"Kale! Lani!" I heard my dad call. I looked out over the crow's nest to see him and the rest of the crew being chased by a giant light thing. "Kale! Lani!" Dad screamed again, drawing out the sounds of our names.

Something jostled the ship and made me fall out of the crow's nest. I yelped and gripped a nearby line. Unfortunately, my hand was slippery and I slid down the rope a few feet, burning my hand as I went. When I was close enough to the deck that I wouldn't injure myself, I let my body drop to Kale, who was standing back up.

We watched as a humongous fin came out of the water right next to the boat. The fin came down again, pushing our ship out to sea.

"Dad!" I cried, forgetting I was mad at him. "Dad! Marina! Guys!"

I watched as they jumped across one side of the fin to the other. They slid down the fin. "Kale! Lani!" Dad called again.

"Got it!" Kale cried. I turned to see him at the wheel and turning the ship back to the fin so we could catch them. I scurried up the rigging, moving the main boom and the fore boom out of the way so they wouldn't hit them as they flew onto the ship.

Dad wrapped his arm around Marina and grabbed a rope I held out to them as the came flying towards me. They swung around the front of the ship and landed on the quarterdeck next to Kale as the others grabbed the shrouds of the main boom.

"Veer off, Kale!" I heard Dad cry as I swung to them.

"The star!" Marina called, pointing.

I turned back and saw it. An idea formed in my head. Apparently, Dad was getting the same idea.

"Hold your heading!" Dad told Kale. He jumped off the quarterdeck and snatched up a rope with a hook on it. "Lani! Tie it off!" he cried, and threw the unhooked end up. I snatched it out of the air and tied it tightly to the main mast, wrapping it around twice before tying it with six different kinds of knots.

Dad jumped onto the bowsprit and threw the rope as far as he could. He was able to get it to hook onto the fish's hide as it swam away. "Ha ha!" he cried, turning back to us.

"Wait, wait!" I cried, not done with my knots. The rope yanked my feet out from under me and jerked to ship forward, making Dad fall off the bowsprit. We both looked up to see Marina holding onto a rope and laughing at us. Kale was at the wheel, trying to keep the ship steady so we wouldn't capsize.

Dad gave her a stupid grin and helped me back to my feet. I ran to the forestaysail and grabbed the rope that held it tightly, whooping at the ride. We bounced and bobbed along in the wake of the fish, going faster than I had ever dared dream. Instantly, Dad was there with me, whooping too. We hollered and cried happily as the ship bounced at every wave. I laughed in glee.

Dad leaned into me and said into my ear, "I'm sorry, Lani."

I replied by throwing my arms around him in a hug and hanging on for dear life. "I forgive you!" I cried, laughing in delight. Dad laughed with me as we rode in the wake.

We rode in the wake all through the night and into the next morning. By that time, everyone but me was green in the face, even Dad. He was actually leaning on the railing on the forecastle deck, while I was still on the bowsprit. I was still whooping. I laughed as we hit a particularly rough wave.

"Sinbad!" I heard Kale call. "The men can't take much more!"

Dad groaned and yelled back, "I can't—" he was cut off for a second as he was thrown against the railing "—take much more either. Lani, cut the line!"

I moaned. "Dad!" I complained. "This is fun!"

"Do it!" he snapped.

I sighed but complied. I whipped out my knife and sawed off the rope.

We slowed down as the fish swam away, and the wake went down, too. I groaned, disappointed that the ride had to end so early.

I looked at the crew, who were hanging over the side, about ready to puke. Spike suddenly hiccupped, his pre-warning for puke. "Oh, no, Spike!" Luca said.

The others saw the danger but weren't quick enough to get away. The dog hurled all over the crew.

"Oh, bad dog," Jed said, wiping the puke off his clothes.

"Hey, where'd he get the carrots?" one asked, inspecting the puke.

Dad groaned as he watched the spectacle. He pushed himself up and staggered over to the railing on the main deck. He moaned and rubbed his face. "Who's idea was that again?" he asked, looking at Marina and me.

Marina choked back her bile and said, "I don't know." She staggered over to Dad and sat next to him. "But he owes me lunch." They chuckled at her joke.

"How can you guys be sick?" I asked. "That was the best thing ever!"

Dad looked at me incredulously. "How can you not be sick?" he asked back. "Everyone feels like they have to puke! But you laughed and hollered and whooped the whole time like it was some kind of thrill!"

"It was!" I said, excited. "It was fun!"

"You're serious," Dad said, looking me over like I was some kind of crazy person. "Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?"

I laughed. "Nothing, I'm right here," I told him. "I just ignored the fact that I was going to be sick, and I was fine. Instead, I enjoyed the ride."

Dad looked behind me and stood up. Marina stood with him and I turned around to see what was so interesting.

"The Granite Gates," Dad said, placing a hand on my shoulder. He looked at Marina. "Bet you never thought I'd get us this far." He leaned against the opposite railing of the one he had just been sitting on. He smirked knowingly at me. I grinned back.

"No, I didn't," Marina replied. She paused. "But Proteus did." At the mention of his name I perked up. "For some reason he trusts you." She walked over to Dad and placed her hands on the railing next to him.

Dad turned around and leaned out over the railing, too. "Well," he said, "what could he have been thinking?" He averted his eyes from Marina.

Marina looked at the sea for a moment. She looked back at Dad. "How did you two ever meet?" she asked.

"Yeah, Dad," I said, squeezing underneath his arm so he couldn't ignore me. "Proteus never said how. He just said you did. How'd you meet him?"

Dad sighed. He looked at me, then Marina. He laughed a little. "Running for my life, as usual," he said, hopping up above us onto the forecastle deck. "A couple of angry thugs had cornered me outside of the palace walls." He slipped a prong that held the foresail's ropes to the deck when it was rolled up out and held the ropes with one hand, the prong in the other. "I was trapped," he said, letting the ropes go to bring the foresail down. "A sword at my throat, at my chest," he continued, holding the knife-looking prong at each body part as he mentioned it. "At my—"

"Pickles and eggs!" our cook interrupted, coming out of the hold that held the food. The crew groaned. I was pretty sure no one wanted to eat today, not after last night's ride.

We turned back to Dad, who was pointing the prong at a very inappropriate place. He cleared his throat and threw the prong away. "Well, you get the idea," he said. He walked to the bowsprit. "And then, suddenly, there was a fourth blade." Dad sat down and I crawled into his lap. He absently wrapped one arm around me. "It was Proteus," Dad continued. "You see, he'd watched it all from his room in the palace. He actually climbed down the castle wall to fight at my side and boy! Did we fight! It was like we had rehearsed it. We were best friends from that day forward." Dad looked back out at the sea.

"What happened with you two?" Marina asked, as totally enthralled with the story as I was.

Dad was silent for a long moment. He carefully pushed me out of his lap and looked at his feet.

"What is it?" I asked, wanting to know more.

Dad slid down off the bowsprit. "We…took different paths," he summed up vaguely.

I looked at Marina. Marina looked at me. "Do you know what he means?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Do you?" she asked me.

"I asked first, so no," I said, looking back at Dad. We shrugged at each other and went to go help the crew ready the ship.

Suddenly I was hit with a brain-splitting headache. I fell from the forecastle deck and down to the main deck, clutching my head and not even bothering to stop myself. I faintly heard Marina and Dad call "Lani!" before I was sucked into Tartarus.

Eris didn't have the little creatures surrounding her this time. No, actually, she looked like she was in a bath with a bunch of different bubbles floating around. As a bubble floated by me, I looked closer for inspection. It looked like it contained the Chimera in it, and I could make out Marina's face clearly.

"Enough talking," Eris groaned, turning my attention back to her. An evil grin crept onto her face. "Time for some screaming." She blew on the bubble I had inspected. It froze and dropped into her palm. She shook it and looked into it, then looked up at me.

"Hello again, little one," she said. "You still haven't given your daddy my warning. I forgot to remind you last time. Make sure and tell him this time, ok? Tell him he will never get the Book of Peace from me." She reached out to a bubble floating by her face. She popped it and I came to.

The first things that came into focus as my vision cleared were Dad and Marina standing over me, concern written all over their faces. I groaned and rubbed my temples. "What happened?" Dad asked, helping me sit up.

I groaned. "Softly," I whispered. "My head hurts."

Dad looked me over for a second, then scooped me up and started to carry me to our cabin. As he carried me there, I saw the crew around us, concerned. I moaned and shut my eyes. Seeing hurt. Hell, doing just anything hurt.

I felt Dad put me down in his own bed. He brushed the hair off my face and whispered to me, "Lani, what happened?"

I sighed and waited for the throbbing in my head to go down to a bearable degree. Once it was down, I muttered, "I don't know. One minute I'm walking with Marina to go help the crew release the sails, the next I have a humongous headache, and after that, I'm in Tartarus with Eris."

"Eris?" Dad asked, shocked.

"Why were you with Eris?" Marina asked. I looked up to see her standing behind Dad.

"I'm not sure," I said. "I've been having these dreams about going to Tartarus and seeing her. The first time, she had a champagne glass and said something about mood music. Then she told me to tell Dad that we wouldn't get the Book from her." I found myself pouring out the entire story of all my dreams, ending with the newest one, which wasn't really a dream.

"And I don't know why this is happening," I finished. The headache was almost gone.

Dad and Marina were silent for a few long minutes. Dad finally sighed. "I don't get it," he said. "I thought Eris just talked to me." He looked at me. "I guess I was wrong."

I nodded slowly. "Dad…I don't know how to stop them," I said softly, referring to the dreams.

"I don't know how, either, other than keeping you from sleeping," he said. He stood up. "I guess we're just going to have to bear with them. But I don't want you swinging around up in the sails, ok? You keep both feet firmly planted on the decks. And no going on the bowsprit, either. I don't want you falling overboard."

I nodded in agreement, even though I didn't like it. No going up the masts? For me, that was like keeping me from eating. I couldn't live without it. That was my domain, my haven, the place where I belonged on the ship. But I saw the logic behind it. If another one of these headaches happened and I conked out again, I might fall and possibly kill myself, if not seriously injure myself before I'd wake up and stop myself. This time, I had been lucky, but next time might not be so.

"Ok," I said softly. "Let's go back outside. We need to get going if we're going to make it to Tartarus and back in time to save Proteus."

Dad and Marina nodded. They left, and I followed them, heartbroken that I was forbidden to join Rat among the rigging.

The crew was waiting for us when we went above deck again. They stared at me but didn't ask questions.

"Men," Dad said, "we've got a long way to go still and a short time to get there. So let's go! Rat, Lani will not be able to help you with the rigging. Instead, Marina will."

Marina cast a sharp glance at Dad.

"What?" he asked innocently. "You can't handle heights?"

"No," she said. "I…um…oh, never mind. Let's go, Rat." She followed Rat to the main mast.

Suddenly I heard something like cracking ice coming from in front of the boat. I ran to the forecastle deck, and, momentarily forgetting my ban on the bowsprit, I climbed on it to see what was coming. A blast of cold air whipped at me. I was shocked to see ice suddenly forming all around us; on the sea, the Granite Gates, and when it got to the ship, on the Chimera.

"For crying out loud, what next?" Dad exclaimed, looking at the ice. He turned and almost ran into Kale. "Whoa, get a shirt on before you poke someone's eye out," he commanded the man. He brushed past Kale to address the crew. "Ok, guys get down there and break it up! We've got to keep moving!" He noticed me on the bowsprit. "Lani! What did I say earlier?"

"Sorry, sorry!" I called, jumping down and slipping on the slick ice. Marina held out a hand to pull me up. "Thanks," I said. I headed to Dad's cabin to get my cold weather gear.

"Got your own coat?" Dad asked Marina. She shook her head. "Come on, then. We should have a coat that'll fit you."

We rummaged through Dad's cold gear for a few minutes before we found a nice long coat that looked warm. Marina tried it on and said it fit perfectly. She left to go help Kale get rid of the ice on the ship.

Dad tossed me my cold gear. "Put these on," he said. As if I was going to do anything else. I didn't say anything but did as he said.

"The hat too," he said, seeing me trying to hid it in my hammock so I wouldn't have to wear it. I groaned but yanked it on my head.

"You stay on the ship with us," Dad said, pulling on his own fur-lined cap. "You can help us break the ice on the main deck."

I nodded and headed out to the deck. I grabbed the pick and bucket Kale offered me and set to work.