Island of Fire (The Unwanteds) (17 page)

Alex blinked. “She—what?”

Haluki opened his eyes. “Ahh, I’m sorry. You haven’t reconnected,” he mused. “According to Matilda, your mother is about to have twins.”

A
fter sending out a greeting to all of Artimé by way of a very cranky blackboard, Alex retreated to the Museum of Large to search for a book that might tell him more about Warbler Island. But once he got there, he was quickly reminded of the mess that Ol’ Tater had made. He picked up a few things, and then made his way to the gray shack. It was almost exactly as it had been when it stood alone on that dry plot, except for a few pieces of toppled furniture, most likely due to the Unwanteds trying to get out when they realized something was happening. He straightened it up.

Alex made a mental note to restore water to the water cabinet in case the world ended again. That had saved them. And then he bent down and looked into the cupboard where the model of the mansion was kept. He spied it and pulled it out, looking it over. “Brilliant clue, really,” Alex said aloud. He smiled and pushed the miniature mansion back in its place.

“I’ll fix you later, as soon as I have time,” he said to the whale bones, which were scattered near and far. “Promise.” And then he laughed at himself. He sounded like Mr. Today, talking to the whale as if it could hear him. “And I’ll explore the rest of this room one day too,” he promised himself. There were hulking things in all directions, some of them curiously covered with tarps.

On the way back to the wall of books, he patted the side of the pirate ship. It whispered unintelligibly in return.

And then he dove into the library, trying to find the
W
section.

There wasn’t one. As he searched through piles and shelves overflowing with books, his mind turned to Sky. And to Lani. And to how awfully confused he felt. How could he even be thinking about girls when he had so much to do?

Then he thought about his parents. And Aaron. And how awful Aaron was. And about his mother having twins. Alex would be an older brother, and he’d probably never meet the children.
How coincidental,
he thought.
Twins again.

On second thought, maybe he
would
meet one of them eventually. He gave a rueful chuckle and picked up another book,
Everything There Is to Know About Shells
. Alex opened it and just laughed. He was sure it was a great book and very useful—though not quite as useful as the vomit book, which had already provided entertainment for Alex and several of his friends—but . . .

He set it aside and dug deeper, trying to organize titles as he went through them, but ultimately giving up because the job was endless and took too much time. He searched into the night.

Finally he happened on a small book written in Mr. Today’s own hand. It was a biography or a journal of sorts. Alex paged through it and then put it in his pocket to take back to his room.

When he left the Museum of Large, his mind was swimming with book titles about everything one could possibly
imagine. Books on flags, books on famous people, books on geography and cooking and war and craft making. Books on art, sculpting, music, and magic. Books of fiction, scripts, plays, and poetry. And one of the most interesting things of all was that most of the books in the library, except for the ones written by Artiméans and two piles of random titles that Alex found in pristine condition, were very old.

It was puzzling, but there was no time to wonder about it.

“Come on,” Alex muttered. He was tired. He just wanted to find something that would help him. “We need to come up with a find spell,” he said.

And then he spied it—a book called simply
The Islands
. It was old and tattered—well loved, Mr. Today would have said. That had to have some information about Warbler.

Alex stifled a yawn that threatened to crack his jaw, and realized he was useless without sleep. He took the two books, closed up the Museum of Large, and headed back up the not-really-secret hallway. It was late.
Late enough to be stumbling across Samheed right about now,
Alex thought. A pang ripped through him. Things weren’t happening fast enough, and he couldn’t seem to make anything go faster.

He squeezed his eyes shut as he emerged from the hallway, and nearly tripped over someone.

“Oh,” he said, catching his balance. And then he smiled when he realized who it was. “It’s you two. Sorry about that.” Crow hopped to his feet. Alex blushed and held his hand out to Sky. She took it and pulled herself up, then hastily let go.

Alex looked from one to the other. And then he frowned. “You guys have rooms, don’t you?”

They both nodded.

“Oh, good. I thought we forgot. I’m glad somebody took care of you,” he said. “Did Meghan find you?” He tried to sound nonchalant, but it wasn’t working.

The Silent girl nodded again, and then she pointed to the thorns around her neck and looked up at Alex with a solemn face.

Alex looked back at her. Just looking at her made his knees weak. “So . . . ?” He flashed a lopsided grin. “You want me to take that nasty collar off you now?”

Sky didn’t smile. She just swallowed hard and nodded.

Alex took a deep breath. It was crazy how excited he was. He wondered what her voice would sound like. What if it was
nothing like he expected? What if she’d had the necklace on too long and her voice didn’t come back?

He’d thought about it and realized there was no need for Florence and her tools. It would be even easier removing one solid piece rather than half a dozen broken pieces. “Let’s do it, then,” he said gently. “All you have to do is stand there and don’t move.” He turned to Crow. “This would be a very, very bad time to bump me, okay? You got that?”

Crow nodded and stepped back, his eyes wide and solemn.

Alex turned back to the girl and moved her hair out of the way. “Cover your ears, Crow,” he said, his eyes not leaving the girl’s beautiful orange irises.

Obediently, Crow put his fingers in his ears.

Alex touched the metal thorns, careful to stay far away from her skin. “Ready?” he whispered.

Sky blinked once, not daring to nod her head. She squeezed her hands into fists so tight that her knuckles looked like they might split.

Alex closed his eyes and pictured the thorns disappearing, and then he whispered, “Dissipate.”

When he opened his eyes, his fingertips were empty. In
the space in front of him, Sky stood, still as a mouse.

“It’s done.” A grin spread across Alex’s face. “Check the mirror,” he said, remembering that’s what covered the wall where the secret hallway stood.

The girl put her fingers to her neck, and then ran to the mirror and stared. She traced the scars. A tear fell from the corner of her eye, and then she turned to Alex. “Alex,” she half mouthed, half whispered, nearly choking as her voice struggled to make sound once again. “Thank you.”

It was the most beautiful sound Alex had ever heard.

E
very day, whenever Lani could find a moment when no one was watching, she sent out the seek spell. And every day, when no one came to rescue them, she lost a little more hope.

She was assigned to work in a fire cave, melting gold coins and making thorn necklaces. There were five or six other workers there around Lani’s age, and they showed her how to use a mold to form the long, thin, sharply pointed strings of gold. While the strings were still hot, the workers loosely weaved several of them together in a curved shape, making sure the pointed ends were at the proper angles to easily be
inserted into someone’s neck. It was the most horrible job Lani could think of.

The cave had a hole in the high ceiling, which let in some natural light. It also let out the smoke from the fire. It was beastly hot in there, and terribly sooty. The others talked now and then with gestures that Lani didn’t understand, but most of the time everyone plodded along, making gleaming golden thorns, lost in their own thoughts. It was beyond frustrating. Lani wanted to scream, to tear the thorns from her neck and yell and stomp her feet and just
hear
something again besides the rare voice of an unthorned supervisor. She wanted the young women she worked with to be as angry as she was. But they weren’t. They were complacent.

Days passed. Lani went from the women’s bunkhouse to her job in the fire cave, and back to the bunkhouse. Her “leash” kept her tied to the complicated wire system above her head as she slept, bathed, and worked. Whenever she walked from one place to another, she strained her eyes, looking for any sign of Samheed, worried that he was still locked in the dark cave all alone. As much as she wanted to try to rip the wire off of her with her bare hands, she knew there was nowhere to escape to.
And she wasn’t doing anything without Samheed. They were in this together, to the end.

As she worked, an empty feeling made her chest ache, and tears burned her eyes. She couldn’t get the image out of her head—the man shoving Samheed to the ground, and Sam lying there, not moving, as the hulking beast dragged her away from him. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. What if, after all this, she’d never see him again? What if . . . what if he was dead? She couldn’t bear to think about it.

At night, his name was on her lips as she tossed and turned on her cot. She clasped her hands together and held them to her cheek, eyes closed, pretending she was holding Samheed’s hand. Wishing with all her might that when she opened her eyes again, he would be there.

But of course he never was.

It was on her second week outside the dark cave, after a long day of hard work, that a woman summoned Lani and a blond-haired girl who was also tethered to the wire. Lani didn’t know the girl’s name, and no one knew Lani’s, either—there was really no reason to learn anyone’s name when you couldn’t
speak. The woman led them out to the main hallway and to a small room with boulders for chairs. A few people sat there. As the girls entered, they were ushered to one side of the room. Lani looked around at the others and her heart jumped to her throat. There sat Samheed, also tethered to the ceiling wire on the purple line.

His head was bowed. He hadn’t seen her.

Lani stared at him, willing him to look up. After a moment, he did.

His eyes were vacant at first, but when he saw Lani, they filled with recognition and longing. Lani swallowed hard and tried to smile, but only the corner of her mouth quivered. Her heart fluttered. She hadn’t really seen him since the day they’d been captured. They held one another’s gaze, telling stories with their eyes, until a voice startled them from their private, silent conversation.

“I am Whimbrel,” a woman said. “Your behavior has earned you all the right to learn how to speak in our island’s sign language.” She wore no thorn necklace, but scars marked her neck where one most certainly once had been. “The language is for communication only when necessary, not for idle
chatter. Anyone caught using the language excessively will be sent to the dark cave.”

The handful of tethered people in the room didn’t react. The threat of the dark cave seemed to be the punishment for everything. In their handbooks, in their instructions for their new jobs, in the dining hall. There was nothing much worse than the dark cave, it was true. But they’d all survived it, apparently.

“In a few years, if you have proved yourself loyal and worthy, Queen Eagala will consider removing your neck device, as she has obviously done for me,” Whimbrel said, her voice brimming with pride. But then her face grew dark. “However, if you try to remove it yourself, you will suffer a terrible fate.”

All pairs of eyes in the room opened wider. This was news.

The woman hunched over and said in a low, sinister voice, “The birds of Warbler are spies for the queen. They can track you by your thorns. If anyone but the queen removes your necklace, swarms of Warbler birds will come after you, no matter where you are.” She bent farther toward the group and whispered, “And they will peck your eyes out.”

Lani glanced at Samheed just as he glanced at her, and they
both had to look away quickly to keep a straight face. It was the most ridiculous thing they’d ever heard in their lives—more ridiculous than anything the High Priest Justine had told them in Quill. Besides, it was obvious the queen gave them orange eyes so they could be identified and killed if they ever escaped. It seemed pretty silly that she’d send birds to peck them out after all that effort. What good would that do? But the sad part was, everyone else in the room seemed to believe it with all their heart—even the woman speaking.