The Perilous Sea (The Elemental Trilogy #2)

“Mind taking me to the privy before you go?” asked Wintervale.

Wintervale’s elemental powers had exploded in amplitude, but his bladder seemed to have shrunk in size, at least when Titus was around. “Come on, then.”

Wintervale sprang up, not in the direction of Titus’s outstretched hand, but toward the window—and nearly took a header for his trouble. Titus barely kept him from hitting a corner of his shelves. “Careful!”

Wintervale stood with his forehead pressed against the window pane. “For a moment—for a moment I thought it was my mother.”

But all Titus saw as he looked out, besides a hawker he had never seen before this Half, was the usual street outside Mrs. Dawlish’s house.



When Iolanthe arrived at the laboratory, after lights-out, the prince was already there. Or rather, he was in the Crucible, his hand over the book, his head resting on the table.

Even seemingly asleep, he looked tense and worried. Her heart clenched—she wished she could still help him.

Then why don’t you? asked another part of her. Even if you are not the great heroine you imagined yourself to be, there is still so much to do.

But he doesn’t want my help.

He only said you are not the One. When did he say he no longer needed your help?

Next to the Crucible on the table was a pastry box with a note underneath. She pulled out the note to read.



Dalbert told me Mrs. Hinderstone’s shop also sells Frankish pastry, which are very popular with the patrons. These are from Paris. I hope you like them.



“These” were two cream puffs, a tiny fruit tart, and a mille-feuille, which consisted of alternating layers of smooth pastry cream and buttery puff pastry.

She almost pushed the box away from herself, afraid its contents would only ever taste of heartache and rejection. But somehow a piece of the fruit tart found its way into her mouth. It was delicious beyond belief—and all she could think of was the care he had always taken with her.

She laid her hand over his and kept it there for several minutes, before she started the password and the countersign to enter the Crucible.



In the reading room, Titus sat with his forehead on the cabinet-size book before him, his eyes bleary.

“Are you all right?” came Fairfax’s voice.

He straightened. “I hate to sound like a broken clock but it is not safe for you to leave Mrs. Dawlish’s after lights-out.”

“I know.”

She looked at him oddly. He could not decide whether she was displeased with him—or completely the opposite.

“You are not sleeping enough,” she said.

“I do not sleep well, in any case. But I was not sleepy, just overwhelmed with information.”

“What information?”

“I need Wintervale to be able to walk on his own power before we can set out for Atlantis. But before that, I have to find out what exactly is the matter with him.” He tapped the tome on the table. “This is the most comprehensive reference on how to interpret the Kno-it-all gauge’s readings. Some combinations immediately narrow the choice down to one or two likely diagnoses. But gross motor impairment and mental instability open up endless possibilities—anything from the onset of a new phobia to an irreparable splintering of the psyche.”

“What?”

He shook his head. “The splintering of the psyche case dates to almost fifteen centuries ago, back when mages were still debating whether cancer was divine punishment for illicit misdeeds. I am not going to pay any mind to that.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“Earlier today, he almost fell over getting to the window, because he thought he saw his mother outside. Yet from where he was sitting, he would have seen nothing but the sky—and maybe a bit of roof on the opposite side of the street.”

“Did you think he was hallucinating?”

“No, I did not. He was very much lucid. But the incident made me remember that when I used the Kno-it-all gauge on Wintervale, he was still under the effect of the panacea, sleeping all the time. At the time I had thought the gauge gave a reading of impairment on gross motor skills because he could not move without being carried—that the gauge had been fooled by the panacea, if you will.”

“And you hoped that the reading of mental instability had also been influenced by panacea,” she said, “because it isn’t normal for someone to sleep all the time.”

“Except the gauge turned out to be quite correct on his trouble moving around.”

He half wondered whether she would again blast him for his lack of commitment to Wintervale, but she only said, quietly, “Nothing has ever been easy for you, has it?”

Something in her tone caught his attention: the absence of anger. Ever since the day of the maelstrom, no matter how politely she spoke, he had always heard, loud and clear, the fury underneath.

But not this moment. This moment she was just his friend.

“No, you are wrong,” he said. “I have been immensely fortunate, especially in my friends.”