At the mere mention of magic, Luz perked up, and Six leapt gracefully off her shoulders onto the side of the boat. Luz passed the fish to Coraline (who was nice enough to not complain, though she DID make a face) and knelt over the side of the boat.

"Now, you've almost done it before," Six told her. "For half a second, but now I'll tell you exactly how. You remember, for grass and shadows, you take them and bend them? With water, you can't do that. Not exactly, anyway. Water isn't like grass or shadows; do you know why?"

Luz only needed to think about it for a moment. "Grass is solid, so it's just like grabbing them with an invisible hand, and shadows are the absence of light, so it's like making a shadow puppet, or like paper... but water isn't like either of those things. It's a liquid."

"That's correct," Six said. "When you picked up the water earlier, what were you imagining?"

"I was thinking of a cupping my hands, and carrying it like that," Luz answered, her expression thoughtful before it morphed into a frown. "But I could only hold it for a couple seconds before the water fell through my hands."

"Of course it did," Six told her, sounding sympathetic. Coraline blinked. "Water... isn't like shadows or grass. It moves on its own, changing its shape and structure, temperature and movement. Controlling water is incredibly difficult, and really being able to do it takes years of research into a million different things in order to do it properly."

Luz's eyes widened. "And you think I can do it?"

"Not completely..." Six told her, glancing back at the fish in Coraline's hands. "Just enough to carry that fish until we get... wherever we're going."

Luz glanced back, too, where Coraline did her best to completely wipe off her annoyed look. "Er... right, right. What should I do?"

"Hm... perhaps you should try to imagine a bowl for this," Six suggested. "Make a bowl, or perhaps more of a fish globe."

"Huh?" Luz seemed to think about that before her face brightened. "Ah, okay! So like I'm holding a fish bowl. Got it."

Just like before, Luz reached her hands down to the water, and once again, the water was raised up, forming a shape light you would see in a fish bowl. Luz's eyebrows knitted together as she concentrated, moving her hands underneath the water like she was carrying it. Her face was pinched, and she looked like she was struggling.

"Put it over the boat, Miss Luz," Six told her. "You're not going to be able to hold that for long."

"Y-Yeah, one minute..." Luz grunted, and it sounded like she was strained. "It's... heavy..."

Coraline frowned. "But you're not even carrying it," she noted. There was an inch of space between Luz's hands and the water she was... 'holding'.

Six glared at her. "That's not how this works," she hissed as Luz took the water, bringing it over the edge of the boat. Six huffed at Coraline one last time before bringing her attention back to the water. "Whatever. Coraline, get that fish and put it in, it looks like it's on the brink of death."

Coraline gave Six a dark look, but she couldn't deny that she was probably right. She was actually more surprised that the fish wasn't ALREADY dead. Coraline took the slimly thing in her hands and slipped it into Luz's bowl. Almost immediately, the bowl exploded.

Six didn't look particularly surprised. "You have to be prepared for the changes, Miss Luz."

"Sorry, sorry!" Luz cried, scrambling over the boat to pick up the water, using her magic to gather up the water up again, making it form a bowl once again. Coraline watched in amazement, and it was only after Six snapped at her in annoyance that she knelt down, picking up the fish again and dropping it into the bowl. The water wavered and Coraline almost thought it would fall again... but Luz grit her teeth and held it. Still, when the fish got in there, it didn't move for a long time, and Luz and Coraline exchanged a worried glance before the fish finally started moving again, and they both breathed a sigh of relief.

Well, until the bowl exploded again. Luz sighed.

"Oh, come on," she grumbled, and knelt down, scooping up the water again, and forming the bowl. Once again, Coraline dropped the fish in again.

"Don't get frustrated," Six advised. "Think of it as one of your little games. You want to get better each time. Each failure is a triumph."

Almost immediately, Luz brightened. "Oh, yeah! I'm going for one minute- oh, it exploded again."

"Don't lose your concentration," Six told her, and Luz sighed.

"I'll try... but I don't think my ADHD will agree with that," she replied.

"Do your best."

Luz bent down again, gathering up the water drops back into the bowl shape. And even though she's technically seen this three times already, Coraline watched with fascination. She was certain her awe was clear on her face, based on the tired look Six was giving her, for some reason, but Luz was concentrating too hard to notice it.

"How are you doing that?" Coraline asked her curiously. "You didn't even have to recite a spell for it, or anything?"

Luz opened her mouth to respond, but then the makeshift bowl shuddered violently, and she shifted all her attention to focus on that. Six answered instead, which made Coraline make a face. Six ignored that.

"I mentioned that there are other kinds of magic, correct?" Six asked, and the way she was saying this was a very big contrast to how she was teaching Luz earlier. "The red magic for the candles, the green magic below us... the magic Miss Luz uses is colourless, and exists all around us, we just can't see it. You're probably breathing it in right now."

"It's-?" Coraline's hands flew to her mouth in horror, before she realized that if this 'magic' WAS dangerous, she'd probably be dead already. She dropped her hand, glaring at Six. "You've explained all that already, you know. But how do you use it?"

If Six was miffed from Coraline's rudeness, she didn't show it.

"You connect with the magic around you, and then you can move it," Six explained. She hesitated, before continuing. "It's a crude way to explain it, but it's sort of done through telepathy."

So it was done through the mind? That sounded familiar.

"So, it's like the Force from Star Wars?" Coraline asked, tilting her head. Six snorted.

"Star Wars?! Of course not! It's far more sophisticated than that!" Six cried, before stopping herself. "... I think. I don't know what you are talking about."

"It's easy to understand, it's basically this magic system you're using," Coraline told her dryly. "If that's all it is, then wouldn't it be pretty easy?"

Six sneered at her. "Is that what you think? Do you want to try, then?"

Coraline glanced to Luz, her face pinched tightly in concentration. It looked stupid, yes, but more importantly, it looked pretty hard. Honestly, Coraline couldn't imagine anyone going through that unless they loved magic. "...I'm good."

Six huffed. "I thought so. In order to properly use this magic, having an imagination is a must. You have to think of it in specific ways in order to use it: an invisible hand, shadow puppets, bowls... these are metaphors for us to properly imagine what we are doing with this magic. When Miss Mabel was taking down the door for you and your roller coaster, she.... She imagined licking paint of off walls. To each their own, I suppose."

That made... sense... somewhat... perhaps it was one of those things where it was best not to think about it. As Coraline shook her head, trying to get everything she heard in the last few minutes, something occurred to her.

"Huh," she said. "I guess you're technically a force user, Luz."

As soon as she said it, Coraline regretted it, because as Luz nodded, her concentration on the fish bowl shattered, and the fish flopped to the floor again.

"Oh, whoops," she said, though she didn't sound particularly sorry about it. "That was getting a little boring. Six, you don't think-."

"You need the practice."

"I do?!" Luz's mouth fell open as she stared at her mentor. "But I had it for, like, two minutes there!"

Six hummed, seemingly amused. "Nice try. A minute and a half, at most."

"That isn't...!" Luz huffed, crossing her arms, but still turning back to the water. "I think I did pretty well..."

"Just pick the fish up again," Coraline told her, nudging the thing away with her foot. "You're basically reverse waterboarding it, you know."

"Don't talk to John that way!" Luz cried, and Coraline stared at her.

"Wasn't it something else before?"

"I forgot."

Suddenly, the boat shook violently, nearly, knocking all three of them into the water.

"Woah!" Luz cried, but she managed to settle herself back in the boat just in time. Though, when Six scrambled onto her shoulder in a desperate panic, she nearly tipped over the whole thing over again. "Six, wait, stop panicking! You're fine! You're alright-No! John!"

As the boat rocked, and the fish flopped all over the place, it nearly spilled into the ocean, where a strange, green hand reached out to grab it. Before the clawed fingers could close around it, though, water once again rose up, wrapping the fish up in a bubble that floated safely out of reach. Coraline and Luz watched it, wide-eyed, and while they were frozen, the boat stabilized underneath them.

The water floated up, back in the boat again.

"There," Six sighed. "Is everything under control again? No ones panicking anymore?"

"You were the one who panicked," Coraline grumbled. Six ignored her, instead turning to the water, where the hand had disappeared.

"We know you're there," Six called to it. "Come on out."

At first, nothing happened, and if not for Six's words, it could have been thought that the hand was a collective hallucination by Luz and Coraline. But soon enough, the sea bubbled, and a dark shape rose up, revealing the rotted and decerped corpse of a man, who's skin was bloated and falling off, and who's eyes had long sense been eaten away from the fish of the sea. He was gritting his teeth, or, at least, the teeth he had, and even those looked like they were old, grey and full of black holes.

Coraline and Luz backed away from the man in a hurry, but Six only regarded him with a distasteful look.

"So, I assume that you are with the ones with the forcefield?" she asked unpleasantly.

"I should be the one asking questions here!" the man cried back, and Coraline and Luz stared at him in surprise. His voice was... beautiful, for coming from something so awful. Like an opera singer... was this how sirens looked and sounded like? If so, this one probably didn't do to well. His voice was nice, sure, but nobody was getting anywhere near something that looked like that.

Six spoke again, pulling the girls from their thoughts. "We want to get to the underwater passage!" Six told him, ignoring the... sirens(?) question. "We have this... fish, as an exchange."

Coraline was certain that the siren was going to ignore Six, and ask his own questions, after all, it's what she would have done, but the siren surprised her by laughing.

"That fish?" he crowed. "You think that's a good enough trade?"

"We can find more fish... is that's what you want," Luz suggested tentatively. The siren's focus shifted on her, and he sneered.

"Don't get me wrong, I don't think any of you all are worth that much... but if you took all the fish in the sea it wouldn't be worth it to us!" the man laughed at them, and Coraline frowned. Then why would the man give it to them...?

Actually, there was a pretty obvious answer: that man was a jerk and KNEW it wouldn't work, and this is his second plan to kill them all. Technically, that made more sense, because, trading a fish? Really? Why would they trade a fish... to underwater people who probably had all the fish they'd even need? Who were giving the fish PERMISSION to fish?!

"Oh, come on!" Coraline cried. In the end, the fisherman managed to trick them after all!

Her annoyance cut through her fear effectively, and with that feeling she marched forward to the edge of the boat.

"Let us through, already!" she cried, and the siren almost looked taken aback by her. "We need to get through, or we're dead! And we only need to collect some dumb flowers, so just let us through already!"

For a second, everyone was stunned, before Luz stepped forward, too, glaring at the siren, too. There wasn't a trace of fear in her expression.

"Coraline's right!" Luz agreed. "I'm sorry, but we're on a time limit! We don't have time to solve a riddle, or collect something you want, we have to get through, or he's going to kill us!"

"We're getting through!" Coraline told the siren. Determination filled her, and she felt ready to take on whatever this siren through at them. He looked frail, so what could he really do, right? "No matter what, we're getting down there, even if it's by force."

"If that's the way it has to be," Six sighed. "We have nothing to trade except for the fish and ourselves, and if you don't want the fish, and we're not will to give anyone up, then there's no choice."

Six peered down at the siren, who watched them closely. "A battle, then?" she sighed.

"It'll be useless to you," the siren hissed, and he almost sounded confused. "Even if you defeat me, the flowers are at the bottom of the ocean. The shield will still be up. How on Earth do you plan to get down there?"

Coraline and Luz exchanged an uncertain look, but Luz just shook her head.

"We'll figure it out," she said, and she sounded so confident that Coraline nodded along.

The siren seemed to believe her, because once again, he was scowling.

"Whatever," he said. "If that's what you think, fine. But you think if it'll just be me, you're sadly mistaken."

As if one cue, the sea started bubbling around them, and a dozen more corpses rose from the sea, completely surrounding them.