Island of Graves (37 page)

“But we do need you, Aaron,” Alex said. “I'm sorry for what you're going to go through. I'm sure there are a bunch of people who aren't going to be kind to you after what you did, even though you're here to help now. They won't be expecting you to be a different person. It's really hard to get used to, believe me. And while it's too bad they're not going to trust you, and they might even be hostile, well . . . you deserve it.”

“I know,” Aaron agreed. “And I'll do my best to take it. I'm scared, though.”

Alex had never heard his brother say those words before. “What are you scared of?”

Aaron thought for while, trying to find the words to describe his fear. “I'm scared that I'll go into Quill and act like the person I used to be . . . and then I'll want that life back.”

Alex shook his head. “I get what you're saying, but you won't. At first, when we Unwanteds were sent out of Quill, we all wanted to go back, even though we had the magical world that is so much better than Quill—believe me, it's a million times better. But it took us a while to grasp what we had because it was so strange.” He sat up. “You won't see it the same way you used to.”

“You say that, but the people in Artimé welcomed you. They won't be welcoming me.”

Alex hadn't pictured it that way, but it made sense.

“I'm just really confused,” Aaron went on. He scratched his head and turned to Alex. “Anyway—let's talk through this plan. I've got some new ideas.”

“Great. Tell me what you're thinking.”

“You've got
Gunnar and his son on the way to the Ancients Sector to recruit them,” Aaron began. “And if Gondoleery is on the move doing unspeakable things, we're not going to want to waste any time. So I've been thinking that since we'll be arriving in Artimé sometime during the night tonight, we should strike in the morning.”

“Strike with what?” Alex asked.

“I'm getting to that,” Aaron said. “But first, can you mobilize people this evening to stealthily enter Quill and go door-to-door in the Necessary quadrant? Wait until darkness falls and all the people are home from their jobs. And tell them to meet at the amphitheater an hour before dawn.”

“So early?” Alex asked. “Why?”

“Because they can't come during their work shifts. That would be a serious infraction that Necessaries won't even consider doing. Remember?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, “I guess I do, now that you say it. What'll our people say to them, though, that will convince them to show up?”

Aaron thought for a long moment. “Okay, hang on. I'm thinking this one through.”

While Aaron thought, Alex brought out lunch for the girls and Aaron and himself. “Another eight hours or so,” Alex said. “Home after dark. And then we'll have an early morning. Early for Sky, I mean—not you, Kaylee. We'll get you settled in a nice room so you can take a bath or get pampered and sleep for days if you want.”

“Pfft,” Kaylee scoffed. “Find me a slingshot and some stones and I can fight with the best of you. Just, ah, you know—point out the bad guys to me so I know who to aim for.” She took a bite of lunch. “And keep feeding me this stuff.”

Alex grinned. “If you insist. I'd rather fight with you than against you, that's for sure.”

“I'll worry about pampering and baths and getting my nails done when it's all over,” Kaylee said. “Do you have a salon?”

“A what?” Sky asked.

“A nail salon . . . oh heck. A place where you get your nails painted.”

“Oh!” Sky said. “We don't need a salon. You can get them
painted just about anywhere, at any time of day, because half the people in Artimé are painting at any given moment.”

“Now we're talking,” Kaylee said. “Fist bump!” She held out her fist.

Sky stared at it.

“Never miiiind,” Kaylee sang, and the girls dissolved in laughter.

Alex went back to Aaron, who was pacing in the short, narrow walkway between the seats. “Any progress?” asked Alex.

“Yes,” Aaron said. “I've been repeating it to myself so I don't forget it.”

“We can solve that,” Alex said, pulling out his notebook and tapping it to produce a pencil.

Aaron shook his head. “You're going to have to teach me that one.”

“Maybe someday,” Alex said, and a whole new cast of worries entered his mind. What if Aaron got access to spells during this attack on Gondoleery? Would he turn on them? He couldn't think about that now. “Go ahead.”

“Okay. The people of Artimé should knock five times. No more, no less.”

“Aah, the Necessaries' knock,” Alex said, “so they know it's not a Wanted at their door. Good idea.”

“And they should say these words exactly: ‘The High Priest
Aaron Stowe sent me. He's alive, and he's coming to save you and your family from Gondoleery Rattrapp. Meet at the amphitheater an hour before dawn tomorrow. Each Necessary who comes will receive a day's supply of fruit and nuts. May Quill prevail with all I have in me.' ”

Alex scribbled down the words exactly as Aaron said them, cringing at the last bit. “Do they really have to say that ‘May Quill prevail' junk?”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Aaron sarcastically. “Do you really want them to believe you and actually show up?”

“Point taken.”

“Good.” Aaron looked at Alex. “You'll have to have another team go to the Favored Farm and break in to get food, I suppose. We'll need a lot of fruit and nuts.”

Alex laughed. “I think our kitchen can come up with something sufficient without actually having to do that,” he said.

“Oh,” said Aaron. “In that case, bring along a tub full of whatever that sweet thing was that I just ate. What's that called?”

“Oh, that dessert,” Alex said knowingly. “That's
something one of the chefs found in a recipe book that washed up a few months ago. Our chef added her own special touch to it back when Gondoleery iced us. It's called rhubapple sugarberry pie—with pecan fig-jam ice cream.”

Aaron patted his stomach. “I learned how to cook on the Island of Shipwrecks, you know. I'd like to make that sometime,” he said.

Alex stared at Aaron for a long moment. “Are you sure you're not Lani disguised as Aaron?”

“What?”

Alex shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “You just keep shocking me.”

G
unnar Haluki donned a black cape so he'd look familiar and high priestly to the Ancients, and Henry Haluki loaded his component vest with lethal and nonlethal spells so he'd be prepared for anything—even Gondoleery herself.

The father-and-son team hadn't spent much time together lately with all the chaos and with Henry so engrossed in his work, so this quest felt a bit like a special adventure. Henry had never been inside the Ancients Sector before, and he was intensely curious about the medicines that were used there—especially the ones that actually put the Ancients to sleep.
Not that Henry wanted to do that, of course. He'd just always wondered about it. What did they use, and more importantly, where did they get it on the desert island? It was something no one seemed to know.

Even Gunnar Haluki didn't know. He hadn't been in power long enough to discover that information.

Armed with Aaron's secrets, they took the tube to their old house. Gunnar cringed only a little upon reaching his office closet, where he'd spent so much time tied up. He quickly stepped out of the tube and searched the room, making sure no one else had turned it into some sort of evil headquarters. Henry arrived a moment later. They spent a moment in the house, reflecting and missing the late Mrs. Haluki, who had selflessly died in battle against Aaron's Restorers.

And then they pressed on, leaving the house and heading toward the Ancients Sector.

“Do you think Aaron gave us the right secret code to release everybody?” Henry asked his father.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he could have easily made something up as a trap.”

Gunnar Haluki thought for a moment. “I think that's entirely possible.”

They walked in silence as both of them mused over it.

“I think,” Henry said eventually, “that Alex wouldn't have given it to us without being completely certain it was the right code. And Alex would know if Aaron was lying.”

“Let's hope so,” Gunnar said grimly. “But Alex has been wrong about Aaron before. His heart gets in the way sometimes.”

Henry glanced at his father. Gunnar had never before confided in Henry about what he knew about the inner workings of Quill and Artimé, nor had he ever spoken so candidly about Alex and Aaron. Henry was nearly as tall as his father now, he realized as they walked. Perhaps his father was beginning to treat him like a grown-up as he did with Lani. He straightened his back and lifted his chin and waited to see if his father would say anything else.

Eventually, Gunnar did. “It's a wonderful trait to have, certainly. But for a leader it can be fatal.”

“What trait?” asked Henry.

“Having a kind heart, like Alex. It gets in his way. Like with the assassination attempt.”

“Do you think Alex should have let Lani kill her?”

Gunnar closed his eyes briefly. “That's not an easy question to answer when the subject is your child. No father ever wants to see his child have to kill someone and then live through the emotional consequences of that.”

“But Gondoleery is so evil,” Henry said softly, not wanting to be overheard in the middle of Quill. “I can understand it if she had some good quality inside her, but . . .”

“I think it's more complicated than that,” Gunnar said. “If Gondoleery were seriously wounded and someone brought her into our hospital ward, would you ignore her? Would you let her suffer and hope for her to die because she's irredeemably evil?”

Henry pondered that for a long time. He knew for sure he wouldn't give Gondoleery any seaweed. But beyond that, it was too hard to know what he'd do in that situation. Was he obligated to try to heal all people no matter what their allegiance was? He didn't have an answer.

Soon they reached the Ancients Sector, and Henry turned his thoughts to the current task. They stood outside the door
to the reporting office, looked at one another, silently going over the plan. Henry nodded when he was ready. Gunnar opened the door and stepped inside.

The attendant looked up. For a moment she seemed afraid, but then she hid her fear as the people of Quill were supposed to do.

“Greetings, former High Priest Haluki,” she said formally.

Gunnar nodded and smiled. “Hello, Zora. This is my son, Henry.”

Zora didn't acknowledge the boy. “Have you both been sent here?” she asked.

“No,” Gunnar said. “I've come with a message from the high priest.” He didn't bother to mention
which
high priest.

Zora's eyes widened. “What is it?” she whispered.

“You must release the Ancients to my care at once,” Haluki said with authority. “All of them. Immediately.”

The worker blinked and didn't respond for a long moment, and while her face remained bland, Henry could see the fear in her eyes.

Finally Zora spoke in a shaky voice. “And of course you have proof that this command is legitimate?”

Gunnar smiled disarmingly. “Of course.”

“Well?”

Gunnar leaned toward her and whispered, “In the name of Quill, and upon your life, mine, and the life of the high priest herself . . . it
shall
be done.” He stood up straight.

Zora stepped back, no longer able to hide her horror. She put her hand out, pointing at Gunnar, her finger shaking. “That's not it,” she whispered, her face going pale. She shook her head rapidly. “She changed it. That's not it anymore.” She looked around rapidly. “Guards!” she shouted. “Guards!”

Gunnar turned swiftly to Henry. “Now,” he said quietly.

Henry's face was awash with fear. He grabbed a freeze component and sent it soaring at Zora, freezing her in place before she could shout again.

“Of course Gondoleery changed it,” Gunnar muttered. “We should have expected that.”

Henry stood poised, watching behind the table for the guards to come. Instead two of them burst through the door behind him and grabbed Gunnar. Henry whirled around and threw scatterclips at the two guards, sending them flying back
against the wall. Henry cast a blinding highlighter at each, then clay shackles, expertly avoiding hitting his father with any of the spells.

“Behind you!” Gunnar cried as he struggled to untangle himself from the guards' shackled limbs.

Henry spun around as three more guards came through a door behind the attendant. He shot off a backward bobbly head, a pincushion, a handful of scatterclips, and a fleet of fire-breathing origami dragons, which turned the room into chaos.