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Contents
Prologue: Under the Sea
In Tatters
East of the Sun
Aaron Loses Someone Important
Meghan Gets Mad
A Painful Truth
The Pieces Begin to Come Together
Island Number Five
Aaron Grows Desperate
The Return of the General
A Potential Alliance
Shipwrecked
Home Again
Sean Shares a Secret
Aaron Strikes a Deal
Island of Shipwrecks
Copper Steps Up
Aaron Tries to Rile Up a Crowd
Underwater Exploration
Scavengers
The Strange Figure
Another Tube
Trying Not to Panic
Liam Does the Dirty Work
Ms. Morning Stands Her Ground
Liam Finally Finds a Friend
Aaron Builds a Machine
The Wall Comes Down
The Tube
The Art of Rebuilding
A Second Chance
Henry Helps Out
The Glowing Seaweed
Aaron Strikes Oil
Slowly but Surely
Aaron Ventures Out
Aaron Scores
The War Room
A Messy Escape
A Reckless Parting Gift
To the Rescue
Doubts Arise
A Return to the Office Desk
A Mansion and a Jungle
Calm Seas
A Strange Message
Ominous Island Six
A New Discovery
In the Middle of the Night
Preparing for a Civil War
Gondoleery Makes a Move
Home at Long Last
The General’s Vendetta
Aaron in Trouble
The Queen of Ice
Another Shipwreck
In an Icy Land
Tough Answers
A Confession
Sisters
Heartbreak and Loss
Element-ary
On the Island of Shipwrecks
Broken Souls
Acknowledgments
About Lisa McMann
For Liliana
Prologue: Under the Sea
What did he look like?” growled the old pirate captain with hooks for hands. He slammed one of the hooks on the table in front of the slave, and it made a garish clang. “Who is responsible?”
Daxel said nothing. He couldn’t speak. None of the slaves that the pirates had bought from their friend Queen Eagala could speak.
But Daxel could write, and the pirates knew it. Still, he stared at the map and the blank pieces of paper in front of him and shook his head.
The captain struck Daxel with one of his hook hands, leaving a ghastly white, jagged cut in the slave’s forehead. Daxel cringed and recoiled. A second or two later, the gash turned red and blood began to drip from it, down his cheek and onto his tattered shirt.
Another pirate, who’d been standing at the glass wall staring out at the broken, now-empty aquarium, turned swiftly and picked up the map. He shook it in the slave’s face and slapped it down on the table. “Where did they come from? An island? Or the outside?”
Daxel closed his eyes. He could feel his forehead pulsing, and resisted the urge to wipe away the blood—not that he could reach his face, since his wrists were chained to the arms of the chair. There was only enough slack to reach the pen and paper on the table in front of him. The pirates can hurt me all they want, he vowed. He would never betray his friend Copper.
Out of nowhere came a blunt slam above his ear. Daxel gripped the arms of the chair and wished for enough slack in the chains to strangle all the pirates.
He tried to block out their growly noises, and fielded blows for a very long time, until he was faint with pain and loss of blood. But he wouldn’t give the pirates what they wanted.
It was only when the hook-handed captain bent down near Daxel’s face, close enough for the slave to smell his rancid breath and hear his wicked, whispered threat, that Daxel’s orange eyes opened and pooled with fear.
The captain straightened and barked out an order: “Bring the others in here!”
Daxel’s breathing grew shallow as all but the captain and one other pirate stormed out of the room. He watched them go, his hands shaking, chains rattling. Agonizing minutes passed until the pirates returned, each gripping two Warbler slaves by the arms. The pirates lined up the silent workers shoulder to shoulder in front of Daxel, and they held daggers to their hearts and cutlasses to their necks. The faces of the youngest slaves showed the most fear as they stared with pleading eyes at the man who held their fate in his hands.
Determination drained from Daxel’s fighting spirit. The captain returned to his side and tapped the map and the papers in front of him. “This is your last chance to answer our questions,” he said. “Or do you want us to hurt your friends?”
Some of the Warblerans stood stoically, but others couldn’t mask their terror.
Daxel struggled to breathe. Sweat mingled with the blood on his forehead. I’m so sorry, he said in his mind, like a prayer. He was left with no choice.
The rattle of the chain when he reached for the pen was startling in the silent room. Stalling for time, even though he knew no one could or would save him and the other slaves, he studied the map. Seven small islands in a slightly inverted V-shape, and a large hunk of land to the west of them.
The captain poked his hook into the slave’s back. “You have five seconds before one of them becomes food for the eels,” he said. He pointed to the youngest slave, whose eyes widened in terror.
Daxel’s heart pounded and his head swam. When he leaned forward, a drop of blood splattered on the table. He could hardly hear the captain’s countdown for the rushing sound in his ears. There was a shuffle of feet across the room as a pirate prepared to take the first victim.
Daxel gripped the pen in his sweaty hand, touched it to the map, and slowly drew a circle around the middle island, which the strangers who rescued Copper had spoken about.
The captain spoke softly in the slave’s ear. “There,” he crooned. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?”
Daxel refused to react.
The captain straightened up. He strolled to the glass wall and gazed out. “Now all we need in order to let your friends go back to work is a little description of the leader responsible for this disaster.” He pointed a hook at the empty aquarium, and his face took on a horrible, pained expression. “Years and years of searching and collecting . . . and so. Much. Money,” he said, tapping the glass with each word. “All of it, gone.” He shook his head. “We might not be able to afford to feed the slaves anymore. If they live, that is.”
Daxel stared at the blank paper.
The captain sighed loudly. “Come on now, Daxel. Do we really have to go through the countdown again?” He moved lithely to the slave’s side once more. “I’m so impatient. It’s not likely I’ll give you any warning this time.”
The slave sucked in a breath. Sweat and blood stung his eyes. He gripped the pen and began to draw. A jawline. A swath of hair. A face.
“That’s more like it,” said the captain, leaning over the slav
e, watching intently as features began to emerge. “You have such talent,” he said in mock praise.
Daxel drew and drew, knowing his life, and the lives of the slaves before him, depended on it. Forgive me, friend.
When he finished, he set the pen down, his gaze never straying from the drawing. Two fresh, innocent eyes bore into his soul.
The captain deftly slid the paper between his hooks and studied it. And then he began to chuckle. Softly at first, and then the chuckle rolled and crescendoed into a deep, hearty, sinister belt of laughter. He showed the drawing to his pirate companions and they began to laugh too.
When the captain could breathe, he hooked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his face with it. As he put it away, he declared, “This will most certainly be the easiest attack in our thousand-year history, comrades. For the dreaded man we seek? He’s nothing but a boy!”
In Tatters
When Alex opened his eyes, he saw a blurry image of Fox standing before him on the deck of the Unwanteds’ pirate ship. Kitten stood on Fox’s head, mewing at the top of her voice. The sound grew distant and then faded altogether, and the young mage’s lids drooped once more.
Fox stepped on Alex’s thigh and licked his face, trying to get the boy’s eyes to stay open. Kitten pointed over the bow with one tiny paw, still mewing.
Alex groaned. He was soaking wet and his entire body ached. His arms were tangled in rope, and he couldn’t pull free. And Fox’s driftwood tongue was harsh on his skin. He lifted his head to move away from it and squinted in the sunlight. The world swam before his eyes.
“Mewmewmew!” cried the tiny porcelain kitten. Alex didn’t have a clue what she was saying.
Fox began loosening the knots that held Alex to the ship’s bow. He paused to translate, “Kitten is wondering if you are okay. She considers you to be one of her very, very special friends, and—”
“I’m okay,” Alex interrupted. He coughed. Salt water burned his throat and nose. Fox worked at the knots with his teeth, and soon one of Alex’s arms was free. Fox moved to the next, and when that one came loose, Alex plunged forward and put his hands out to catch himself.
“Thanks, Fox. You’re a good, um, cat,” he said, which pleased Fox immensely. Alex’s arms wobbled. He pushed himself up and locked his elbows, then turned gingerly to a sitting position. He coughed again and winced. “And speaking of cats, please tell me the big one is around here somewhere.”
Simber flew over from a short distance away when he heard Alex’s voice. The enormous stone cheetah glanced out over the water and narrowed his eyes. “I am. But we’rrre missing someone else.”
Alex struggled to his feet, alarmed. “Who’s missing?”
“Octavia.”
Alex’s breath caught. He scanned the waves. “At least she can swim.”
“Yes. But I’m not surrre wherrre we lost herrr. If it was back at the beginning . . .” Simber trailed off.
Alex wasn’t at all sure how far they had traveled since their ship began the insane journey down a thunderous waterfall. When they’d reached the bottom, they’d gone screaming around a forward turn so that they were sailing upside down, and then another forward turn, climbing straight up a different waterfall, and around one final forward turn, bringing them upright again, depositing them here—wherever “here” was. It was the most frightening ride Alex had ever been on, and he wasn’t sure how he’d survived it.
“Oh no,” he said softly, thinking about the highly regarded octogator being battered about in the surf. Especially since she hadn’t fully recovered from her ordeal with the eel in the aquarium under the volcanic pirate island. “How will we find her?” He rose on shaky legs and rubbed the rope burns on his wrists.
“Spike is out therrre calling forrr herrr. Hopefully she’ll shoot up the waterrrfall like the ship did.” Simber was silent as his gaze swept the surface of the water, looking for the blue whale’s sparkly horn, but he didn’t see it. The sea grew calm, almost glassy, and the ship inexplicably moved away from the up-waterfall from whence they’d come, into the open water.
“Ah, wait a moment,” the giant stone cheetah said. His regal neck stretched upward, and his eyes narrowed. He flew higher and sampled the air with a delicate sniff. After a moment, he nodded. “Yes. Herrre comes Spike now with Octavia. She’s the last one.” The frown on his face softened, and he let out a sigh of relief, which almost never happened unless things had been very, very serious.
Alex, his brain still fuzzy, wondered how long he’d been unconscious, and what else he’d missed. He strained to see the two creatures, but they were too far away for his eyes to detect. Instead he looked around as the fog in his head began to clear. The ship was in tatters. Ropes and nets still held various humans, creatures, and statues who had tied themselves down to keep from flying about. And some members of their party were definitely broken. Captain Ahab’s hand held on to the ship’s wheel, but the rest of him was nowhere to be seen.
“Captain?” Alex called out.
“Aye,” came the gargly reply from the deck behind the ship’s wheel, where the captain lay in six or seven pieces. “I live. My wretched existence shall waste away another day.”
“He sounds about normal,” Alex muttered, and mentally checked Captain Ahab’s well-being off his list of concerns. He caught Samheed’s eye. “You okay?”
Samheed was easing his way to his feet nearby as Fox chomped at the ropes around his wrists. “Ugh. Major headache.” Once freed, he staggered and grabbed the railing for support. “Where’s Lani?”
Alex looked up at Simber for the answer. “And Sky?” His pulse raced when he remembered that sometime during the horrible ride he’d been holding on to her. The fear cleared his head.
“They’rrre both fine. Helping the injurrred. Everrryone is batterrred but alive thanks to Spike.” The cheetah swooped down to the water to pick up Ms. Octavia from Spike’s broad back.
“Mewmewmew!” cried Kitten.
Fox began to interpret, but then glanced at Simber and closed his mouth.
Alex shook his head. “I don’t know how any of us lived through that, whatever it was.” He stepped carefully to the railing and used it to steady himself. The water sparkled with the sun hanging low over it, making a pale yellow path in front of them. “Are you sure you’re okay, Sam?”
Samheed nodded and limped over. “I think so.”
“We’re still heading west,” Alex mused. “Unless it’s morning now.” He narrowed his eyes and wished for a better sense of direction. “Where are we? How do we get home? Do we have to go through that thing again to get back?”
“I doubt we’ll have to go through it again,” Samheed said. “I’m pretty sure that was a scroll feature. We’re on the other end now.” He rubbed the back of his throbbing head. His fingers came away sticky with blood. “Ick.”
Kitten hopped and mewed again.
Alex ignored her, completely puzzled by Samheed’s words. “What do you mean, scroll feature? Other end of what?”
Samheed wiped his fingers on his shirt. “I mean it’s like the scroll feature Mr. Today turned on in Artimé whenever new Unwanteds arrived to keep them from getting lost or eaten in the jungle. I rode on it our first day, remember?”
Alex frowned. He remembered Samheed getting mad and stomping off, away from the group, but he’d never asked what had happened to him. “I didn’t care much for you back then, you know.”
“Likewise,” Samheed said with a smirk. “I don’t think I actually told you guys what happened. But it was sort of like what we just went through, only on a much smaller scale.”
“You mean you scrolled on a waterfall and didn’t tell anybody about it? Are you joking?”
“Not a waterfall—I wasn’t on water in Artimé, I was on land. It was like . . . like I got sucked down a hill that rotated, and my feet were stuck to it, so even when I was upside down, I didn’t fall anywhere.” He pursed his lips. “Picture Kitten with her feet glued to the ship?
??s wheel. If we turned it, she’d stay stuck to the wheel all the way around. It’s kind of like that—I just went around, and it brought me to the other side of Artimé.”
“So . . . you’re saying that we went around the world? And now we’re . . . where exactly?” Alex looked left and right at the vast, open sea.
Samheed shrugged. “My guess is that since we began scrolling when we were as far west as we could be, beyond the Island of Legends, we’re now as far away from the Island of Legends as we possibly can be. We’re . . . we’re . . . east.”
“MEW. MEW. MEW.”
Everyone turned to look at Kitten, whose tiny face was furious. She pointed with her porcelain toes toward the bow of the ship.
“She says—” Fox said.
“She says,” Simber interrupted, “that Ms. Morning’s seek spell came frrrom the west. Arrrtimé is that way.”
East of the Sun
Alex cringed. The seek spell from Claire Morning—it had come just as the ship plunged over the waterfall. He’d forgotten all about it. It could mean only one thing: Something was wrong in Artimé.
And here they were, in a broken-down ship with a broken-down captain somewhere far from home, in a part of the sea they’d never traversed before. No one knew exactly how far away they were. All they knew was that there were three islands on this side of Quill and Artimé, just like there were three on the other side. If these islands were spaced out similarly to the ones on the west side of Quill, it could take many days for the battered ship to limp home.
As Alex contemplated, Lani’s head appeared in the stairwell. “Alex,” she said, her face full of concern. “Glad you’re finally awake. Got a big problem. There’s a hole in the ship. We’re taking on water fast. Sky suggested we try a glass spell to cover the hole.” She paused for breath. “I think it might work, but I don’t know how to cast that one.”
Alex looked at Sam. “Can you do it?”
Samheed nodded. “I’ll go. You figure out what to do from here.”
A moment later, Carina Holiday approached. “Alex,” she said urgently. Her pixie hair was wild, sticking up in all directions. “Sean’s not doing very well.”