beard, and he stood back up. “Old dog,” he said quietly. “Old trick.”
The wind surged, ringing Ben Sterling’s bells and shivering his beard. Chuckling to himself, he hurried off the jetty.
Cyrus felt the water pressure grow as they slid deeper and deeper down the face of the shelf. Suddenly, the shark veered into it, Cyrus’s legs dragged across stone, and the last of the light died.
A rock grazed Cyrus’s head. His foot. They were moving through a tunnel. He tucked tight against the shark’s body and let himself release most of his air. Dennis was yelling. Bubbling.
Cyrus tried to relax, to forget about what he was doing, to forget about his panicking lungs and his bulging eyes.
The shark thrashed and Cyrus nearly slipped off. They were climbing, winding, ascending.
Time slowed down. Limbs became lead, and then Cyrus felt his foot splash through the surface. He let go of the shark’s fin and kicked up into dark, dank air.
Treading water in emptiness, Cyrus wheezed. “Tigs!” he yelled. “Dennis!”
He heard coughing. “Cy … help. Dennis—”
Someone threw up.
Cyrus swam toward his sister’s voice, but he couldn’t tell if he was moving in the right direction — or moving at all. He stopped and bobbed on the surface he couldn’t even see, swallowing cool lake water.
“Marco!” he yelled.
“Cyrus … it’s not …”
She wasn’t far. Cyrus splashed forward as fast as he could until he slapped something with a stroke.
“Tigs?” Cyrus felt around the body. Dennis’s cape. He was still below the surface. From behind, Cyrus got his arms under Dennis’s and rocked backward to get the porter’s face above the water. The caped body shook, kicked Cyrus in the shin, and then threw up on his hands.
Antigone gasped beside them.
“Tigs, I’m here, I’m here,” Cyrus said.
“Dennis was pulling … me down.” She coughed hard, and then gagged. “I tried, couldn’t hold … kept sinking.”
“I got him,” Cyrus said. “You okay? Can you help me keep him up?”
With a sharp clank and a buzzing, flickering explosion, the darkness sizzled into blinding light.
Cyrus closed his eyes against the pain, and then opened them into a squint. The blur solidified. They were bobbing in a pool. High walls were covered with white tiles, cracked and stained and occasionally missing, but glistening beneath a ceiling crowded with caged lights.
The water looked as black as liquid coal, and a large dorsal fin was carving it in slow circles.
“Mr. Douglas!” Cyrus yelled. “Where are you?”