Island of Legends (The Unwanteds) (12 page)

Still shaking, Alex touched the whale’s side once more, eager now to right his wrongs. “Let’s get you into the water,” he said. “Ready?” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “Okay.”

Alex closed his eyes and once again pictured the sea, just offshore but deep enough for the whale to be fully immersed. He concentrated on the spot in his mind for a long time. And then he whispered, “Transport.”

The whale disappeared.

Alex’s eyes flew open. He stared at the empty spot. And then he ran out of the Museum of Large and through the hall to the balcony, tripped down the steps and around the few residents who remained awake at this hour, raced past dozing statues Simber and Florence, and flung open the front door, which immediately woke Simber.

Before Simber could speak, Alex, still running, yelled, “Going for a late night dip in the sea!”

At the edge of the water he kicked off his shoes and fought his way out of his pants, but kept his robe on, and then dashed out to the water, running and splashing until it became too deep, and dove in.

Pulling a blinding highlighter from his robe pocket while he swam, he aimed it at the ocean floor, trying to find the lifeless Spike. He knew she’d be at the bottom, like Simber had been. But where exactly? Alex also knew the transport spell wasn’t entirely accurate.

The effects of Ms. Octavia’s underwater breathing class became evident as Alex searched. It was loads easier to hold his breath underwater now, using the oxygen in his blood to
keep him going, and he could easily stay underwater for six or seven minutes without coming up to the surface.

He needed those six or seven minutes now. In the murky water, magically coaxing the blinding highlighter to hold a steady, not-blinding light rather than flashing quickly and fading away, Alex pushed himself along the ocean floor. As he searched for the large body, he realized he didn’t remember all of the live spell—he hadn’t memorized it. Perhaps he should go back to shore and get the book.

But then he shook his head. He didn’t need the live spell—that’s not what had brought Ol’ Tater back to life. He needed to use the restore spell.

Frantically he tried to recall the words from that spell and the order they went in. It started with “imagine.” Could he remember the rest? It seemed like years ago that he’d restored Artimé, even though it had only been a matter of months. He pictured Sky at his side like she had been back then, and that seemed to calm his mind as he recalled her patient hand signals to help him remember the words: “imagine,” “believe, “whisper” . . . He hesitated, knowing that the next word was the one he always forgot, and today was no different. He closed his eyes
to concentrate for a moment, and pictured Sky, pressing on his chest. He smiled and opened his eyes, letting the seawater sting them once more. Of course—the one thing he’d forgotten to do then and couldn’t exactly do now. It was “breathe.” And then finally, the word that would trigger rebirth: “commence.”

Oh, Sky,
he thought. Maybe if he hadn’t been so googly-eyed about kissing her, he wouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake, and he wouldn’t be in this predicament right now. He frowned. Now wasn’t a good time to be thinking about her either. All Alex really needed to do was find the whale. Which was turning out to be impossible. His lungs began to burn. It was time to surface.

He pushed himself upward and broke the surface, taking in deep breaths of the cool night air. He looked around to see where the lights of Artimé lay and found himself a good bit offshore. Had he missed Spike somewhere? Perhaps he should double back. He saw Simber, backlit by the mansion lights, licking a paw and then yawning at the edge of the water, and waved to him. Simber nodded in return. Alex was secretly proud that the cat hadn’t come out over the water to see what Alex was up to. That meant Simber trusted Alex not to drown. It was a positive step, Alex thought.

Once he had his wind back again, Alex dove down and resumed his search, this time swimming laps parallel to the shore, drawing closer and closer to shore until he could nearly touch the bottom. Since the whale was quite a bit taller than he, she would stick out above the waves, so she couldn’t be here. Alex had to keep searching.

After about an hour, he caught sight of the whale a good thousand feet on the other side of the mansion, where no one liked to swim because of the big rocks and sharp edges of the reef. The very tip of Spike’s tail stuck out of the water just slightly, as she was lodged on the reef, head pointed down at the ocean floor.

“Finally,” Alex grumbled. “That transport spell needs a bit of work, if you ask me.” But no one was there to ask him, so all Alex could do was continue on. Once he had his breath, he stood cautiously on the reef and reached down under the water to touch the whale’s side. His sopping-wet robe stuck to his shivering body, but once again that night Alex concentrated and began to utter a very important spell. One that he knew he should never forget.

“Imagine,” he whispered, imagining the whale alive again.
“Believe.” Oh boy, did he believe it. He’d seen it happen before, and he didn’t need anybody to convince him that this spell would work. “Whisper,” he said, knowing he’d be whispering all along, his magic and his energy giving life to the whale.

Without hesitation this time, Alex uttered the next word. “Breathe.”
However you do it best, Spike, you must do it now.
And with that, he ended it. “Commence.” He repeated the words two more times, and then he waited.

When he felt something electric pulsing through his fingers, Alex opened his eyes. The whale’s tail was moving the slightest bit. “Spike!” he shouted. “Spike Furious, you’re alive!”

The water was charged with the great creature’s presence. Alex could feel the life around him—the rebirth of this creature, the return to her natural habitat. And then he felt the slap—the really extremely hard slap—of her tail on the side of his face, and he felt his body being lifted out of the water and thrown ten feet aside.

When Alex resurfaced, sputtering, and came to his senses, Spike was gone.

A
aron Stowe, covered in leaves and dirt, got up from the bottom of the jungle tube. He brushed himself off and watched as the panther jumped from tree to tree, the little dog following along, yipping from the ground below and then hopping up to grab a branch with his teeth and swinging from branch to branch by the grip of his mouth. Aaron didn’t know what to think. All he knew was that he needed to get out of here before something else went wrong.

He wiped the dirt off his clothing and looked at the rock. “Okay, well, good-bye then.” He hesitated. Now that the danger was over, he felt strangely drawn to this place.

The rock moved closer. “We shall see you again soon, I hope,” it rumbled.

“Ahh . . . right. Of course. I shall come by again soon to make sure everything is working as it should.” He looked over his shoulder at the tube’s button, as if that would help him leave more quickly. “By the way,” he said, “how many creatures are out here?”

“A dozen or so. Some of them I haven’t seen in . . . well, in years, I suppose. I think about them, though. They know how to find me if . . . if they need me.”

Aaron frowned. The rock’s voice had turned wistful, and Aaron didn’t know how to process that. And frankly, he didn’t want to know. Not today. He’d had enough for today. He nodded and said another awkward good-bye. And then he pressed the button.

Spending less than a second in the tube in his brother’s mansion, Aaron pushed the first button, which would take him to Haluki’s. When he arrived there, he felt a cool draft, colder than any temperature he’d ever felt in Quill before. His heart pounded. Had he hit the wrong button by mistake? He pushed his hand out of the tube and found the familiar closet doors.
Cautiously he opened it and stepped into Haluki’s office. His shoes squished on the wet floor.

What in Quill?
Aaron wondered, stepping gingerly across the room. It was almost chilly in there. The walls were wet. The ceiling dripped with water. And the floor was soaked. It was more water than he’d seen in one place before, if you didn’t count Artimé. And he didn’t.

He dipped a finger into a small pool of water and tasted it. He’d never felt something so cold on his tongue before. And it tasted good. He cupped his hands and drank some more, glad for it but feeling like he was in a strange dream. Why was it here?

Puzzled, he wandered through the house, still in a daze from the jungle experience. It was the same everywhere—water dripping from the tables and chairs, standing in the sink, soaking into the wooden floorboards. And in the center of the dining table was a small white puck of something strange. Aaron reached out and touched it. “Ouch!” he cried. It had felt good at first, but then it made his fingers burn. He dropped the puck, watched it skate across the floor, and pressed his fingertips to his cheek. They were cold.

Aaron could feel a strange, anxious feeling welling up inside
him. It was all too much for him to process after what he’d just been through. He couldn’t make sense of anything tonight. It was all he could do to keep his legs from collapsing under him as he made his way to the palace. What Aaron needed more than anything right now, he decided, was to forget everything weird that had happened and go to sleep for a week. Then he could figure out just how to handle this new, secret part of his life.

Staggering back home to the palace, Aaron didn’t even notice Secretary on the side of the road, hiding in the shadow of the wall, talking quietly with a friend . . . or perhaps it was an enemy.

But Eva Fathom saw him.

» » « «

“He’s up to something,” Eva said in the shadows after Aaron was out of sight. “I can feel it.”

“Well, you’ll have to hold him off for a while.”

“I’ll try. He’s a bit of a coward, so it shouldn’t be difficult. Be safe.”

“You too.”

The two—friends or enemies, perhaps not even they knew for sure—clasped hands and then parted ways.

B
y morning, preparations were in full swing for the rescue, and Alex didn’t have time to lament the loss of his first creature. He’d been preoccupied, had acted hastily, and hadn’t thought things out, which had resulted in several obvious mistakes. Perhaps that was why Mr. Today had never tried to re-create the whale. There was no place to keep it and train it, or simply talk to it.

It was a bit embarrassing, actually, now that the fear of Spike’s dying was over. Alex was glad he hadn’t brought an audience around to witness it—especially Sky. What if she was disappointed in him? He hoped she wouldn’t ask about
it. Though maybe if he’d included her more in the planning, she might have had some better ideas. She was known for that, after all. But the truth was, whenever Sky was around, Alex felt like he wasn’t concentrating enough on being the leader of Artimé. And it was when he wasn’t concentrating enough that mistakes were made. It was a serious problem.

“Blurgh,” he muttered, thinking not for the first time that maybe mages just weren’t cut out for having relationships—not romantic ones, anyway. Alex hoped Sky wasn’t hurt that he hadn’t asked her to help. He decided that if he just didn’t mention the whale and acted really busy and focused on the quest to rescue Sky’s mother, all these awkward feelings about Sky, and about his mistakes with Spike, would go away soon enough.

Simber had witnessed the entire Spike saga from shore, of course. Eventually he’d been joined by Sean, who’d gone out for a late-night walk, as he often did. Simber tried to explain to Sean what was happening to Alex, but he didn’t actually know all the details, so he made them up, much to Sean’s delight. The two had waited patiently on shore as Alex swam back alone. The giant cat had held his tongue, hard as it sometimes was, so at least Alex had that relief. Sean just laughed once he
knew the whale was all right, and he promised not to say anything to embarrass Alex.

In spite of the darkness, Alex had remained on the shore, watching out over the water. At first he had thought the whale might come back, but after several hours reality set in, and eventually Alex had stopped looking out to sea to watch for his shiny creation. He’d gotten up and went inside to bed.