Tucked amid a troop of Hercules servants, Emma and the others strained to see what was going on. During the Queen’s talk, they stood and listened, unable to see the Queen herself. They were too short, and the crowd was pressed too tightly together.

Once the Queen had finished her speech, the crowd in the great hall broke into chatter. It only took a few minutes for Emma to become attuned to the important sounds. They reached her ears with the familiar whisper of memory water voices.

“The Newton Eel arrived last night,” a voice said. “It’s hidden up the coast.”

Emma broke away from her friends and ran into the crowd, pushing past one minister after another.

“Emma!” Herbie called, running after her.

She ran, straining to follow the voice before it disappeared.

“Halifax is really here?” another voice asked. It was coming from a different direction. She quickly changed course to follow.

The others came up behind her.

“What’s she doing?” Santher asked.

“I don’t know,” Herbie replied.

“Shhhhh!” Emma said. “I’m listening…. ”

“How can you hear anything above all this babble?” Laika asked.

“I think this might have something to do with the memory water…,” Herbie suggested.

“Yes,” a stranger said. “Although grace only knows where they’re holding her.”

Emma was just about to reach the man she believed was speaking when the conversation died. It must have carried on, but the sounds of it evaporated into the crowd. She stopped, looking around, dizzied by the great array of people, while all around her rose the memory water whispers of the great Halifax Brightstoke.

“That old pirate ought to be executed…. ”

“I always suspected she was a fraud…. ”

“Word is, she’s still sailing free on the Strands…. ”

But Emma knew this wasn’t true. Mom was in the hands of the navy now.

Frustrated, she took off in a new direction. She heard a faint voice, a whisper almost. It drew her attention precisely because it was so quiet, and yet it reached her ear as if it had been spoken there.

“Go back to the ship and keep an eye on the doctor.” It was a woman who spoke. Emma froze in place, straining to hear more. Behind her, Herbie and the others waited in suspense.

“Captain, she’s well watched,” came the reply.

“I don’t care,” the woman said. “I want you to make sure that the prisoner is safe and that the doctor hasn’t done anything foolish. The Queen will be furious if anything happens to her.”

“Did you hear that?” Emma asked.

The others shook their heads.

Emma bolted toward the sound. There was only one person the Queen would care about that much. Mom.

“Take three of your best,” the woman went on. “And be discreet.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Emma ran, knocking over two servants and pushing a minister aside. She reached the very back of the room and went tearing around a corner—but she stopped short. The hallway in front of her was empty. The woman was done talking, but Emma could just make out the clack of her boot steps. They seemed to be coming from a hole in the wall near her feet. It looked like an air vent.

Emma climbed into the hole and began crawling.

“Emma, where are you going?” Herbie called behind her.

The passageway was long and made of stone. The deeper she went, the colder it became. She heard the others climb into the passage too, and only hoped they had the sense to stay quiet.

Up ahead she saw a bright light in the passageway. She approached it with caution. The tunnel continued, but along the right-hand wall was a long grille that revealed a meeting room below. Emma crawled up to it and peeked through the metal slats. The Queen was there, attended by two handmaidens, who were adjusting her headpiece and straightening the back of her dress.

Herbie came up behind her, followed by Santher and Laika. The three of them lined up along the grille beside Emma and watched the scene below.

“It’s the Queen’s chamber,” Laika whispered.

“Shhhhh.” Emma could see the Queen’s face now. It was surrounded by a high collar, but there was something very familiar in her eyes and her small, pointed nose. Emma realized that she looked a lot like Mom.

A pair of boot clacks grew louder, stopping outside the door. A moment later, the door opened and a guard came in.

“Your Grace,” he said, falling to his knee. “Captain Gent is here to see you.”

The Queen didn’t reply, but her handmaidens shrank away. “Leave us,” she commanded. They scurried out. “Send in the disobedient Captain Gent.”

The guard left.

A moment later, Captain Gent entered the room. From so high up and behind, Emma couldn’t see her face. All she could see were the long blue coat of a navy commander and a pile of flaming red hair.

Gent fell to her knees. “My apologies, Your Highness. We encountered some weather.”

The Queen waited for Gent to rise before speaking. “I understand you have Halifax Brightstoke in your possession,” she said.

Emma felt a desperate panic lumping in her throat. She grabbed Herbie’s arm.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Gent replied.

“And have you confirmed her identity yourself?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

The Queen scowled at her. “That’s remarkable, Captain. I was under the impression that Brightstoke was dead.”

“So was I, Your Grace.” Gent swallowed hard. “We did sew her into a Party Bag. There were thirty men watching when we threw her overboard. The only thing I can figure is that she must have found a way to get out.”

“Obviously,” the Queen said drily. “And I believe I commanded you to take her to my prisons on Hydra.”

“Yes, Your Grace…”

“And you have failed in that duty as well.”

“Your Grace, may I explain—”

“You will leave Pegasus immediately. I am sending a fleet of Draconi ships to escort you. They will rendezvous with you outside Markab and guide you to Hydra, since clearly you are unable to get there by yourself.”

Gent seemed to feel the sting, and she stammered. “You understand—Your Grace—that my delay—I mean, by switching course—was because of the possibility of finding the Pyxis.”

The Queen glared at her. “And how exactly did you plan to do that?”

“We have the vagrants who captured Halifax on Monkey,” Gent said.

“Do they have the Pyxis?”

“No, Your Highness, but I was hoping that their knowledge might assist me in—”

“Captain Gent, I believe I gave you direct orders,” the Queen said. “Half the fleets in the galaxy will be searching for the Pyxis now. They may be able to find it, but the only person who truly knows where it is, is Halifax herself. So from now on, you shall leave the hunt for the Pyxis to other captains. It is of foremost importance that Halifax makes it to the prison on Hydra safely. That is the only place where we can extract the truth from her. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Gent said grudgingly. From the sound of her voice and the way she squirmed in discomfort, Emma thought she was hiding something. “I will bring her there, Your High—”

Gent was cut short by a pounding behind her. The door flew open and the guard burst in, apologizing while two men pushed past him. The guard made a feeble attempt to introduce Dr. Vermek and the loblolly boy, who were coming in on his heels.

Vermek fell to his knees, prostrating himself. The poor loblolly boy stared in stupefaction before Vermek grabbed his coat and yanked him down.

“Please forgive us, Your Highness,” Vermek muttered, his nose nearly touching the floor. “Please forgive us for this intrusion. We have important news…. ”

“Get up,” the Queen commanded.

Vermek climbed to his feet, once again dragging his loblolly boy along.

“How dare you barge in here?” asked the Queen.

Vermek fidgeted. “I’m so sorry, Your Highness, I was only looking for my captain. It is a matter of some urgency.” He spun nervously on Gent. “She’s dying,” he said. “We haven’t much time.”

“Who is dying?” the Queen demanded.

“Uh…Halifax Brightstoke, Your Highness.” He cast a worried glance at Gent.

“What’s wrong with her?”

Vermek gaped at Gent, hoping she would explain, but she was clearly in the mood to watch him writhe. “Er…she’s been infected by a squilch, Your Grace. She is extremely ill—”

“A squilch!” The Queen looked surprised. “How did that happen?”

“Uh…” Vermek looked helplessly at Gent, but she didn’t reply. “Er…she was kidnapped by Draconi mercenaries,” he said. “They traffic in all kinds of medicines, you know. And we believe that they were the ones who gave her the squilch.”

“What’s a squilch?” Emma whispered.

“It’s a virus,” Laika said. “It eats your memories.”

Emma was thrown back to the kidnapping. She remembered Mom fighting like a ninja, and Caz and Laine getting the better of her. It made Emma angry to learn that they had poisoned her too.

“But unfortunately,” Vermek went on, “the squilch they gave her was tainted somehow. It’s done much more damage than the average squilch.”

The Queen looked skeptical. “This is very strange, Doctor,” she said. “Would you care to explain why two Draco mercenaries would give Halifax a squilch? They ought to have been trying to collect her memories, not destroy them.”

The doctor fumbled for an answer. “Well, Your Highness, they weren’t the brightest criminals…. ”

“They would have to have been incredibly stupid criminals. And how did you discover the presence of this squilch, Doctor?” the Queen asked.

“Your Highness, we were looking for the memories of the Pyxis for you. The grisslin that we gave her came out infected with the squilch, and then it died.”

“So you’ve learned nothing.”

“No, Your Highness,” Gent replied.

“And you’ve potentially crippled Halifax’s mind.”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness—” Gent began.

The Queen spun on Vermek. “Do you have a cure, Doctor?”

“Uh…no, Your Highness. We only have memory water, but that can’t last much longer.”

The Queen regarded him with a pair of icy-blue eyes. “If she truly is dying, then we’re going to have to take more drastic measures than memory water—and fast. I’m afraid we need that information, and you must do whatever it takes to get it from her. Do you understand me?”

Vermek nodded vigorously.

Gent managed to squeak, “I’m sorry, Your Highness. I did mention to Lord Whelp that Halifax was ill. I didn’t realize she was dying…. ”

The Queen eyed her gravely. “Captain Gent, I am sick of your misunderstandings. You will change your course at once. Instead of sailing to Hydra, you will gather the Draconi armada and head to Draco immediately.”

Gent hesitated, but she forced herself to say, “Yes, Your Highness. May I ask—”

“There are sorcerers at the royal palace on Rastaban who will be able to get the information from Halifax before she dies. For them, grisslins are child’s play. And if Halifax is as sick as you say, then she won’t make it to Hydra.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The Queen leaned menacingly over the kneeling captain. “I don’t trust you, Gent. You’re hiding something from me. But I am going to make one thing perfectly clear: finding out everything about the Pyxis is the most important thing in the galaxy right now. You will probe Halifax’s memories again, and you WILL get that information for me—I don’t care what you have to do. Can you do that, Captain Gent, or should I find someone else?”

“I can do it, Your Grace.”

“Good. Now get out of my sight.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Gent said with a bow that was designed to conceal the panic on her face. “I am your servant.”

“And hopefully an adequate one,” the Queen spat. “Now get out.”

Gent rose and went scurrying from the room.