by Lisa McMann
“Quickly,” she said. She glanced back toward the castle and gave Dev a hard look.
Dev bowed his head. “Coming.” After a second he looked at Thatcher. “Take her home,” he warned, “or you might end up losing them both.”
Thatcher nodded. “Thank you for your help.”
Dev let his eyes rest on Fifer’s ashen face and handed the remaining plants to Thatcher. Then he quickly ran to his horse, pulled a sack of food and a canteen from his pack, and ran back to Thatcher. He shoved it at him. “Here,” he said. “I . . . I owe it to them.”
“Dev!” said the princess, making the boy cringe.
Thatcher raised his eyebrow at Shanti and took the sack. “Thank you, Dev.”
Dev nodded and ran back to his horse. He mounted it, dug his heels into its flank, and clicked his tongue. Soon he and the princess were off, heading down the road toward Dragonsmarche. He forced himself not to look back.
Thatcher worked quickly to clean Fifer’s wounds, then went to fill the canteen with water from the river. He held Fifer’s head up and tried to get her to drink a little, but she was still out cold.
“Do you agree with Dev?” Thatcher asked Simber.
“It’s prrrobably forrr the betterrr,” said Simber. “And we should go now.” His ears twitched and turned. “Soldierrrs arrre alrrready coming this way.”
“So we’re really going back to Artimé? Without Thisbe?”
Simber was quiet for a long moment. He stared at Fifer. “Unforrrtunately, I don’t think we have a choice if we want to save herrr.”
Thatcher sighed deeply but climbed on Simber’s back and tried to make Fifer as comfortable as possible. “I can hardly stand the thought of this,” he said under his breath. Leaving Thisbe a world away? But he could come up with no alternative. They had to save the one they could save.
Soon they were soaring over the forest, then the hills, then the castle of Grimere, out of range of the soldiers’ spears and arrows. As they crossed the divide between the worlds on their way back to the seven islands, Thatcher barely looked at the stunning landscape. He could only think of their failures. And of how Thisbe must be feeling right now—totally and completely abandoned.
“We’ll be back for you,” Thatcher whispered.
Simber, who heard and saw nearly everything, didn’t acknowledge the young man’s words out loud. But inside, his stone heart was breaking in two.
The Catacombs
Too shocked to struggle, Thisbe hung numbly in the Revinir’s arms as they plunged into darkness inside the tube. She wanted to scream but couldn’t find her voice. She wanted to demand answers but couldn’t form the questions. She could only stare in front of her, trying to make sense of what was happening.
The tube looked very much like the ones in Artimé except for the fact that it was moving—they weren’t traveling anywhere magically. And the control panel was completely different. None of the buttons looked familiar. After several seconds the tube came to a stop. Through the dusty glass, Thisbe could see small wall torches providing a dim view down a long hallway. Every few feet there were ancient stone-and-iron doors set into the walls.
The Revinir forced Thisbe out of the tube and started down the hallway.
Stumbling along, Thisbe found her voice. “Where are you taking me?” She tried to yank her arms away, but the old woman’s long fingernails entwined around Thisbe’s arm. Thisbe recoiled at the sight of them. She’d never seen anything like it. She remembered stories about someone with fingernails like that before—someone who had permanently maimed her dear brother—but that person was dead . . . wasn’t she?
The Revinir didn’t answer her. Surprisingly strong for such an old woman, she dragged Thisbe down another hallway that also had crypts along both sides. Eventually she stopped at one doorway that had cobwebs hanging from both upper corners.
Thisbe shuddered. “What are you doing to me?”
Using one of her fingernails, which had been sharpened and shaped like a key, the Revinir unlocked the door. It creaked open, revealing its contents.
The room was full of bones.
Thisbe gasped. The Revinir shoved the girl into the crypt and slammed the door shut. Then she locked it again and smiled to herself as she walked away.
By the time Thisbe finally stopped screaming for help, many hours had passed. She kicked all the bones into one corner and collapsed to the floor as far away from them as she could, and stared up at the ceiling. A single torch made shadows on it. Thisbe knew she was stuck here. Nobody was coming to rescue her—they’d have been here by now. Fifer was badly hurt. Maybe even dead. And Thisbe was all alone with hundreds of gross bones and all of her fears and regrets. Her skin pricked, feeling her identical twin’s pain in all the same places.
How she wished she’d been allowed to learn more magic, for what she knew was woefully inadequate to have done anything against such powerful people. How she wished she wasn’t filled with such destructive natural power—her attempts at controlling it, at doing good with it, had failed miserably, over and over again. She was stuck with the few spells she’d learned and whatever else happened naturally, and none of those could be changed.
There was only one thing Thisbe could focus on now. And that was figuring out—all on her own—how to get out of here, and get back to Artimé, and find out if her sister was still alive. To do it, she would have to fight against the most powerful person in this world. Perhaps it was time to embrace the destructive magic that brewed inside her.
Thisbe curled up and faced the wall, feeling terribly alone. Escaping the Revinir seemed more overwhelming than anything she had ever faced. And she had no idea if she’d be able to do it.
As it turned out, she would have many days to think about it.
A Final Blow
Far away, Simber, Thatcher, and unconscious Fifer flew through the day and night and day again, until Warbler was in sight. Simber pushed for the island as fast as his wings would take him. They could make an emergency stop there to stock up on food, water, and medicine on their way back home.
When they approached the sandy beach, they were greeted by the frantic waves and shouts of Copper and Scarlet. Sky was nowhere in sight. Simber landed nearby.
“What’s happened?” asked Thatcher, alarmed. He couldn’t imagine something else could have possibly gone wrong. Yet a wisp of fear grew inside him—he knew well enough by now that there was no end to the bad luck that had befallen them on this mission.
“It’s Sky,” cried Scarlet. Copper could only stare numbly as tears flowed down her face.
“What happened?” demanded Simber.
“Where is she?” asked Thatcher, looking all around. The wisp became a knot and rose to his throat. Surely she was fine. She had to be. But a cold, horrible feeling came over him. Something must’ve gone terribly wrong for Sky’s mother to have that look on her face. “Scarlet, please—tell us what happened.”
Scarlet’s face was anguished. “She was working on stabilizing the volcano’s core temperature, trying to stop it from sinking so often.”
Thatcher nodded. “Yes, she told us. Is she all right?”
Scarlet forged onward. “Her work caused the warning tremors to slowly dissipate. Eventually she had to guess when the volcano would plunge underwater, but she thought she had the timing figured out. Even so, she made me stay a safe distance away in my skiff.” Scarlet swallowed hard, and fresh tears flowed. “She was being very cautious, but then today, without any warning at all . . . the volcano went down.”
Thatcher and Simber stared. “IS SHE OKAY?” shouted Thatcher, growing desperate to hear the answer. But he knew she couldn’t be.
Scarlet shook her head. “She made it to the white boat, but couldn’t get it going in time. She went down with it.”
Copper let a heartbreaking sob escape. Scarlet reached around the woman’s trembling shoulders, trying to support her in her grief.
Simber and Thatcher stared in stunned silence, trie
d to comprehend it. Their beloved friend Sky, Alex’s strength, his light, the love of his life, had been caught in the suction of the plunging volcano. She was gone.
Fifer lay motionless. Thisbe, held captive by the Revinir in a foreign world. Sky had been sucked down the enormous maw of the watery volcano. And Simber and Thatcher had to deliver all of this wrenching news to Alex.
The time of peacefulness was over. Chaos, fear, and grief had returned to the land of Artimé and its people. The disastrous repercussions of all that had gone wrong would no doubt spread far and wide across the world of the seven islands, and beyond.
There was no way to tell what threats, trials, and quests lay ahead. But they were sure to be more dangerous than the people of Artimé had ever known.
Author photograph © 2015 by Ryan Nicholson Photography
Lisa McMann is the New York Times bestselling author of the middle-grade dystopian fantasy series The Unwanteds, the YA paranormal Wake trilogy, and several other books for kids and teens. She lives with her family in the Phoenix area. Check out Lisa’s website at LisaMcMann.com, learn more about the Unwanteds series at UnwantedsSeries.com, and be sure to say hi on Instagram or Twitter (@Lisa_McMann), or on Facebook (facebook.com/mcmannfan).
Aladdin
SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids
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Also by Lisa McMann
» » « «
THE UNWANTEDS SERIES
The Unwanteds
Island of Silence
Island of Fire
Island of Legends
Island of Shipwrecks
Island of Graves
Island of Dragons
» » « «
THE UNWANTEDS QUESTS SERIES
Dragon Captives
» » « «
FOR OLDER READERS:
Don’t Close Your Eyes
Visions
Cryer’s Cross
Dead to You
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Aladdin hardcover edition February 2017
Text copyright © 2017 by Lisa McMann
Jacket illustration copyright © 2017 by Owen Richardson
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Book designed by Karin Paprocki
The text of this book was set in Truesdell.
This book has been cataloged with the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4814-5681-4 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4814-5683-8 (eBook)
