MAGDALYS AND AMAYA went through three dactyls on the journey; once they’d crossed over from Brooklyn they still had to trek to the other end of Manhattan, and the whole time the harried city streets seemed ready to swallow them whole at any moment.

Finally, they found it, came in for a rocky landing, and released their steeds. Up ahead, Pier 54 stretched out from a series of warehouses and dilapidated shacks over the Hudson River. The dark shores of New Jersey seemed to glare at them from the other side. A sauropod ferry passed, heading south toward the bay, crates trailing along on a barge behind it.

“See anyone?” Magdalys asked. Amaya shook her head. Glancing from side to side, they walked toward the gloomy shipyard. “Do we just — ?”

Footsteps raced toward them, but Magdalys couldn’t tell where from. Amaya was already loading black powder into the pistol Cymbeline had given her.

“Ay!” someone called from behind them. Magdalys and Amaya whirled around. A tall boy sprinted around a corner toward them. He did something with his hands and Magdalys flinched back a step; Amaya cocked her raised pistol. A minidactyl fluttered up out of the boy’s grasp and then shot off into the sky, a tiny roll of paper clutched in its claws.

Magdalys relaxed a tiny bit. This had to be Redd, right? She made the V and C signs on her chest as he ran up to them, but he didn’t stop, just laughed and ran past, then stopped a few paces on when he realized they weren’t following.

“You comin’?” The boy had high cheekbones and freckles and light brown skin lit up by the setting sun, which cast a long dancing shadow onto the causeway behind him. He’d had a thin goatee line tattooed along the edge of his jaw. A loose, raggedy shirt hung from his slender shoulders, and white cloth wrapped around his chest beneath it.

That cutlass David had mentioned hung from one of the belts crisscrossing his waist; a pistol was holstered in the other. He finally looked down at Magdalys’s hand signs. “Oh yeah, VC, VC, I know! I’m Redd. You all are Magdalys and Amaya. I got the description. And sorry to rush you and cut through the formalities ’n’ whatnot, but we gotta roll!”

Magdalys and Amaya exchanged a look, then fell into a fast walk behind him as he took off toward the pier again.

“Just got a dactyl from David,” Redd said. “Here, you can read it. Just read while you run.” He handed back a crumpled scrap of parchment, slowing down only slightly so Magdalys could grab it.

We lost track of R.

Weed stayed put but his men made for the harbor, boarded a small rowboat.

We think exchange happened earlier — orphans already on boat.

In pursuit.

Either the O is docked out in the harbor islands somewhere or mission is aborted.

Ride out with M and A and rendezvous at the Spine Islands.

“Toss it when you done,” Redd said, guiding them through a labyrinth of shipping crates and ironworks. Magdalys passed Amaya the note, who read it and then tore it into little pieces that fluttered away on the early evening breeze.

“There she is,” Redd said, finally stopping at the edge of the pier, arms akimbo like a proud father. “They say you’re the only wrangler who can handle her.”

In all the excitement, Magdalys hadn’t had time to think about how she was about to ride one of the most dangerous and unmanageable creatures in the modern world. And that many lives depended on her not messing it up, including her own. And she had no idea what she was doing, not really.

She stared into the waves lapping up against the pier, their edges bright with the sinking July sun. A huge, dark shape lurked just below the surface. It had to be sixty feet, at least. The mosasaurus was wide in the middle, where a worn leather saddle breached the water. Her long, black-and-yellow striated body narrowed some toward the head and even more at the tail, which swished slowly back and forth in what seemed like murderous anticipation. Huge fins on either side splashed at the surface of the water.

“Ready?” Redd asked, already halfway down the wooden ladder. “Nobody’s really been able to figure out how to ride her, to be honest. A couple of my men have tried though.”

“Yep,” Magdalys said, trying to look confident. “Go ’head, Amaya, I’ll go after you.”

Amaya eyed her, obviously seeing right through her as always, then squeezed her shoulder one time, holstered the pistol, and climbed down after Redd. “Your men?” Amaya asked once she’d lowered herself onto the saddle behind Redd.

“Yeah, I’m only contracting with the Vigilance Committee now and then. Got my own crew, really. We buccaneers.”

“You mean pirates?” Amaya said.

Redd chuckled. “Pretty much. Riding the deep sea, tracking slave ships and boarding ’em, freein’ everybody. That kinda thing.”

Magdalys barely heard them. It was one thing to boast to David about her ease with dinowrangling. She had the whole squad with her doing most of the boasting anyway, and Cymbeline sealed the deal. Then sending that dactyl up into the air had been a piece of cake really. But now, it all seemed so impossible. The burden of all that responsibility loomed over her.

“You comin’, sis?” Redd called. “We don’t have much time.”

She took a deep breath. She could do this.

What if the beast didn’t respond to her? What if she ate Magdalys and everyone else? Or took them out to the deep sea and drowned them? What if the Ocarrion blew them out of the water?

Deep breath.

She could do this. She nodded once, more to herself than Redd, then climbed down the ladder just as a horrendous roar erupted from the water.