CHAPTER 26

The Syphon of Monerva

Fin wound deeper and deeper into the salt-encrusted catacombs. They’d been walking for so long he had no idea how much time had passed or how much distance they’d covered. It felt like they’d gone far enough to make it all the way to the Wall.

“Left here,” the candle on his belt hissed. “Now right. Straight for a while. That wall is really a door. That door is really a wall.”

“Wow, you guys really didn’t want anyone stumbling onto this thing, huh?” Fin asked as he pried the salt off a trapdoor in the middle of a hallway.

“The Syphon can destroy worlds and grant wishes,” said the Salt Sand King. “We could have just left it lying around with a Do Not Touch sign on it, but this seemed slightly wiser.”

As they pressed deeper, glass piping filled with bright Stream water reached in through the walls. Raw magic to fuel the Wish Machine, Fin realized. He shook his head. “How much does it take to grant a wish?”

“That depends on the size of the wish,” the King told him. “Already, the Syphon has sucked down enough magic to grant most any mortal his heart’s desire. But that’s not enough to satisfy the Master. He thirsts like I thirst. If the Stream were not endless, he would drain the whole thing dry.”

Ahead, the salt-covered walls opened up. The pulsing of the air mixed with the dull roar of a distant waterfall. The whole hallway glowed with golden light.

“We’re getting close now,” the King told him. “When we reach the chamber, step lightly. The Master must not know we are here.”

Fin took a deep, shuddering breath. He felt an ache in the center of his chest he didn’t quite understand. He knew he should be happy—he was almost to the Syphon! He was going to get his wish!

And yet there was still something missing: Marrill. Regret bit deep into him. Maybe he shouldn’t have stayed behind on the Burning Plain after all. She wanted her wish as badly as he wanted his. And he wanted her to get it. Even if she had forgotten him.

He shook the thought from his head. She had forgotten him, though. If all went well, maybe he would be able to wish for her, too. If that didn’t happen and she missed out, well, he’d feel pretty bad about it. But it was her own fault. Not his.

“Okay,” he whispered to the light at his side. “I’m ready. What now?”

“I can feel the desire radiating off him,” the King hissed. Fin noticed he was flaring a little higher than before, burning just a little brighter. “It’s so strong I can barely stand it. His wish is nearly granted. All his attention is on it, and he won’t be able to focus on you at all. Sneak in, grab the wish orb, and make a wish of your own, quickly.”

Fin nodded. Sneaking, stealing, and wishing. The Salt Sand King was right—he’d been made for this.

Staying low, he stepped into a massive domed chamber. The floor was covered in white marble inlaid with red onyx in the shape of a dragon under a circle—the sigil of the Salt Sand King. Except here the circle was a great basin, a gaping open pit. And the mountains within it, Fin now realized, were the waves of magical water sucked from the Pirate Stream.

Above it, like an inverted mirror, Stream water swirled in a torrent through a great glass funnel hung from the ceiling. It was a gigantic whirlpool, suspended in midair.

The Syphon of Monerva.

Six huge pipes, bent like straws at the top, ringed it, drawing water from the basin below and dumping it into the funnel.

Fin blinked, trying to take in the whole scene: the intricate network of delicate glass pipes filled with Stream water adorning the ceiling, the gears along the wall whirring as they pumped raw magic through the chamber, the elaborate pattern of red onyx inlaid on the floor.

But it was the center of the chamber that was most important. Because at the center of the room, the water spiraled tighter and tighter as it reached the tip of the funnel, until it poured out in a line so thin and delicate it was almost a thread. A thread that trickled down from the ceiling into a glass ball waiting on a pedestal below, filling slowly.

There was only one thing that could be, Fin thought: the wish.

But the pedestal stood on a platform that hung out in the air over the basin, suspended by brass struts anchored to the column-pipes. The only way to reach it was a set of stone stairs that led up from the rim of the pit. And standing at the top of those stairs, his back to them as he watched the glass ball fill, was a figure clad head to toe in armor: the Master of the Iron Ship.

Fin couldn’t help the wave of fear that washed through him. Even though he’d known the Master would be here, actually seeing him again was chilling.