Jolly, Griffin, and the other pirate friends are back, battling one last time to save their world from the evil Maelstrom. This gripping fantasy is a perfect ending to Meyer's entrancing Wave Walkers trilogy.

Kai Meyer is the author of many highly acclaimed and popular books for adults and young adults in his native Germany. Pirate Curse, the first book in the Wave Walkers trilogy, was praised by Booklist as "a fast-paced fantasy featuring plenty of action and suspense." The Water Mirror, the first book in the Dark Reflections Trilogy, was named a School Library Journal Best Book, a Locus Magazine Recommended Read, a Book Sense Children's Pick, and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. It received starred reviews in both School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. School Library Journal has called Meyer "an expert at creating fantastical worlds filled with unusual and exotic elements." For more information please visit his website at www.kaimeyer.com.

The Dreaming WormOn the morning of her last day in Aelenium, Jolly visited the Hexhermetic Shipworm.His house in the Poets' Quarter of the sea star city was narrow, just wide enough for a low door with a window beside it. As everywhere in Aelenium, there were no right angles here and hardly a straight wall. The city's buildings were formed from the ivorylike material of the coral, some having grown in a natural way, others created by stonecutters and artists."It's me," she called as she walked past the guard and opened the door. "Jolly."She didn't expect an answer, and she received none. She knew how things stood with the worm. If his condition had changed, she'd have been told about it.Jolly closed the door behind her. What she had to say to the Hexhermetic Shipworm was none of the sentry's business. Furthermore, she was afraid Munk might have followed her and stolen into the house behind her, unseen. The last thing she wanted was for him to overhear what she said to the shipworm.This was her farewell. Hers alone.She mounted the uneven stairs to the upper floor. There, in the largest room in the house, the worm hung in his cocoon and dreamed.The room under the peaked roof was largely filled with the fine web being secreted by the worm's motionless body -- the only sign that he was still alive.A few days before, when the first signs of his transformation became visible, Jolly had begged for him to be housed in the palace, even in her own room. But Forefather and the Ghost Trader had refused. They'd given no reason for their decision.Jolly wasn't really surprised. She and Munk were the two most important people in Aelenium, they were told over and over again. No unauthorized person was allowed to come too close to them. Certainly not some unknown thing that might hatch from a cocoon when the worm had finished his pupation.Ifsomething should hatch."Hello, Worm."Jolly stopped at the wall of silken threads. The windows of the roof chamber were covered with translucent material to impede the view from the houses opposite, but also because it was feared that hungry gulls might discover the helpless worm. Windows were glass only in the palaces of Aelenium's rulers, not in the dwellings of the simple folk; here they used wooden shutters to protect themselves from wind and weather, but those also blocked out the light. Instead, the fabric that had been stretched across the attic's windows turned the light streaming in milky, dissolving the edges of the shadows. There was no longer any sharp delineation between light and dark in the entire space; everything blended together, mingled."Hello," said Jolly once again, because the sight of the eerie thicket of silk affected her more than she'd expected. Buenaventure, the pit bull man, came here twice a day to make sure everything was all right. He'd told her of his visits, but this was the first time she'd seen the extent of the cocoon with her own eyes.The silken threads were woven into a mighty net stretching from the floor to the peaked ceiling -- not unlike a spiderweb, only with much finer mesh and without an obvious pattern. The uncanny thicket of threads was several feet deep. In its center hung an oval thickening -- the worm's cocoon. He seemed to float. The threads that held him over the floor at shoulder height were almost invisible.The Hexhermetic Shipworm was no longer recognizable in the center of the cocoon, his form buried underneath a layer of silk a handsbreadth thick. Only a weak pulsing showed that he was still alive."This is quite...impressive," said Jolly tentatively. The sight seemed to glue her mouth shut, as if it were filled with the webs too. "I hope you're feeling all right inside there."The worm didn't answer. Buenaventure had warned her that conversation with him at this time was a one-sided affair. Nevertheless, the pit bull man was convinced that the worm c