A hard tug on the strap brought Zoey’s seafire backpack flaring to life. Seafire light filled the boat, sealing them once again inside a protective bubble. The parasites above their heads screeched but kept flooding towards the island of salt.

“Maybe we should go back,” Alex said.

“No.” Callis drove the oars harder through the swamp. “They’ll follow us whichever way we go.”

Through his jacket, Alex touched the bottle of poison Argosy had given him. Maybe there was a way to use it against the parasites? But he might hurt the dragon at the same time…

Instead of taking them directly across the stomach, Callis aimed their boat at the island.

“Where are we going?” Alex asked.

Callis strained with the effort of rowing. “I know what I’m doing!”

By the time the rowing boat scraped up onto the island, the salt was crawling with parasites. This time, the abominable creatures didn’t swarm. They moved more carefully, as if they had learned to fear the blistering kiss of the light, spreading out to surround the landing group.

Alex reached down into his well of power, ready to draw it up at the first sign of attack. Zoey and Anil appeared similarly braced, though they had no weapons. It would be impossible to fight so many of the monsters, but he knew they would try.

“Keep moving,” Callis ordered.

The salt crunched underfoot like iced-over snow as they climbed out of the boat. The ground was pocked and pitted, debris sticking out at treacherous angles and lurking in pools of acid.

Callis immediately marched into the lead, abandoning the shoreline and heading uphill.

“Is that the right way?” Zoey asked.

Anil studied the landscape like a tactician. “If we go onto high ground, they might trap us.”

“It’s faster to go up and over than around the edge,” Callis replied gruffly, without breaking stride.

There was no choice but to follow or allow him to stray out of the light. The parasites tracked them patiently, maintaining a close circle around the group. There wasn’t enough space for them all on the ground, so some leaped deftly from rock to salty stalagmite, debris to junk, making sure to avoid the pools of acid water.

Callis led them around the side of the severed ship. The wood was rimed with salt, seaweed covering gaps broken in the hull. The ground continued to slope upwards, leading them past the mangled mast. The remains of the ship were broken over a steep mound of salt, a flat stretch of deck lying above them.

“Even if we get across the stomach,” Anil said, “how do we stop the parasites following us?”

Callis hadn’t revealed this part of the plan. Usually, there was a trick up his sleeve. Alex hoped that desperation hadn’t made the pirate reckless.

A bulging bubble in the swamp below caught his eye. It swelled from the water, dilating into an enormous blister.

Another geyser.

The bubble burst, a torrent of water erupting from underneath.

“Look out!” Alex shouted.

The plume of fizzing water was strong enough to rise above the mound of salt, threatening to wash over their heads. Alex swiped his hands sideways, magic pouring out of him automatically. The connection between him and the Water Dragon flexed, a trickle of power moving along it.

The geyser folded sideways as if Alex had physically slapped it. Water sprayed over the parasites instead, knocking them from their perches and washing over their armoured backs. The creatures screeched and tried to lurch away, falling over each other.

“Yes!” cheered Zoey.

The broken column of water sank away, acid streaming down the slope of the salt.

Alex felt his own stomach sink. Parasites lifted themselves from the draining water. Smoke trailed from their shells, acid gnawing ragged holes in their transparent armour, but the creatures clicked back to their feet as if simply emerging from a hot bath.

“They’re too strong,” Anil said.

Kraken curled two arms into fists and shook them at the parasites.

Alex refused to feel disheartened, even as the parasites regrouped to surround them once again. A storm of power was brewing inside him. His connection to the dragon was suddenly singing.

“Do you feel that?” asked Zoey.

“I think the dragon is trying to—” Alex began to say.

“Hurry up!” Callis hissed. The interruption was harsher than mere impatience. A desperate hunger burned in the pirate’s eyes that Alex had seen there twice before – both times Alex had needed to stop him.

They stumbled up the mound of salt, propelling Zoey between them to ensure they all remained inside the light. The parasites followed, shells sizzling with acid.

Finally, they drew level with the deck of the wrecked ship. The wood was mostly hollowed out by decay, leaving deep pools and chasms that brimmed with water and bristled with swallowed junk. A shopping trolley jutted from a crooked fracture, its nose twisted and blackened by acid. A string of shattered gas lanterns, a type not used for a hundred years, trailed from a lopsided spur.

“What are the chances I can come back and get this stuff later?” Zoey asked.

Anil peered over the edge of the deck. It was a sheer drop to the acid swamp below. The parasites blocked any escape back the way they had come. “We need to worry about getting out of here at all.”

Callis picked his way across the deck as quickly as he could. He hardly seemed to notice the parasites now, although they crept into the light as close as they dared, mandibles snapping in anticipation.

“It’s here somewhere…” the pirate muttered, eyes sweeping the rotten wood.

“An unlikely but ultimately exciting and successful way out of this seemingly impossible situation?” Anil asked.

Alex’s skin prickled as if he had rolled through dry seaweed. A voice whispered at the back of his mind. A familiar language – waves lapping at rocks, birds wheeling above a shoal of fish, sails creaking in the wind. The language of sea magic. But it spoke too quickly to be understood, whispers collapsing into themselves, the words garbled.

“Here!” Callis called, beckoning them after him.

In the middle of the deck, the wood had collapsed into a deep pool crusted with salt. The water was murky, yet somehow glowed faintly red. Magic seemed to brim there. It felt different to the magic Alex held inside him. This power was unstable, impatient, itching to break free.

The frantic whisper raked at Alex’s mind as he stepped closer. It was like approaching a wild animal, unsure if it might lash out. Kraken’s skin flashed red in warning, the same colour as the pool, the octopus tugging at his collar to try and hold him back. Even the parasites sensed it, backing off a little.

Whatever lurked inside the pool, it was not their friend. Alex knew it as the malevolent voice threatened to overwhelm him, howling inside his mind. He wanted to run, get as far away from it as he could.

“We should keep moving,” he said, voice shaking as he tried to hide his panic.

The precipice of the deck offered a sweeping view across the cavernous stomach. Beyond the rest of the swamp was a shadowy stretch of wall where Alex hoped they would find an exit.

Callis climbed over the edge of the pool until he was as close to the water as he could get. He scanned its surface while rolling up his sleeves.

“It’ll burn you,” Zoey said.

“What’s a little more pain?”

Callis plunged his arms into the water. Immediately, his skin sizzled. He gritted his teeth and delved deeper until he was up to his shoulders.

“What are you looking for?” Anil asked, covering his nose from the smell.

“We’ll take the light and leave you,” Alex threatened.

“It won’t matter.” Callis grunted. “It’s here. I saw it.”

The pirate finally seemed to find what he sought in the pool. His face lit up and he threw his weight backwards to heave something clear of the water.

The raving voice grew so loud that Alex held his head and stumbled back. Behind them, the parasites lifted their heads and clacked their mandibles together in an excited frenzy.

It was a human skeleton. Bones yellow and gnawed but still intact, skull grinning, strands of seaweed filling the gaps between teeth. The bones glowed red, wild and twisted magic holding the skeleton together, flying from it strongly enough to almost knock Alex off his feet.

Callis dragged the skeleton onto the salt, the skin of his arms blistered red from the burning acid.

Alex’s heart hammered against his ribs, the rancorous voice bludgeoning inside his head. Standing close to the skeleton felt like bracing himself against a howling gale.

“Who is that?” he asked through gritted teeth.

Callis smirked, wider and wider, until he broke into wild laughter.

“I’m not the only member of my family to be swallowed by the Water Dragon!”

In one quick movement, Callis popped the skeleton’s grinning skull off its neck and held it up to face them.

“I’m honoured to introduce you to my most famous ancestor,” he said. “Brineblood himself.”