Thank you to JessLovesPizza, WannabeeAussie, and ObsessedwReading for their wonderful reviews of the previous chapter.

Another update! Woohoo! So I'm thinking this is going to be the penultimate chapter, though I'll have to see how long the next one gets to decide that for sure. Also, I've realized that my timeline throughout this story does not line up the way it should. If I ever go back for revisions, I'll be sure to fix that, but until then, I'm just gonna pretend it's right. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys reading this chapter. Points to anyone who figures out what's going on (not that I'll confirm it just yet)!

Lewis POV

Three days of nothing. Nothing.

Everyone thought he'd locked himself in the lab because he was hard at work and didn't want to be disturbed, but, at this point, he'd locked himself inside because he couldn't go out there. He couldn't face Leah or Juliette or Evette and tell them he'd failed.

Because he had tried everything he could think of. Normally, idea after idea flowed from his brain, but now there was nothing but silence. People always told him he was smarter than others his age, that he was probably even as smart as some of the greatest scientists to live. They were wrong. If he was really as smart as they thought he was then he'd have been able to solve the girls' problem. Magic wouldn't have been a barrier he couldn't break through.

But he just didn't understand magic. No matter how hard he tried.

His lowest point, or moment of weakness really, had come the night before, after he'd watched two of the girls leave the island with packed bags. He couldn't stop himself from wondering if they'd ever come back—if they'd ever have a reason to come back. And then he'd looked up at the clear, night sky. The stars looked different than they did in Australia, but they were still stars. He found the brightest one and made a wish on it. He wished that he could fix the mermaids so hard he wouldn't be surprised if he gave himself a brain aneurysm.

He hadn't wished on a star since he was five years old. That was also the age at which he got his first telescope and learned that stars were just suns that burned light years away. Wishing on such things seemed stupid after that.

But last night he'd been desperate. And in his desperation, he'd resorted back to begging a giant ball of burning gas.

This morning he was going through the motions. He ran the machines and a bunch of tests, even if he'd already done them. He tested water samples for everything from sulfur to fluoride. It was silly, but perhaps someone had accidentally brushed their teeth in the moonpool and that was what was causing the power outage.

He stopped that train of thought. Stupid. A person didn't accidentally brush their teeth anywhere.

He shook his head. Maybe what he needed was more sleep. He knew for a fact that the ten hours of sleep he'd gotten over the past three nights wasn't healthy. But his lack of sleep had never really been a problem before. He'd spent night after night working with Cleo, Emma, and Rikki's DNA samples back when they'd first turned into mermaids. And it hadn't halted his findings then.

Running two hands through his hair, he groaned. A ringing filled the air to accompany his moan of despair. Someone was calling his phone. He searched the surfaces of the messy tables for the thing. Each ring sounding more and more like it was taunting him. Finding it under a stack of papers about magnetic fields, he quickly accepted the call before the last ring could initiate his voicemail.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Lewis."

He immediately felt some of his stress escape his body at the sound of Cleo's voice. "Cleo, hi," he said, closing his eyes and imagining her face. The version of her in his mind was smiling. He loved her smile.

"How are you?" she asked tentatively, a hitch in her voice.

The smile on his daydream Cleo's face fell away. He opened his eyes and stood up straight. He could tell the real Cleo wasn't smiling on the other end of the phone. "What's wrong?"

"Are you busy?"

"No." He glanced around at the cluttered lab and the whirling machines.

"If you're busy, I can call back later," she said.

He turned away from his useless work. "I'm not busy. Cleo, what's wrong?"

He heard her swallow hard. A few seconds ticked by before she started talking again.

"Really, it's nothing I can't handle…"

"Cleo," he said firmly, "please tell me what's going on."

It was like he poked a hole in a dam. One second she wouldn't tell him anything and the next she was talking so fast, he had trouble discerning exactly what she was saying.

"It's the tentacle," she said. "And the moonpool. Or both. Possibly. Or maybe neither. It could be some comet. Or the pretty blue crystals we found. They caused a power outage when we put them together—that was cool—but we haven't really discovered anything else about them. Or the moonpool. We really don't know. I told you how Rikki went to the moonpool on a full moon and thought the tentacle wasn't dangerous. I didn't believe her at first, but I think I do now because the other night, the three of us went there and the tentacle started to show us something. It looked like a comet, but I'm not entirely sure. And I don't know why it would show us such a thing anyway. Maybe it's trying to tell us how the moonpool was created? Do you think that's it? Cause I can't shake the feeling that it's something else. That there's something more. Something important." She paused, taking a deep breath in.

"Honestly, Cleo, I don't know why it would show you a comet," Lewis told her. He wished he could tell her he knew exactly what was going on. But he couldn't lie to her. Just as he couldn't lie to all the girls on the island. "It could be that's how the moonpool was created, but it could also be something else entirely. Have you been back there since seeing the tentacle's message?"

The question felt strange leaving his lips. He was talking about a tentacle—an octopus limb to all other scientists—leaving a message. Times like this reminded him just how strange magic could be.

"Yeah, but everything's settled down now without the full moon," she explained. "There's no way of finding out anything else until the next one. And I'm worried that it'll be too late by then. I can't stop thinking about it. I have to do something."

"Then do something," he told her. "If your gut tells you to keep looking into it then keep looking into it. Just try not put too much pressure on yourself. Inspiration strikes when you least expect it."

"You're right," she said. "I'm sure I can figure this out."

He could hear her smiling now.

"Thanks, Lewis. You always know the right thing to say. I've got to go—Kim is yelling about something. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

In the background he could indeed hear Kim complaining. Lewis considered it one of her signature traits. "Okay," he told Cleo, "love you."

"Love you too. Bye."

"Bye."

Taking the phone away from his ear, he pressed the button to end the call. Even though he hadn't gotten the chance to tell Cleo all that was happening here, he still felt better. A bit more relaxed. Somehow, even if they weren't talking about his problems, Cleo always managed to do that for him and he was happy he had been able to ease her worries. Stress never helped to solve any problems.

He should take his own advice.

He would figure out the mermaids' problem. He just had to keep going. Inspiration would find him, one way or another.

A banging on the door made him jump.

"Lewis! Lewis!"

He heard Juliette shout from outside the lab. Had she not read the "Do Not Disturb" sign?

"Lewis!" she called again. "I know you're in there and I know you can hear me! This stupid 'Do Not Disturb' sign doesn't block your ears!"

He should have known she wouldn't abide by his sign. Maybe if he ignored her she'd go away.

"Lewis! Open up!"

She banged on the door some more. It even sounded like she had resorted to kicking it. He wouldn't put it past her to find a way to force herself through the door. She wasn't going to take no for an answer. Thinking he was probably going to regret this, he walked over to let her in.

"Come on, Lewis! This is impor—"

He swung open the door to find a red-faced Juliette.

"—tant," she finished, lowering her volume.

"What?" he asked, perhaps a little too forcefully. But she had been the one shouting at him.

She bit her lip to keep from smiling too big. "I think I found something."

Lewis raised his eyebrows.

Juliette just nodded. "Come on. The magic's not gone. Let me show you."

She grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of the lab. He couldn't help thinking that when inspiration struck, she sure was pushy.

Juliette POV

"Maybe it's the wind?" Ella proposed. "There are gusts strong enough to move buildings, a tiny rock a top water shouldn't be difficult."

Juliette had already shown everyone on the island—well, everyone that was left—what she had discovered with the crystals, and no one seemed to know what it meant or how it was connected to them losing their powers. If it was even connected at all.

Marguerite lifted her nose as if smelling the air. "No, the wind is moving East today."

Juliette stifled a giggle. While she couldn't deny that Marguerite's weather-predicting powers weren't useful, she always found the ways she used them a little strange.

"Alright, so it isn't the wind pushing them. What could it be?" Leah asked.

"The wind."

Juliette didn't bother to hide her eye roll. "We just agreed it isn't the wind, Lewis."

Seriously, was he even listening to them? He could at least pretend to be helping the group.

"No, that's not what I mean," Lewis said. "The wind is moving a certain direction. Marguerite said the wind is moving East. What if it's all about direction? What if it's a—"

"Compass," she and Lewis finished at the same time.

Of course. Why hadn't she thought of it before? The spinning, the latching onto the same spot on the lagoon wall. Compasses worked by using magnets to detect the magnetic pole of the Earth. Was it possible that there was some magnet pulling the crystals towards it?

From the smile erupting on Lewis's face, she knew it was entirely possible.

"So what do we do?" Mason asked.

Juliette stared at the lagoon. The crystals had latched onto that wall pretty quickly. Whatever the pull was it had to be strong. And it was probably close.

"We dig," she said. "If we're lucky, whatever's pulling the crystals is right under our feet."

"I'll get the shovels!" Leah exclaimed and raced back up the path. Five minutes later she returned with four shovels.

Juliette, Mason, Leah, and Lewis took turns digging. Juliette had never been a fan of manual labor—she couldn't imagine someone could ever like it—but she was determined. She wanted to figure this out. She wanted her powers back. She needed to be a mermaid again.

So when her arms begged her to stop torturing them, she told them just one more shovel. And then one more after that. And one more after that. She kept moving dirt and sand until Ella finally snatched the shovel out of her hands and started digging herself.

Three hours later they had a hole six feet wide and seven feet deep right on the other side of the lagoon wall.

She would have been proud of their accomplishment…had it not been completely empty. She should have known they wouldn't get lucky. They'd found nothing. No big magnetic rock or center or whatever. A big, fat, wad of zilch. They were back to square one.

"What now?" she pouted.

"Maybe we should dig deeper?" Leah proposed.

"I don't think we're going to find anything down there," Mason said as he wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead.

Juliette knew he just didn't want to dig anymore. And she couldn't blame him. She hated the thought of possibly digging for the rest of the night.

She glanced around the group, but no one seemed to have any suggestions. Lewis was especially quiet, even strangely so. He had a frown on his face and his eyes hadn't strayed from the crystals on the wall of the lagoon. She watched his lips move as he whispered something to himself. He bent down and picked up one of the blue crystals sitting in the sand. Just as she had done to show him and everyone else, he tossed the stone into the lagoon.

They all watched again as the crystal floated, spun and latched onto the one wall. It was the same as all the others. But, Juliette noticed, something about it made Lewis's eyes light up.

She stared at him curiously. "Lewis?"

He looked up at her and she could practically see the gears turning in his head. "What was it you said to me when you came to the lab? After you told me you found something?"

"I said that the magic wasn't gone." She didn't understand how this could possibly be important, but she wasn't about to be the wall in his mudslide.

"It's magic," he whispered.

She frowned at him.

"It's magic," he said again, louder so everyone could hear. "It isn't a magnetic force pulling on the crystals. It's a magical one."