Shanzay glanced up from adjusting her tent’s fastenings, tightening a knot for the sixth time. 

“Are you OK?” Martin asked. “That rope could hold down the Iron Vulture. I don’t think your little tent is going anywhere.” 

Shanzay sighed. “Yeah. I just can’t shake the feeling that something’s off. That something bad is about to happen. Like, have you seen Minnie? She went to explore the cove.”

Martin shrugged. “I haven’t, but I can ask Venturo about her if it’s bugging you.”

“Okay,” Shanzay agreed. Martin sauntered across camp to Venturo’s tent, leaving Shanzay alone with her thoughts. This was silly, she chided herself. Everything is fine.

As she returned to her tent, Shanzay heard a crashing sound from the supply pavilion, followed by “Sacre bleu!” She jogged over, tore open the flap, and peered into the candle-lit room. The acrid smell of seaweed and old fish washed over her. Lumiere stood trembling on a table, beside which a figure stood with pale glowing eyes and covered in pink seaweed bindings.

“Minnie?” Shanzay whispered. “Is that you?”

A laugh—both Minnie’s and not Minnie’s—came from the shape. In an instant, Minnie snatched Lumiere and plunged him into a waterproof diving bag and pushed past Shanzay with alarming alacrity onto the beach. “Stop!” Shanzay shouted. She sprinted after the unexpected thief until they reached the cove—Minnie dove into the water and was gone.

“What was that?” Martin gasped as he ran up, followed by Venturo and a Mickey Mouse glimmer.

“I … I think that was Minnie,” Shanzay said. “And she ran off with Lumiere.”

She quickly described the figure in the tent—covered in dreadful seaweed vines, reeking of the ocean, with glowing unnatural eyes. “It was like she was possessed,” Shanzay said. “Like something in the ocean had … entangled her body and her mind somehow.”

“That seaweed,” Venturo said. “Was it the same shade of pink that was all over the room where this whole mess started?” Shanzay nodded, and the Illumineers shared a knowing glance.

“Ursula,” Martin spat. “But what could she want with a singing candelabra?”

“And what did she do to Minnie?” Mickey asked, his Musketeer Captain’s cape trailing behind him as he ran to the edge of the water and peered in.

 “Don’t worry, friend,” Venturo put a hand on Mickey’s shoulder. “We’re going to help her. You can help her.”

“All for one, and one for all,” Mickey acknowledged.

“Right.” Shanzay cracked her knuckles. “Let’s get our friends back.” 

The Illumineers tracked the Minnie glimmer to a small sargasso sea a few miles away from the small island. “There she is!” Luisa Madrigal shouted. “But I don’t see the bag she was carrying, or your candle friend.”

They all looked into the water and saw that the fleeing glimmer’s leg was somehow wedged into a coral reef. “She must have stashed Lumiere somewhere or handed him off. If only we could get through to Minnie and ask what happened.”

“I’m gonna try to pry her loose,” Venturo said. “Then maybe she’ll play nice with us.” He fastened his rebreather and borrowed Mickey’s stiff scabbard before diving into briny murk. But the closer Venturo approached, the more Minnie squirmed and jostled her trapped leg.

“I think I did more harm than good,” Venturo said when he resurfaced.

Pluto began barking and Mickey patted him on the head. “Easy, boy,” Mickey said, before turning to Shanzay. “Do you really think you could get through to Minnie?” 

Shanzay bit her lip. “Maybe…but I’m going to need your help.”

After adjusting their own rebreathers, the two dove into the perilous water. Minnie was still trying to free her leg from the coral, though here movements were slower than before. She was tiring.

Shanzay and Mickey drifted to her side. “You’re Minnie,” Shanzay said through the rebreather. “You’re good. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re strong and fierce,” Shanzay said, hoping her distorted voice would get through to her companion. Then she nodded at Mickey.

“You’re a helper. You’re good. You’re more than enough, all on your own,” the Mickey glimmer added.

Just then, the pale glow in Minnie’s eyes flickered and she froze in place. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but before she could, a great and terrible voice echoed through the water—or was it through Shanzay’s mind?

“Ah ah, clever clever! But not nearly as clever as you think, Illumineer. I’m taking what is mine, and your little game is at an end!” With one final jerk, Minnie’s leg was free, and she quickly vanished into the inky underwater dark, away from Mickey’s reaching hand.

When Shanzay and Mickey climbed onto the inkrunner, the Illumineer gave her companions a huge smile. “We found a weakness,” she said. “It’s not much, but it might give us an opening. Now let’s go see if the sea witch is home.”

Shanzay gasped when she finally saw it. In the far distance, Ursula’s fortress loomed like a sinister aquarium decoration, a nightmare of twisted coral and half-smashed shells. The sea witch would be even more powerful here, Shanzay knew. But they had a secret on their side—by getting through to the glimmer’s true self, they could disrupt Ursula’s control. At least, temporarily.

“You ready?” Martin asked over her shoulder.

“As I’ll ever be,” Shanzay said with a sardonic grin.

When the two Illumineers turned to walk to the Mickey glimmer at the helm, a rogue wave, far too precise to be natural, washed over the inkrunner’s deck. As it receded a Captain Hook glimmer, wrapped in seaweed, stood in its place.

Shanzay saw Martin shudder. “We can handle this,” she told him. “Trust me.”

“My lady bids you to remove yourself from these waters and find another port of call!” Hook shouted.

“Not happening!” Shanzay yelled back. “And aren’t you Captain Hook?”

The glimmer bowed. “In the flesh,” he replied.

“Then why are you, the great Captain Hook, taking orders from someone else?” Shanzay continued.

“That’s absurd, young lady!” Hook said. “I’m not …”

“Are you though?” Shanzay interrupted, pressing the verbal attack. “Because if you’re here on Ursula’s orders to intimidate us, that means someone is commanding the great Captain Hook!

“I…” Shanzay watched as the pale light in Hook’s eyes began to flicker.

“What would Peter Pan say if he could see you taking orders?” Martin added, taking up the mantle.

Hook’s mouth hung open and he stood stock still.

After several agonizing seconds, Martin waved a hand cautiously in front of Hook’s face, but the captain didn’t respond. “We did it!” Martin beamed. Just then, Hook’s eyes flared to life and the next instant he was in the water and swimming away quickly—far faster than any crocodile—and was soon out of sight.

Shanzay let out a long breath before turning to take Mickey’s hand. “We’ll get Minnie back, don’t you worry.” she said. “We’re going to put Ursula in a fish tank so small she’ll spend the next hundred years looking at her own tentacles.”