**SURPRISE!! Y'all get an extra chapter today. Mainly because Lyla's chapter ended up being too long, so I had to split it in two. Enjoy**

Chapter 25

Lyla couldn't remember the last time she had felt so free when she was dancing.

In Benodet, the partners switched frequently, each person skipping down the line and joining hands with the next dancer. Lyla had danced with nearly everyone in the square; none of which she knew, but their smiles were so easy and open that she didn't mind at all.

Her cheeks were pink and her hair had loosened from its bun, winding around her flushed throat by the time Aveline proposed they go find Ari and Jamie. The water on the beach looked so clear and inviting, Lyla was almost tempted to jump in, if she hadn't been wearing full skirts.

"Did you have fun?" Jamie seemed a bit discomposed as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, but just managed to return Aveline's buoyant greeting.

"Lyla did!" Eli said gleefully, winding an arm around Lyla's shoulders. She blushed.

"Where are Inez and the rest of the crew, by the way?" She was sorry that they had missed out on the festivities- though she couldn't imagine Inez danced much, the rest of the crew likely did.
Ari raised a shoulder. "I told them to meet us back at the ship for dinner." Now that the investigation had been put on a temporary hold, Lyla could see that tiredness had perhaps finally caught up to Ari; he seemed faraway.

"Perhaps we could go back to the ship early," she suggested, "we need you and Aveline to catch up on sleep, and I need to freshen up, anyway." She'd slept in her now-rumpled gown and couldn't imagine what her hair must have looked like.

They agreed, to her surprise; and as they walked back, Lyla thoughtfully turned her arms over to examine the pinkish hue left from the sun. It didn't hurt now, but it would probably sting in her bath that night, she predicted.

Everyone headed to their own rooms as soon as they returned. Lyla soon found Henry and Inez and joined them for an intense game of chess, which lasted for a few hours.

Most of the day passed by uneventfully, for once, and after washing and changing her clothes, Lyla spent most of it in the library reading. She found a few rather fascinating books about gardening, and fell asleep on a large volume of flower breeds.

She awoke to find that she had missed supper but someone had left out a pot of broth for her on the dining table, and she groggily ate it with a hunk of bread, gazing into the bowl and slowly letting the past few months wash over her.

Something about it didn't seem real; like she was trapped in a dream, and soon she would wake up in her over-cushioned bed in the Apreuna palace to the sound of her maids banging on the door- at her mother's request.

The familiar image filled Lyla with a sense of revulsion that surprised her. She was quickly falling into a routine here, all the while finding that with more of the world she saw, the less she wanted to return.

--

Later that week, Aveline and Ari came back to the ship late, when everyone else had retired for the evening. Lyla visited the children's bunk downstairs just as Inez was putting them to sleep. The room was dark and Lyla hurried to close the door on its open sliver of light as she joined Inez, who knelt beside the bed.

"Lyla," Imani languidly muttered around the thumb in her mouth. Inez hushed her, not unkindly, and then she began to sing.

Inez had a surprisingly lovely voice, that lilted and swam over the notes of an unfamiliar lullaby that Lyla had never heard before. The melody seemed to come from some distant kingdom, perhaps where Inez was from. Each of the children's eyes began to close as they huddled together on the large bed. Lyla almost felt like falling asleep herself yet again, relaxation seeping into her limbs at Inez's voice.

Then the door banged open, loudly, and Aveline and Ari tumbled over each other through the entrance, laughing.

Inez turned around, putting her finger to her lips.

"Oops!" Aveline's voice immediately sank. "Apologies." She tip-toed further into the room. "Inez, did I leave my shoes in here?"

"Where are you going?" Lyla wondered aloud.

Aveline grinned. "On an adventure. Would you like to come?"

Lyla wrinkled her nose. "I haven't seen either of you all day. You were supposed to be resting."

"We will," said Ari, shucking his jacket, "later. The night is young." Aveline located her shoes underneath the bed, and Ari opened the door back up. "You coming?"

Lyla scrambled to her feet as quietly as she could, casting a backwards glance to the sleeping children. "Well, what is it you're doing, exactly?"

"Not anything legal, if that's what you're wondering," said Ari cheerfully.

"Just go with them, princess, they're not going to kill you," Inez ordered with some exasperation. Aveline winked at her.

Pursing her lips, Lyla bid good night to Inez and followed Ari and Aveline out into corridor. It was dark as the ship softly bobbed under them.

Ari and Aveline both scrutinized her contemplatively, as if estimating her measurements.

"Do you have something to wear that's... not a dress?" Ari inquired. Taken aback, Lyla wondered what that had to do with anything.

Aveline smiled wryly. "She can borrow something of mine."

Their mischievous expressions immediately put Lyla on her guard, but she chose not to ask (did she ever?), even when Aveline forced her into the most improper nylon shorts she'd ever seen and some sort of sash for her chest that was made out of the same fabric.

"Here, put this over it." Aveline briskly shoved a velvet brown cloak at her and commenced to pull her arms into the sleeves.

"You're bossy," Lyla commented, permitting Aveline to tie the strings in a tight bow across Lyla's waist and yank the hood over her head.

"Only because you allow it." Aveline lightly extracted Lyla's hair from underneath her hood. "You don't question it when Ari and I tell you to do something strange."

"I trust you both." Lyla's words surprised even herself, and Aveline beamed before Ari became impatient and began pounding on the bathroom door.

Lyla felt giddy, almost like a spy as she, Ari, and Aveline left the ship and walked through the square. The streets were empty— the raucous laughter of drunks absent in a quaint village such as this.

Aveline and Ari, both dressed in black, weaved between dimmed streetlights, their silhouettes casting like ghosts that danced gracefully around each stone building. Lyla caught sight of herself in a glass window; she looked unfamiliar and mysterious. Her moonlight hair streamed across the chestnut fabric of her cloak, her face half-hidden in shadow.

There was something exciting about the anonymity of it all. Even when Ari and Aveline stopped at a large metal building in a part of the beach Lyla hadn't seen before. A large fence of wire surrounded the structure. A jagged wooden sign read DO NOT ENTER.

"Shh," Ari murmured near her ear as he pulled her behind a brick building. "It's under watch," he explained, pointing at a few dark figures inside the gate that Lyla had not noticed.

"We're at a marine farm," she said incredulously, reading the larger sign on the fence. "Somehow I wasn't expecting this." What was so interesting about this farm? There were lots like it on the coast of Mauviri; the sea creatures were plentiful here.

Then Lyla abruptly remembered Silver floating deviously in her tank back at the ship, and she stepped back. "Oh no, I am not helping you wrangle any more sea monsters-"

"Listen, Lyla. Do you hear that?" Lyla closed her mouth at Ari's whisper and focused on the sound of the waves rolling on the sand. Distantly she thought she heard high, keening cries, and wet flapping noises, like a bunch of tails slapping together.

"Those are the animal pens," said Aveline. "Let's get closer." They snuck around the side of the building, escaping the throng of village buildings, and moved closer to the docks, shielding themselves by the billowing sand dunes. When Lyla peered over the sand hill, she could see the closest pen herself.

The keening noise she had been hearing came from a baby seal pen. The animals were coated with mud and clumsily squelched around the metal floors of their flooded cage; Lyla felt her lips tugging upwards at the long hairs by their noses.

Lyla moved her gaze to the pen next to it; at a crowd of large fish. There had to be near two hundred crammed together; their slick, brown bodies tumbling on top of each other so closely Lyla could barely see the water that sloshed between them.

"I've never seen so many animals in one place." Completely fascinated, Lyla glanced sideways at Ari and Aveline; they were both staring at her intently as if waiting for her to comprehend something. "Can they even... move?" She inquired tentatively. "They're all so close together."

"They're all kept like this," said Ari, bristling.

Lyla's excitement began to fade as she watched one of the seals trip over its own tail. It was likely too young to be away from its mother.

"What's going to happen to them?"

"They'll all be mass slaughtered and then butchered for the parts that are valuable." Ari spoke without emotion, almost as if it did not matter to him either way. "We've seen it a thousand times."

Lyla stilled, feeling a wave of sadness and anger wash over her.

"But that's wrong!" Lyla's eyes shifted back to Ari and Aveline's inscrutable expressions, and then something clicked into place. "That's why we're here," she breathed. "Isn't it?"

Aveline lifted the hood of her own cloak off of her hair. "Ari and I found it earlier today. Aquatic farming is a huge and expensive industry, especially here. All the docks are patrolled at night, consequently," she continued, loosening the ties at her throat. Lyla watched her with a mix of curiosity and apprehension.

"So then, how do we get in without being seen? I assume that was the plan here."
Lyla's question was answered as Aveline slipped the cloak off and stuffed it under a thistle bush. Underneath, she wore what looked shiny dark undergarments similar to what she had given Lyla.

Shaking out her hair, Aveline glanced at Ari. "I'll see you on the other side?"

"We'll be waiting." Ari lifted a hand towards her, and then dropped it. "Be careful."

"I always am," Aveline said over her shoulder, her eyes twinkling mischievously before she took one step into the black waves at their feet. So silently Lyla could barely hear it, Aveline had slipped under the water, small bubbles floating to the top in her barely imperceptible wake.

"Where is she going?"

"To the other end of the docks. She's creating a distraction and then we're going to break them out," Ari clarified, rolling up his sleeves. He started to speak very rapidly, while pulling various metal objects out of his coat. "All of those cages are padlocked. I brought the tools that we need to break through, but we can't do it from the surface or else we'd get caught. We're waiting for Aveline to give the signal, and then..." Ari flashed her a lopsided grin. "You fancy a swim?"

Lyla anxiously rubbed her arm with her hand and tried to be brave. "I suppose so."

In the silence that followed, she heard a bell-like melody on the other side of the dock, accompanied by swishing, splashing noises, and realized that someone was singing a siren's song; a haunting melody of a love lost. Lyla paused, tilting her head to listen to the quiet voice.

The night watchmen must have recognized this too; they each halted in what they were doing and began whispering excitedly amongst themselves. Their boots made heavy plodding noises in the wood as they each went to investigate.

"That's our signal," Ari said under his breath. "Now, do exactly as I say, and try not to make any loud noises," he told her. "You know what the first rule of these missions are? Stick exactly to the plan."

Lyla's eyebrows furrowed. "But you never do that."

"That's because I have problems." Ari walked closer to the water, stopping just at the border where the waves met the sand. He looked at her expectantly. "Are you coming?"

Within a second, Ari had peeled off his shirtsleeves and submerged himself into the water. Lyla nervously looked around, finally not knowing what else to do but to quickly shed her cloak and follow Ari into the murky depths.