Back with the girls, Tubarina realised that she didn't have an idea where they were going. "So where are we going?" she asked.

Polvina confidently replied, "The Valley of Dusk."

Ester was disappointed. "It's not the lost palace of the Barracuda Kingdom- I mean, the Ruins of Salacia."

Tubarina was even more distraught. "Oh, let's not go there!"

"What's wrong with the Ruins of Salacia?" Polvina asked.

Ester replied, "It's just a bunch of rubble and stuff. Those stupid barracuda never bothered fixing the one place that would stop them being grumpy."

Tubarina added, "Yeah, then some committee discovered it and made it into a landmark. We go there all the time on school excursions!"

"There's nothing there we haven't seen already. It's not even special to us anymore," complained Ester.

"You just might be surprised," said Polvina.

As the girls entered the Valley of Dusk, Ester doubled back when she thought she heard something. "Hmmm…"

Polvina and Tubarina had stopped just ahead of her. "What's up?" asked Polvina.

"I thought I heard something."

"Like what?" queried Tubarina.

"I think there's someone following us."

Polvina looked around. "I don't see anything."

Even Tubarina was looking as well. "Me neither."

Ester sighed, "Maybe I'm just imagining it." She shrugged and the girls continued on. Sure enough, the mysterious fish were watching them…

Eventually, the girls arrived. "There!" exclaimed Polvina.

"What a surprise. The lost palace of the Barracuda Kingdom," Tubarina said sarcastically.

"Also known as the Ruins of Salacia," Ester followed on.

"I don't know what you expect us to find," said Tubarina.

Ester pointed out, "They just call this old palace the Ruins of Salacia. We don't really know that she lived here."

"That's because historians don't know anything. Anyone can get them to say what they want them to say if they pay them enough money." Though Tubarina's comment did seem a bit outlandish, there was still a possibility of it being true, whether in Salacia or on Dryland.

"Let's just look around and see what we can see," said Polvina, optimistically.

Ester just told her, "If that's what you want."

As the girls looked around the ruins, Tubarina commented, "It won't do any good though. Oh, all I see are ruins and… ooh, ooh, some rubble. Ooh, and some more ruins."

"Ruins over here too," replied Ester.

Polvina was still hoping to find something. "But the answer might be in these ruins."

Tubarina went to where the throne of the Barracuda Kingdom was, which was also known nowadays as Salacia's throne, though nobody was able to prove it. "This is silly, Polvina. We don't even know what we're looking for."

"That's no reason not to help," Polvina chided.

"I am helping."

"How?"

"Well, uh, uh, I could be sitting on the very thing we're after."

As Polvina and Ester came over to Tubarina, Polvina looked around the throne and noticed something on the back which they hadn't noticed before. "You could be right, Tubarina."

The girls looked at the back of the throne and saw some text (in the ancient language of the Barracuda Kingdom) etched into it, which Tubarina and Polvina read out (with the help of a book on said language that Polvina brought with her): "Here the truth of the guardians be, speak it and you will see."

"It's a riddle!" Ester excitedly exclaimed.

"Hmm, oh, a riddle," Polvina mused.

"Oh, a riddle? I hate riddles!" Tubarina complained.

It was then that the mysterious fish were swimming around them, spooking the girls. Tubarina said to Ester, "You know that nothing you thought you saw?"

Ester replied, "It's something, and there's more than one!"

Polvina cried, "And they're all around us!"

The girls quickly fled the ruins. They tried to hide in a nearby cave, but they were forced to swim out of the Valley of Dusk when they saw the mysterious fish in there as well. Seeing this, the mysterious fish were about to follow them, but the mysterious saline stopped them. "Leave them. They'll be back to solve the mystery. I just know it."

Polvina began running out of breath, so the girls hid behind a rock as they decided to stop. "What do you see?" she asked Ester and Tubarina.

"Nothing," answered Ester.

Tubarina replied, "Oh, well that's what we saw before. But now we know they're not nothing."

"They wanted to chase us away from what we found," said Polvina.

"We must have got close to the secret," added Ester.

"We have to solve this riddle."

Tubarina complained, "I hate riddles! They always trick me."

"That's the point of riddles," chided Polvina as she wrote the riddle in the sand.

"But I don't like being tricked. Ugh, I give up. You wake me when you work it out." Tubarina lied down on the rock and closed her eyes.

Polvina and Ester looked at the riddle to find out what the trick was. "Here the truth of the guardians be, speak it and you will see." The trick was to speak "it", but just what did they need to say?

As she snored, Tubarina mumbled, "Say it… Say what? Why can't they tell you what they want you to say?"

Hearing this, Polvina's mind clicked as she finally realised what the trick was. "Tubarina, you're a genius!" Polvina immediately rushed back to the ruins while Ester and Tubarina (who had just gotten back up) followed behind her.

"So, what's the trick?" asked Ester.

"I'll tell you when we get back to the ruins!" answered Polvina.

"What about those things that were chasing us?" asked Tubarina.

"Who cares about them? I've solved the riddle!"