Something Getting Through

They rode the ski lift back toward the shoreline still turning the mystery over between them, Bram absently holding the trident across his lap, the glowing quest marker still hovering, patient and unhelpful, in the corner of his vision.

"...We should test the saltwater theory properly," Arista said, watching the tunnel's hexagonal lights sweep past. "You've never actually held this thing in open seawater. The dome was already drained by the time we found it. Maybe that's the missing piece, maybe it needs actual contact with the ocean to do anything at all."

"Worth trying," Bram agreed. "Where, though? We could probably find standing water somewhere in the ruins."

"...No," Arista said slowly, an idea forming. "I don't think that's what we should test first. I think we should bring it to Squishy."

Bram glanced at her. "...Why him specifically?"

"Because he's reacted to this trident from the very first moment you picked it up," Arista said. "Through the glass, no less, from outside the dome, purely by sight, he still zeroed in on it immediately, more intensely than he's ever reacted to anything else we've shown him. That's not curiosity about a shiny object. That's recognition."

Bram sat with that, the pieces settling into place. "...You think he already knows what this is."

"I think we should find out."

They reached the shoreline within the hour, and Nettle, once briefed on the plan, had her steamship prepared and underway before the afternoon was half over, the same reliable vessel that had carried them through storms, sea serpents, and Squishy's own enthusiastic curiosity more times than any of them could easily count.

They found him near his usual waters not far from the Drowned Court's dome, drawn by the ship's familiar engine hum long before they'd properly arrived.

Bram leaned over the railing, trident held carefully in both hands, and, at Arista's nod, lowered it slowly into the open water.

The moment the metal touched the sea, something changed.

Not a visible glow, not a dramatic burst of light, something quieter, harder to describe, a faint resonance Bram felt travel up through his own arms the instant the trident made contact with genuine seawater for the first time.

Squishy's reaction was immediate and unmistakable.

His entire body surged toward the ship, tentacles trailing, rings of blue light flaring bright and rapid across his skin, one massive eye fixing directly on the submerged trident with an intensity none of them had ever seen from him before.

"...He felt that," Claire said, watching from the deck, genuinely startled.

Bram, still holding the trident steady in the water, went very still. "...I feel something too."

Arista crossed to him immediately. "What kind of something?"

"Not words," Bram said slowly, working through the sensation carefully as it settled. "Nothing like actual telepathy, nothing like a voice in my head. Just... an impression. A sense of what I'm trying to do, bleeding through, the same way you'd understand someone's intent from their body language even if you didn't share a language with them."

"...So the trident lets you relay feelings?" Arista asked, genuinely curious now. "To anything, or just to Squishy specifically?"

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"No idea," Bram admitted. "And I'm not exactly eager to test that theory out on a sea serpent to find out."

"I think he understands I'm not trying to hurt him," Bram continued, watching Squishy's massive eye track the trident's position beneath the water's surface with rapt, unbroken attention. "And I think he understands this matters. That's about as specific as it gets for me."

Squishy drew closer still, tentacles rising slowly from the water, careful and deliberate, reaching not for the ship itself, not for any of them, but specifically, unmistakably, toward the trident Bram still held submerged at the railing's edge.

"...He recognizes it," Arista breathed, watching the massive creature's careful, reverent approach. "He's not just curious. He knows this."

Bram held steady, letting Squishy's tentacle drift closer, the great kraken's motion slow and gentle despite his obvious, mounting intensity.

"...I think," Bram said quietly, "we just found our next lead."

Bram held the trident steady in the water, Squishy's tentacle still drifting close, careful and reverent, and decided, on impulse, to actually try something more deliberate than simply holding still.

"...I'm going to try asking him something," he said, glancing at Arista.

"Asking him what?"

"Where this actually belongs. Where the owner is." Bram closed his eyes briefly, focusing the same way he imagined the mermaid rulers once must have, trying to shape not words, but intent, a clear, simple, focused sense of searching, of wanting to find, of the trident belonging somewhere beyond his own hands.

He didn't know if it would work. He wasn't trained. He didn't carry the mark. But the earlier impression had gotten through regardless, faint and imprecise, and he figured a more deliberate attempt couldn't hurt.

Squishy went very still.

His massive eye, still fixed on the trident, seemed to sharpen somehow, the rings across his skin slowing from their earlier rapid, excited pulse into something calmer, more deliberate, the same patient, careful consideration he'd once given the puzzle cube, working through something genuinely complex rather than simply reacting.

"...Something's happening," Arista said quietly, watching closely.

Bram kept his focus steady, repeating the same simple impression: searching, seeking, where does this belong, as clearly as he could manage without any actual training to draw on.

Squishy's tentacle, still resting gently near the trident, tightened, ever so slightly, and then, slowly, deliberately, he turned, not fully away, not abandoning the moment entirely, but angling his massive body toward the open ocean beyond the ship, one long tentacle extending, however imprecisely, in a single, clear direction.

Then he turned back, eye fixing on Bram again, waiting.

"...Did he just—" Colm started, disbelieving.

"He pointed," Claire said, quiet, staring at the direction the tentacle had indicated. "Or something close enough to pointing that I don't think we should dismiss it as coincidence."

Bram opened his eyes, letting the focused effort ease, and found Squishy still watching him, patient, waiting to see if the impression had actually landed.

"...I don't think that was words," Bram said slowly, working through what had just happened. "I don't think he understood 'where is the owner' as a sentence. But I think he understood searching. And I think whatever he associates with this trident, whatever he actually knows—" he gestured toward the direction Squishy's tentacle had indicated "—that's somewhere out there. Not here. Not the Drowned Court."

Arista stared out at the open water in the direction Squishy had gestured, feeling the old, familiar restless excitement of a genuine, real lead settling into her chest.

"...That's not a random direction," she said slowly. "Colm, do we have anything charted that way? Anything at all?"

Colm was already pulling out his current maps, tracing the indicated bearing against everything he'd surveyed across months of careful ocean work. "...Not directly. But that heading, extended far enough—" he traced the line carefully "—passes well beyond anything we've charted yet. Open water, well past the edge of our current survey rings."

"...Uncharted territory," Bram said. "Of course it is."

"There's always more uncharted territory," Arista said, grinning despite the sheer, sprawling scale of what they were apparently about to attempt. "Okay. We've got a direction, a trident that's clearly connected to something still alive out there, and a kraken who somehow understood exactly what we were asking, even without real words."

She glanced back at Squishy, who was still watching them, patient, rings glowing steady now, calm and certain in a way he'd never quite been before.

"...Thank you," she said, quiet, genuine, reaching out to rest a hand briefly against his massive, waiting tentacle. "I think you just helped us more than you know."

Squishy's eye blinked slowly, and, apparently satisfied that his part in this particular moment was finished, drifted back, unhurried, into the deeper water, leaving them with nothing but a bearing, a mystery, and an entire ocean still left to properly explore.