We only had one advantage in our little, cramped box. We had light. Which meant there was an opening. Quick process of elimination put coming in from an opening that we could use to get out.

"Alice, your hairpin." She reached back into her hair and pulled out her pin and gave it to me. I put my hands behind me and ran the pin along the edge of the box. I came up with resistance and smiled. "Got it." I kept pushing at it until it finally opened. We screamed before grabbing onto the sides of the box and holding on for dear life. Looking down showed nothing but water under us. We held on for as long as we could before dropping into the ocean below us.

We swam back to the city and pulled ourselves out of the water only to be laying next to a man who had a knife on us. Alice quickly stood and got into a defensive position.

"Don't even think about it, buddy," she warned. He moved his head to look at the green symbol on her arm.

"You're an oyster." Alice moved her arm so he could see the full green mark on her arm.

"Just put the knife away," she ordered. He quickly turned the knife and sheathed it.

"I don't want nothing to do with you, ya hear?" he asked us. "I'm a working man." He picked up the gear and the cage with the dead rat. "I don't want no trouble." We looked up when we heard the machine that moved the crates we'd been in before coming closer to us. We quickly hid as it passed us by. The man grabbed Alice's arms and I immediately tried pulling him off her. "If they see us together we'll all be dead." He quickly ran from us, but Alice tried calling him back.

"Wait! We need directions, sir!"

"Go away! Can't help no oyster," he told her and she started digging into her dress.

"I'll pay you!" She tried pulling out wet money.

"I don't think that's going to work here," I tried telling her, but she ignored me.

"Look I have some money," She tried to unwrinkle her bills. He turned back to us and approached slowly looking confused.

"What's that?" he asked her.

"Uh," she took a good look at it before looking up at him. "Twenty bucks."

"Bucks?" he asked her staring at the bill in her hand.

"We're looking for a man who was kidnapped and brought here," Alice told him. "If you help us find him, it's yours." She held out the money to him and he just continued to stare at us confused.

"An oyster like you?" he asked us. Alice and I shared a look. I shrugged my shoulders at her before she turned back to him.

"Yeah." He took the twenty, looked it over, sniffed it, then licked it. I made a face as he turned back to us.

"Bleh." Alice stuck out her hand with a smile on her face.

"I'm Alice and this is my sister Gwen."

"The Alice?" he asked her, his face perking up. "The Alice of legend?"

"Look, you're kinda freaking me out," Alice told him putting her hands together and bringing them to her lips. "Um, the guy that we're looking for he's probably locked inside that flying beetle thing. Do you know where it's headed?"

"You, come with me," he told her happily before scurrying off. "Quick, quick!"

We followed him to an old rundown building that had the sign that scrolled Tea House in red. He then took a red bandana and started wrapping it around her arm.

"Oh, thanks, but no. No, I'm good," she told him but he continued tying the bandana around her mark.

"They see you, oyster, you dead," he told her.

"They?" I asked him curiously. "Who's they?"

"First I go. Count to ten. Then follow. Okay?" he asked us.

"Wait, who's in there?" Alice asked him.

"The man who knows!" The man ran into the building.

"Knows what? Wait?" Alice called after him. We watched him run inside the Tea House and did as he said and waited before running inside.