by Aimee Carter
“Then how do you explain an orca intercepting the sharks?” said Orion in a low, dangerous voice.
“It could be any number of things,” said his mother in a bored tone. “Maybe the General did bring security. Or maybe Celeste has friends we don’t know about. Either way, you lost the piece.”
Simon blinked. Orion didn’t have the piece? Then where—
Crack.
Simon jumped as the loud sound cut through the night air, and only a miraculous feat of balance kept him from falling out of the tree. Despite his old age and injuries, Orion had snapped his makeshift cane in half, and he hurled one half into the ocean and the other into the trees, missing his mother by only a foot. Simon’s blood boiled, but she didn’t so much as flinch.
“We had everything we needed for a successful mission,” said Orion in a frighteningly calm voice, though his face was twisted into a hideous mask of fury. “Our partners are fierce fighters. Our insider’s information was good. We had it—we had it, and you’re telling me an orca stopped a plan months in the making.”
“ ‘The best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry,’ ” quoted his mother smoothly. “You may not be a mouse, but you are a man.”
The air around them seemed to crackle, and for a long moment, no one moved. Orion took a wobbly step toward her and Rowan, and Simon braced himself, ready to fight if his grandfather so much as touched her.
“Was it you?” he said softly, but with no less of a threat than before. “Did you tip off the underwater kingdom?”
“I’ve been on the beach the whole time,” she said easily, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “Unless you think I can be in two places at once, I had no opportunity.”
“Someone could have sneaked past my guards—”
“Then that would be on your guards, not me.” She shrugged. “Maybe you have a spy. Have you ever considered that?”
Orion’s gaze flickered suspiciously at the members of his flock lurking in the shadows, both human and bird. But almost as quickly as she had introduced the idea, he seemed to dismiss it. “My army has been nothing but loyal to me. You, on the other hand, have been hindering us every chance you get.”
“I told you where to look, didn’t I? You would be scouring the coastline from here to Vancouver if it wasn’t for me.”
“And I’ve been wondering why that is.” Orion took another step toward her, and Simon tensed, forming the image of a tiger in his mind. He didn’t want to attack, but if Orion went after his mother, nothing in the world would stop him from tearing him to shreds. “After months of doing nothing but thwarting me, why the change of heart, Isabel?”
His mother sat up straighter. “I told you. You leave the boys alone, and I will help you.”
“No, no, it’s more than that.” He was almost within arm’s reach of Simon’s mother now, and Simon saw her hands tighten into fists in her lap. She was prepared to fight, too. “You may not be willing to tell me, but I know something happened in Arizona—something that had to do with Simon. There’s no other reason for you abandoning him when you could have so easily escaped.”
Simon’s skin prickled at the reminder of what had happened in Paradise Valley. No matter how often he told himself that his mother was doing this to protect him and Nolan, her choice still stung.
“The threat from Celeste is more than enough to keep me interested in your … mission,” said his mother. “We both want the same thing—for different reasons, even if you won’t admit it. But you have resources I don’t. And I have information you don’t. The only way either of us will ever have a chance at success is working together.”
Orion let out a mirthless laugh. “Since when have you ever been interested in working together?”
“Since Celeste showed up in Arizona and nearly killed my son. Family means something to me, Father, even if it means nothing to you.”
“Family means everything to me,” he hissed, leaning in closer. “I don’t trust you.”
“The restraints make that fairly obvious.” She touched the metal collar around her neck, and a chain rattled. “But I’m willing to overlook them if it means getting what I want. Accept my help or don’t. Either way, if I wanted to escape, I would have by now.”
Orion studied her for a long moment, and finally he straightened. “Once I’ve assembled the weapon, you will have no choice but to fall in line and serve me—and serve your kingdom the way you were always supposed to.”
“Maybe,” said his mother with a shrug. “Or maybe I’ll assemble it first and destroy it before you ever get the chance. We’ll have to see, won’t we?”
Orion growled and turned to Rowan. “Take your men and gather as much information as you can about what happened out there. I want to know who this orca is, what it wants, and how to find it before sunrise.”
“Yes, sir,” said Rowan. Shifting into a peregrine falcon, he let out a shrill cry, and half the flock burst from the trees and the sand as he took off over the ocean. Simon tried to melt into the shadows in case anyone spotted him, but none of them looked back.
“Perrin—” Orion returned to the bonfire as his lieutenant stood at attention. “Gather our allies and ready them for an attack. With the General injured, we must take this opportunity to strike while they’re weak and scattered. We’ve been disrupting their supply lines long enough to ensure their resources have been depleted, and our forces are strong enough to lay siege on Atlantis. Without the General, they won’t last long.”
Perrin saluted. After shifting into a hawk, he followed his son, taking another portion of the flock with him. As soon as he was gone, Orion sank down onto a piece of driftwood near the bonfire, resting his head in his hands. The beach was quieter now, and while some members of the flock remained, Simon gathered his courage and flew silently to the base of the tree, only a few hops away from his mother. With Rowan gone, she was the only person in the darkness.
“I wish we could be on the same side, Isabel,” said Orion after a long moment. “You and I could do a lot of good in this world.”
His mother scoffed. “The only good you’d be doing is for yourself.”
“On the contrary, I would stop the wars that have plagued our kingdoms for centuries,” he said. “Skirmishes over nothing that still kill thousands. I can see no better good than that.”
“The current system may not be perfect, but tyranny and oppression only help those at the top,” she said. “You can’t create peace by turning yourself into everyone’s mutual enemy.”
“I’ll only be an enemy if I give them reason to fight me.”
“You would give them reason just by existing—by having more power than any Animalgam ever should,” said his mother. “You can’t control others no matter how much you threaten them. There will always be good people who rise up against tyrants and murderers regardless of what it costs them, and you will always be their enemy.”
Orion sighed. “Perhaps. Or perhaps I will usher in a new era, and I will prove you wrong.”
“Perhaps,” she echoed. “Or perhaps you’ll tear the five kingdoms apart until there’s nothing left to fight for.”
A smile flickered across his scarred face. “Perhaps.”
Simon’s stomach churned, and not only because he didn’t want to imagine a world where Orion ruled over them all as the Beast King. He knew his mother was right—that no single person should ever have the powers he and Nolan had. But they couldn’t help it, and for a moment, Simon wondered if his mother felt the same about them, too.
No. His mother wasn’t the enemy. She was doing this for the right reasons, and she had to say these things to Orion. That was all. While Simon didn’t know how much he could trust her now, he did know that she was and always would be on their side.
An uneasy quiet settled over the beach, with only the sounds of the waves breaking against the shore interrupting the silence. Simon knew he couldn’t say anything to his mother, not with Orion twenty feet away, but he had to let her know she
wasn’t alone. So, with his vision as sharp as it had ever been, he scratched out a shape in the sand, close enough to the log that she would see it in the daylight. He couldn’t leave a message, not when a member of the flock might see it, so instead he settled on a single heart. It wasn’t much, but it told her everything he needed to say. He loved her, and nothing—not even what had happened in Arizona—would ever change that.
As soon as he was finished, he hopped back into the trees and shifted into a seagull once more. He took the long way around to the far side of the beach, beyond the bonfire so Orion wouldn’t see him leave. But as soon as he was out of sight, he dived back into the water and shifted into a bull shark, the salt water stinging his wounds. The flock was coming for Atlantis, and he had to warn them. But beyond that, the Bird Lord’s words echoed in his mind over and over again, making him swim as hard as he could for the city.
Our insider’s information was good.
There was someone in the underwater kingdom close enough to the General that they had known the piece would be moved—and that someone was spying for Orion.
12
KANGAROO COURT
By the time Simon returned to the compound, only an hour had passed, and much to his relief, no one had discovered he’d been missing. Winter fussed over him, insisting on checking her makeshift bandages to ensure blood hadn’t leaked through, but Simon refused.
“We need to find the summit meeting,” he said. “Orion’s going to attack the city.”
“And if you don’t see a doctor, your wounds will get infected and you’ll fall over dead before that happens,” snapped Winter.
“I—fine,” muttered Simon. “We tell them, and then I’ll go to the infirmary, all right?”
Winter eyed him suspiciously, but after a long moment, she caved, following him out of the room and into the corridor with minimal grumbling.
By now Simon had mostly figured out the route from the guest rooms to the stairs, and he led the way through the mirrored hallways, frantically trying to remember if Ariana had said anything about where the summit meeting might be. The same floor as the dining room? A different one altogether?
“Halt!” came a deep voice as they turned another corner. Simon froze, inches from plowing straight into a broad-shouldered soldier with several medals pinned to his jacket. “What are you two doing here?”
Simon gulped. “Malcolm, the Alpha of the mammal kingdom, is my uncle, and we need to talk to him. It’s an emergency.”
“I cannot permit you to leave your rooms,” said the soldier, starting to usher them back down the hall. “We are on lockdown—”
“This is important,” said Simon fiercely. “It’s about Orion.”
The soldier frowned. “How would you—”
“If you don’t do exactly what we tell you to do, everyone in this giant snow globe is going to die.” Winter straightened her small body until she was as tall as she could be. “Do you want that to be on your shoulders, soldier?”
“Who—”
“I need to speak to my uncle. Now,” said Simon with as much authority as he could muster. He didn’t sound as convincing as Winter, but it was the best he could do.
The soldier pursed his lips and clamped his large hands on the back of both Simon’s and Winter’s necks. “I will escort you there,” he said as he pushed them down the corridor. “But if this is a joke or a prank, I’ll throw you in the brig until dawn.”
Relieved, Simon marched as fast as he could, not even objecting when they climbed into the elevator instead of using the stairs. Someone had cleaned it, and he could smell a faint trace of bleach.
At last they arrived in front of the mirrored double doors they’d entered over a day ago, when they’d first arrived in Atlantis. The General’s conference room. Simon silently berated himself for not thinking of that, even though it wouldn’t have made a difference.
The guards opened the doors, and the three of them stepped inside. Silence fell over the room, and everyone sitting at the long table, from Malcolm to Zia to Crocker to Ariana to others Simon didn’t recognize, turned to stare at them. With a jolt, Simon spotted Jam sitting to Rhode’s right, his face splotchy and his shoulders heavy with exhaustion. Of course he’d be there. If the General died, that would mean …
“Yes, Captain?” said Rhode crisply. Despite everything that had happened to her father, Simon couldn’t spot a trace of anxiety or grief on her face.
“I apologize for the interruption, Colonel,” said their captor, “but these two insist they have information to tell you.”
Rhode’s piercing gaze settled on Simon, and he cleared his throat. “Orion’s planning to attack Atlantis at dawn. He has a bunch of underwater animals supporting him—not just sharks, but at least one eel, and probably others, too. I don’t think many of them are Animalgams,” he added when Rhode opened her mouth. “I think they’re normal animals who are upset the General is ruling the ocean.”
“How do you know this, Simon?” said Malcolm, who sat across from Rhode. The General’s seat at the head of the table was empty.
“I—” Simon hesitated. “I borrowed some scuba gear and went to the surface. I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have, but—”
“Scuba gear?” Malcolm rounded on Rhode, his muscles tensed as if readying himself for a fight. “No one ever mentioned there was scuba gear available for my twelve-year-old nephews to find.”
Cold fear washed over Simon. What if they didn’t have scuba gear in Atlantis? How was he supposed to explain himself then? But instead of arguing, Rhode sniffed and glared at him. “There’s an emergency supply in the basement. It isn’t available for recreational use.”
“I’m sorry,” said Simon hastily, barely able to stop his relief from showing. “I know I shouldn’t have, but someone had to see what was going on, and—”
“It’s all right,” said his uncle, though judging by his clenched jaw and sour expression, it wasn’t anything close to all right. “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, if you have information, you need to tell us.”
Simon was pretty sure that translated into grounded for life, but he pressed on. “Orion’s upset. Whatever it was he wanted when he attacked the General, he didn’t get it.”
A murmur rose from the others at the table, and Simon saw Jam’s shoulders sag with relief.
“But he’s going to attack the city,” he continued. “As a distraction, while he looks for it. He wants to choke off the supply lines—”
“He’s already tried that on land,” said Rhode irritably. “And he must know our barriers are impossible to breach, so what does he think laying siege to Atlantis will accomplish?”
“If we have no way of getting out, then we’ll have no choice but to face them,” said the captain behind Simon and Winter. “Should I ready the troops, Colonel?”
She nodded. “Wait. Jam—which species of sharks did you say ambushed you?”
“There were a few of them,” he said, his face pale. “A great white. A couple of bull sharks. Tiger sharks—”
“Then we can’t trust the shark brigades at all.” Her mouth formed a thin line. “That’s a good third of our troops.”
“But they’re not the ones who attacked us.”
“We don’t know how many of them are sympathizers,” she pointed out. “We can’t take the risk. Captain, send the shark brigades to San Miguel. Make up an excuse and get them out of the way.”
The captain saluted and exited the room, leaving Simon and Winter unguarded. Winter shifted uneasily, her fingers laced together so tightly that her hands had gone blotchy. Simon wanted to reach out for her, but he couldn’t embarrass her like that, not in front of everyone.
“Is there anything else, Simon?” said Crocker from the foot of the table. He hadn’t stopped staring at him since Simon had stepped into the room.
“I …” Simon paused, glancing at all the faces gathered. Was one of them a spy for Orion? Or was it someone else? He couldn’t not tell them,
though, and after a moment of grappling with himself, he finally blurted, “Orion said he got his information directly from someone inside the city.”
Rhode furrowed her brow. “A member of our kingdom would never—”
“But someone did,” said Simon. “Orion said so himself. He had no reason to lie to his lieutenants.”
Another murmur rose up from the table, but Malcolm spoke above them. “It’s no one in this room. We know that for a fact.”
“Do we?” said Ariana suddenly. It was, as far as Simon had seen, the first time she’d spoken up. “Orion attacked Jam and the General when they were moving the piece. How did they know it was happening? And how did they know where they’d be? Not even we knew what was going on.”
“Someone might have overheard,” said Jam uncertainly.
“Perhaps,” said Ariana’s adviser slowly. The General had called him Lord Anthony, Simon recalled, and he was a thin man with little hair on his head and a nose that seemed to point directly to the ground. “Or perhaps, unlikely as it would be, it could be explained in other ways. If the flock was watching the location …”
“Orion said his information was good,” said Simon firmly. “That has to mean it came from someone on the inside.”
“He could have known you were listening,” said Ariana. Simon tried to catch her eye, but she refused, staring at the papers in front of her instead. “It’s the oldest trick in the book. Turn the enemy against one another, and their alliances crumble. They spend so much time suspicious of themselves that they stop paying attention to you.”
“You heard Simon,” said Zia, leaning back in her chair. “Orion had no reason to believe anyone else was listening.”
“It could be a trap,” argued Lord Anthony. “Or perhaps the boy is confused.”
