Island of Dragons Read online

  Alex scratched his head, perplexed. How was he going to satisfy everybody?

  But Aaron took hold of the situation. “No problem,” he said. He turned to Alex. “Can you leave a small portion of Quill untouched by magic for these fine Wanteds?”

  “I—” Alex began, then hesitated. “Well, sure, I can, but . . .”

  “Very good,” Aaron said smoothly. “Our problem is solved. Give them a bit of barren, burned-out land to live on.” He thought about what Ishibashi might say, and added, “And make it as far away from here as possible.”

  Aaron Longs for Home

  It had been a crazy few years for Aaron Stowe. He went from Wanted, to university student, to assistant to the secretary of the high priest, to leader of the Restorers, to high priest of Quill. He’d killed a kind magician; nearly killed his brother; sent his father to the Ancients Sector and made his only friend, Secretary, get him back; and sent Secretary to the Ancients Sector only to watch her die because he stupidly set loose a wild creature upon a group of innocent children.

  That was a lot of horrible deeds to deal with, and Aaron would be lying if he said he didn’t think about them often. He spent hours roaming the smoldering ruins of Quill alone, contemplating. He stood where the portcullis had been, and looked at the charred remains of the palace—his former home. Yet there was nothing he could think of that he missed about the place. Nothing had made that cold, gray palace feel as cozy as his cot on a rock floor in the middle of a hurricane.

  Thinking back upon his life in Quill made Aaron feel numb inside. Everything he had once lived for was gone. He smiled ruefully, wondering what sort of metaphor Ishibashi would make from it. He missed the old man, sometimes desperately.

  Every now and then Aaron thought about what it would be like if the pirates hadn’t mistaken him for his brother—if they’d captured Alex instead, and Aaron had remained in power. Would he still be high priest, or would Gondoleery have ousted or even killed him by now? Would he still sneak to the jungle to be in the one place he felt at ease, among the misfits . . . the misunderstoods? Would he have eventually confided in Liam that he was so terribly uncertain about what he was doing? Or would he have kept it all in, as always? As one is expected to do in Quill?

  And would he be raising his sisters to be bad like him? Thisbe and Fifer were almost two years old. When he looked at them, he couldn’t imagine them growing up in that horrible, stark palace.

  One quiet morning he sat on the lawn with his sisters, watching them play in the sand, making sure they didn’t venture too far into the water. They were learning to swim, but it was the current that worried Aaron the most, knowing they could be swept off their little feet and pulled out to the sea.

  Aaron could swim a little now. Not like Alex and Sky and the others, but at least he wasn’t terrified anymore. Not really, anyway, though he still had nightmares about the little pirate boat and the hurricane. But he also had good dreams about returning to the Island of Shipwrecks.

  Carina Holiday and her son, Seth, walked up to the beach. Seth ran over to the girls, and Carina sat down next to Aaron.

  Some of Alex’s friends had begun to trust Aaron by now. Simber, for sure, and Sky, of course. But Carina had kept her distance, watching him—he saw her and others, too, like Claire Morning and Samheed Burkesh, always, always watching him. And while Aaron knew their skepticism was deserved, it was hard to take, and it didn’t feel very good. He wondered why Carina chose the spot next to him to sit.

  “Good morning,” Aaron said.

  “Good morning,” she replied, crossing her ankles and pulling her knees up. She sipped from a steaming mug.

  Aaron watched his sisters shriek with joy when they saw Seth, who was a year or so older than them. They had become fast friends—most of the time anyway. As good friends as two- and three-year-olds could be, he supposed. “The girls really love Seth,” he said to break the silence.

  “He adores them, too,” Carina said. “And I am rather enjoying this quiet morning.”

  “It’ll be even quieter when the Quillens are gone,” said Aaron. “Alex is going to start expanding the magical world soon.”

  “I was at the meeting,” Carina said.

  “Of course,” said Aaron, feeling awkward. “Sorry I didn’t see you.”

  If Carina noticed Aaron’s awkwardness, she didn’t indicate it. “I would imagine the Wanteds and Necessaries can’t wait to go home,” she mused.

  Aaron nodded. He understood the feeling.

  Seth started to pile and pack sand into a large mound. Thisbe waited until he was almost done and pushed it over. But Seth didn’t get mad; he just started building it up again. Fifer played quietly by herself, singing a nonsensical made-up song.

  “I guess she’s like me,” Aaron said, more to himself than to Carina. He looked up. “Thisbe, I mean. The one in red.” Suddenly he felt strange for saying it, as if he were admitting something that made him very vulnerable. He still had a hard time with that, especially with people he didn’t know well. Perhaps he always would.

  Carina smiled. “Can you see their personalities emerging?”

  “Yes. It’s interesting. They’re quite different from each other once you get to know them,” Aaron said. “Thisbe plays hard and sleeps hard. She puts all her energy into everything she does—see?” He pointed as she knocked Seth’s sand tower down again with her whole body, landing on the boy. Seth fell back, surprised, and laughed with Thisbe when she laughed. They got to their feet.

  “Again?” Seth said to her.

  “Again,” Thisbe agreed. Seth started piling sand.

  “And Fifer,” Aaron said, shaking his head. “She’s very gentle and . . . I don’t know. Intensely musical, and thoughtful, I guess. Can a two-year-old be thoughtful?”

  “I think so,” Carina said. “Seth is that way too.”

  “Yet he puts up with Thisbe’s games so well.”

  Carina nodded. “And the girls love each other, don’t they? They seem inseparable.”

  “They are,” Aaron said, thinking about so much more than just his sisters. “They’re best friends. They couldn’t live without each other.”

  Carina sipped her drink and watched the kids quietly. “You know,” she said after a while, “I used to think that twins were trouble. Marcus and Justine. You and Alex.” She swung her head to give Aaron a look of raw honesty. “Because it was really difficult with you for a long time, you know?”

  “Of course.” Aaron dropped his gaze. “I know.”

  “But you’re proving that it doesn’t have to be that way,” said Carina. “You’re showing your sisters something important, I think.”

  Aaron pursed his lips. He hadn’t thought about that before. “Somebody wise told me that just because Alex was good, that didn’t mean I had to be bad in order to be distinct from him. I could be a different kind of good.”

  “The man from the Island of Shipwrecks?” asked Carina.

  “Yes.” A spear of longing passed through Aaron. He looked left, to the east, as if that would bring Ishibashi’s island closer. But then he turned his gaze back to the girls, his face clouding over. He’d miss them. A lot. “Once we have the Wanteds and Necessaries settled, I guess I’ll be free to go back there.”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  “It doesn’t really matter what I want,” Aaron said. “It was part of the deal. Alex found me, brought me here, and I did my job. I was never meant to stay.”

  Carina reached out, putting her hand over Aaron’s, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you for helping us,” she said. “You’re an incredible mage—I have no idea how you were able to do so much without training. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m very glad you came back. At least for a little while. If you decide to stay, well, I certainly wouldn’t mind. You’re all right, Aaron.”

  Aaron stared at her hand on his. He wondered if he’d ever get used to people being kind to him.

  » » « «

>   Later, when Aaron was alone and thinking about the responsibilities he had to attend to here on this island before he could leave, he found his mind turning to Panther. He went inside the mansion, past Simber and Florence, whose broken leg was restored. He climbed the stairs to the balcony and slipped down the not-even-a-faint-secret of a hallway. He went past all the doors, not knowing where some of them led, and into the kitchenette.

  He stood for a moment in front of the tube, feeling guilty. One thing he hadn’t told anyone about was his past visits to the jungle. He’d tell his brother eventually. He had to, so Alex could take care of the creatures once Aaron was gone. But he knew that when that happened, he’d have to confess to the rock and to Panther that he’d been lying to them. He’d have to tell them that he wasn’t Alex.

  The thought pained him, and the longer it lingered, the more painful it became. Maybe he would ask Alex to confess for him . . . but that made Aaron feel like a coward. A feeling he knew all too well.

  For now, Aaron decided as he stepped inside the tube, the jungle is my secret. It was the only thing left that truly belonged to him. And he wasn’t ready to give it up. He desperately needed one place to go where nobody stared at him or wondered if he was still evil inside.

  House After House

  Alex had never spent so much time working on his concentration and spells as he was spending now. Once he’d found Mr. Today’s journal that detailed how he created the world in the first place, Alex designed his own spell that would expand the existing boundaries of Artimé to cover almost the entire island.

  It didn’t all happen at once, unfortunately. He had to go bit by bit, section by section. Each section fell into place a little like how the hospital ward did whenever Alex had to expand that. As he pressed the invisible boundary outward, grass dropped down to mark his progress.

  Once Alex had extended Artimé to cover up all but one small section of the charred remains of Quill, which he left for the cranky group of Wanteds as promised, he began working on the infrastructure, putting in a paved road where the dirt one used to be and laying down walking paths throughout the community. He widened the stream and had Ms. Octavia create a bubbling freshwater fountain in the Commons like the one she’d made for the Claire, so that the community could come and draw water from it whenever they needed it. Things were taking shape. Alex was careful to hold back so he wouldn’t accidentally make Quill too beautiful. The restraint was almost painful.

  Then Alex took to his office to work on a house component. He asked Aaron to help design the layout, and Alex created a prototype for the first house and tried it out in the vast open space in the Museum of Large. After a few tweaks, Aaron approved, and Alex had the design exactly the way the Quillens would want it.

  The head mage called Samheed, Lani, Carina, and Sean Ranger to help make replicas of the component. The group spread out their supplies and tools in the Museum of Large, below the outstretched trunk and huge sharp tusks of Ol’ Tater, the mastodon statue.

  The new magical houses looked more like Wanted houses than Necessary ones, not just because the design was simple enough to replicate, but because Alex thought the Necessaries—who had been on the cusp of helping Artimé take out Gondoleery—deserved nicer houses than the ones they’d had. And it was easier to design and replicate one spell component than two, so Alex chose to do it as such. He decided that if any Necessary came to him demanding a smaller, less equipped home, he would gladly oblige.

  » » « «

  When Alex finally had enough components for all the Quillen households, he began installing the houses one at a time in nearly the same layout as Quill had previously had, doing his best to work from memory and getting guidance from some of the older Necessaries who had known every inch of Quill.

  By this time, the Wanteds and Necessaries were more than anxious to go back to their familiar-looking, yet slightly more colorful and less ugly world. Dozens of Wanteds and Necessaries moved into their new homes every day as Alex worked long and hard to re-create their world. Most of the recipients knew very little about how to express their thanks for a gift so huge, but some of them managed, which felt like progress to Alex. And a thank you now and then for the hardworking head mage of Artimé was very much appreciated.

  The small group of cranky Wanteds who wanted nothing to do with magic settled in the charcoaled remains just beyond the Ancients Sector, across the island from Artimé. They were so blinded by their opposition to magic that they were willing to sleep in soot and scrounge for food and water just to make a point. Alex wasn’t quite sure what that point was, but he didn’t really care, either, as long as they didn’t bother him.

  And Aaron worked with some of the more reasonable Wanteds and Necessaries to try to make the Ancients Sector into something much more humane than it once was. He pointed out the willingness of the Ancients to help fight Gondoleery, thus proving their usefulness, and suggested the Ancients Sector be a place of respite for the elderly to go to on their own accord, where they could enjoy their last days without fear or chains, and be among friends.

  Needless to say, Alex “forgot” to build the sleep chamber, and no one seemed upset about that.

  As for the palace, Alex decided not to build one at all, and instead put a lighthouse with a lookout tower in its place on the top of the hill. For the time being, he appointed Gunnar Haluki to watch over the new annex, reassign jobs to all the people instead of just the Necessaries, and make sure the farms and animals were being nurtured properly. Gunnar asked Claire Morning to teach the Quillens how to make the most of their new situation, and she began by showing them how to funnel rainwater off their roofs into barrels so they wouldn’t have to travel to the fountain to get it. They’d always have more than enough water to go around for people, plants, and animals.

  With only a little grumbling, the people of Quill settled in to their new Artiméan-made homes, and life returned to almost normal.

  Henry Finds a Purpose

  Back in Artimé, the last of the injured had recovered from the battle against Gondoleery, and the hospital ward stood empty. Henry Haluki had been a permanent fixture there over the past months, and was often regarded as the go-to healer since he was seen there the most, though he still took orders from Ms. Morning and Carina. But just because there was no one for Henry to heal didn’t mean he had nothing to do. He used his free time to work with plants from his greenhouse, experimenting with their medicinal properties and creating new, more potent strains that would make his healing serums more effective. And every day he painstakingly added to his store of proven medicines so they’d never be in short supply again.

  He spent a little time with other people—the nurses sometimes helped him bottle up the medicine—but he was often lost in thought these days. He hadn’t quite forgiven himself for not saving Meghan Ranger. Yet whenever he thought about giving her the glowing seaweed he’d gotten from Ishibashi, which would’ve extended her life indefinitely, he knew that he’d done the only thing he could. He’d obeyed Ishibashi’s command: Never use it on any human without their permission. Meghan had been near death by the time Henry saw her—perhaps she was dead already. But Henry never had the opportunity to ask her, and so he’d stood there, holding the seaweed, looking on helplessly at her still body.

  Alex had unwittingly helped Henry come to terms with his guilt after the fact. And now Henry knew that if he was forced into the same predicament with the head mage’s life hanging in the balance, he didn’t have to agonize over it. He’d asked Alex a hypothetical question about having the chance to live indefinitely, and Alex had told him point blank that he wouldn’t ever want to have his life significantly extended by unnatural means. It was a relief to know.

  And now that their world was finally at peace, Henry was extremely glad he didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

  But even though they were at peace, Florence started up Magical Warrior Training again, knowing Artimé could never be too prepared. One day, Henry was o
utside cutting some leaves from his greenhouse plants that Ishibashi had given him. He paused now and then in his work to watch the training, and felt almost wistful.

  On the end nearest him was Thatcher, a young teen from Warbler who was about Henry’s age, perhaps a year older. He had black curly hair and dark brown skin, and orange eyes like all the Warbler children. He wasn’t intimidated by the instructors, and he liked chatting with them. His obvious ease with more authoritative figures was striking. But the blond-haired Warbler girl next to him, Scarlet, was all seriousness, especially in her attempts to mess Thatcher up without him noticing. Henry watched Scarlet for a moment, and then his eyes strayed back to Thatcher, and he observed the Warbler boy’s carefree spirit and sense of humor when he joked with Florence and Ms. Morning.

  At one point Thatcher caught Henry staring and smiled at him, raising a hand in greeting. Henry smiled back and quickly looked down at his cuttings. “I might need to take a class soon,” he said to nobody in particular. He gathered up his cuttings, and then walked in a wide circle around the students to keep from getting accidentally struck by a poor throw.

  » » « «

  On the day after Alex finished expanding the world, he walked past the hospital ward on his way to the kitchen to get a snack and noticed that every bed was empty for the first time in a long time. He paused, then went in, seeing Henry working alone at the laboratory table with something bubbling merrily in a beaker nearby.

  “Congratulations, Henry,” Alex said. “Empty beds. Now that’s an accomplishment!”

  Henry looked up. “Thanks. The last one checked out a couple days ago. Did you finish the expansion in Quill? Anybody give you trouble?”

  “Yes, it’s done,” Alex said. “No real trouble to speak of, but I’m whipped. Do you have anything that’ll help my sore shoulders feel better? Those were some long, hard days of spell casting. More than I’ve ever done in one stretch before.”