Island of Fire (The Unwanteds) (26 page)

I
t was the end of Samheed’s second week of work on Warbler, but there were no days off here. He swung his dulled ax over and over, silently splitting logs for ships. It was crazy how much his muscles ached and burned, and there was no satisfying crash of the ax breaking the wood to go with it. He didn’t dare slow his pace, though, or attempt to sever the leash—there were at least ten other young men and women out here who would report him in an instant, including the project manager, who’d had his thorns removed recently and liked to remind everyone how hard he worked to get that privilege.

The only thing Samheed could think about to get him
through each day was the sign language class with Lani. That was the only time he was certain he’d see her, though they were slowly exchanging information about where they regularly were at certain times of the day, and they tried to catch glimpses of each other in passing.

He’d seen her this morning, just for a second, her long black hair disappearing around a corner. That moment made his throat ache on and off all day, but it kept him going, kept him working hard. The harder he worked and the more obedient he was, the sooner he’d be off this chain, and then he’d be able to move about a bit more freely. He’d even be allowed to eat dinner with Lani. Everything he did was motivated by a chance to see her, and their chance to escape.

And when he thought of escape, his mouth soured, because certainly by now someone from Artimé would have done something to rescue them. Lani’s father, for sure, if no one else cared enough—he was the high priest, after all. He could do anything. That Gunnar hadn’t come was the one thing that still gave Samheed pause—perhaps there was some horrible reason why no one had rescued them even though Lani’s seek spells seemed to be going through and she sent them as often
as she could. Maybe the spell couldn’t find Alex, or something had happened to him. Or maybe Artimé was too far away and the spell couldn’t get there. He wanted to believe that his friend Alex would do anything for him. But he was beginning to lose hope.

There was only one good thing that had come out of this, and it was the one thing that kept Samheed from giving up. Lani. He knew she must still be very fond of Alex, though she seemed to enjoy holding Sam’s hand a lot even when she didn’t need to. But if Alex ever showed up to help them, Lani would surely go back to liking him. It hurt Sam’s stomach to think about it.

But Alex wasn’t coming. And Lani was all Samheed had. So he was going to let his heart do whatever it had to do to keep him from losing his mind, stuck here in this horrible place.

The project manager startled him out of his thoughts, calling for a five-minute break. Samheed knew that he could take the break with the others, but if he kept working, the project manager would be impressed. So Samheed waved off the others and doggedly continued as they headed to the water area.

And then the strangest thing happened. Just as Samheed
began to swing, a tiny, shiny white
thing
jumped on the log in front of him. Samheed pulled the swing just in time and wiped the sweat from his eyes, thinking he might be seeing things. He looked closer and saw it was a porcelain kitten.

Where in the world did you come from?
he wondered. He looked all around, making sure no one was watching, and then he knelt down next to the log. The kitten moved. And then Samheed heard a sound. “Mewmewmew,” it said in a tiny voice. It hopped up and down on the log, and then it jumped and tumbled down and ran over toward Sam’s giant pile of wood. It looked back at Samheed as if it were waiting.

Samheed looked around again. Was this a trick to see if he’d just keep working? But he’d never seen anything like a living statue on Warbler before. They didn’t exist here. He took a step toward it. The kitten hopped up and down excitedly, then ran back to Samheed and turned around and pranced back to the woodpile, its little tail swishing. “Mewmewmew!” it said. It had to be enchanted for its nonhuman voice to be heard over the island’s silence spell, Samheed decided.

The noise made Samheed nervous. What if someone heard? He put a finger to his lips, and the kitten bounded around to the
other side of the woodpile and disappeared. At the same time, a ball of light zipped through the trees and stopped in front of him. Samheed froze. It exploded, showing him a picture that puzzled him. It was a brain floating in the air. It fizzled and disappeared, leaving only a silvery trail of light weaving through the woods.

What the—?
he thought. And then he remembered. It was his dementia spell. His heart leaped into his throat. He’d given the prototype to Alex for his collection. . . . Could he possibly be here? After all this time?

Samheed’s blood pulsed and pounded. He strode toward the woodpile, forgetting about his leash, and with a yank that almost took his feet out from under him, he came to an abrupt stop. The thorn necklace jabbed deeper into his skin, sending pain searing through him. He couldn’t go any farther.

After a moment, the kitten reappeared. Sam pointed to his neck and to the leash, trying to explain. The kitten watched, tilting her head. And then she darted around the woodpile a second time.

Samheed had to keep swinging his ax or someone would notice he was just standing there. He pounded the log halfheartedly,
glancing at the woodpile now and then. After a minute, he looked again, and the ax nearly fell out of his hands, for there, peeking around the edge of the logs, was the ugliest, yet most adorable gargoyle face Samheed had ever seen.

“Hello,” Charlie signed. He waved his two-thumbed hand.

Samheed ducked down and signed a greeting back to Charlie, wondering,
Does Warbler use the same hand signals as the gargoyles?

Charlie confirmed it in an instant. Samheed couldn’t understand everything the statue was saying, but he got enough of the message to figure out that help had finally, finally come.

But he had no idea how they were going to get him out of there. And he certainly wasn’t going anywhere without Lani.

A second later, the kitten and Charlie disappeared behind the logs, and Samheed saw a brief flash of light and a seek ball skirting around the ships and disappearing. Samheed stood on his tiptoes, trying to see where the statues went, hoping they understood he couldn’t follow. And then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Looking for something?” the project manager asked, his eyes like slits.

S
amheed shook his head, pretending to be bewildered. He began signing random words. “Water, left, chicken,” he said. He panicked, wishing he hadn’t said “chicken,” or any kind of animal that might make the manager think of living statues. “Morning, rain,” he added.

The manager gave him a puzzled stare. “You’re not very smart, but at least you can swing an ax,” he muttered. “Back to work.”

Samheed began swinging his ax again, chopping with all
his might. The dull edge of the ax made it bounce back hard without splitting much. His arms reverberated with the hit, making his fingers and wrists ache, but he kept going, thinking over and over to himself,
Please, please, please.

From the corner of his eye he thought he saw a fox slinking away, and then he was sure he saw Charlie running back to the woods. Charlie inched his way up a tree in the distance, near a clearing, until Samheed could see him. Charlie waved again and pointed. He signed something quickly with one hand, the other holding tightly to the tree.

Samheed didn’t understand, but he also didn’t dare ask questions of the gargoyle. He hoped it wasn’t important. Soon enough, the gargoyle slid back down the tree and disappeared, and Samheed kept his head down, not noticing the long shadows of squirrelicorns circling on the ground in the open area around the covered work space. Soon it would be dark and his workday would be over. Then how would they find him? And what about Lani?

Lani tried to shrug her hair from her cheek, but it had stuck fast to her skin with sweat and grime from the melding fires.
In less than an hour and she’d be free of this cave for the day. She paused as she worked, and asked herself for the hundredth time how it was possible that her life had become like this.

She slid the still-glowing thorns into a tub of water to help them cool, and then she went back to the fire, loaded her mold with gold coins, and pushed it into the flames, holding it by its long handle until she could bear the heat no longer. Her face felt like it was about to melt. She closed her eyes and willed herself to stay there a minute more.

And so it was that when a ball of fire streaked into the room and exploded in front of her, she didn’t even see it.

On the beach, four visible Unwanteds and their two almost invisible friends stared at the seek spell’s burning portrait of the kitten. Alex watched it sputter out and disappear. “She did it,” he whispered. “Do you think she’s in trouble already?”

“I don’t think she did it for fun,” Sean pointed out. “Though she is kind of a silly kitten.”

“Crud,” Alex muttered. Had he been too ambitious to think they would all come out of this easily? He looked at Sean and Carina. “Okay, well, let’s proceed as planned. You guys
stick with assisting anybody heading back this way and help Meghan and Ms. Octavia defend the ship if the Warblerans come to attack. We’ll see you soon. I hope.” Alex’s voice faltered, and he felt an invisible hand on his arm. He brightened with courage he didn’t really have and said, “Come on, Henry. Lead the way, Sky and Crow.”

Sky grabbed hands with the younger boys, and Alex followed behind as Sky led them on a stealthy journey off-path.

What they didn’t see was Sean and Carina flinch, one after the other, and crumple to the sand. A single remaining guard skittered down his tree and ran as fast as his legs could carry him to the other side of the island.

Sky moved swiftly, leading the way. “I’ve been thinking a lot about how much time has passed, and about where the new captures like Sam and Lani would be stationed,” she said in a low voice as her feet flew expertly over the brush. “They’re probably still tethered to a wire—it’s like a wire leash. It helps them find their way around the tunnels, and it also keeps them from trying to escape. They don’t usually get that taken off of them for a few months, until they can be trusted.”

“Great,” Alex muttered. He wondered if there was a wire cutter on the ship that they could use. But it was too late now to go back. Darkness was threatening. He fingered his spell components, keeping something in his hand at all times in case they were surprised, and changing his mind every other second on what would be the best spells to have in hand.

After several minutes of following the kitten’s seek line, Sky whispered, “It’s leading us to the shipbuilding yard by the water. Be careful now. Stay low and don’t speak. This place is teeming with brutes.”

They neared an area of trees that had been freshly cleared. In the distance Alex could see dozens of men and women working silently on various types of watercraft. Sky stopped and pointed to where the string of light was leading. Alex peered through the trees, looking for signs of the fox and Charlie, knowing the kitten would be hard to spot.

As he stood there looking all around for anyone or anything that was remotely familiar, the hair on the back of his neck started prickling. Alex whirled around as someone—or something—came flying at him, hitting him square in the chest. It knocked him down, and before Alex could get a shot
off, Henry had the creature frozen in a crunchy chocolate shell. It rolled off Alex.

“Oh no!” Henry whispered. He released the spell immediately, and the fox sprang to life again, hopping about. On his back was the kitten, and standing ten feet away was Charlie, waving.

“Sheesh,” Alex said. “I’m glad Kitten is okay, but please don’t do that again. This is a
stealth
mission, okay?” He scrambled to his feet and wiped the dead leaves and dirt from his clothes.

“Mewmewmew!” the kitten said.

Alex looked at the fox. “What did she say?”

“She said Samheed is working on the other side of that ship and he knows we’re here, but he has a leash stuck to his neck thing and there are lots of others about. Also, she heard the manager say it was nearly time to quit for the day.”

Alex looked skeptical. “She said all that with three tiny mews?”

The fox nodded. His face was very serious. “And Charlie can talk to Samheed in the sign language.”

Alex didn’t want to know how the fox found that out, but
he was glad. “Okay. Kitten, you did good to send out the alert.”

The kitten hopped up and down on the fox’s back.

“Let’s move around so we can see him,” Alex said.

The fox tilted his head when he noticed the two arms floating in midair. He sniffed, and then followed them, along with Alex and Henry. They got down on their hands and knees and snuck around to the back of the woodpile where the statues had been before. In front of them was an enormous covered pavilion, where a dozen young men and women chopped logs. A large shadow passed over the trees, and Alex looked up to see Simber, who had spied them as well. Alex signaled to Simber and whispered, knowing the cat had amazing hearing. “There’s no open place for you to land without everybody noticing. Can you go and tell Sean and Carina that we’ve found Samheed? Then come right back and see if we need help.”