Lessa tore her hands away from each other and tossed her pocketknife to me. I caught it and started to hack at my own ropes. I had thought it would only take a few seconds, based off of the countless movies I’d seen, but stars! This was impossible.

“Lessa,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Not now,” she said, shoving a barrel into a pile she was making in front of the door. “Could you hurry? I need you to kick that panel in front of the cannon open.”
“Sawing ropes is harder than it looks,” I said. I continued to struggle with the saw. One strand of the twisted rope broke. Two more to go. “It’s like, impossible with my hands tied.”
She rolled her eyes. “Matt, I did it in two minutes. Your feet aren’t tied. Can you just kick the door while you’re cutting your ropes?”
“Do you hear yourself?” I cried. “I can’t do that. I’ll fall over and likely cut my hand as well as alert the entire ship that we’re trying to escape.”
She left the barricade and kicked the panel. It didn’t budge. “Matt, you literally have super strength. Just pull your hands apart.”
I shook my head. “Don’t you remember? Being contained weakens me…like Superman and kryptonite.”
Lessa sighed again. “Give me the knife.”
I held it out. She grabbed it and raised it high above her head. That wasn’t how she cut her own ropes. “What are you doing?” I shouted.
She brought the knife down, narrowly missing my right hand and slicing cleanly through the rope. I pulled the ropes off my arms and threw them across the room.
Lessa pointed to the panel. “Come on,” she said.
I ran up to it and kicked it as hard as I could. Nothing happened. I punched it. Again, nothing happened except that my hand now hurt.
Lessa bent down next to it. “Aha,” she cried. There’s a rope tying it to the boat.”
I sucked on my knuckles. “Why would they do that?”
“So we don’t get out, genius,” she said. She slid the knife out and cut right through the ropes with barely any resistance. She stepped back. “Okay. Now.”
“OPEN THE DOOR!”
We both looked back to the door Lessa had barricaded. They probably could get through, but it would take them a while. Without further hesitation, I turned and kicked the door as hard as I could. It still didn’t move.
“Lessa,” I cried.
“Hold on.” She pushed lightly on the panel. “Looks like it’s on the edges as well.” She sliced through more ropes. The blocked door shuddered. A stray barrel fell off the blockade and rolled down toward us.
I moved out of the way, but Lessa didn’t. She was still concentrating on the ropes. I grabbed her and pulled her away only mere seconds before the barrel hit the panel. It popped open and the barrel fell into the icy depths below.
“Pathetic,” Lessa said. “You can’t even open a door while a barrel can.”
I frowned. “Excuse you, missy. I just saved your life.”
She slapped me. “I told you not to call me that.” She strode to the panel and opened it all the way.
More banging sounds came from the door. “Open the door or we’ll blow you all sky high.”
I smiled. “Not a good idea,” I said quietly. There were plenty of explosives in the barricade.
A countdown started. “Twenty…nineteen…”
I turned to Lessa who was staring down at the waters. Her face was pale.
“Lessa, jump,” I said.
She shook her head. “There’s ice down there.”
Ice. Of course. These pirates knew what they were doing. Ice was Lessa’s weakness.
“I’ll jump first,” I said. “But then you have to jump. I’ll carry you when we reach the ice.”
She nodded shakily. The countdown had reached ten. I jumped.
The shock seemed to hit me only a few moments after I hit the water. I pulled myself up, gasping. The countdown had probably reached five by now. “Lessa,” I yelled.
She stared down at me, hugging the wall. I looked around. The ship had broken up the ice, so there were a few chunks floating around me. I ignored them as I reached up to her. “Jump!”
She still hesitated. Then she looked back, alarmed. I could almost hear the shout. One! She jumped.
She was barely in the air when that entire part of the ship exploded. I cried out as a blooming fire shot out, throwing her towards the ice. She screamed. I started to swim toward the ice. I looked over at the blocks of cracked ice. They wouldn’t hold her weight long. Whatever one she landed on would likely tilt to the side and dump her in the water.
I hurried over to the ice she would hit. She landed before I could reach her. The ice block started tilting.
“Lessa,” I shouted.
She looked up. I noticed she looked a little groggy. “What?”
“The ice you’re on is…”
She yelped and slid in as she clawed for the edge of the ice. I made it to the first block of ice and pulled myself on top of it. I stood up, swaying to keep my balance. It threatened to dump me back in the water.
Lessa suddenly burst through the surface of the water, gasping. “Lessa,” I shouted.
She grimaced. “I’m alright.” She grabbed onto a large ice block and pulled herself on. I jumped a few blocks closer to her and finally landed on her block.
We both looked out toward the shore. Only a few ice chunks away was solid ice. Not far beyond that was a large island looming out of the fog.
“We made it,” I said cheerfully.
Lessa wasn’t so keen on sharing my enthusiasm. “We barely got out.”
I helped her up. “Come on. We better hurry before they figure out they have cannons.”
She shook her head. “It’s impossible for them to use them. The room exploded, remember? I bet part of the deck caved into the room, blocking them from getting in.”
I looked back. The ship didn’t look much different besides the fact that there was a gaping hole taking up nearly half the ship and the black smoke pouring out of it. Did I mention it was also sinking?
There were people running around on the deck. I noticed the glint of steel among some of them. “They probably have guns,” I said. “Come on. Hurry. Let’s jump to this next block on the count of three. “One…two…”
She jumped. I yelped as the ice block tilted and I slipped into the water. I surged upward again and grabbed onto the ice block. “Lessa,” I groaned.
She looked like she was trying hard not to giggle. “Sorry.”
I pulled myself half onto the ice block. Lassa suddenly let out a shriek. I looked up at her, annoyed. “What is it now?”
“Get on the ice block,” she yelled, pulling out a bow and arrow.
“Where did you get that?” I yelled back.
“It’s my pocketknife,” she snapped. “Get on the ice block.”
I struggled to pull myself up. “What’s the big deal?”
“Sea monster.” She drew an arrow to her cheek. “Can’t you move any faster?”
I looked back and yelped. For a moment, I was sure I saw a slimy tentacle slide past me, disappearing beneath the waves. Before I knew it, I was on top of the ice block, standing up and looking wildly about.
“Get back,” Lessa yelled.
I looked around wildly for an ice block to jump on. The closest one was at least three feet away. My knees were shaking so bad I probably couldn’t even jump a foot. I looked down at the black water. A single eye supported by another tentacle popped up. I screamed and jumped back. Lessa grabbed the back of my cloak and threw me to the side. I hit an ice block which immediately split beneath my weight.
“Dragons and fairies, girl! Where’d you learn to throw like that?” I yelled as I struggled to stand up.
“You taught me a few days ago,” she shouted back. “Now could ya’ be quiet? I’m trying to aim.”
“Oh, so noise is going to throw off your aim?” I managed to stand and looked up, just on time to see a block of ice flying at my face. I dodged it. “Hey!”
Her arrow flew straight into the yellow eye of the monster, which was staring at her curiously. I heard a squealing sound and it vanished beneath the surface.
Lessa started jumping on ice blocks to get toward the solid ice. I followed her example, jumping from ice block to ice block. Stars! This was hard. I finally landed on a solid floor of ice that didn’t break when I landed. I hurried toward Lessa who was already a few yards ahead of me, running. She was still breathing hard and her step was slowing, which was odd considering she had always been about a hundred miles faster than me.
I caught up to her. “Any plans?”
“No,” she gasped. “I can’t think straight.”
The ice, I thought. She slipped. I reached out to catch her. I froze when I noticed a large dark shape right underneath the ice where Lessa was standing up.
“Run,” I shouted.
She stumbled forward. “What?”
I grabbed her elbow and tossed her aside right as the largest sea monster I’d ever seen smashed through the ice. I grabbed her bow and looked down at it. “Can this thing change into a sword or an axe?” I shouted.
“What?”
“Never mind.” I threw the bow to the side and crouched down. This was my kind of fight.
The monster’s head emerged. There were a few tentacles sprouting from its head with large eyes, but there was only one eye on the head itself. I jumped, activating my strength in the jump so that I almost flew. I hit its slimy head and started punching everything in sight. I gripped its head with my knees so I couldn’t slip into the water, but that wasn’t working out so well.
Lessa stumbled closer to the monster, blinking rapidly. I reached out. “Stay out of this one, Lessa,” I shouted.
“Don’t tell me what to do, Matt,” she yelled back, shaking the dizziness away. She looked the monster right in its big yellow eye on its head. Then she turned into a blur. Her blurred form zipped back to reclaim her bow. Before I knew it, the monster was bucking and wailing as there was an arrow in each eye.
I gave the monster another good punch just for extra measure before I jumped onto the ice beside Lessa. The monster writhed for a moment before sinking back into the depths of the icy black water to nurse its wounds.
I helped Lessa stand. She looked like she was about to faint. I couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to use her powers while she was surrounded by her weakness. Ice seemed to affect her more than bondage affected me, probably because she was more reckless with it.
“You okay?” I asked.
“No,” she said, wincing and putting her hand to her forehead. “Let’s get out of here.”
I was almost completely supporting her as we hurried to the shore. There, both of us collapsed. I glanced back at the ship. There was still smoke rising from it and it was likely still sinking. I couldn’t believe we’d gotten out. The pirates had caught us by surprise, looking for kids like us who knew how to use magic. We had spent the last few weeks on the ship, planning and searching for weaknesses.
I heard a click from somewhere in front of me. Lessa gasped and gripped my arm tightly. I slowly looked forward, right into the barrel of the gun of the Sea Snake himself.
“Captain Knot-hair,” I said. “We meet again.”
He scowled. “That’s Captain Nathair to you.” He put the barrel of his gun to my head and looked over at his first mate and a few other crewmates, who were standing nearby. “Boys,” he barked. “Take the prisoners to the trading post.”
How could I be so stupid? Of course we were close to a slave trading post. The pirates would never get so close to land unless there was a reason.
The captain bent down next to me. He directed his next statement to his boys, though his eyes stayed on me. “Give them the special treatment when we get there.” His eyes darkened. “They deserve it.”