by Lisa McMann
“Then why aren’t you kidnapping all of the other black-eyed people?” Fifer retorted.
Thisbe gave her sister a panicked look. She didn’t want the Revinir to know the others were in Artimé too. But it turned out not to matter.
“If I have you two, the others will follow,” said the dragon-woman. “They’ll go along with whatever you say, because people care about you. You’ll see. Thank you for sending your little spells to summon them, by the way. That was helpful. They’ll all come to me in Grimere, and we can fight it out on my home turf with all of my dragons. Nice and tidy.”
“You’ll never take over this world or the land of the dragons,” Thisbe growled. Furious, she sent more fiery blasts at the Revinir’s underbelly, trying to find a weak or sensitive spot. At least she didn’t run out of this kind of weapon as easily as she used to. And she didn’t need a component for it. But that didn’t help if it was totally ineffective. She thought about the three obliterate components in her inside vest pocket and hoped they were still there. It wasn’t safe to use one on the Revinir now, with Thisbe and Fifer attached to her. They’d all be annihilated. But if she saw her chance… she wouldn’t hesitate.
“I’m already taking over everything,” the Revinir said, starting to sound impatient. “I don’t think you understand that you’re my secret weapon, Thisbe. And Fifer is a bonus. For some reason,” she added sarcastically, “unlike Dev and the other slaves, a lot of people seem to care about you. You make great bait. Really, you should just join my side. Both of you. That’s all it’ll take to reclaim the land for the black-eyed rulers. And if you join me and we successfully take over the land of the dragons, maybe… I’ll do something nice for you.”
“You’re horrible,” said Thisbe, spitting fire.
But Fifer narrowed her eyes. What had the Revinir just said?
“Our time together could have been so much better,” the Revinir went on. “If you’d joined me from the start like I told you to, Thisbe, things would have gone very differently. But you’ll own your evil side one of these days. It’s in your makeup. You don’t have a choice.”
“Stop saying that!” Thisbe spewed more of her magic firepower at the dragon-woman.
Fifer had had enough. “Just shut up!” she shouted at the Revinir. “You don’t know the first thing about her. She does have a choice!”
“Typical outburst from someone like you who knows nothing. I can’t fathom how you ended up as ruler of Artimé. You must have drawn the short straw for that undesirable job.”
Fifer ignored her as an idea began to churn. The Revinir hitched her painfully tighter in her grip and glanced back. “Nobody’s even coming yet,” she said, sounding disappointed. “Here you are, the leader, and nobody even cares that I’ve abducted you—that’s not how I thought it would go, to be honest. But I’m not worried.”
“You are a monster,” Thisbe muttered, letting her limbs flop. She couldn’t beat the dragon-woman with magic or fire and gave up trying for the moment to regain her strength. This wasn’t how Thisbe had planned it. Now everything was going wrong. Their “one big attack” plan was foiled. While she caught her breath, she studied the dragon’s scales as carefully as she could while dangling from this frightening height. Was there a worn spot anywhere? She had to come up with an alternative plan.
“You’re right,” the Revinir admitted. “I’m a monster. You’re absolutely correct about that. But I have feelings too. In fact, I’m almost sorry I killed your friend Dev. But that’s what monsters do sometimes.”
Fifer gasped.
“What did you say?” cried Thisbe.
The Revinir cackled. “You heard me correctly. He didn’t want to give you up, but he couldn’t help it. You lied to me about the ancestor broth, Thisbe. Lied to my face.” Her laughter faded. “And I believed you. I need a good liar like you on my team. I mean it—I’ve got the dragons and, as one of them, I’m a rightful ruler too. You’ve got the black-eyed people. Together we can declare that the land is back in the right hands! But I’ve got to break you first, I see. Luckily, I know just how to do it.”
Fifer and Thisbe, still strung painfully tight in the grips of the dragon-woman, looked at one another in horror, unable to comprehend what the Revinir was talking about because of what she’d said about Dev. He was dead?
Dev. Their friend. She’d killed him.
In that life-altering moment, another electric connection passed between the girls like what had happened before when they were walking. Only this time they weren’t touching. It was a feeling, like tiny pulses in their chests, that brought their minds to connect for the first time in their lives. It reminded Fifer of what Alex and Aaron had once felt. The way they’d described it. It was the thing Fifer had felt so inadequate about when she was searching for Thisbe back in the forest of Grimere and been unable to feel if Thisbe was nearby. And now, with her sister just feet away but with no ability for them to speak freely, they had become one.
We aren’t going to survive this, thought Thisbe, looking into her sister’s eyes.
Fifer could hear it like a whisper. But she didn’t answer right away, for something else was already brewing deep inside Fifer’s mind. She stared at Thisbe hard, thinking intensely about something the Revinir had said. Trying to work out this thing that wouldn’t quite come together. But feeling that if she were patient, if she just thought a little longer… maybe it would. After a moment, Fifer pulled out one of the few remaining send spell components that hadn’t been dumped into the sea. She tapped it, producing the pencil, then wrote:
Florence,
Call Simber back. Keep the people from Grimere safe. Don’t come after us. And don’t reply. Trust me.
—Fifer
Fifer sent the message, and it went soaring away, lighting up the night.
“Ha!” said the Revinir. “Getting a little worried? Wondering why they’re not coming? There’s no one back there. Not one person or ghost dragon or flying cheetah chasing after you.” The dragon-woman laughed again, but this time her voice sounded strained.
“You’re right,” Fifer said, trying to sound devastated. “Maybe they don’t care about us after all.”
Next to her, wild with angst, Thisbe searched Fifer’s face. “What are you doing?” she mouthed.
Fifer pressed her lips together in a line, then concentrated, trying to send a message to Thisbe like Thisbe had sent, perhaps by accident, to her. Don’t despair. Remember the fights we’ve won.
In the Quiet
Dev had pleasantly lost track of the days. Every morning he woke up to sunshine streaming into his library and had to remind himself that he was free to do whatever he wanted, or to do nothing at all. This was his home now—all his. This life was definitely something he was getting accustomed to. Being a little bit lonely sometimes? That was a bargain of a trade for his old life.
He was still worried about the Revinir returning, but that fear lessened over time. He could think of a lot of reasons why she wouldn’t. Obviously, she must think the palace was abandoned—there was no way any normal person would live here, and she saw that for herself recently. Plus, the whole village around the palace was deserted. She couldn’t possibly imagine that this was a good hiding place for whoever she was looking for. It wasn’t convenient to anywhere, and there was no easy way in and out of this corner of the land with the crater lake on one side and the mountains on another.
Eventually Dev was convinced that the Revinir had been looking for Thisbe and the others and hadn’t found them. Or… maybe she was exploring what was beyond this land to the west and found it totally desolate with nothing to conquer. It was reasonable to believe she’d never be back.
As Dev’s confidence increased, his explorations grew wider. He visited the small deserted village beyond the apple orchard a few times. Some of the homes were structurally sound, but all of them were cleaned out—looted of anything valuable. Dev thought about hiding in one of them if the Revinir ever returned. She’d b
e less likely to find him unless she and her dragons searched through the narrow streets, which they’d have trouble fitting through without completely knocking down walls and other structures. And while that wouldn’t be difficult for them to do, it would be time consuming and a waste of effort for no good reason… unless they expected to find someone there. The fact that they’d been gone so long without returning gave Dev more hope every day that they’d lost all desire to spend another ounce of time in this isolated place.
After his nightmare that had left him on the floor and packing for the catacombs, Dev had returned to his senses. Leaving his bulbous library would be a big mistake if there wasn’t a need to do so. He loved it here. He had a sofa to sleep on, a fireplace to warm him at night, and books and instruments to keep him company. He had all the fish and fruit and wild plants he could eat just steps away. And he could fix things around the property whenever he felt like it, a little at a time. Even the fox family that had found shelter in the entryway to the stairwell got used to him coming and going, and soon the young kits were big enough to venture out on their own. One of them liked to follow Dev up the stairwell, though its mother always barked at it to come back.
Dev hadn’t heard or felt a roar from the Revinir in all this time. And although he could call up the ancestor images anytime he wanted to, and marvel over how one of them had saved his life, the pictures offered no answers that he didn’t already know. So Dev used his imagination to create his own explanation about what these pictures meant for him.
Astrid had seemed quite certain that the gray man was Ashguard Suresh, the curmudgeon who had lived in this palace long after all his people had been killed or captured by the usurpers. But Dev added on to the story, turning Ashguard into his grandfather. Dev imagined that this dear relative had granted this property to him in a very important document. That he’d been summoned to take care of it.
Thinking about that made him wonder which of his parents was a direct descendant of Ashguard. What had they been like? How did they live? And how did they die? Dev had all the time in the world now to make up answers to the questions he’d barely had time to think about his entire life.
To help in his attempt to clean up and fix bits of the property, Dev continued to collect potentially useful items whenever he ran across them, whether in the village or around the palace. He had quite an assortment of long, flat boards, as well as two buckets and two ropes. He’d even found some sheets of chain-mail mesh in a small building at the back of the palace that he called the foundry. Dev used the chain mail to make a fishing net, which would be easier than the hook-and-line method. And with the leftovers, he fashioned a chain-mail shirt to go under his regular cloth shirt, which would protect him from being stabbed by a sword or knife in case intruders ever came. One couldn’t be too careful when one was all alone. Besides, wearing it made him feel stronger.
This particular day began with a startlingly bright sunrise that streamed in through the newly cleaned east window onto his face, waking Dev up. He went to the window to watch it rise, bumping his nose against the glass and leaving a smudge.
“Oh, glorious sun,” he said in praise. He loved how it lit up and made colors with the clouds in the sky. After breakfast he tinkered around the palace, then decided this would be the day to try to reach a little alcove that he’d seen from one of the turret staircases but couldn’t access because of the rotting floors. He went to the foundry and gathered up two long boards and a rope. Then he ventured out across the courtyard to one of the small corner towers, whose staircase hadn’t been mysteriously melted, and climbed up and around the debris to the fifth floor.
He looked around for something solid and sturdy to anchor himself to. He was suspicious of the leaky ceiling, so he tied one end of the rope around the bannister at the top of the stairs. The other end he secured around his chest as a safety measure. Then he surveyed the great room that stretched out before him. There was nothing in it. In some places the floor had caved in from rain and rot. There was a gaping hole directly in the center of the room, below the point of the onion spire, where leaks had been causing deterioration for years. The floor joists showed through in places, but at the edges of the room they looked relatively solid.
The prize Dev was after was a small alcove on the opposite side of the great room, which had some interesting things in it. With the rope around him, he wouldn’t fall far if those joists were rotten too and gave way under his weight.
He placed the first board on top of the exposed floor joists and tested it gingerly. It held him. He walked across, laid the second board down and stood on it, picked up the first board, and repeated the process, all the way around the edge of the great room to the alcove. As Dev drew closer to it, he could see more clearly what was in it: a small writing desk like the one in his mind image of the gray man. Next to it was a large metal box.
Once there, Dev stepped inside the space, which seemed to be in much better condition than the great room. He eagerly lifted the cover off the box and searched through it. But its contents were disappointing. One by one Dev pulled out several fairly useless, heavy knickknacks that seemed to be of little value, though they each were engraved with a diamond-shaped symbol containing the letter S. Probably for Suresh, Dev surmised. No wonder no one had stolen these—it wouldn’t have been worth the weight to lug them around, and everyone would have known they were stolen from a ruler.
Dev put everything back in the box, but then he paused and removed an old beer stein that seemed like it could be useful for him to drink out of. In addition to the diamond S symbol, it had an unusual engraving on it that he liked. The engraving was a quote, written with curly letters in the same language he’d seen in the books left open on the big desk in the library. He couldn’t read the quote, but it felt important.
Dev turned to the small desk and ran his hand over the smooth surface. Then he opened the narrow drawer, expecting it to be empty. To his surprise, lying flat inside it was a small stack of sketches and paintings. On top was a watercolor of a little girl. The painting had once been quite colorful but had faded over time. As Dev studied her, his scales prickled and a few of the images flashed in front of his eyes. This was someone important, he thought. Important to him.
Carefully Dev checked the rest of the drawers, finding them disappointingly empty. He rolled the stack of drawings and slid them into the mouth of the stein, then painstakingly made his way back to the stairwell on the boards. He untied the rope and gathered up the boards, then descended the stairs with his new possessions. He returned the boards and rope to the foundry and went back to the library.
With his beer stein and the art pieces in hand, Dev sat down at the huge desk. He gazed at the etching on the stein, then paged through the big book on the desk to see if he could match up the words. When nothing jumped out at him, he pushed the book aside and looked through the sketches and paintings. He went back to the first one, which was the best of the lot, and smoothed it out to study it. It was simple: The girl stood outside with trees behind her. Soon Dev realized with a start that the backdrop of the sketch was the flourishing orchard. This little girl wasn’t a random painting bought on a whim at the market. She had been sketched not far from here. Perhaps she’d even lived here—that made the most sense. And Ashguard, or someone, had commissioned her painting. Dev knew all about such things. Shanti had had her portrait done every year around her birthday, and she’d hated it because it took so long to do. She always made Dev accompany her to keep her entertained, which was exhausting for him because she was so cranky.
This girl wasn’t cranky-looking, though. She looked sweet and familiar, though he couldn’t quite figure out why. The drawing was old—this person must be forty or fifty years old by now. If she’d survived, anyway.
Dev glanced out the south window toward the orchard. From this height he could look down on the tops of the gnarled apple trees beyond the overgrowth that surrounded the palace. Maybe one day he would chop all of the weed
s and bushes so he could see the orchard even better.
As he turned back to study the drawing, his eye caught movement out the east window, directly in front of him. He froze, hoping it was just a bird like it had been all of the other times he’d been startled by movement outside that window since the Revinir had come. But this bird wasn’t flitting about. It was coming straight on.
Dev’s breath grew shallow, and an old familiar sense of dread washed over him like the river. He went up to the glass and used his shirt to wipe away the smudge he’d left earlier, then peered through the window. His scales lifted on his arms and legs. Fear seized his lungs, his brain. He couldn’t move or think or even make a noise. All he knew was that the thing that had terrified him most was happening again: The Revinir and her red dragons were coming, this time in broad daylight. And soon they’d be close enough to see him if he made a move.
Dev stared, slack jawed, as his gut churned. He couldn’t stay here. He shoved the drawing of the girl inside a book, gathered up his bag and canteen, and skidded down and around the stairs. He exited the tower and ran for his life across the courtyard and down the hill toward the orchard and the village. All the while he hoped and prayed that the gorgeous sunlight, which he’d praised just that morning, wouldn’t be the foil that betrayed his existence to the worst enemy the land of the dragons had ever known.
Acknowledgments
Some of you have been reading this series for a very long time, since you were in grade four or even earlier, and now you’re older, in high school or beyond, and you’re still reading it. Thank you so much for staying with these characters and this world! I love meeting you in person and on Instagram and Twitter (@lisa_mcmann) and learning what you love about the Unwanteds and Unwanteds Quests series. Your steady support over the years makes me excited to write more!
I want to thank my editor, Liesa Abrams, for always knowing exactly what my manuscripts need and helping me put the best story into your hands. And my agent, Michael Bourret, who has been my guide and my friend throughout this wonderful career for over a dozen years.
