The waves were the only sound, yet they seemed deafening.

"How could we let this happen!" Deynan shouted suddenly. I didn't even jump. "They were fighting those...those THINGS, and what did we do? We had a breakdown."

Isaac and I didn't respond. It was true.

Deynan turned away and looked out at sea.

"What WERE those things, anyways?" Isaac asked quietly.

"I could ask the scroll," I said, my voice dead.

"Ok," Isaac replied, almost inaudible.

I reached under the bench, almost dreamlike. None of this seemed real.

"Hey," I wrote on the scroll, "we were just attacked by octopus-bird-women. It made us feel really bad. What were they and why did they do that?" I shook out my hand. It was the most I had ever written with the quill. I analyzed my handwriting subconsciously. I usually write with no slant and hard pressure. I noticed because I read a book on graphology, and it said that it meant I had strong emotions that I hid very well, preferring to rely on logic, but I could lash out if stress got to me. I had thought it was incorrect until a few days ago, when I broke down over the griffin fiasco. Now I wasn't sure.

My handwriting now was light, shaky, and slanted everywhere, right and left. I wasn't sure what that meant.

"Ravi," Isaac said gently, though his voice was taut, "the scroll."

It had responded. "Oh," I said. I hadn't noticed.

"Really? You got attacked by Tempters? That's rotten luck! Who are you guys and why are you getting attacked by Tempters? As to why they made you feel that way, I can answer that. They attacked your emotional systems, your values, everything that makes you a powerful Legend, and turned it against you. You felt greed instead of charity, laziness instead of diligence, that sort of thing. And I guess you really are powerful, because if you truly felt awful, your body must have rebelled. If you had been normal, you might have transformed into a darke form, or too many, or kept switching and you would've exploded."

I blinked. "Oh."

"What does it say?" Deynan asked, turning around, mildly curious.

I passed it to him wordlessly. He scanned, and I saw his eyes widen. "Oh."

He passed it to Isaac, then slowly lowered his head into his hands and ran them through his hair.

Isaac read it. "Well...that's...good to know?"

"That we're so supposedly powerful their powers didn't work on us? Yeah, real great to know," Deynan said bitterly.

Isaac handed the scroll back to me. "What do I say now?"

Isaac shifted. "Ask how to defeat them."

I nodded. "How do you defeat a Tempter?"

"Well, when it's one on one, they'll be harder, especially now that they know. They'll probe you more subtly and exploit your weaknesses, turning your mind and body against you."

I stared at the parchment. My hands began to shake.

Then another line of writing appeared. "So basically, you're screwed."

I thumped my head into my hands. "Thanks for summing it up, scroll."

Deynan took the paper and read it. His face turned sour. "Fabulous." He handed it to Isaac, who had to read it twice. "Seriously?"

I rolled the parchment up and stuck it under the bench with the quill. We fell silent again.

"What do we do now?" Isaac asked quietly.

I stayed silent. I didn't know how to answer.

"We can't go back," Deynan said dryly, "and we can't go forwards. We're basically floating aimlessly in the middle of the ocean."

Isaac considered this for a moment. "Well. That's a happy thought."

"We could go forwards," I said wearily. I had no energy at all.

"What do you mean?" Deynan said bitterly.

"We could keep going. We could go to Lilituana and talk to Magnolia and Sera-what's-her-face," I said simply.

Deynan laughed. Actually laughed. "Wow, I didn't know you had such a sense of humor, Ravioli," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "We can't go to the stupid island. We don't even know where it is."

Despair began to pool in my stomach. "Oh yeah."

"We could ask the book," Isaac said, slowly sitting up.

"What?" Deynan asked half-heartedly.

"Sophie's book," Isaac said, standing up as if in a trance and walking over to the side of the boat. He pulled something out from under the bench. It was Sophie's laptop-book, the big red one. He opened it. The pages were blank, stirring a bit. "Where is the island of Lilituana?"

"Isaac..." I started to say, but the book's pages were already flipping rapidly. We stared at it blankly. Then it fell open to a final page, where there was what looked like a map of the world. It spun, zooming in to a place in the Atlantic Ocean. Then, there was a small, dark green island, long and thin. A few inches away, maybe seven, was a little black dot labeled "you". It was steadily moving closer to the island.

"How on earth are we staying on course?" I muttered.

Deynan thwacked me lightly in the head. "Magic boat, stupid." Pain thudded against my skull and I glared.

"So we can still get there," Isaac said plainly.

"Yeah, but what can we do WHEN we get there?" Deynan said in exasperation.

"Go to the palace and talk to Magnolia and Seraphina."

Deynan chuckled darkly. "You gotta tell me this is a joke."

"What's the alternative, Deynan?" Isaac asked sharply. "We hitchhike back home? Try to forget this happened? Condemn all those people to...to...I don't know, death?!"

Deynan scowl faltered. "It's just...we can't. We can't take down an evil villain. The girls did. They could've helped. But...two weeks ago, I didn't even know magic EXISTED. Now we're supposed to save it?! I just..." He pressed his hands to his temples. "I didn't sign up for this."

Isaac threw his hands up in the air. "Of course you didn't sign up for this! What, you think I did? You think Ravi did?"

I shuffled uncomfortably. I didn't want o be brought into this argument.

"But don't you get it? It's not a matter of whether we can or can't. It's a matter of NOBODY ELSE CAN. We were sent on this mission for a reason. And then it actually became important. Don't you think Mrs. Simone or Dr. Smith would be out here if they could? But they can't. I mean, if you want to bail, by all means, go, but that's going to decrease our chance--and everyone back there's chance--of survival."

Deynan was silent.

Isaac let out a long breath. "And besides, now that this man or whoever it is that controls those monsters kidnapped our friends, I consider it a personal act of war."

That seemed to help him decide. Slowly, Deynan began to nod. "Ok. I'll do it. I'll come along with your crazy plan." He grimaced. "But we're probably going to die."

Isaac turned to me. "And what do you think? Should we do it?"

I held my hands up in surrender. "Hey, don't look at me. I'm logical, and there is absolutely no logic involved in this decision."

Deynan cracked a grin. He pointed at Isaac. "Optimist." He pointed to himself. "Pessimist." He pointed to me. "Realist."

I grinned, despite myself. "Pretty ragtag group of heroes, wouldn't you say?"

Deynan laughed, a real one this time. "You can call us heroes at the end of all this crap."

"Done." I grinned wider.

"Well, Isaac said, smiling, "I'm glad we've decided to save lives. Now, can we eat? All this despair is making me hungry." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We ate breakfast, even though it was probably a little late for that. But it made me feel better.

After breakfast, we just kind of sat on the deck, not knowing what to do.

"Let's try to get to know each other a bit better," Isaac said.

"Um...what?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"Get to know each other," Isaac repeated. "I was just sitting here and I realized, I don't know anything about your lives."

"What if we want to keep it that way?" Deynan grumbled.

"That's fine, but we are going into a dangerous situation and we might not make it out alive."

"Right..."

"I'll go first," Isaac volunteered. "As you know, I'm Isaac Tretter. I was born in Delaware, and moved to Seattle when I was five, which is where I currently live. I have an older brother named Elliot and a younger sister named Cadence. I play the piano. Um...there really isn't much else I can think of. I really like music. Other than piano, I just picked up cello, and that's going pretty well I suppose." He shrugged. "Ravi, your turn."

"Why is it my turn?" I asked immediately.

Isaac smiled. "Because Deynan is looking at me like he wants to kill me. Go."

"Oh...okay. So I'm Ravi Jindal. I was, uh, born in India, and then we moved to the states when I was two. I grew up in Oregon, moved to Michigan when I was seven, and then we had just moved to North Carolina when I came here. Uh...oh, I have two sisters, an older one named Shreya, and a younger one named Aasha. Um..."

"What are some things you like to do?" Isaac prompted.

"Oh. Uh. Honestly, I just do a lot of school work. Um...I took tae kwon do for a bit when I was little. I like speech and debate, or writing it anyways, not the actual speaking part. I write poetry sometimes." I bit my lip. I hadn't meant to say that last part out loud. "So...yeah. And just in case you weren't already aware, I'm the most awkward person on the face of this earth."

"No, it's okay Ravi, we already knew," Deynan muttered. I smiled wryly.

"Alright Deynan," Isaac said, gesturing.

"Do I have to?" he grumbled.

"Yes," Isaac and I said in unison.

He sighed. "I'm not really one for...sharing. Ok. Whatever. I'll try. My name is Deynan Soldano, Deynan like the last name, Soldano like the guitar amp." He smiled a bit. "I have an older brother, Grayson, but he's a lot older than me, and joined the military, so I pretty much never see him. Um...I used to play football, but honestly, all the guys I played with were OBSESSED and I was mostly doing it for recreation, so..." He shrugged. "I tried lacrosse for a bit, right now I'm mostly doing hockey. I pick up sports pretty quickly. I don't know, I've never been super into extracurriculars. I play a lot of video games."

Isaac nodded. "That's cool."

I wondered if I was the only one who noticed how uncomfortable Deynan looked. I doubted it. Isaac probably noticed. I wondered if there was something he wasn't telling us, or if he simply didn't like talking about himself.

I wasn't sure. Deynan had never seemed to have an issue with it before.

We sat in silence. The waves lapped gently. I felt the wind rustle my hair.

"Well this is exciting," Deynan said after a moment.

My mind flashed to Sierra. She never seemed bored. She always started a game or a conversation. Something. Anything. She was like the opposite of awkward.

I sighed.

"Now I'm not one to pry," a girl's voice said, "but I've never seen three boys floating in the middle of the ocean together looking so depressed."

We whirled around. There were three people, a blonde guy with spiky hair, and a girl with platinum blonde, stick straight hair., and a girl in front.

The girl in the front was the one who had seemingly spoken. She had brown short hair in a bob, and smiling brightly.

And they were floating on broomsticks.

I gawked.

"My name's Abigail," the cheery girl said. "This is Liza and Chris. So, what are you doing in the middle of the sea?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~