by Lisa McMann
“Then their wings will have to grow along with them,” Alex muttered, jotting down notes and then sizing up Pan in comparison to the young orange. “Perhaps twenty times over,” he muttered, “or they won’t be able to fly when they’re bigger. Unless I make them oversized now. . . .” He shook his head. “No, no, no. They’ll be too heavy, and the dragons won’t be able to lift them.” He turned to Pan. “How long before they are full grown?”
“A hundred years or so.”
Alex wasn’t too fazed. He was used to things living hundreds of years by now.
“And how long will the young dragons stay their current size?” he asked.
“Perhaps ten more years,” said Pan. “And then they’ll grow rapidly.”
The task seemed nearly impossible. How was Alex supposed to make magical wings for nonmagical living creatures—wings that would automatically grow when the dragons grew? He understood how Simber’s wings had grown with him when he was first made. It was because Simber was entirely magical. But these dragons had not been created by some human magician. They’d been born, and they existed without magic—at least without the kind of magic Alex knew. How could he possibly connect magical wings to the living, nonmagical creatures in such a way that the two parts would communicate with each other and grow in tandem without a mage stepping in to help? Alex couldn’t figure out how to do that. He thought of Aaron, how sure he’d been that it could be done. Alex lifted his chin. “Of course it’s possible,” he muttered, trying to convince himself.
After a long time of sketching and thinking and sketching and worrying and sketching and agonizing, Alex wrapped his arms around the young orange and lifted it up, trying to see how heavy she was. The dragon squirmed, then licked Alex in the face.
Alex laughed and set the dragon down. He thanked her and petted her neck.
The orange dragon closed her eyes and rested her head on Alex’s shoulder. A purrlike rumbling came from its throat.
“Aw,” said Alex. “I think she likes me.”
“Careful, Alex,” Pan said. “Step back a moment.”
Alex stepped back as a roar and a tiny burst of flames shot from the orange dragon’s mouth. The dragon smiled sleepily at the mage, and he smiled back. Pan spoke to her, and she hopped back into the water with a splash.
In turn, Alex examined each dragon and drew elaborate sketches of it. He even drew one so perfectly and distinctly that it sprang from the page in 3-D and floated above the notebook, just like a 3-D doorway. He’d never done that before—he didn’t even know it was possible. He couldn’t wait to tell Ms. Octavia about it. It would make a great model for the preliminary design work.
When Alex had collected scales from each dragon and sketched and colored in everything he could, he pressed the 3-D drawing back into the notebook and closed it, and said good-bye to the five young dragons.
Pan brought him back up to the top of the island, and the two descended the other side. Once in the sea, Pan sped over the water with Alex on her back, both of them silent and contemplating. One sorrowful, one stumped, but both determined.
When Pan reached Artimé not long after dawn, Alex dismounted and stifled a yawn. “This is our first priority now,” Alex promised her. “But I have to be completely honest with you about my abilities. I don’t know if I can actually do this. And even if I can, I’m not sure I can make wings that will work for the dragons’ entire lives. They may only be useful while they remain this size.”
Pan bowed to Alex. “I am grateful for your efforts to help my family, even if you find no success at all,” she said. “We will survive somehow. Dragons always do.”
Magic All Around
While Alex slept and dreamed about dragon wings, the rest of Artimé was doing business as usual, or so it appeared. With the mention of ships at the neighboring island, Claire Morning decided it was important to continue Magical Warrior Training during Florence’s absence as a precaution, and to keep the spell casters in the know about new spells. Today her class was made up of the more experienced fighters, including Warbler children Scarlet and Thatcher, who had by now graduated from their beginner’s training.
Working alongside Claire was Lani Haluki, who was explaining some of the most recent nonlethal spell components and how they worked. She also reminded the warriors of the two deadly spells: heart attack, which required three components to put an end to an average human-size enemy, and the single scatterclip, which was harmless on its own, but deadly when coupled with the right phrase. There would be no practicing for these two, and only those who wished to have that amount of power carried them. Lani reminded the class that it was Artimé’s policy since the days of Mr. Today, that each person must think long and hard about whether she wanted to have that responsibility.
Observing the training today were Aaron and some nonmagical friends: Kaylee, Sky, and Crow, who was looking after Thisbe and Fifer along the water’s edge. Sky sat in a chair under a tree a short distance away, reading a book, while Aaron, Kaylee, and Crow all lay on their stomachs, elbows in the sand, hands cupping their chins. Aaron and Kaylee lounged together, and Crow was a few feet away, perched sideways so he could see the training and watch the twins at the same time.
Kaylee and Aaron, both feeling a bit like outsiders in Artimé, had fallen into a friendship of convenience. Aaron wasn’t accustomed to having friends at all, so he was always awkward with people until he relaxed. And Kaylee was boisterous and playful—the complete opposite of Aaron, or so it seemed. Yet it was her large personality that relaxed him, and the two got along somehow.
Crow eyed them suspiciously from time to time, but they didn’t seem to be romantically involved at all, which was a relief. He was tired of watching other people kissing, including his own sister. He preferred a more anonymous kind of admiration over outward displays of affection, and he was exercising that anonymous admiration now as he watched Scarlet. He studied the intense look on her face that never broke when she was casting spells. He appreciated her long blond hair swishing over her shoulders when she followed through on her spell casting.
Scarlet stood next to Thatcher, who had the tallest hair Crow had ever seen. Most of the time Scarlet stayed focused on her task. But once, between exercises, she and Thatcher laughed together at something Ms. Morning said to them, which Crow couldn’t hear. Crow frowned, even though he knew Scarlet and Thatcher had been friends for a long time.
Near Crow’s legs, Fifer piled up small, flat stones, one on top of another in a precarious stack, using extreme precision for a child her age. Thisbe stood on the other side of Crow, entranced as she watched the magical warriors on the lawn. Every now and then she imitated their movements, saying “Dat!” or “Boom!” and casting imaginary spells of her own.
“Hey, Crow,” Kaylee called. “Who’s the dude with the righteous Afro?”
“The what?” asked Crow. Half the things Kaylee said made no sense to him.
“The boy next to Scarlet.”
“Oh. That’s Thatcher. He’s one of the Warbler kids.”
“I figured, due to the orange eyes and the scars on his neck.”
“I forget about those things sometimes,” Crow said. Orange eyes and neck scars were all too common to him.
“He’s really good,” Kaylee said.
Crow bristled. “Scarlet’s better,” he said in a quiet voice. He returned his gaze to Warbler girl.
Kaylee looked sideways at him and pressed her lips together to stifle a smile. “Yes, I totally agree,” she said. “Scarlet rocks.” She poked Aaron with her elbow.
Aaron startled. “What?”
Kaylee leaned in, her shoulder touching Aaron’s shoulder and her face dangerously close to his. He resisted the urge to shrink away, and she whispered in his ear, “Crow has a crush on Scarlet.”
Her breath was warm as it caressed his skin and slipped down below his shirt collar. Aaron’s ear tingled, and then his whole body tingled. His heart thudded in his chest. He didn’t even registe
r what she was saying. Instead of responding like a normal human, Aaron froze. He stared straight ahead and didn’t move. He had no idea what to do. All he knew was that her shoulder was still touching his, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted it to stay there or move away.
With Crow, Aaron, and Kaylee all momentarily occupied, and Sky reading intently under the tree, nobody actually paid much attention when Thisbe meandered over to where her sister was stacking stones. Thisbe took a warrior stance and pointed at the tower. “Boom!” she said.
The stones flew into the air of their own accord and pelted the sand around Fifer. Fifer stared, and then the twin girls began giggling hysterically. “Again!” cried Fifer.
“Again!” cried Thisbe.
Fifer began to pile the stones once more.
Contemplating Flight
Alex woke around noon feeling groggy and disoriented after having stayed up all night with Pan, but once he bathed and dressed, he was wide awake and ready to work. He found Ms. Octavia in her classroom and told her about the dragons and what had transpired overnight.
“That’s quite a project,” Ms. Octavia said, scratching her head with one of her tentacles. “I admit I have no idea how you’re going to do it. I’ve only fixed existing appendages. I always left the creating of them up to Marcus.”
“I know . . . I still have to figure that out. But,” Alex said, his face growing excited, “I have something cool I need to show you.”
“What is it?” asked Ms. Octavia.
Alex pulled his notebook from his pocket. It sprang open to the page with the 3-D dragon drawing. The drawing popped up and hovered a few inches above the page.
Ms. Octavia took in a sharp breath, and then carefully took the notebook from Alex and looked more closely at the dragon from all angles. She took off her latest pair of fake glasses from Mr. Appleblossom and studied it some more, turning the notebook in a circle. Then she looked at Alex. “I’ve never seen this happen before,” she said, admiration in her voice. “I am very proud of you. Your drawing has continued to improve to near perfection over the years because you work so hard at it, and clearly this is your reward for that. Well done, Alex. Well done.”
“I didn’t mean to do it,” he said modestly. “It just happened when I was drawing.”
“You must have been perfectly precise,” said the octogator, “or I’m sure it wouldn’t have happened. This is really something to celebrate! I wish Marcus were here to see it.”
Tears sprang to Alex’s eyes at the mention of the wonderful old mage who had saved so many Unwanteds over the years. Alex longed for Mr. Today to see this accomplishment. “It’s okay,” Alex said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Perhaps he knows somehow.”
Together they brainstormed the predicament of putting magical wings on a nonmagically made creature.
“Was Jim the winged tortoise created from a real tortoise?” Alex asked.
“No, I’m afraid not,” said Ms. Octavia. “He’s like the rest of us.”
“But what about you?” Alex said. “You’re parts of two animals. Octopus and alligator. Those creatures are nonmagical, yet you exist magically.”
“Ah, but you forget that I am not actually either of those animals, not even a little bit. I only look like a combination of them. I was created from items found in the sea—seaweed, shells, plant life.”
“I remember that now,” Alex said, thinking back to when all of Artimé was gone and Ms. Octavia’s body had morphed into those materials. “So what exactly is the real dilemma here? I think it’s like I told Lani yesterday. I can’t create a third arm and attach it to her, and expect it to work like the other two arms, can I? Because she was born a living human, and magic and human parts can’t communicate. A third arm would need blood and muscle and bone connected to the rest of the body, and magic can’t create that, can it?”
“No magic that I know,” said Ms. Octavia. She tapped her snout thoughtfully as a second tentacle began jotting down notes and a third picked up her coffee mug and brought it to her mouth. She took a sip and swallowed.
As they sat thinking, there was a knock on the door. Aaron poked his head in.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked.
Alex frowned. He wanted to be the one who figured this out, not his freak prodigy brother. But then he reluctantly admitted it was silly of him to be acting so petty about Aaron’s abilities. Alex needed Aaron, just like he needed his other friends for the various things they were good at. And then he remembered Aaron would be leaving soon, perhaps for good, and the empty feeling gnawed at him.
“No, you’re not interrupting,” said Alex. “We’re talking about dragon wings and . . . and I think maybe you can help us. Unless you can’t stay, of course.” Alex tried not to look hopeful.
“I was just looking for you to see if you were getting lunch,” Aaron said. “Of course I’ll stay, but I don’t know what help I’ll be.”
“Okay. Great, then. We’ll get something to eat afterward if you can wait,” Alex said.
“If I can wait?” Aaron nearly laughed. “I’m from Quill. Of course I can wait for food. I’m just thrilled to know there is some. Also, I was wondering about Henry. Is there any news? And if it’s all right for me to, you know, go home. To Ishibashi’s, I mean.”
“Ah, yes—sorry,” Alex said. “I meant to tell you. I should be able to get you back to the Island of Shipwrecks very soon, but I was sort of hoping to finish the dragon project first. Then we can set off together, attach the wings, and continue on to the Island of Shipwrecks.”
“Oh,” Aaron said. “All right.” He was only a little put off that Alex wasn’t going to jump into the boat today to take him away. “Of course that’s fine. I don’t want to inconvenience you.” He came and sat down with them. “What’s going on?”
Alex filled Aaron in on the conversation so far.
Aaron listened intently, and when Alex reintroduced the third-arm scenario, he closed his eyes, a perplexed look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked.
Aaron didn’t answer at first, and then he said, “So you’re saying that you wouldn’t be able to give Lani a third arm because you can’t create human blood and bones and things like that, and for this same reason you can’t make dragon wings.” He opened his eyes and looked inquisitively at Alex.
“Right,” said Alex. “I know you think you can do this, but—”
“I can,” said Aaron. “You’re making it too complicated.”
Ms. Octavia nodded. “I think you may be right, Aaron. Why do the wings need to have dragon’s blood and bones and muscles in them in order to work?”
“Because they have to grow with the body when it grows,” Alex explained, feeling a bit exasperated. “See, the dragons are small. About my size right now. And Pan said they’ll stay around this size for another ten years or so, but then they’ll grow rapidly, and they’ll continue growing until they’re a hundred years old. And if the wings aren’t made of actual dragon parts, then once the dragons start to grow, their magical wings won’t grow with them. And they’ll be useless because the dragons will be too heavy for the wings to support.”
Aaron sighed, and Ms. Octavia looked at Alex. “I’m sorry, Alex,” Ms. Octavia said, “but I don’t think it’s possible to provide the dragons with body parts that will grow with them. There are limits to our magic for good reason. And this is one of them. Don’t you agree?”
Alex pushed his hair off his forehead thoughtfully. “I guess so,” he said. “So what do I do? Make prosthetic magical wings that cease to be useful once they have their growth spurt?” He leaned forward and said quietly, “I think she wants to keep her children away from the pirates.”
“By the time they grow, maybe they won’t need to fly to get away from the pirates anymore,” Ms. Octavia said. “They’ll be big enough to fight them off.”
“Yes, exactly,” said Aaron. “So it’s really a simple solution. It’s no more difficult than using a vine to fix a�
�” He clamped his mouth shut.
“What?” asked Alex.
“Um, a rope,” Aaron said lamely. “Or,” he said, scrambling to come up with something, “no different from the heart attack spell. That spell has wings.”
“That’s true.”
“It’s probably going to be very easy,” Aaron said, “like I’ve said all along. You always make things too complicated.”
Alex’s mouth dropped open. “I do not.”
Aaron gave Ms. Octavia a side-eye glance. “He does, doesn’t he?”
Ms. Octavia lifted her eyebrows and shrugged. “Yes,” she said. “Sorry, Alex.”
Alex just shook his head. “You two,” he muttered. “So I guess the biggest question is what materials are we going to use to make this happen. Because we’ll need a lot of them, and they’ll have to be a big variety of colors in order to blend in properly. We don’t want our dragon friends to look like our patch job on the ship. They’ll be our artwork on display for all the world to see.”
“Fair enough,” declared Ms. Octavia. “Though we can easily just paint the wings to match the dragons if we can’t find the right material. Why don’t you work on designing a mini-model-size wing for your 3-D drawing that will be aerodynamic and strong enough to transport its weight, and then once the dimensions are perfected, you can move on to a full size pair of wings. Aaron can help me see about some materials that will suit the job.”
Alex agreed. He showed the two his drawings to point out the various colors necessary. Aaron was appropriately impressed by the 3-D drawing that popped off the page, which made Alex feel a little more secure in his abilities. At least Aaron couldn’t do that.
Once Ms. Octavia and Aaron had had a good look, they headed off together, and Alex sat in the classroom alone with his project. It was good to be doing the thing he did best and enjoyed most once again.
Old Friends and Traditions
With so much help from sea creatures, it didn’t take much effort for Karkinos to stay afloat in his usual spot in the sea. He showed signs of tiredness from time to time, but Spike and the giant squid fed and monitored the crab to make sure he had everything he needed. Henry kept an eye on his health and strength, which improved little by little.