With an other-worldly voice, Lir said, "I will not be so dishonored by this humling."
Nick pressed his lips together to stop from busting out laughing at Tim shivering in the corner like a worm. His brother might have expected a lot of responses from Lir, but speaking with a possessed voice while swinging some flaming sword around probably wasn't one of them. Nick gave a side-glance to Grand, and caught the same expression on his face. Guess he wasn't too worried about Lir doin anything bad.
Helen had a different response to the situation.
She grabbed the Waterford crystal vase resting on the back table, smashed it against one of the marble columns like she was jumping into the middle of a prison riot, launched over the Viachron and landed between the flaming sword and Tim. She pressed the jagged end of the glass against Lir's quivering throat.
Lir growled at her defiant stance. "Do you know who I am, wench?"
"Lobster bisque if you don't back down," Helen hissed at Lir. "Let's make this clear. First. That's my friend, Tim. Second. I can't stand him. But that doesn't mean you can swing your fire-sword around and start threatening people. What is wrong with you? Put that thing away or I will literally cut you. Not metaphorically literally. Literally, literally."
"Lir," Grand motioned to lower his weapon, but Nick caught the glint in his eye from being on the verge of laughing. "Put the katana down. Let's not lose control now, Duke. And Helen. Step away. This is all a bit much for everyone."
Lir's chest rose and dropped quickly. He seemed to be on the verge of swinging his katana across Helen's defiant face, but the moment passed and he stowed it away.
"A flaming sword," Nick smiled in half disbelief as the fiery katanas disappeared into Lir's hilt. "This is actually happening."
Helen looked back at Tim, who was on the edge of tears, and nodded to him that everything was now ok.
"Mr. Lyons," Lir's voice rose on his last name. "I must insist. We do not have time for these theatrical retellings. If we do not leave soon, the Sheriff's trackers will be upon us. Our mission will fail and we'll never be able to return. My kind shall be lost forever and I cannot have that."
"Very true," Grand nodded, "But Nikolas and Tim are owed little more of an explanation before whisking them off through time to a fantastic moon."
Lir's brow twisted together for a moment and then said, "Very well. But we must be on that shuttle by day's end."
"I think it best we show them the snooptick," Grand said while padding his trench coat. "Oh. I believe you have them, Lir."
"I believe you're correct," Lir slipped his hand into his chest pocket and pulled out a small vial and handed it to Grand, who unscrewed the lid. He poured something out into his hand and held it up to Nick and Tim.
"I thought there were two snoop ticks?" Grand frowned.
"No," Lir quickly corrected. "Just the one."
"Ugh," Tim leaned in. "That's a parasite. And it's dead."
In Grand's hand lay a deceased tick. It was large, about the size of a marble and had tiny orange wings. Its feet were curled and sticking up.
"Right." Nick frowned. "What exa—"
Before he could finish his sentence, Grand grabbed his hand and dropped the snooptick into it. Nick flinched, a little grossed out by the idea of touching some dead bug. But when he opened his hand, he realized the snooptick was actually a tiny mechanized robot. It looked to be made out of tin, constructed with tiny gears and rivets.
"As I explained. It's a snooptick," Grand said, "invented by one of my good friends, Ludwig the Toymaker. The device does exactly what you think. It covertly follows individuals, recording what they see. It sucks the memories of its host and transfers them. These little buggers came in quite handy at the Kraken revolt of '24." Grand pointed to the snooptick. "This device holds a memory that explains why we've been here these thirteen years, Go on, Nikolas. Watch the recording."
"Wha—how?" Nick said.
"With the memory-in-a-bottle, of course… . Oh, right. Haven't given that to you yet." As if Grand understood his confusion, he patted his dirty trench coat, mumbling something. "Where is it? Ah, there you go." He wondered where his grandfather would've even found a bottle like that. There were only a few of them left in the Smithsonian.
Nick took it. The glass felt gritty, probably from his grandfather's dirt-covered palms.
"OK," Grand motioned. "Put the mouth to your eye. Look inside the bottle."
"Sure." Nick shrugged. He lifted the bottle's mouth to his eyeball and looked inside. "It's just the inside of an old bottle," He said. It's not as if he'd expected something different.
"No, no. Put the snooptick's memory into the bottle," Grand pointed. "You have to pour the memories out of the snooptick.
"What?"
"Grab the snooptick's head with your fingers and turn it."
"Oh. kay …" Nick said, starting to feel silly. He put it between his index and forefinger and turned the little mechanical device. Blood trained out of the snooptick's mouth and into the bottle.
The bottle flashed bright blue.
"Woah!" Nick almost dropped it.
After the flash, the inside of the bottle changed. He could now make out what appeared to be a tiny replica of a dark sea smashing up against a white cliff face. On the cliff, a man was driving two small stagecoaches.
"The snooptick's memory has been deposited into the memory-in-a-bottle," Grand said. "Now put the bottle to your eye."
"Um, OK." Nick closed his right eye and slowly lifted the small mouth of the bottle to his left one. The second it sealed around his eyeball he found himself floating over a cliff-face. The smell of saltwater filled his nose, and he winced at a bitter cold wind.
"That's crazy!" Nick pulled the bottle away, stumbling backward. One moment he had been in his parent's livingroom, and the next he was floating over an ocean.
"Where is this thing, Grand?" He finally said, holding up the bottle. "Is it some virtual reality system?"
"No." Grand stomped his foot. "That's a magical device from Möon. Your home."
Nick slowly lifted it sideways, squinting his cheeks as he tried to peer through the green glass.
He remembered bottles like these from the last time they had visited the Smithsonian; "ship-in-a-bottle" is what the tour guide called them. Several of them were filled with tiny sea ships, but others contained miniature mansions, farmhouses, even a few rocket ships. The tour guide said that the craftsman would meticulously construct the miniatures inside the bottle with long-handled tools, basically rebuilding the ship inside with teeny-tiny tweezers. But the tour guide never said the bottles were, in fact, memory projectors from our moon in the past.
"It's an elven creation—the bottle," their grandfather explained. "It may feel real, but it is nothing more than the memories of a person or creature. You can drop blood into it. The memory-in-a-bottle will recreate the blood's memory at the time it was drawn. Having put the snooptick inside the bottle, you will relive the snooptick's experience. You should know you can re-experience the snooptick's journey, but you cannot change the events."
"Sure," Nick said nervously. Slowly this time, he placed his right eye back onto the bottle's mouth. Instantly he found himself flying toward the stagecoaches. The fog and rain beat at his face, making him squint. Since he was, in part, reliving the snooptick's experience, his flight path was loopy and not the most direct, but eventually, he made it to the stagecoach driver. Just before he rose eye-level to the driver, Nick saw his reflection in the stagecoach window with the aid of the lamplights. Staring back at him was the mechanical tick. Its tiny red ruby eyes inspected the window for a moment.
The snooptick rose until it was next to the driver. The man wore a tricorn hat, long frock coat, and knee britches. Nick was impressed by the man's clothing. He looked like he'd just stepped out of the American Revolution or one of those games with British redcoats and pirates with their long muskets.
Nick looked back to Grand again but had to give himself a minute to say anything because the room was still spinning.
"Grand … this can't be the moon," He said slowly. "It is a barren rock world!"
Grand's lip started to curl. "No. There are none now, but there used to be, when this was recorded to be exact. And his name isn't the moon. It's Möon."
"Möon?" Nick turned his head.
"Yes, Nikolas. Möon."
"Ok, fine." Nick decided to drop that crazy line of conversation. "Who is the man driving the stagecoach?"
"He's Yeri Willrow. The snooptick followed us. Lir and I have watched it half a dozen times. I would suggest you experience it for yourself. Only then will you understand the grave danger the Merfolk are in and why we stand before you now."
"OK," Nick said flatly. What else could he say? He looked at the memory-in-a-bottle and then put it back to his eye for the third time.
In the form of the snooptick, he swept around the stagecoach then dropped onto Yeri's neck, extended a stinger from his mouth and suddenly Nick was no longer the tick but Yeri.
"Just relax," Grand whispered to Nick. "You're being transferred into Yeri's mind."
Sure enough, Nick now saw the scene from Grand's point of view, and it wasn't pleasant. Hundreds of red eyes and the teeth of a piranha running toward them.
"Möon down my boots!" Yeri/Nick bellowed.
Nick was Yeri.