Island of Graves (24 page)

B
ack in Artimé, Crow sat on the beach next to Carina, who had recovered nicely from her ice-spear wound by now. Sean sat on the other side of her. The three turned their backs on the dust squalls in Quill and tried to enjoy the weather as Thisbe, Fifer, and Carina's son, Seth, methodically scooped sand into tiny buckets and poured it over their legs.

On the lawn behind them, Florence and Claire were working with the newest batch of spell casters, teaching them to master the basics—scatterclips, invisibility paintbrushes, fire steps, stinging soliloquies, clay shackles, and the like. As
usual, there were some older Artiméans who joined the training sessions to improve their defense and attack skills. But this time the vast majority of the students were young immigrants with orange eyes and neck scars, who had been catapulted onto Artimé's shore as human weapons from Warbler, one island to the west. The Artiméans had later learned that the parents of these children had deceived Queen Eagala by offering up their children as part of a secret plan to save them from the queen's oppression and give them a better life.

By now the Warbler children had settled in. Though they missed their parents terribly, compassionate Unwanteds had stepped up as they always did to offer comfort. The students had been taking classes for months with Ms. Octavia, Mr. Appleblossom, Claire Morning, and the other instructors, and some had already discovered what they were especially interested in—art, music, design, construction, theater, storytelling, inventions, and many other things. Now, in Magical Warrior Training, some of them found that they were decent spell casters, too.

Crow, who didn't care to do magic and didn't like fighting at all, watched over his shoulder, trying to identify the best
future mages of the bunch. He'd known some of the children before, from when he and Sky lived on Warbler. One of them, the pale, blond girl he'd translated for on the day of the attack, seemed to be quite a serious force. Her name was Scarlet. A boy a year or two older than Crow was also learning magic quite easily.

Carina turned to see what Crow was looking at. “Who's that?” she asked him, watching too. “The boy next to Scarlet.”

“That's Thatcher,” Crow said. “He's almost as good as Scarlet. Not quite.”

Sean turned to look. “Ah yes, those two. I've been watching both of them lately. They're good.” He turned back to check on the toddlers and make sure they weren't straying too close to the water. “Claire said she's got a good-size group of Warbler kids who are really starting to do well with their magic.”

Thisbe came up to Crow and patted his cheek with a sandy hand. Crow smiled at the girl, and she dumped her sand on his stomach. “Oh, thank you!” he said, as if he sincerely meant it.

“Ax?” said Thisbe, looking around.

Fifer paused what she was doing and looked up. “Ax?” she echoed.

“Alex went away in the boat,” Crow said. “Bye-bye. He'll be back in a few days.”

Thisbe frowned. “Boat.”

“Uh-oh—I need more sand on my belly,” Crow said, patting it. Seth ran over and provided it, and then the girls did too.

Carina looked on. Crow was so tolerant and good with the little ones. It warmed her heart to watch him. She glanced at Sean and gave him a sparkling smile. He leaned over and kissed her.

Crow peeked at them, only a little embarrassed. When the kiss went on a bit too long for his liking, he turned to watch Magical Warrior Training once more. His friend Scarlet was stealthily aiming a component at Thatcher while the boy joked around with Claire and Florence. The boy's dark brown skin was a few shades lighter than Florence's ebony hue, and his hair was black and curly. A moment later his hair exploded, turning bright pink.

“Flaming color spell,” Crow remarked with a grin. Florence's rumbling laughter could be heard across the lawn as Thatcher tried to figure out what had just happened to him and who was responsible. Scarlet pretended to be very focused on her components and never cracked a smile to give herself away. Crow
admired her for a moment before turning his attention back to the children. He glanced sidelong at Carina and was relieved to see that she and Sean had stopped kissing.

“Do you think their parents will ever escape from Warbler?” Sean said. “It would be awful if they never got reunited.”

“If they don't escape,” Carina said, “I suppose we'll have to rescue them.”

“Add them to the list,” said Crow.

Sean laughed softly. “The never-ending rescue list.”

“If the kids keep working hard on their spells,” Crow said, “maybe they'll be able to help.” He pressed his lips together. Maybe he ought to be over there too, learning magic so he could help rescue the Warbler parents. The thought made his stomach cramp.

“I hope so,” said Carina. She stretched out her shoulder gingerly. “Because I'm about ready to retire.”

Crow flashed her a worried look. “If I didn't have the twins to look after, I would probably be better at magic,” Crow said, feeling guilty.

Carina looked sharply at him. “Crow, do you
want
to learn magic and fight?”

Crow looked down. “I mean, I feel like I should. . . .”

“Stop,” Carina said, holding up her hand. “No. There's no guilt here. There are plenty of people in Artimé who choose not to fight. Every person decides for himself—that's the way it has always been. But you have a much more important job. Do you realize that? The head mage of Artimé has entrusted you with the care of his sisters. That's a pretty big responsibility. Do you enjoy your job?”

Crow nodded at the sand as Fifer clocked him in the head with her empty bucket. “I love it,” he said. “It's the best job in the world.”

Carina put her hand on Crow's knee. “And I love to fight. I was only making a joke before. Magic and fighting for Artimé make me feel alive inside. And working with children makes you feel alive, right?”

Crow nodded again. He lifted his head to look at her.

“We do what we love here,” Carina said. “Right? Okay?”

“Okay,” Crow said, relieved. With a big sigh, he flopped back in the sand, a tremendous weight lifted from him. And then Thisbe plopped down on his stomach, and Fifer poured a pail full of sand over his face.

W
ith the boat operating on Alex's command and heading for the next island—the one with the gorilla—Alex and Sky delved into the stacks of books they'd brought. Sky's were mostly books about science, nature, and animals, which she'd gotten from Lani, hoping to find something that would help them in case they came face-to-face with the gorilla.

Alex's books were all from Mr. Today's library in the Museum of Large, and topics consisted of magic, ethics, and weather, and volumes upon volumes of the old mage's journals, which spanned over fifty years of his life.

Sky initially set out to find everything she could about gorillas, but now, in the back of her mind, she was also looking for information on crustaceans, in case there was anything useful about fixing the ailing health of the giant crab.

They studied in pleasant silence, trying to cram as much information into their brains in the time they had. Every now and then one of them broke the silence with a few interesting lines from what they were reading.

“Gorillas like fruit,” Sky said, eyes glued to her page. “They're also supposed to be gentle.” She snorted and looked up. “I'm not sure if this book is going to help us at all.”

“Doesn't sound like it. The saber-toothed gorilla I saw was not gentle. And the only fruit it ate was probably whatever that pig had in its stomach.”

“Ew,” muttered Sky. “Thanks for that visual.”

“You're welcome.” Alex reached over to her seat with his foot and poked her.

She grabbed his toes and bent them backward.

“Ow!” he yelled, half laughing, and quickly pulled his foot back to his own side of the boat.

Sky grinned slyly and kept her eyes on her book.

They retreated back into silence.

While eating lunch later, Alex looked up from his book. “I just read a journal entry from Mr. Today where he mentions Ishibashi. He was talking about the tube.”

“Does he say how to fix it in case it ever breaks?” Sky asked sarcastically.

“No, of course not.” Alex was tempted to jab her with his foot again, but he valued his toes. “He also doesn't say here how he met the scientists. I wonder if he wrecked on their island too?”

Sky nodded. “I've wondered that as well. I wish we'd thought to ask Ishibashi when we were there.”

“I really regret not asking Ishibashi to tell us everything he knew about Mr. Today,” Alex admitted. “I was so preoccupied with trying to get off that island that I didn't take the time to really talk to him.”

Sky closed her book and sat up. “It's understandable. Plus he didn't seem to want to talk about certain things, like where he came from.” She stood up and wandered over to look at the map on the dashboard. “It'll be dark when we get there,” she said.

“We're
not going on shore unless we can see,” Alex said. “We'll have to wait until morning to look for Aaron.”

“Yeah.” Sky lifted her head to the breeze, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. Then she reached her hands up and stretched.

Alex watched her. The sun and sea air filled her brown cheeks with the glow of life. Impulsively, he reached over to the steering wheel and cranked it to one side.

Sky, thrown off balance, shouted and landed hard in Alex's lap.

“Oof,” he said, recoiling, and grabbed her around the waist.

“You did that on purpose,” Sky said, squirming and laughing. She leaned down until her face was aligned with his.

“Maybe,” Alex said. He looked into her eyes.

“We're probably going off course now,” Sky murmured.

“Good thing we don't have to be there until morning, then.”

Sky grinned. “Aren't you going to let go of me?” Her lips were dangerously close to his.

“Do you really want me to?” he asked.

“You're the one who needs to concentrate so badly,” Sky said. She moved back an inch.

“You're so practical,”
Alex said, cringing. But he knew she was right. He loosened his grip so she could stand up if she wanted to, but kept his fingers lightly laced around her waist . . . in case she didn't.

“I don't know about that,” Sky said. “If I were really practical, I'd point out that you don't have me to blame as a distraction for totally mucking up your Gondoleery plan.”

“Oh, really?” Alex's lips parted at the insult. “Is that right?”

“Isn't it?” Sky said coyly. “Think about it, since you're thinking about regrets. And you should consider this: Maybe you're just looking for something to blame when things are naturally going to go wrong sometimes anyway.” She paused, thinking. “Or you're just looking for a way to explain the fact that you're a human who is constantly faced with new dilemmas, and therefore you're going to fail sometimes.”

Alex frowned. “Wow, that was direct. Anything else?”

“I'm not insulting you, Alex,” Sky said. “I'm pointing out that you are probably the biggest perfectionist in the world, and you think that someday, when all the stars align and when all the conditions of your life and relationships are exactly perfect, you will never fail at anything.” She chuckled under her breath
and shook her head a little. “And when you've driven everybody away to accomplish that impossible feat, well,
that's
when you'll figure out that you've become the biggest failure of all.”

Slowly Sky sat up straight and pulled out of Alex's grasp. Alex dropped his head back on the cushion, her words stinging hard.

Sky squeezed his shoulder and stood up, moving over to the control panel. “Looks like the boat put itself back on course automatically after your little stunt,” she said, looking at the map.

Slowly Alex sat up, feeling bruised all over. “That's good,” he said, his voice hollow. After a moment he picked up his book and pretended to read once more.

Sky gave him a pitying glance, which he didn't see. But she knew he needed to hear what she had to say. The problem was, maybe he needed to hear it from somebody other than her.

But no one else knows about our private conversations, about the fears and dreams he reveals to me,
she argued with herself. And no one else could see it the way she could. Still, she hadn't meant to hurt his feelings. She just wanted to point out what was painfully obvious . . . to her, anyway.

The afternoon passed slowly, Alex barely grunting whenever Sky offered up a tidbit about gorillas or an interesting fact about crabs. And after a couple hours of it, Sky began to wonder if Alex was ever going to get over his bruised feelings, or if he'd stay mad at her forever.