The trip down the slide is terrifyingly quick. The blue glow below grows stronger, bright against Haley's closed eyes, but even once she forces them open, she only gets a dizzying glimpse before she's tumbling into something soft.
Pillows.
Haley blinks and rights herself, looking back in time to see the portal vanish behind her.
She doesn't need the sudden silence of the island's magic to know she isn't on the Isle of Draco anymore.
"Where are we?" She means the words to come out strong, demanding, angry. Instead, they sound more like a broken whisper, caught by the terror frozen in her chest.
This wasn't the right choice.
Telling Bananas B what Huntsgirl looks like wouldn't have been the right choice, either. She should have called his bluff earlier and let him take her straight to the Dragon Council—or whoever else—because the trouble she will get in for eavesdropping will not come close to the trouble she will get in for running off on her own.
"Where we need to be," comes the answer, but that's not an answer at all. It's a careful not-answer delivered in a way that tells her she shouldn't ask questions.
It's another reminder of the danger she's in, and she hates it. Somehow, she hadn't thought he'd take her away from the protection of the island. She should have, especially after suspecting that he may be visiting it without permission, but—
What's broken cannot be unbroken; at best, it can be mended into something slightly new.
She can't change her mind now.
Haley lets out a shaky breath. They're alone. The room they're in is small, less than half the size of her bedroom back home, and looks more like a repurposed closet than anything else. A single light bulb burns overhead, its pull chain still swinging, but there's hardly anything to illuminate. The pile of pillows looks like a collapsed fort, but she suspects they're there for the purpose she'd already experienced—a soft landing—which means the portal they came through is standard, not experimental. It's a known route.
It's also either set to close after someone comes through it, meaning Bananas B made it by the skin of his teeth, or he triggered something after coming through before she'd gotten her bearings. She can't see what he would have done, though. The walls are bare except for a redundant light switch by the door, and that's still switched on. Still, she doesn't think the portal's opening and closing is predetermined; she never noticed him checking the time, and she doesn't think her assumption that he was rushing so they weren't caught is a stretch.
If she can't figure out how the portal closed, though, that means she won't be able to figure out how to bring it back.
"Come on, out we go," Bananas B says as he grabs her arm and hauls her to her feet. "You've got a promise to uphold."
Haley blinks back tears as he pulls out her out the room, shutting the light off with one hand and flicking the door closed again with his tail. He doesn't lock it, which is a small bit of good luck in her favour, though it hardly feels like enough. She doesn't know how to get out of this. She can't. But— But there is one thing that works in her favour.
She didn't promise to tell them anything; she agreed to meet them. According to what Gramps taught her, there's a difference.
She's still not sure she can do this, but she needs to. She hasn't a choice, anyway. Bananas B is dragging her through a veritable maze. Each dimly lit, interconnecting hallway is indistinguishable from the last, all plainly painted concrete blocks with doors but no windows. He seems to know exactly where he's going, but she's not confident in her ability to find her way back to the portal room on her own even if she does figure out how to activate it.
More likely than not, he'd catch her before she managed either of those things.
"So who are your friends?" she asks as she tries to figure out where they could possibly be. If she concentrates, she can feel a background hum of magic, but she can feel the same thing in most places. There are few places where magic has faded completely.
He takes an abrupt right turn instead of answering, and she's too busy trying to figure out if she recognizes that scuff mark on the dirty linoleum to press him. Is that where she'd stumbled the first time he took a sharp turn? Has he been leading her in circles? She hadn't seen numbers on the doors, but—
Bananas B stops in front of one of those doors and raps out a rhythm with the knuckles of his free hand. Three fast, two slow. Like an echo. She doesn't know if it's an individual signal or a passcode. She doesn't know if that makes a difference at this point.
There's a faint click before the door opens.
It's too dark inside for human eyes to see, but Haley doesn't look with the Eye of the Dragon yet. Until she knows where she is, she's not sure what using her power will do. Nothing, hopefully. If Bananas B really is a magical guardian like Fu Dog, then his dealings can be all kinds of shady and questionable but not actively malicious without penalty. If that's another lie, then for all she knows, he's marching her to someone looking to turn her over to the Huntsclan for a pretty penny.
She wouldn't put it past him, really. Not if he could find someone willing to work with him and overlook how much he himself would fetch. Of course, if he went out to lure or capture magical creatures to be sold for experimentation or something equally horrific, he might be worth more than his weight in gold, even if the profit were split.
She doesn't want to think about that, but nothing in her desperate search for Jake before she knew he was her brother told her that sort of thing was off the table for the Huntsclan.
Bananas B pulls her inside, and when the door is shut and locked behind them, the light is lost completely.
"You didn't come alone," a voice from the darkness observes.
"Brought someone with information to trade," Bananas B says, "so get the lights back on in here so we can get to business."
There's a chuckle from behind them as well as laughter before them, but the light clicks on overhead to reveal a relatively ordinary room. It looks like a small meeting room, fitting five circular tables, though only the one in the far corner is occupied. A shark woman sits with a man who looks human enough from the waist up—and possibly below, but Haley can't tell from here—but it's a leprechaun who leaps into their path from behind. "Not so fast. How do we know it's worth dealing you in?"
Haley blinks, looking over the leprechaun's head to the table again and finally seeing the poker chips.
Poker chips and a second exit, if the door behind the shark woman isn't locked.
"Huntsgirl's face is worth a lot more'n Jerry's snacks," Bananas B says with a pointed tilt of his head to his left—which is when Haley finally notices the cloaked figure that had been holding up the wall behind them, a tray of dainties in his skeletal hands.
"Least I can bring more than rumours to the table," retorts Jerry as he pushes off the wall in a swirl of black. His cloak has a heavier magic in it than Marty's, more laden with shadow and (if she were to guess) notice-me-not potion, but Haley has no doubt they're in the same line of work. It wouldn't surprise her to learn that Marty's been outsourcing some of his jobs, but—
"Yeah? You find a better place to swipe your food than those funerals you're crashing?"
"You two can argue later," interrupts the shark woman. "Bring the food over here first. Jerry, there better be more than that if you want in. Bananas—" She breaks off, angling her head to get a better look at Haley. "Is that who I think it is?"
Haley's met shark people before, but she can't remember any of their names, least of all this woman's. If they've met, she doesn't know where.
When it comes down to it, Haley isn't as perfect as she pretends, so pretending only gets her so far.
It also gets her into messes like this.
"You brought us a dragon," the human-looking man says. He's the one who'd first spoken in the darkness, but even upon hearing his voice again, Haley can't pick out anything in the inflection of his words that might suggest his magical origin.
She's not half bad at searching out the feeling of magic somewhere that's been drenched at it, but she's awful at picking out an individual thread, following it to a source, and identifying the type of magic from there.
As in, she's never managed that yet, and even Fu doesn't sound wholly confident that she'll develop the nose for it.
"You really know Huntsgirl's face?" the leprechaun asks. He's walking backwards in pace with them as Bananas B leads her forwards, still keeping a firm grip on her arm. Haley can't remember anything about leprechauns being particularly known for spatial awareness, which makes her think he's in this room a lot and the tables aren't shuffled much—if at all—when it's cleaned.
"Says she does," Bananas B answers before Haley can open her mouth. "Also says we have to take her at her word as the American Dragon, but I thought Marco might have some ideas about that." He looks to the man as he says that, but Marco's expression betrays nothing—or at least nothing that Haley can read, and Bananas B doesn't seem reassured, either.
"I've some if he doesn't," the shark woman says, baring her teeth.
"Yo, you got a spring, back in there," Bananas B says without missing a beat, pointing towards the back of his mouth with his free hand. "Can't you feel that? It'd be a bugger to have that in my mouth."
The shark woman bites down, makes a face, and spits out the spring. It barely misses the tray of dainties as Jerry sets it on the table. "Watch it!" he cries. "You want more where this came from or not?"
"I like it better when you bring something with meat in it."
"Beggars can't be choosers."
"You see me begging?"
"I see you choosin' and grumblin' about it."
"Hey." The leprechaun snaps his fingers to get Haley's attention as they reach the card table. "Huntsgirl's face?"
Haley raises her chin. "I've seen it."
"You sure it was Huntsgirl?" presses the leprechaun. "Not some up-and-comer vying for her position?"
"Oi, lay off. If she weren't sure, we wouldn't be here." Bananas B hooks his free arm around one of the open chairs and looks at the shark woman. "Deal us in, will ya? If we win, my debt is gone."
The shark woman shows off all her teeth this time, and Haley takes a step back—which is not nearly far enough, considering how small that step is with Bananas B giving her arm new bruises every time she tries to pull away. "And if you lose?"
"She spills the beans. What else?"
"That sounds like her gamble, not yours," the shark woman retorts. "Not sure that's enough to wipe your slate clean."
"Rekin. Please. You're my favourite fish in the sea even when you're on land. Cut me some slack. You know I bring in good info, and this is big."
Never play a card shark. Haley can recall Fu's advice all too easily. She doesn't know how to play poker, not really, but she's gathered the gist of it from his stories; he's told her about more than a few rough nights.
Some of 'em can be hard to spot, but the shark people? Hiding in plain sight, each and every one of them. I get fleeced every time and I don't even have fleece! So do what I say and not what I do, kiddo. Don't play one of them unless you're playing to lose, and if you do that, make sure you can afford the long game. It ain't cheap.
If Bananas B is hoping for her help to cheat, she couldn't do that even if she wanted to.
Of course, losing still benefits him.
He wins either way, considering he wants her information as much as the rest of them clearly do.
And if they let you know what they are? Give away the game before you even start playing? Then you're already right where they want you, and you need to get out of there. Got it?
"If you're risking her info, she's the one I'm dealing in," Rekin says as she starts shuffling the cards. "Throw in something of your own if you want to be the one holding the cards." Bananas B scowls instead of answering, and Rekin turns her head to look at the leprechaun. "Seamus?"
"Same deal as him," Seamus answers, jabbing his thumb in Bananas B's direction. "Clean slate if I win, info if I don't. I've got dirt on everyone from that new colony of pixies in Central Park to the Mothman's latest hidey hole over in West Virginia. You earn it, I spill it."
"I've got info on the Huntsclan's pet dragon," Bananas B adds, sounding reluctant. Haley lets out an involuntary squeak, and his fingers dig deeper into her arm. "And on that kelpie that's been stirring up trouble again."
"Let him play," Marco says. "I want to hear what they have to say."
"You assuming I'm gonna lose?"
"I don't think your partner's been versed in much beyond Go Fish," comes the dry response, and Haley flinches. "She can play, too. Two chances for you to win."
This has to be a trap—Haley can't imagine a scenario where it's not—but she doesn't know what the trap could be.
Bananas B either doesn't see it or doesn't care, because he ignores her panicked look and agrees in a heartbeat.
Rekin simply nods before looking to Jerry, who just took a seat at the table. "You have more than this with you? That tray's half a bite at most."
Jerry doesn't smile—he hasn't the skin for that—but he does huff out something that might be a laugh. "Ye of little faith. I've got one of the skulls."
The what?
Haley might not know what that means, but it's clear enough that the others do by the way they each straighten up. "You don't," says Seamus, but the waver in his voice betrays his uncertainty.
Jerry reaches into his pocket to withdraw something that shouldn't have fit in there in the first place: a crystal skull, roughly shaped but recognizably human. The eyes gleam with a different coloured crystal than the rest and almost make it look like a living thing in and of itself.
Haley still doesn't know what it is, but she can tell it's worth more than its weight in crystal—and not just because Rekin fumbled the cards and is still gathering them back up. There's a sort of humming coming from the crystal even when Haley isn't trying to feel it, and the resonance reverberates in her bones.
Beside her, Bananas B lets out a low whistle.
"Everyone's in, then," Rekin says with a brightness that sounds painfully forced. "Bananas, you come over here. Hon, you can sit between Jerry and Marco. They don't bite. You know how to play 5-card draw?" Haley admits that she doesn't, so Rekin goes over the rules, and Haley tries to listen, she does, but—
Her eyes keep getting drawn to the skull.
It feels dangerous.
Too dangerous to let out of her sight.
Rekin loans her some chips, pushing them across the table in front of Jerry, but Haley doesn't hear the price she negotiated with Bananas B. Even as they begin playing, Haley doesn't try to win; she studies her opponents more than her own cards and lets the chips in her pile dwindle until Jerry pushes the skull into the middle of the table to start the first round of betting.
Her hand is terrible. She doesn't need Fu to tell her that a mismatch of cards from every suit won't get her anywhere. Aces are high, she remembers, but only one isn't going to do her much good. She smiles and raises anyway—calls? She's not even sure what she's doing—and pushes the last of her pot forward, adding the promise of information to make up for what she knows is a deficit.
Bananas B is watching her with narrowed eyes, and Seamus is openly skeptical, scoffing and saying he'll call her bluff, but before it's his turn, Marco drops his cards on the table. "I think you've got something there, little lady," he says with a conspiratorial wink in response to her stare.
Seamus hastily puts his hand down. "I'm out."
"Yeah, me too," Bananas B murmurs, but that doesn't make any sense. If he thinks his hand might be better than hers—which it has to be; you can't get worse than nothing—why wouldn't he keep playing? He wouldn't lose anything by staying in the game, not if she'd understood Marco correctly. Two chances to win, wasn't it?
Only, that also means two chances to lose, wouldn't it?
And if Bananas B is giving up now, before she does, then maybe he's trying to cut his losses.
Which means this is a bad play.
"I'm in," says Rekin before pushing everything she has to the middle of the table. Haley doesn't need any of them to tell her it's a substantial raise. "I want to see what you've got."
Jerry sucks in a rattling breath. "Gimme one new card." He slips one from his hand and places it facedown on the table, and Rekin—this round's dealer—slides him a replacement.
Haley shakes her head when they look at her.
Rekin doesn't replace any cards in her hand, either.
"You two ain't getting rid of me that easily," Jerry says. He pulls something small and golden out of his pocket and drops it onto the table. It looks like a compact. Or—a compass? "I can get more, but I don't have it now. Unless you're willing to take more IOUs?"
Marco shakes his head. "You need a clean slate first."
"Even if I can tell you where another one of these is?" He jerks a bony thumb at the skull. "Or where to find the Uchrono Hourglass?"
"We can talk once you produce something," says Marco. "This'll be your last hand for tonight. Rekin, you can decide if it's enough."
"I'll let him play it," she says before tilting her head to look at Haley, and Haley fights very hard not to fidget under the sharp gaze. She still swallows before she can catch herself.
"I can tell you other things. I can tell you more about the Huntsclan's dragon than he can," Haley says with a nod to Bananas B, "and I know my info about the dragon is accurate. I've fought him."
Well.
Gotten captured, fought. Same difference as far as these guys were concerned, right?
Marco is clicking his tongue. "You're already betting with information, and we don't know you, whatever B claims. It's gotta be physical."
The look in Rekin's eye is predatory, and Haley flinches back.
"She's out," Bananas B says flatly. Haley shoots him a betrayed look, and his tail flicks in annoyance. "What, you got a bigger revelation than Huntsgirl's face up your sleeve? Because you'd need it to match what Rekin put in."
"There's—" Her voice breaks. "There's more to the story about the Huntsclan's dragon."
"Which you've already put on the table."
"No, I mean— More than that. More than you'd think."
"It's gotta be something concrete, honey," says Rekin. She doesn't add the part everyone knows: or you can just give up now and pay up what you've already promised before you lose more.
Haley doesn't know what to say to prove her knowledge without giving away more than she's willing for something she can't win.
Because that's the problem, when it comes down to it.
She can't win.
She can give up now and cut her losses or she can try to come up with some piece of information they'll accept as equivalent to Rekin's bet, at which point they'll show their cards and she'll lose.
She's not sure she knows anything that they'll consider worth more than what's already in there.
Never play a card shark.
Haley drops her cards.
In the end, Jerry and Rekin show theirs, and Rekin reaches forward to sweep her winnings back towards her.
Haley wants to cry. She should have listened to Fu. She shouldn't have listened to Bananas B. She—
She'd played.
She'd lost.
The only thing left is to run.
Haley calls out her wings and leaps forward, snagging the skull off the table to immediate cries of surprise. She's over Rekin's head before the shark woman can follow her movement, but Haley has to twist in mid-air to avoid Bananas B's grab for her leg. She breathes fire onto the door before she reaches it, but it's not weak enough for her to barrel straight through without stopping, so she fumbles with the handle despite the flames.
It's locked, of course.
What should have been a great escape with fire to keep them off her tail ends with a shower of cold water with a wave of Marco's arm and the accompanying spell from his lips.
Wizard. She should have known.
Bananas B has a firm grip on both her wrists now, having already wrenched the skull from her grasp and tossed it to Rekin in Haley's surprise. He marches her back to the table to face Marco, whose teeth are bared in something that she isn't foolish enough to think is a smile. "You thought you could cheat us, little dragon?"
Haley's had regrets about every decision she's made since meeting Bananas B, and this time is no different.
"I've got a potion," Marco continues as Haley tries (and fails) to free herself, "so you'll give us what you owe us, and we'll know it's the truth. In the meantime— Seamus, mind getting the ropes?"
"No," she argues, "you don't have to! This isn't—"
"It is necessary, and we do," Marco cuts in, "or you wouldn't have tried to pull a stunt like that. But, by all means, keep struggling. Don't be surprised if Jerry nicks you, though. You tried to steal from him as much as you did Rekin, since he'd be left with the debt if you'd succeeded."
Jerry pulls a scythe from the space behind Marco, and Haley shudders. "You can't. That's only for cutting souls loose."
"It can do a lot more than that," Jerry says, and something in his tone makes her think he's enjoying this far too much. "Besides, a nick won't kill you. Might put you in a coma till you're healed, though. Assuming your spirit heals. Not everyone's does."
Haley stops struggling, and she lets Seamus and Bananas B tie her onto one of the chairs.
She's not sure when she starts crying, tears running down her face to drip off her chin and fall onto her heaving chest, but they don't ask her to do the impossible and stop.
They just let her cry.