Island of Fire

He looked at the pencil now, turning it in his hands, tracing the ridge with his finger, down to the dull, whittled point. Remembering. It all seemed a very long time ago. But the look of betrayal on Alex’s face . . . Aaron closed his eyes and tried to forget it. Tried to stop the words that taunted him. The only reason you’re sitting here now is because of him.

Standing abruptly, Aaron dropped the pencil on his desk and strode to the window. An ugly gargoyle statue wearing a pink bow around its horn rested on the ledge, very nearly staring up at the young high priest. “Haluki had the strangest sense of decor,” Aaron muttered. He gazed through the glass down the long driveway, then turned his eyes back and traced his gaze along the ever-present, ever-boring wall.

“Secretary,” Aaron said in a raised voice.

Eva Fathom appeared in the doorway, her name—and indeed her identity—discarded once again.

“Find me a dozen strong Necessaries and the most powerful tools we have. Giant hammers, sharp picks, shovels. My guards and I will meet them at the portcullis at sunrise tomorrow.” “Of course,” murmured Eva, but she smirked to herself.

The rusty, broken-down gate to the palace could hardly be called a portcullis, but the new high priest was fond of making his things sound important, especially when they weren’t. “Next,” Aaron went on, “send two more guards to Artimé to infiltrate. Tell them not to fight—just create some more unrest and keep the grumbling going. It’s been working. We’ve taken in nearly two dozen so far and have put them right to work for our Wanteds.”

“Very good,” Eva said. She folded her hands behind her back, waiting for more tasks.

Aaron turned, looking down his nose at the woman. “And get me an update on the whereabouts and activities of the Restorers. Is Haluki dead yet? Where’s Gondoleery? She’s all but disappeared.”

Eva hadn’t seen Gondoleery at all since the battle, but instinct nudged her not to admit that. Instead she said, “Many of the Restorers are taking a rest after all their hard work, but Liam Healy and Bethesda dia Gloria are still stationed at High Priest Haluki’s house.”

Aaron narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m the high priest. Secretary.”

Eva pursed her lips and turned them into a thin-lipped smile. “My apologies for the slip. I don’t know what I’m to call him now.”

“Call him . . . oh, who cares? Just don’t call him that.” Eva nodded. “Anything else?”

Aaron turned back to the window and caught a glimpse of the gargoyle again. He frowned at it. “No. You may go.” Without a sound, the old woman turned and left the office. Aaron picked up the gargoyle, held it away from himself as he walked, as if its hideousness might be contagious, and tossed it into a wooden box in the closet with the rest of Haluki’s things. They’d melt the statue down to make weapons once Haluki was dead.

Gondoleery’s Secret

In the weeks since Gondoleery Rattrapp had made the skies above her little gray house open up and pour down rain, she barely gave a thought to the Artiméans. She didn’t think often about the new acting High Priest Aaron Stowe, either, though she’d been one of his prime supporters as he attempted to restore Quill to its former state of control.

No, Gondoleery had been awfully scarce around Quill lately. And for good reason. She was very busy sitting at her kitchen table, thinking about her childhood.

If she knew how to write, she’d be writing down everything as she remembered it so she could free up her mind for more memories. But there were no pencils for ordinary people in Quill, and no knowledge of how to use them. So instead of writing, Gondoleery was thinking.

Sometimes she napped in her chair in the heat of the day, and she began to dream for the first time in decades. It was frightening at first, since dreams were not allowed in Quill, but she was wise enough to realize no one would ever know unless she told them. Her dreams were filled with ideas she could never have imagined when awake—dreams of fiery rivers of lava hurtling down a jagged mountainside. Dreams of swirling dust, of gusting winds, of frigid ice and quaking earth. Dreams of destruction that both frightened and thrilled her.

Yet when she awoke each day, she knew she had seen such things before, though none of the people of Quill ever had. None, that is, except for the three remaining droolers in the Ancients Sector.

And Eva Fathom.

Gondoleery needed time to think. She needed time to remember, and time to see just how powerful her own bit of magic really was. And so it was that she decided to disappear from Quill by staying right where she was, in her chair, and not emerging until she had thought every thought and dreamed every dream. And relearned every bit of magic she’d lost.

And then, when she was good and ready, when she was stronger and more powerful than any nonmagical high priest, when she required no team of Restorers to back her up . . . that’s when she would make her move.

Caves

The breeze came, and the breeze went away. Day after day, Samheed and Lani huddled together somewhere below ground on Warbler Island, telling time by the breezes that swept over them—the gentle wake of Silent people bringing them daily food and water. As on the first day, the two friends remained blind, deaf, and mute, and they still had metal bands of thorns threaded through the skin of their necks, which had finally begun to heal.

In the vastness of their dark days, they created a language with their fingers, tapping the other’s palm or knee to spell out words. The letter A was one tap, B was two taps, and so on. It was a long process to spell anything of length, but they had plenty of time in which to do it. After a few days, having memorized the number of taps that corresponded to each letter, they were able to go more quickly, using a full-palm slap to count for five. The twelfth letter of the alphabet, L, was two slaps, two taps. S, the nineteenth letter of the alphabet, was three slaps, four taps. A brush of the hand meant a space between words, and a closed fist meant the speaker was finished. Sometimes they skipped a letter to save time and effort if they thought the other would be able to figure the word out without it.