Volanta

Pippa's hand stung a little bit from the force of slapping Oliver in his big dumb face, but she was too furious to care. She stood glowering at him while he gaped and held a hand to his reddened cheek.

"Pippa, what the hell?" he demanded.

"Don't you talk to me like that, Oliver Lambert," she snapped. "Do you know why you're here right now? Because I talked Daddy into talking you into doing this. And I'm the one who found Roland, and I was the only one on that ship who believed we'd find this place until we actually found it. You may be the leader of the expedition, but you will not boss me around. You never think before you open your mouth, do you? This is just like when I was six all over again."

"What happened when you were six?" Oliver looked completely baffled.

"You told me my braids looked stupid," Pippa spat. "And I cried in my room for two days and have never worn braids since. God, you men can be so insensitive! I thought for sure my childish crush on you would dissipate after that, but you couldn't even let me have that. Instead I've been sitting here for the last twelve years trying so hard to pretend I don't have feelings for you but they just get stronger all the time. And it's pointless! I thought maybe after all this time, now that I finally stopped being the meek, awkward, ugly little thing I used to be that you'd notice me like everyone else did. But no, I may as well still be invisible because nothing I do matters to you! You didn't even want me to come on this expedition!"

"I...but...you like that man back home; the brilliant, charming one," Oliver said slowly. He looked as confused and stupefied as she had ever seen him and it just made her glare even more fiercely at him, tears stinging her eyes.

"How can you be so smart but still be so damned stupid at the same time, Oliver?"

Pippa whirled away from him, pushing through the trees and trying to put as much distance between herself and Oliver as she could. Jasper raced along beside her, mewing anxiously. He tried to pull on her pant leg with his teeth but Pippa pulled her leg away.

"Jasper, what on earth is the matter with you?" she exclaimed. "Stop it this instant-"

Her scolding dissolved into a strangled scream as the ground fell out from under her and she fell, her stomach somersaulting and something digging painfully into her stomach before she hit hard earth. Dazed, she may still for a moment until she was sure nothing was broken or bleeding. Then she sat up and looked around, finding herself inside a deep rectangular hole in the ground. It had been covered with leaves and branches, like a large animal trap. She had broken a rope strung across the top when she fell. Her abdomen was still throbbing.

Pippa let out a small snarl of frustration, curling her knees up to her chest as she started to cry. Now she was angry, humiliated, and trapped at the bottom of a giant hole. Jasper paced up above her, occasionally letting out a worried, pitiful sounding noise. Then he hissed at the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Pippa?" Oliver's voice called out.

"Go away!" Pippa moaned. "Just leave me alone."

"Pippa I'm not going to leave you down there. Let me help you up."

"I'll get out myself," she sniffled irritably, swiping the tears from her eyes and standing up.

"Pippa, this isn't the time to be stubborn-"

"I said I'll get out myself." Her tone left no room for argument and Oliver sighed and went quiet. She knew he was still sitting up there but she tried to ignore him. She dug her feet into the dirt and scrabbled at any vines sticking out of the dirt, trying to chisel out footholds to allow herself to climb up. She wished he'd go away so he wouldn't see her making a fool of herself. Or making an even bigger fool of herself, since she'd just recklessly blurted out how she felt about him. If he hadn't thought her a silly girl before, he surely would now.

Some of the dirt crumbled under her hand and Pippa nearly slid back down. She clung to the side of the hole with a gasp, wincing as a few of her nails broke against the dirt and started bleeding. Her arms were starting to ache and tremble and her sides hurt where the rope had dug into her, but she gritted her teeth and didn't complain. She could occasionally hear Jasper hiss at Oliver and him muttering curses and trying to fend the little leopard off.

"What's your problem, anyway?" Oliver grumbled to the cat. "I didn't drop her in there, you ridiculous creature."

"Don't talk to him like that." Pippa tried her best to sound formidable but she was panting too hard.

"He's a cat, Pippa, I don't think he's overly offended."

"See this is precisely what I was talking about. You criticize everything and everyone. I thought that if I came on this trip that you'd finally notice me but that was obviously a foolish thing to think. You're so wrapped up in your books and your studies and just so busy being a genius that you don't realize there are people around you. People that might actually care about you and your opinions."

Pippa's fingers closed over the top of the hole and she struggled to pull herself up and lay there gasping, her legs still dangling over the side.

"Are you quote finished yelling at me?" Oliver asked calmly and she sat up, pushing her messy hair out of her face and glaring at him again.

"I did tell you not to run off into the jungle," he added and she let out an indignant squeak, raising her hand with the intention of slapping him again. With surprising speed, Oliver reached up and caught her wrist, pulling her forward before she could wriggle free. She went still as stone as he drew her closer and kissed her. She was so stunned she didn't know what to do and wound up flailing back from him, nearly toppling right back into the hole she had just spent half an hour climbing out of.

Jasper was growling at Oliver but he didn't seem to notice. His gaze was trained on Pippa. She opened her mouth and then closed it again.

"Don't tell me the formidable Pippa Glasswell has been rendered speechless?" Oliver asked quietly.

"Why did you do that?" Pippa asked, unconsciously reaching up to touch her lips. They were still tingling. Oliver noticed her bleeding fingers and gently took her hand. He dug in her rucksack, which she had left behind in her haste to escape from him. He pulled out some alcohol and the vial of water, splashing just a few drops across her fingertips before dousing them in alcohol and dabbing at them with a clean cloth to wash away the blood.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"Just my pride," Pippa muttered. "Why did you come after me?"

"Because I didn't want you to get lost, or hurt. Or worse. I do care about you, Pips."

"Because you don't want to go home and tell my father I died here?" she asked shakily. He looked at her and she had never seen him look quite so serious.

"I wouldn't want to do that, no," he admitted. "But that's not...all of it. Pippa, what you do does matter to me. I do notice you. I notice you far more than you realize. More than I realized, actually, until we got here." He shifted, looking nervous. "Pips, how could you ever think that I don't care about you?"

Pippa dropped her gaze. "I don't know," she mumbled. "You never-I mean, I never really expected you to ever act like Elliot, because you're nothing like him. But I just thought that you'd at least give me a second glance now that I'm not so shy and unappealing now but you never did. You barely look at me at all. I just assumed you thought I was an annoyance, and not smart enough for you to spend your time with."

"What? That's absurd. I never thought-I would never think that about you. And I don't think you're unappealing, either."

Pippa just stared at her hands, noticing that with the water from the pools they already hurt less and didn't look as red and angry. She was trying to puzzle out what to say next as she raised her head to look at him, but a spear whistled through the air between them and they both jumped while Jasper began yowling angrily. The trees parted and several tall, silver-haired people stepped out, watching Pippa and Oliver with eyes that seemed to glow like sea glass.

One of them stepped forward and said something in a language Pippa couldn't understand. She glanced at Oliver but he didn't seem to understand either. Unconsciously she edged closer to him, grabbing onto his arm and praying another spear didn't impale them.

"We don't mean any harm," she said slowly. "We're lost."

The tall, silvery people spoke to each other; it seemed like they were arguing.

"Are they going to kill us?" Pippa whispered.

"I don't know."

He carefully pulled the journal out of his pocket, flipping through it frantically to try and find something helpful. One of the islanders spotted him and sprang forward, kneeling down to study the journal. He looked from the book to Oliver and back again thoughtfully. He turned and said something to his companions and they grudgingly gestured for Oliver and Pippa to follow them. Some of them walked behind, spears at the ready while the others led the way through the jungle. Pippa picked Jasper up and held them as they walked. She wondered if they were going to be thrown off a cliff or maybe fed to another giant snake.

But what she saw when they created a steep hill and looked down through the trees stopped her breath. A city sprawled beneath them, and on the top of the hill across from them a huge structure made of white stone sat perched, waterfalls tumbling from tunnels at the bottom and feeding the winding river below. It reminded Pippa of a castle from a fairy tale.

"Oliver," she whispered, "I think we found Volanta."