Island of Fire (The Unwanteds)

by McMann, Lisa

  “Calm down, Alex—”

  But Alex wouldn’t stop, even though he couldn’t believe his horrible thoughts, his sharp words against their beloved mage. “Don’t tell me to calm down. This is not a calm situation! Answer me—I’m serious. What kind of leader would do that? Did he think he was invincible?” Alex was horrified at himself for asking the questions that had been plaguing him, but he felt helpless to stop them. “And now I’m the one who’s supposed to fix it? I’m, like, practically still a kid. It’s so not okay that he left me with this. It’s a disaster!” he cried. “It’s not fair!” He grasped Cole’s arm and shook it. “Can you see what I’m saying? I’m saying I can’t just fix this. I can’t. I tried—I’m trying, and I’ll keep trying. But as of right now, I can’t figure it out, okay?”

  Cole just stood there, color rising to his cheeks. Then he deliberately removed Alex’s hand from his arm, stepped back, and wiped his sleeve. “Oo-kay,” he said, his voice cold. He turned to his friends, who had stopped complaining long enough to listen. Cole nodded in the direction of the entrance to Quill and started walking away. To his friends he said, “Come on, guys. I know where we can get some food.”

  Alex’s mouth dropped open. “Whoa,” he said. “Wait. Seriously? You’re going to be slaves to them again? You’re disgusting!” He kicked the cracked earth and spun around. “Cowards. I can’t believe this.”

  “Whatever, Alex,” Cole called over his shoulder. He went through the gate, the others following him into Quill.

  Alex raked his fingers through his hair and cursed under his breath. Now he was driving people away.

  Exodus

  Not far away in the yard, next to Jim the winged tortoise, stood Sky, on a break from stacking stiff, lifeless beavops, watching her new friend Alex fall apart. When she escaped from Warbler, she never once imagined that she would find a place where things were actually worse than what she’d endured.

  She took a few steps through the crowd toward Alex, thinking she might be able to offer some form of comfort, when she saw Carina Fathom walk up to him. Sky admired Carina’s pixie haircut and spunky style. But she slowed and then stopped when she saw Carina’s face, which looked very serious.

  “Alex,” Carina said, looking up at him. She held young Seth on one hip and a knapsack over the opposite shoulder.

  Alex turned, an almost bewildered look on his face. “Oh, hi,” he said. “What’s up?”

  She took a deep breath. “Alex, I’m sorry.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “Because I … we … need to go. I’m sorry.” She pinched her lips together and didn’t look away. “We’re going. Leaving.”

  The color drained from Alex’s face. He looked away quickly and took in a sharp breath, letting it out slowly through pursed lips. He squeezed his eyes shut, and then opened them again and looked back at the young woman. “You’re leaving.” He nodded, a little too swiftly, looking at the baby. “Of course you are. You have to.” He absently reached out and smoothed the listless baby’s hair. It was damp with sweat. Alex dropped his arm, like lead, to his side. “To your mother’s, I suppose,” he mused, almost to himself.

  “No. She’s, you know. Back in the palace, and I—”

  “Of course,” Alex murmured. “I— How could I forget?”

  “I’ve changed my name, you know,” Carina blurted out.

  “Oh?”

  “To Holiday. Carina Holiday, that is. I mean, I can’t—I won’t have her name anymore.”

  “I see.” His words were feeble, like unstable puffs of air. “A bit ironic, that name,” he said, looking past Carina now, to the sea. “Holiday. Day of the Purge and all that.”

  “It’s—yes, it is. Intentionally so.” She shifted the baby higher on her hip.

  Alex looked at her again as if he was finally seeing her. “Can I help you? Carry something, I mean? I’m sorry, I should have—”

  “No,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “I’m used to it. I just … I should go.”

  Alex nodded. “Well.” He opened his lanky arms awkwardly and hugged her.

  Carina patted his back. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  He shook his head and gave her a sad smile. “Don’t—it’s okay. Thank you for everything. I mean it.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  “I know.”

  They stood face-to-face a moment longer, and then Carina nodded once. “Okay, then.” She hesitated a second more, and then set off. “You’ll figure it out, you know. The clue,” she called over her shoulder. “You will. I’m sure of it. Good-bye for now, brave Alex Stowe.” She grinned.

  Alex nodded. He lifted his hand. “Good-bye, Carina Holiday.”

  He watched her go.

  As she reached the gate, she paused, turned once again, and tilted her head. “I don’t think it’s the islands,” she called. And then she shrugged and smiled. “For whatever that’s worth.”

  With that, she disappeared around the wall.

  When Alex’s shoulders slumped and he turned away, dead-eyed, Sky was there.

  At the Palace Gate

  The High Priest Aaron donned his inherited black robe and made his way down the long driveway to the portcullis. He was flanked by four guards who carried rusty spearlike weapons in case the Necessaries acted up.

  The workers stood waiting with shovels, picks, and some makeshift equipment.

  “Release the lock,” Aaron said to his guards. Without so much as a glance at the Necessaries outside the gate, Aaron motioned to them and said, “Follow me.” One of Aaron’s guards unlocked the gate and the Necessaries streamed in. Aaron led them up the drive, to the forty-foot wall outside his palace office window.

  “I want you to make a hole through the wall here, like a large doorway,” he said. “As tall and wide as the door to the palace.” He turned and looked at the dim-witted Necessaries to see if they understood. When he got to the last of them, his jaw slacked and he paled a shade, or perhaps two, but only someone who knew him well would have noticed. He held the unblinking man’s gaze for a moment, and then nodded slightly and turned back to the first one. “Are you in charge here?” he barked.

  “Y-yes, Associate High Priest,” the man said.

  “High Priest Aaron,” corrected one of the guards.

  The Necessary nodded, saying nothing.

  “Well,” Aaron said, impatient, “do you understand? Do you have any questions?”

  The man was so flustered he didn’t say a word.

  “No?” Aaron continued. “Fine, then. You’ll work until it’s dark.” He didn’t wait for the man to respond. Instead Aaron gathered his cloak, whipping it around with a flourish, and stomped away to the palace.

  “Secretary!” he yelled, even before he’d fully made it inside. “Secretary!”

  There was a scuffle of shoes on echoing steps. A moment later, Eva Fathom rounded the corner and nearly bumped into Aaron.

  “Yes?” she said, a bit breathless.

  “Where did you find these workers?”

  “Well, logically, I went to the Ancients Sector. The workers there have shovels and other tools, and they’re accustomed to that sort of hard work. Is there a problem?”

  Aaron narrowed his eyes at the woman, never quite sure if he could trust her. “And did you not ask them their names?”

  “I spoke only to the one in charge. He rounded up the others.” She held her chin steady and didn’t look away.

  Aaron studied her face for a long moment. Then he nodded his acceptance of her story. “That’s all for now,” he said. He pushed past her and went to his office, closing the door firmly, leaving Eva Fathom tapping her lips.

  Aaron hung up his cloak and went to the window once more, looking out over the driveway at the men, who stood measuring and marking off a doorway on the wall using spit and dust, and then taking their tools and whacking them against the wall.

  The one man in particular seemed to be pounding especially hard. He reached down
to the pile of tools and found a thin piece of metal. Shoving it into the crack between two blocks of cement, he picked up a mallet, pulled back, and pounded the piece of metal with all his might, over and over until the block began to move.

  The others, including the leader of the party, watched for a moment and then followed his example. Aaron frowned, and hollered once again, “Secretary!”

  But this time there was no answer. Instead he saw Eva Fathom climb into the backseat of a Quillitary vehicle, which choked and slowly chugged its way down the hill, belching black smoke at the men, who had managed to remove a few blocks.

  Aaron’s attention turned to the beautiful view of the water through the hole in the wall, and he wondered once again how in the world Justine could have wanted to hide Quill from that. A prick of fear gnawed at him. There had to be a reason.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Eva Fathom, in the backseat of the rusty old vehicle, bounced along with a hint of a smile on her wrinkled lips, having quite possibly heard the high priest’s last bellow but dodging it all the same. She had better jobs to do than run around chasing after things for a teenage boy.

  The driver soon pulled up to the Haluki house, and the smile left Eva’s face. She got out of the vehicle, went to the door, and opened it without knocking. She went inside.

  “Good morning, Bethesda. Liam.” She spoke more loudly than she needed to. “How are the prisoners today? Not trying anything tricky, I hope.” She rounded the corner to Haluki’s old office. “Is Claire Morning giving you any trouble in the pantry?” she called out.

  Bethesda frowned in Liam’s direction.

  “I’ll go quiet her down,” Liam said, standing up. “She’s old. Must be getting deaf,” he whispered. He caught up to Eva in the short hallway. “No,” he said to Eva. “She’s fine.”

  “Too weak by now to try anything,” Eva said, almost as a question.

  “I suppose so.”

  “Tsk.” Eva shook her head and leaned toward Liam, lowering her voice. “I can’t say I understand why we’re keeping them trapped like this. We should either kill them or let them go.” She looked at the man. “Don’t you agree?”

  “I—” He shrugged, noncommittal.

  “Do you think we should kill them, then?” Eva looked at him for a long moment, trying to gauge his loyalties. If anyone were going to cave in, it would be him.

  He shifted his weight uncomfortably and looked away, and Eva had her answer.

  Finding the Dots

  The clue from Mr. Today became a song in Alex’s head, and even though music was still new and wonderful to Alex, this clue became the kind of annoying song that sometimes got stuck in his brain and left him wishing he could forget it. Trying to get some sleep on the hard ground, Alex couldn’t get the words out of his head, so at last he got up, picked his way to Florence, and climbed up to the roof.

  Sean Ranger was there already.

  “Hey,” Alex said.

  Sean offered a bleak smile. “You okay?” He’d heard about Carina Holiday leaving them.

  Alex was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “Sometimes I don’t know if we’re going to make it.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Sean said. “Carina will be back, though.”

  Deep down, Alex thought that Carina would probably not be back at all. “Does she have any other … family? Out there?” he asked, meaning Quill.

  “No.” Sean pulled a thin, whittled stick from his pocket and began to clean his teeth. “You knew her husband, Seth, was killed in the first battle, didn’t you? Before the baby was born. He’s named for his father.”

  Alex looked at Sean. “I—I didn’t know her then.” He’d wondered about it, but Carina never spoke of the past or about the baby’s father, so Alex assumed she didn’t want to talk about it. Now Alex felt even more terrible.

  “She’s a really strong person,” Sean said. “I admire her. I remember her from Quill—she’s just a few years ahead of me, you know. When she was Purged, she had this look on her face like she was going to get revenge on everybody one day.”

  Alex laughed softly. “I believe that.”

  “She’ll do it, too.”

  Alex nodded.

  “I remembered that when my name was announced. I wanted to be like her.”

  “You are. In a lot of ways.”

  Sean shrugged. “Thanks.”

  The song played in Alex’s head during the silence that followed, and he recalled Carina’s parting words. “She said she didn’t think the dots were the islands.”

  Sean was quiet for a long moment. “Well, she has really good instincts. She might be right.” He glanced at the wall, where two days’ worth of effort stacking the creatures had gotten them nearly to the top of it. “I reckon I’ll continue the project, though.”

  “Yes, definitely. We don’t have anything else to go on.”

  Just then a face peeked up over the edge of the roof. Alex smiled. “Come on up,” he said. “We’re just talking.”

  Sky climbed up and sat next to Alex. All three lay on their backs or rested on their elbows, staring at the night sky.

  Sean frowned. “Do you think the dots … ”

  Alex looked at him. “What?”

  Sean sat up, peering intently at the sky. “Do you think the dots are the stars?”

  Sky sat up too.

  Alex shook his head. “I thought about that. But the sky is always changing. The stars don’t stay in the same place all the time. So if we’re supposed to follow a line of stars, how would we know what time of night to do it, or what time of the year they would all line up in the right part of the sky?”

  “Oh. Good point.” Sean sighed.

  The Silent girl slumped.

  “What if the dots weren’t actually, you know, outside?” Sean asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are there any dots in the shack, like on the walls or anything?” Sean leaned back on his elbows.

  “Not that I noticed. Believe me, I looked everywhere. I see dots swimming in front of my eyes constantly.”

  Sky sat up again and stared out across the sea.

  “Something in Artimé, maybe?”

  Alex was quiet, considering that. He’d dismissed the idea once before, but now he couldn’t remember why. “I don’t know,” he mused. “Maybe. Like what?” He pictured the lounge, the theater, the mansion, the library. “Books could be dots, maybe.” But then he shook his head. “No, Mr. Today would be more clever with his clue if he meant books. Maybe there was something in his office.” Alex felt a sharp pang of sadness. “If Samheed were here,” he said, “he might remember.” But no one else remaining had ever set foot in Mr. Today’s office as far as Alex knew. Not even Mr. Appleblossom. It was depressing.

  “What about the black-and-white tiles in the entrance to the mansion? Or statues in the hallways? Or—”

  Alex slapped his forehead. “No. Now I remember why I don’t think the dots are inside Artimé. It’s because we can’t magnify or focus on anything that doesn’t exist. Which seems to be our biggest dead end.”

  “Right,” Sean muttered. “Sorry. I’m not thinking straight.” They lapsed into their thoughts.

  Sky closed her eyes, thinking hard. And then her lids popped open and she turned toward Alex and gripped his leg.

  He looked at her, alarmed. “What is it?”

  Her hands flew through the air, speaking a language Alex didn’t know.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Slow down.”

  But Sky wasn’t slowing. Her face was wildly animated, her golden-orange eyes bright, her actions exaggerated—all indicating that something very important was happening, but Alex couldn’t figure it out.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I can’t understand—” He bit his lip, frustrated, then glanced at Sean. “Any idea?”

  “No,” Sean said quietly, his eyes intent on the girl. “But now she’s getting frustrated with us.”

  Sky rolled her eyes and gripped her hai
r, pulling her head down to her bent knees, shaking her head from side to side. Finally she sat up again and faced the two. She took a deep breath, and then calmly held up a hand, first to Alex, then to Sean.

  “Stay here?” Alex guessed.

  The Silent girl nodded wildly.

  “Okay,” Alex said, relieved to have gotten something right. “We’ll stay here.”

  Sky pointed to herself, then pointed away, then pointed to herself again, then at the roof.

  “She’s going to leave and come back,” Alex interpreted. “Right?”

  The Silent girl rewarded Alex with a beautiful smile that made his stomach flip. She touched her nose and pointed at him, nodding. And then, after one more reminder to the boys to stay put, she scrambled down Florence to the ground.

  A Little Help

  Sky returned a few minutes later, just as the eastern edge of the morning sky turned orange. She was carrying something on her shoulder, gripping it tightly with one hand as she maneuvered her way up the statue. Alex reached down to help her up.

  She held the miniature mansion that she’d found the first day, a replica of the true mansion, and she handed it to him with pride.

  “Oh!” Alex grinned and took it, careful not to tip it. “Did I ever show you this?” he asked Sean. “Sky found it our first day here inside a cupboard in the shack. I think it’s a model that Mr. Today made as he was planning what Artimé would look like. Can’t you just picture him sculpting this little miniature mansion and dreaming about creating it?”

  Sean squinted in the dark. “Sweet,” he said under his breath. He looked into the windows, opened and closed the doors. “There’s a mini Florence and a mini Simber,” he said with a hint of glee in his voice. “And look! A platyprot wandering the hallway. This is the best toy ever.”

  The Silent girl waved her hand in front of their faces. They looked up. She stared at them as if they were stupid, then pointed to the mini mansion. She tapped the air several times and shrugged.

  “Dots? Oh! Now we can see if there are any dots. I get it.” Alex smiled at Sky. “Good idea.” He said it almost like it was a silly thought. Like the girl had made a big deal out of nothing.