Alex felt his head spinning. Was he hallucinating? Had he landed on the wrong island? He stumbled forward in the moonlight, leaving Meghan lying on the sand. He went past lifeless body after lifeless body, not comprehending anything, until he saw a familiar lump with seven and a half quiet legs, none of them floating about at all. A pair of vanity glasses had fallen from her snout and lay next to her. “Ms. Octavia?” he whispered.
He kneeled at her side, feeling panic bubbling up inside. “Ms. Octavia!” he shouted in her face, but she didn’t blink or move. He touched her. Her face felt like cloth. Like she was some ridiculous patchwork doll.
Alex looked up. “Florence,” he murmured. “Florence!” He got up and started to run toward the gray shack, where Florence stood unmoving, in full stride, as if she were heading for the entrance. Alex went up to her and tugged on her arm. “Florence!” he shouted, but by now he knew.
Everything Mr. Today had created was dead.
But what about the humans?
“Mr. Today! Ms. Morning!” he screamed, his voice failing him. “Mr. Appleblossom! Sean? Eva? Anybody?”
He ran to the gate now, watching the path carefully so as not to step on any platyprots or other creatures. “Tina,” he whispered, not even bothering to yell anymore. The three girrinos were giant heaps in the dark. From somewhere beyond the gate he could hear voices’angry ones’and the sound of weapons clashing. He ran into Quill, encouraged to have heard some hint of life. But then out of the shadows someone strong reached out and grabbed Alex, clamped a hand over his mouth, and pushed him up against the wall.
To the Next Frontier
Aaron couldn’t stop the heart palpitations that apparently came packaged with the honor of killing the great mage of Artimé. When everyone had left the room, he sank weakly to High Priest Haluki’s desk chair and mopped his face with his hands. He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath.
It didn’t matter that it had been pure luck. An accidental ambush. A surprise attack from both perspectives. It didn’t matter that he was young and rash and quick, and that the old man wasn’t willing’or intelligent enough’to kill on first draw. This wasn’t some planned duel where each had the advantage of fairness. This was the enemy, without warning, entering Aaron’s own private quarters. Or, at least this place felt like Aaron’s home now. It was self-defense.
Then why did he feel like he had cheated somehow? He thought briefly of his brother, and how this would hurt him. Aaron was surprised to feel little satisfaction from this. Perhaps because the battle was not nearly over. The mage’s death may well get him the chaos he wanted in Artimé, which would surely bring the Necessaries back home, but Aaron was no closer to the throne. Or perhaps it was because Aaron had felt this same pain that Alex would soon know. He scowled and banished the pity from his mind. His brother deserved so much more pain than this. It was just the beginning.
Aaron turned and looked through the open closet door. It was empty, though Aaron knew there had been a giant glass tube in there a short time ago. Where had it gone? It was too much for Aaron’s mind to grasp. But one thing was clear. The glass tube had been a passageway to Artimé. And since it was here in Haluki’s home, there was no doubt that the new high priest knew exactly how it worked. All Aaron cared about right now was that High Priest Haluki didn’t know it was gone.
When Liam Healy stepped into the office, Aaron looked up. His team needed direction. This was his moment to get it right.
“Is the woman securely imprisoned?” Aaron asked.
“Yes.”
Aaron nodded and looked over at Mr. Today. He still couldn’t believe he’d killed the man. Aaron felt numb, not powerful. “Take the body to the Ancients Sector and bury it yourself.”
“Just me?”
“Yes. I need the others. We have to take over Quill now while we’ve got the chance.”
Liam hesitated. When Aaron gave him a sharp look, he went over to the body and tentatively picked it up, hoisting it over his shoulder.
Aaron couldn’t look at the mage. He chided himself for the weakness, but he told himself that he had other things to do besides wasting time staring at dead people. As Liam walked to the door Aaron stood up. “Wait,” he said.
Liam stopped and looked back at Aaron.
“Give me the old geezer’s robe. It’ll be our . . . reward.” He hesitated. “Perhaps we’ll cut it up and make ridiculous flags from it in memory of this day.” His eyes shifted, anxious to avoid the body.
Liam laughed hollowly and obliged. When Liam finally left the Haluki house in the thick of darkness, Aaron took the colorful robe, folded it into a neat square, and placed it solemnly on the corner of the desk.
» » « «
“We’ve a slight change of plans,” Aaron said, addressing the two allies that remained, Bethesda and Crawledge. “Eva and the others have started their secret mission to Artimé now. They are too far away to fetch. However, the opportunity is ripe to seize the palace. No doubt Haluki was planning on Today’s visit. When he doesn’t arrive, Haluki will come looking for him. And we will be lying in wait.”
» » « «
While Aaron plotted against Haluki, Haluki went in search of Matilda to find out why his friend Marcus had not yet arrived for the peace meeting. When he found her crouching on a windowsill, she was uncharacteristically unresponsive. It was almost as if she’d never been alive at all.
He glanced out the window, down the long driveway. “Guards,” he said quietly, and immediately his four guards appeared. “Take a vehicle to Artimé and see if anything is amiss. Go swiftly, now.”
The Clash
Alex, his mouth covered and his back against the wall, kicked with all his might, but his foot was anticipated and blocked by his captor.
“Alex, stop. It’s me. Stay quiet!”
Alex’s eyes widened but that didn’t help him see. It was black as pitch in the shadow of the wall. He didn’t know who “me” was and he wasn’t going to trust anybody until he found out. He struggled again, and tried biting the hand that covered his mouth and pressed painfully against his cut, swollen lip. When that didn’t work, he stuck his tongue out and licked the hand. It did the trick, and at last Alex’s mouth was free.
“Ew, sick!” the voice said. “What the’?”
Alex could hear the person furiously wiping his hand on his pants. “Who . . . wait. Sean? Is that you?”
“Yes, you dolt. Gak. That was disgusting.”
“Well, you didn’t have the worst end of it.” Alex spat on the ground, trying to get the taste of dirt and sweat out of his mouth. “Blech.” He wiped his tongue with his sleeve and in an instant, everything came flooding back to him. He gripped Sean’s arm and grew solemn. “What happened to Artimé?”
Sean didn’t answer at first, as if he were contemplating what to say. Then he sighed and said, “Come on. Back into Artimé. Don’t close the gate, mind you’it might lock us in, and we’ve no magic at all.”
No magic at all.
Alex remembered how suspicious Sean had seemed over the past weeks, and he almost hesitated, wondering if he was being trapped. But there was something else Alex had to say before Sean could begin talking, no matter where Sean’s loyalties lay. “Sean . . . first we need to save your sister.”
“What?” Sean’s whisper grew loud. “Where is she? Is she okay?”
“She’s on the beach. Come on.” They ran in the moonlight, dodging bodies.
When they reached her, Sean kneeled down and picked her up, wrapped his jacket around her, and cradled her in his arms. “Oh, Meggy . . .” He looked around helplessly. “There’s no hospital wing, no nurses around . . . Everyone who could move took off, and most of them have been fighting since the attack.” He touched the metal thorn necklace, a look of horror on his face. “I can’t even believe this.”
Alex squinched his eyes shut. “The attack?” he said in a hollow voice.
“Yes.”
It was almost as if those words wer
e enough to answer all the questions that were swimming around in Alex’s head, unable to form complete sentences. Everything around him made absolutely no sense’and he didn’t even want to make sense of it. Because that would mean admitting the truth of what Alex was already quite sure.
The two young men stood together on the beach with an unresponsive sister and best friend, the waves crashing on the shore as if the whole sea were at war with itself. And both quite nearly wished to be swallowed up in it rather than face the insurmountable truths before them.
Wearily they sat down and took turns filling each other in.
“Simber and I went after them, and found the boat at the island,” Alex said.
“There’s a group in Quill called the Restorers,” Sean said.
“Samheed and Lani are still . . . out there. Somewhere.”
“Your brother, Aaron, is in charge, and he’s been building his followers.”
“We had to leave them’to try and save Meg, and then’”
“Mr. Today went to his peace meeting, and the next thing we knew, Artimé was gone and the Restorers had managed to open the gate. The girrinos went down when Artimé did. The Restorers stormed us in all the confusion and our spells wouldn’t work. . . .”
“Out of nowhere the boat died, and then Simber . . .” Alex choked and couldn’t go on as he remembered the cheetah’s frozen descent, and the crash into the water. He demonstrated Simber’s ride into the water with his hand. “He’s out there. Somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.” A cough-sob escaped, and he cursed himself. If he lost it now, he’d never get through this.
It was quiet for a moment. Alex looked at Sean, and even in the small light from the sky, he could tell they needed to address one last thing.
Alex bit his lip, accidentally reopening the cut and feeling the sting. He tasted blood, and it made him queasy. “Is Mr. Today . . . gone?” He couldn’t say “dead.”
Sean looked out over the water. His jaw quivered and he broke down, shielding his face with his hand. It took him several minutes to contain himself, and then he choked out, “He has to be. For this to have happened’” Sean waved his hand around. “There’s no other explanation.” Sean couldn’t hold in his sorrow. He looked at Meghan’s pale face. “It’s all such a disaster.”
Alex was numb. “What about Ms. Morning?”
“She went with Mr. Today. And she’s not here. I suspect she’s dead too.”
The blood tasted like metal in his mouth. Alex couldn’t comprehend anything. He felt like he was going to faint. Finally he whispered, “What are we going to do?”
The Throne
High Priest Haluki checked his timepiece and looked out the window again. All was quiet. But where was Marcus? And where were the guards? He called out to his chef, who was cleaning up the kitchen, “I’m going for a walk down to the house.”
“Yes sir,” the chef said.
The high priest slipped outside as he sometimes did after dark to enjoy the coolness of the evening. If it were light out, he’d be able to see the roof of his house from here. It wasn’t far.
He hadn’t been back since his move to the palace; Marcus had always made the trip to see him, as was the mage’s preference. And while there hadn’t been any violence in Quill since he took over, he picked his way carefully down the driveway toward the palace gate, looking left and right. Everything seemed perfectly normal.
He opened the gate, nodded to the guards that stood there.
“Shall we accompany you, sir?” one said.
“No thank you, Frederick.” He didn’t want to be that kind of high priest. “I’m just going down to the house. If Marcus Today comes to call, ask him to wait inside. I won’t be long.”
“We shall do just that, sir.”
“Thank you.” The high priest continued down the slight hill for several minutes, trying not to notice the heavy stench of garbage in the air. He wished for a light breeze, and perhaps there was one, but the walls stopped it from permeating their land. He would have to fix that one of these days. Tear the walls down. Ah, but that was a job for another day, once the Wanteds had quite gotten used to manual labor.
When he reached his home, he went up the steps and pulled a small key from his pocket, unlocked the front door, and then went in.
It was dark and stuffy inside, the house having been shut up for months. It felt smaller than he remembered. He turned down the hallway to his office. All was as it had been when he left it’his desk empty, the chair just so. He reached for the closet doorknob and pulled it open to get to the tube that would take him to Marcus’s office.
Without a sound Aaron Stowe reached out, grabbed Haluki by the neck, and put him in a choke hold. Crawledge Prize captured the surprised high priest’s wrists, wrenching them behind his back and tying a long, thin rope around them, and then he did the same around his ankles. Bethesda Dia Gloria shoved a towel in Haluki’s mouth, but it wasn’t necessary. He had already passed out from Aaron’s grip.
The three hoisted his body into the closet, then nailed the doors shut.
“Well done, everyone,” Aaron said in a low voice, breathing hard. “We are working together quite well now, aren’t we?”
Then, from the back door, a sound. Aaron grabbed a pistol and stealthily slipped down the hallway to the kitchen. When he saw who it was, he put his gun down. Liam and Eva entered together, talking softly. Eva had a stricken look on her face when she turned to Aaron. “You killed Marcus?”
Aaron smiled now. “Indeed,” he said. “Liam’s just been out to bury him.” He watched her face. “Disappointed?”
Eva just stared at him. “Yes,” she said. “I was so looking forward to doing it.” But she didn’t sound very convincing.
Liam interrupted. “What about the high priest? I saw him enter. We heard the pounding and waited before we came in.”
“You were wise to wait. Haluki is in our possession. He’s a bit tied up,” Aaron said. No one laughed.
Just then Dred Crandall burst through the back door, breathing hard. “There’s a major fight going on in the street with the Unwanteds,” he said, gasping. “Down by their gate. All of Artimé has disappeared and there are bodies everywhere! Several of our Restorers are down and so are many of theirs.”
Aaron grew alarmed. “What? What were you doing down there tonight?”
“We attacked at your command, sir!”
Aaron stared at him. And then, slowly, he turned and looked at the frozen Eva Fathom. She shook her head as if she didn’t understand a word Dred was saying.
In the pantry, Claire Morning’s eyes opened wider at every revelation. Artimé gone? Bodies everywhere? Gunnar captured, her father buried . . . She stared at the dark shelf above her, not seeing it, and worked at the ropes around her wrists until her arms burned and her fingers bled.
The Weight of the World
Sean picked up the sleeve of his jacket, which was still wrapped around Meghan, and wiped his eyes with it. He looked at Alex. “It’s up to you, man. You’ve got to fix this.”
Alex’s throat ached. He couldn’t fathom it. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I don’t know how. He never taught me all of that.”
Sean turned and faced Alex. “He’s told you a lot more than anyone else here,” he said. “You’re the only one who can do it.”
Alex shook his head. “No. You don’t get it. It was just supposed to be for a few days. I can’t even wrap my mind around this.” He looked at Meghan. “We need to worry about her. And Sam and Lani . . . Simber . . .” Mr. Today is dead. Mr. Today is dead. Dead. “And find . . . everybody else.”
“Oh! Blast it.” Sean’s face turned to panic. “Speaking of everybody else, I have to go. They’re still out there fighting. I have to get back and help.” It was as though he’d just realized the entire world hadn’t stopped when he found Alex and saw his sister. He struggled to his feet, still carrying her. “Get up,” he said to Alex, an anxious tone in his voice. “This isn’t over. But you’y
ou need to stay here. And stay hidden. If you die, we have no chance at all. Here, take Meghan.”
Alex scrambled up on weak legs and Sean placed his sister into Alex’s arms.
“Go hide in the shack. Bolt the door. Try to find something to eat and get some rest’you look . . . wow. You look terrible.”
Alex watched, slack-jawed and completely overwhelmed, as Sean turned and ran, jumping over the creatures that littered the lawn. Carrying Meghan, he picked his way carefully to the gray shack, struggling in the dark and unsure of his footing, exhausted from his ordeal.
When he reached the shack, his arms were trembling. He pushed the door open and stumbled in, straining to see in the shadows. He’d never been in here before. Not as a shack’only in its mansion form. He peered around the darkness and saw some furniture-like blobs. He staggered over and laid Meghan on a couch, then caught the back of it with his hand to steady himself and stop the black spots that swam before his eyes, like one of the paintings in Mr. Today’s office. Mr. Today is dead, he thought once again. He’s dead. The man who saved us all . . . is dead. But it just wasn’t registering. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out. Then another, slower, until the spots went away. He thought about what Sean said, about eating something, and realized that might really be part of his problem. He hadn’t eaten a thing since lunch.
And then he heard the creak of a door opening.
He whirled around and searched the dark room without success. “Who’s there!” he said. “I have a weapon and I will kill you.”
He sidestepped into the familiarly shaped kitchen’familiar to Quill homes, not to the mansion’wondering how on earth there were no lights here, and then he remembered how things used to be. He reached into the kitchen drawer and pulled out the required candles and flint. He lit one, only a little bit rusty at using the flint after not having had to light a candle in well over a year. It flared up, and the chicken-grease-soaked string stayed lit. Alex held it in front of him. “Who’s there?” he said again. He walked toward the bedroom and pushed the door open.