Island of Fire

After Ms. Octavia had closed the door and pulled the 3-D drawing from the wall, she rolled it up and tucked it under an appendage. She and Simber left to check on tasks below, while Charlie the gargoyle wandered into the secret hallway unnoticed. He tottered to the end and peered into the office, then turned, crossed the hallway, and peeked into the kitchenette. A moment later he retreated from there as well and went back down the hallway the way he’d come, a puzzled look on his face. He stopped at the door of Mr. Today’s private living quarters and pressed his ear against it. And then he knocked.

When no one answered, Charlie turned around and sat down in front of the door, drew his knees close to his chest, tilted his head to lean it against the molding, and waited for his master to return.

Alone

Lani kicked and wriggled until she was exhausted, but the large man carrying her only squeezed the breath out of her. She stopped fighting and started trying to focus her limited sight on where they were going, but she was soon totally turned around in the maze of tunnels, all lit by candle sconces attached to the walls. Every now and then, when the man walked close enough to the wall, Lani kicked out, hoping she was making a mark of some sort. Her sight wasn’t quite good enough to tell at this point, but the low lighting certainly helped her see a little bit better.

After a ten-minute walk through a warren of underground passageways, the man finally ducked into a room with elaborate decorations. At the far end was a low, round platform upon which a jeweled gold throne stood. Sitting on the throne was a stately woman with long silver hair and thin, wrinkled lips. She wore a cloth band around her head, from which strings of tiny, bright sparkling stones fell all around her shoulders. She had a stern look on her face.

The man carrying Lani flipped the girl around, setting her on her feet. He pulled a chain from his pocket and clipped one end to her thorny necklace and locked it in place. The other end had a clasp, which he snapped onto to a thin wire above their heads, well out of Lani’s reach. He locked that end as well.

Lani squinted at the woman sitting on the throne. Her clothes were simple enough—light-colored linen, like the clothes worn by the other people Lani had seen before they put the painful acid in her eyes. But the one thing that was different about this woman was that she didn’t wear a necklace of thorns like nearly everyone else.

“Still causing trouble, I see.” Lani almost fell over—there was no other sound anywhere on this strange, creepy island, and she hadn’t heard a single thing in weeks. It was almost with relief that she discovered she wasn’t deaf. So it took her a few moments to recover enough to realize that the woman’s voice seemed eerily familiar.

Squinting even more as her eyes adjusted to the light, Lani took in the woman’s features. Her erect stature, her long silver hair, her pale, wrinkled skin . . . and that voice. It gave Lani chills, and not the good kind.

“I wonder where you came from.” The queen, or whatever she was, tapped her lips with her forefinger. Her fingernails were several inches long, and they curled around in various fascinating ways.

Lani’s eyes widened.

“Tch. Shame you can’t speak. You’ll learn the sign language soon enough, and then we’ll have a chat about your friend who got away. Guards!” she called.

Lani sucked in a gasp, but it made no sound. Meghan got away! As two more hulking men came out of nowhere to grab her by the elbows, she realized this queen bore a striking resemblance to the woman Lani had destroyed—the High Priest Justine.

» » « «

Back in the cave, Samheed lay still for a long time. When he awoke, he was alone and his hands were empty. He blinked a few times before he remembered what had happened. His head pounded and ached, and when he reached back to the source of the pain, his fingers came away sticky with blood.

But he didn’t care. He didn’t care about the blood, or about his aching head, or about his sore body from being slammed to the ground. All he cared about was Lani, and Lani was gone.

He covered his face. His hand felt so empty without hers. And for the first time in Samheed’s life, he felt like giving up. He’d faced death before, twice. But this abandonment felt worse somehow. Maybe it was because at the Purge he wasn’t alone, and when his father had tried to kill him during the battle, he wasn’t alone then, either, and he was able to use his anger to stand up against fear. As long as he had people on his side, he gathered strength and courage from them.

But the people of this island had apparently found Samheed’s ultimate weakness. He rolled to his side and curled up, hoping to become small enough to disappear. As he lay there, a very subtle change began to take place. It was so slight that he didn’t notice it at first, but after a time, he blinked. And then he sat up. He craned his neck and squinted. And then he crawled on his hands and knees in a straight line and reached out.

His fingers grasped the water bucket on the first try.

Samheed could see.

Empty Chairs and

Empty Tables

Alex took the theater tube directly to his room, avoiding the excited Artiméans who roamed the hallways and staircase. He put his hand up to shush Clive and went straight into his private quarters, drew a steamy, soapy bath, and scrubbed and soaked

in it. He even had to drain it once and refill it because he was so dirty after weeks of not showering at all. “You should burn those clothes. They’re practically rancid,” he heard Clive point out from the other room.

“Shove a sock in it, Clive!” Alex called back, before sinking deep into the fresh water such that only his nose and mouth remained above it. His body ached terribly, and he was exhausted. Now that he had a few moments alone, he never wanted to go back out there again. But he had so much more to do before things got back to normal. As he soaked, he made a mental list.