Kai isn’t freaking, though. Why isn’t she freaking out? Instead,

when she sees my dagger in hand, her eyes go wide and she smiles.

“Triton’s dagger! I’ve never seen it so close. I have a profound

affinity for ancient swords.”

“It’s always the quiet ones,” I say. My dagger makes a terrible

scratchy noise as I try to cut our way out. There’s another bang! The

Wonder Wheel strains against the pressure, and for a heartbeat, we

fall. A shadow flies over us. Our car swings. We’re not supposed to

swing. I paid for the stationary seats. But our car swings back and

creaks and screeches, and I know we’re breaking away from the rest of

the ride.

I shut my eyes hard. “Please tell me I’m not seeing what I’m

seeing.”

Kai gasps, elated. “Oh my goddess!”

“Don’t. Move.”

She takes a step forward toward the shadow perching at the center

of the Wonder Wheel and ready to pounce on us. “It’s a sea dragon.”

“Okay, so that wasn’t going to be my first guess. I was going to

go with flying dinosaur of unusually small size.”

“I’ve never seen one before.” Her eyes are like mirror balls,

spinning at the creature.

In the catalog of my childhood storytelling, I always pictured

dragons to be the size of Godzilla. This thing is iridescent blue and

green, hard and slick at the same time. It huffs into the air and

takes off again, undulating through the sky. A row of ridges starts at

the dragon’s neck, like a Mohawk, and gets smaller and smaller toward

the tip of its tail. The head is what surprises me the most. The sea

dragon’s face is soft with eyes that shine golden and glossy, even in

the diminishing lights of the park. Until the creature opens its mouth

to growl.

“Well, it doesn’t seem to like us, so I say we get out of here.” I

stab the door. The blade slides through the metal with some

resistance, but there’s good give and I shout, “Stand back!” The lock

on the door opens with my second strike. I kick hard, and the door

falls and slams into the cement ground, just missing a group of kids

running away.

It’s probably not a good time to tell Kai that I’m not a fan of

heights either. I stare at the open space below. It’s not that far,

but landing without a cushion will hurt.

“You’re not saying we jump?”

“Unless you’ve got a magic portal to get us out of here, the only

way is down.”

For a moment, the sea dragon vanishes into a patch of thick fog

before making a circle toward us. This close, I can see the barnacles

growing around the pink slits of his gills. Of course. All the

princesses and pirates and evil sea witches want a piece of me. Why

wouldn’t some nearly extinct dinosaur want in on it? I ready my dagger

to stab at it, but Kai pushes my hand away.

“Don’t hurt it!”

“It’s trying to eat us!”

The sea dragon bangs into our car once again. We tumble back in.

The metal hinges creak and finally break apart. Kai falls into me and

holds on. I hold on to her with one hand and my dagger with the other,

but we never hit the ground. Talons break through the ceiling to

clutch the car, and the dragon starts to fly away with us.

“I think we’re too heavy!” I shout, not at Kai but at the dragon.

It struggles to fly while holding us. We’re barely skimming above

the ground, and if he dips below a foot or two, we’re going to ram

straight into the carousel. I let go of Kai and ready my dagger to

take another stab at the sea dragon.

“No!” Kai yells, pulling me away. “Tristan, please!”

“Kai! I don’t care. I’m trying to protect us.”

The beast screams. I didn’t touch it but it screams and releases

us. I get that familiar tickle in my stomach as we fall like a rock

straight into the large seat of the teacup ride. We lurch forward as

the car hits the ground. Kai is injured. The dagger’s cut her arm. The

skin is singed where the blade touched her.

Blaring sirens wake me up. When I move, my shoulder is burning up.

I’m nauseated and dizzy, and there’s a pulsing in my head.

“Hurry,” a strange voice tells me. He’s poking me with a stick.

Holds out his hand. My first thought should be to smack his hand away

with his own stick. Instead I wonder: Why is Salvador Dalн wearing a

pink tie? That’s the thing with concussions. But he’s real and he

says, “Hurry now!”

I shield my eyes against the light that creates a halo around him

and take his hand.

Then voices around me tell me not to move and that help is coming

soon. They wonder if it’s a terrorist attack. They scream about the

apocalypse. They say it’s the thing killing all those boys. Sirens are

whooping nearby.

Salvador Dalн catches me as I wobble forward and says, “Quickly,

before the paramedics want to get their hands on you.”

That sobers me right up, and I fight through the pain in my

shoulder. I find my dagger, sling on my backpack, and take my princess

by the hand. “Kai, are you okay?”

She nods, holding her arm where the skin is burnt and bleeding.

Her first step is a limp that nearly sends her to the ground.

“Carry on, young prince,” Salvador Dalн says.

I sling Kai around my shoulder. We push past the throng of people

that encircled us after the fall. We run down the ramp and cut through

a passageway I’ve never seen before. We come out on the side of the

sideshow by the seashore entrance. And there, as we enter through a

red curtain into a dark corridor, Princess Kai sighs and faints in my

arms.

The room is draped from floor to ceiling in plush, scarlet velvet.

Taper candles flank the edge of the table in front of me. A neon

PSYCHIC sign hangs above the day bed that I lay Kai on. Her hair

spills over the side like a waterfall and her hand hangs off the couch

like she’s reaching out to the ghost of a prince who sure as hell

isn’t me.

I try to roll my shoulder out but the pain is like a hot poker

digging into me. So I sit as still as I can until the pain becomes

numb.

In front of me is a deck of tarot cards. The borders are brown

with age, but the scenes the cards depict are as bright as if printed

hours ago. Three cards are laid out facing me. A heart with three

swords driven through it, ten coins hovering around a couple in a

garden, and then there’s the Devil with a naked man and woman chained

on either side of his throne.

The Devil card is singed at the edges. I wonder, why do people

always picture the devil as being red? Mrs. Santos says hell would be

a cold place. Somewhere where life and breath and everything that

makes you happy gets sucked right out. When I think of hell, I think

of colds and blues. I think of Nieve and her cold lips. I’m about to

pick it up when the skinny, mustached man returns and says, “I

wouldn’t touch those if I were you.”

I retract my hand instantly. The last thing I need is to stick my

hand in a pot of psychic fire or whatever. “Why?”

“Because they aren’t yours to touch.” He sits across from me

wearing a jewel-tone blue suit that’s tailored to his every angle.

I’ve always wondered what wearing those things would be like. Granted,

I wouldn’t top it off with a pink tie and a matching hanky, but still.

I’d clean up well. “Who are you?”

“Comit,” he says, unbuttoning his blazer to reveal a super-crisp

shirt and black suspenders. Do people even wear suspenders anymore?

“Charlie Comit. I live here.”

Despite the suit and facial hair that make him look older, a