“Not all of them, but I have my suspicions. You get a feel for these things as an Apothecary. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could purchase four or five of the items in this shop.”

Barclay’s gaze anxiously sped around the Planty Shanty. The seaweed looked far more frightening in the dark, colorless and fleshy, much of it in a dead man’s float on the surface of its tanks. His eyes paused on the bells hanging on the front door. He had always thought they dangled on curly ribbons, but now that he examined them closer, he realized the ribbons were actually tentacles.

Polypop bells—the only other bonding item that Conley Murdock had been sure of.

The same dread that had kept Barclay company these past few weeks grew stronger all at once, like a rope about to snap.

“But wouldn’t selling all those items make it easy for someone to bond with Lochmordra?” he choked.

Ansley slid her goggles back into place, so Barclay couldn’t see her eyes. But her mouth slanted into a smile. “Bond with Lochmordra? No one has managed to bond with a Legendary Beast in hundreds of years.”

Leaving Ansley to her research, Barclay and Root slinked upstairs and paced around the cramped attic. He’d gotten so nervous, he was sweating. He wrenched open the window. Outside, the sunset splashed the Sea a hundred marvelous shades of color. But when Barclay closed his eyes, he only saw weeping-tide white.

FOURTEEN

I don’t get it,” Hasu whispered to the other apprentices. “So the earthquakes are making the vents stronger, and the vents are making the Sea warmer, and that’s making the weeping tide bloom? That sounds really complicated.”

Across the deck, Edwyn shouted, “Barclay, let out those topsails, will you? No—no, the other rope! That one there!”

Barclay raced to the rope and yanked at its tangle of knots.

“And how is it looking, Navigator? That’s the Isle of Trowe in the distance, so we must be getting close.”

“We’re not there yet!” Cecily called, crouched upon the skinny bowsprit like a seagull.

Because the weeks without their Beasts had left everyone cranky, Edwyn had gotten permission to borrow one of the Guild’s vessels for today’s lesson. Barclay wouldn’t have thought Edwyn much of a sailor, as Ulick, the only sailor he knew, was so big and burly, and Edwyn always looked so tired and weary. But from the way he dished out orders, he clearly knew his way around a ship.

At last, the knots unraveled, and one of the square sails above Barclay rolled free. He ducked back to the bow, where the other apprentices huddled.

“That means whoever is trying to bond with Lochmordra must be causing the earthquakes,” Tadg said firmly.

Viola groaned. “We’ve been over this. No one is trying to bond with Lochmordra.”