The Unwanteds (17 page)

“For the next four days we will be working on defensive skills,” she said. “Defensive skills are crucial to Artiméans, for if we are ever at war, we will be fighting against people with weapons very different from ours.”

Samheed grew somber as he remembered how he could have been an expert with the weapons of Quill by now. He jabbed Alex with his elbow and whispered, “Defense? We need to learn how to fight to kill. It’s the only way we’ll win against the Quillitary.”

Alex furrowed his brows. “I … I don’t know about that.…”

Ms. Morning continued. “Who can give me an example of a defensive skill?” She looked around at the group of students.
“Gentlemen?” she said pointedly to Alex and Samheed, who were still whispering.

“You guys got caught,” Lani whispered merrily.

“And Lani,” Ms. Morning added. “The three of you come up to the front, please.”

Alex and Samheed snickered at Lani’s look of surprise as they went up front to join the instructor.

“Lani, you’ll be the enemy, standing back here with your weapons. No magic now from you, all right?”

Lani nodded and pretended to hold a weapon.

Ms. Morning turned to the boys, who were both a bit red-faced at being the center of attention. “At my command Lani will charge at you. You should have a variety of options in mind already about what to do. But remember right now we are simply doing defensive skills, so please don’t attack her with a magical item. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “What sorts of weapons does the Quillitary have, actually?”

“Excellent question. Who has the answer?”

“Knives,” Samheed said. “Shields, too.”

“Pieces of horrid, rusty metal,” laughed someone.

“Oooh, and slingshots,” someone else hooted.

“Sticks and stones … and insults,” said another.

Some of the Artiméans didn’t laugh at that last one.

“Guns,” Lani said. The word rang out.

The crowd was still.

“Yes, some guns,” Ms. Morning said seriously. “Though they are not terribly powerful, they can pack a punch.”

“Most of them are BB or pellet guns,” Lani said with an air of authority that some might have questioned, “that could possibly kill birds, rabbitkeys, even small beavopps. But the governors all have handguns. Those are deadly to humans and large creatures.”

After a long, silent pause while the crowd looked at one another, Ms. Morning nodded. “Thank you, Ms. Haluki.” She turned back to face the three. “Ready?”

Alex and Samheed had been staring at Lani, not having known about the governors’ weapons, but now they both snapped their attention back to Ms. Morning. Lani faced her opponents, and the three of them nodded together. “Ready.”

“Go!”

Lani charged toward the boys as Alex immediately whipped
a paintbrush from his pocket and waved it in front of himself, while Samheed whispered a chant.

In a matter of seconds Alex painted himself invisible, and Samheed jumped in the air and appeared to hang suspended, then shot off like lightning toward the jungle. Lani stopped short, aimed an imaginary pistol at Samheed, and whispered, “Bam.” She turned, wondering if she still had a chance to find Alex. The audience murmured while Lani studied the lush grass in front of her.

She stalked five paces, feeling a bit silly now, having no idea which direction might be correct, when she saw two dents in the grass. She charged forward as the dents moved, and then she reached out and grabbed an invisible something. But it got loose and Lani could hear Alex cackling as he reached the hard footpath, leaving her no more clues as to his whereabouts. She shrugged at Ms. Morning. “I guess I give up,” she said with a half grin.

The audience roared its applause for the demonstrators as Samheed returned at a gallop, Lani clapping too, until she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. She turned and didn’t see anyone.

“You were great,” Alex whispered in her ear. Her hair
smelled like mangos. He squeezed her shoulder, and not really knowing why, other than the adrenaline of the chase, or the fear of the guns, or the amazing feeling of being invisible in front of all these people, or perhaps it was the contrast of her bright blue eyes and her shiny black hair, but Alex, feeling suddenly quite daring, pulled Lani a little closer and pressed his lips against her smooth cheek.

Lani froze. “What. Are you doing.”

Alex chuckled softly as the audience began looking for him. “Gotta go,” he said.

Lani blushed furiously as she felt Alex’s hand leave her shoulder. She turned around so her back was to the crowd and pretended to look for him. But all she could think about was that the boy with the kind brown eyes that she’d met on the Quill bus, the boy that she’d pelted with spells trying to get his attention, the boy who rarely noticed her whenever Meghan was around—that boy had just kissed her, right on the cheek.

A moment later, as the crowd’s applause died down and Samheed had gone back to his seat, the sound of an aerosol spray could be heard. Soon Alex, who had now sprayed himself with visible spray, was in full view again. He sauntered back
to his place next to Samheed, a goofy little grin on his lips as the audience clapped once again. He glanced sidelong at Lani, giving her a sly wink as he sat back down.

Lani’s face grew hot again. She turned her attention to Ms. Morning and, trying very hard to resist touching the warm spot on her cheek, pretended quite convincingly to be enraptured by the rest of the demonstrations and lessons.

A
t the end of class Alex, whose mind was now occupied with things other than Lani, slipped away from the others as they headed to lunch. He bounded up the marble staircase and stepped cautiously into the secret hallway, making sure no one was around. And then he crept down the hall toward Mr. Today’s office, knowing that the mage always had lunch with the students on Tuesdays.

When he got to the place where the glass wall had been, he put his hands out, determined not to run into it again, but as he inched forward, it became apparent that the wall was not in place. “There’s a bonus,” Alex whispered under his breath.

He slipped into the office, his ears tuned for any noise, and stared at the row of blackboards on the wall.

The three on the left showed various parts of Artimé, flashing from one scene to another every ten seconds or so. Alex waited until he saw the dining room, and noted that Mr. Today was walking about cheerfully, stopping and chatting at each table.

The remaining six blackboards showed moving views of Quill. Alex was horrified by how gray and desolate it looked—it was so much worse than he remembered. He watched each blackboard, intrigued. One blackboard showed repeating views of the four quadrants, where all the houses and farms stood. He strained to pick out his parents’ house from the vast expanse of rows and columns, but the picture changed too quickly for him to even come close to finding it.

He moved on and watched the Quillitary grounds for a moment. Soldiers and officers walked about mechanically, their faces expressionless. Some of them worked on tanks and other vehicles, and others toiled in a windowless room filled with sheets of rusty metal and a few cutting tools. Still others painstakingly poured liquid from a dented tin pail into a vehicle’s engine, careful not to spill a precious drop.

On the last two blackboards were flashing shots of government buildings and the palace of the High Priest Justine. Alex’s heart fluttered as he recognized the university grounds on one blackboard, and he waited anxiously for the scene to change, hoping against hope that he’d catch a glimpse of Aaron.
Just to see him once
, he thought.
Just to know he’s okay
.

While he saw many university students sitting rigidly at lunch, he didn’t see his brother. Disappointed, he turned to the palace and watched with slitted eyes as the scene showed the governors in a small meeting room, and then it flashed to the high priest herself, alone in her office. Alex scowled and turned back to the university blackboard, which now flashed from the cafeteria to an empty dormitory room to a classroom.

Alex shook his head sadly. Not only did the scenes of Quill depress him, but they also made him feel like he was so close to actually seeing Aaron, which made the results more disappointing.

Just as he was about to turn away and go down to lunch, he took one last look at the university blackboard. And there, in the once-empty dormitory room, was a dark-haired boy just entering. Alex’s heart leaped—was it him?
Turn and look this
way
, he pleaded silently, but he knew instinctively, whether it was the way the boy slipped his jacket off, or the way he smoothed his Quillitary haircut just so, that it was Aaron.

Alex tugged nervously at his shirt collar as he watched his brother turn and hang up his jacket, almost as if he were reaching right through the wall to Alex. He touched his shaking fingers to the blackboard and gazed at Aaron. “So serious,” Alex whispered.

And then the scene flipped to the cafeteria again. Alex snapped his head up and glanced nervously at the clock, knowing he needed to get out of there before Mr. Today showed up. But he couldn’t go. Twenty seconds later the dormitory room scene returned, and now Aaron lay stretched out on his cot, staring at the ceiling, hands folded behind his head. To anyone else Aaron’s face might appear expressionless. But to Alex, Aaron’s face looked like a troubled sea.

When the scene changed, Alex forced himself to go, leaving a little piece of himself there with his brother. He wandered down to the dining room completely preoccupied with thoughts of Aaron. Why him? Why was Mr. Today watching Aaron’s room, of all places? Could it possibly be a coincidence?

Alex didn’t realize that he walked right past Ms. Octavia, who called out a greeting. And he didn’t notice Lani stealing glances his way, her eyes growing more hurt each moment that he didn’t acknowledge her. He also didn’t see Mr. Today watching him closely, a look of grave concern on the man’s face.

Alex moved about quite unaware of anyone for the rest of that day. The only thing he was painfully aware of was the single question that pounded rhythmically in his head.

How?

M
eghan and Lani were already in the lounge, slouching on a long couch, their feet propped up on the coffee table, when Alex arrived. He had spent the past two days lost in thought, dying to know more about Aaron. He was having trouble sleeping, but when he did sleep, his dream was different. After being reminded of the stark hopelessness of Quill, he no longer wanted to go back at all. It would be safer, he thought, and wiser, to rescue Aaron and take him back to Artimé. And after a while Alex began to think that Mr. Today, who seemed to know a lot about everyone in Artimé, was
probably watching Aaron because Aaron should have been an Unwanted too.

Alex grunted a greeting to the girls and yawned, wildly tired. He plopped down on the couch across from them and closed his eyes, wondering if Mr. Today knew that Aaron had drawn pictures in the dirt too.

It was another hot, dry summer in the quadrant when Alex and Aaron were ten. And that day was the kind where the dust clouded up at every step, hovered around your feet and covered your shoes and legs with a thin layer of grime no matter where you walked. But late that afternoon, as Alex and Aaron dug a hole in the tiny backyard in which to bury the week’s worth of unusable scraps, it began to rain. The cracked earth swallowed up the water, and both Alex and Aaron were secretly glad for it, because it not only gave their household extra water for the week, but it also made the digging easier
.

Alex had the shovel—he always did the hard part now, since he knew that he would be declared Unwanted. Aaron stood next to him, holding the bucket of scraps
and pointing out the discrepancies in the way Alex was digging
.

“That’s not uniform size,” Aaron said
.

“It doesn’t matter,” grumbled Alex, and he lifted the heavy shovel out of the hole and set the blade in the mud. He leaned on the handle, taking a rest and letting the rain soften the hard ground
.