Dragon Captives

by Lisa McMann

  Whoops.” Aaron cringed and stopped outside the stone entrance. “Still getting used to this. You go on ahead,” he said to his sisters. “Tell Alex I’m right behind you. And . . . I’ll pick up some supplies on the way.”

  “Hurry!” said Thisbe.

  “Bring the baby with you,” Fifer suggested.

  “I will likely do just that,” said Aaron. “See you in a bit.”

  Thisbe and Fifer headed outside and ran to the tube, then whizzed back to the mansion. By the time they made it downstairs, they found the various leaders of Artimé rushing about. Among them was the beloved, albeit strange-looking octogator named Ms. Octavia, the art instructor, who had an alligator head and an octopus body. Her fake glasses sat askew on her long snout. When she walked, her eight tentacles moved in a rhythmic, almost hypnotic pattern that made her appear as though she were skimming the ground.

  A few flower petals floated through the hallway outside the octogator’s classroom, stirred up by the scurrying. The girls followed Ms. Octavia toward the room and found Seth hanging on the doorframe, looking in.

  “What’s happening?” asked Thisbe.

  “They’re starting on the new wings,” said Seth. “Where’s Aaron?”

  “Coming,” said Thisbe.

  Fifer added, “He woke up Daniel so he went back to get him.”

  “Oh.” Seth sniffed. He had two younger siblings and wasn’t impressed with babies.

  Not far inside the room, Crow overheard their conversation and looked up from an enormous, colorful pile of flower petals, from which he was carefully plucking the light blue ones. “Oh good,” he said. “I’ll watch the baby while Aaron does whatever magical junk he’s got to do over there.” Crow pointed his elbow toward the large table at the center of the room, where Ms. Octavia, Lani, and Alex stood.

  At the word “magical,” Fifer and Thisbe instantly turned to see if they could catch someone doing something. The two had had an uncanny ability from a young age to learn new spells easily just by witnessing them, which was why Alex had tried so hard to keep people from doing magic near them. Still, the girls had learned to sneak around to catch mages in action, unaware.

  As children they hadn’t known when it was proper to use those magic spells. Now, of course, they knew better. And they had pretty good control of the learned ones. It was the uncontrollable magic that came from deep inside them that was the problem—and that problem was a big one, obviously. So Alex stubbornly continued shielding them. It was most annoying.

  The twins watched as Ms. Octavia spread out a large sheet of paper in front of her. With two of her tentacles, she swiftly drew a plan for the wings while Alex stood by, pointing out a few changes that he wanted the octogator to make.

  Thisbe sidled closer to the table to get a better view of what the art instructor was doing, while Fifer and Seth helped Crow dig for more light blue petals.

  A few minutes later Aaron strode in, his son Daniel wrapped in a blanket in one arm, apparently asleep again. Aaron had several long, thick vines draped over his opposite shoulder. They dragged behind him on the floor.

  “What are those vines for?” Thisbe whispered to Fifer.

  Fifer and Seth shrugged. They all watched as the brothers greeted each other and Alex filled Aaron in on everything that had happened. The two young men had once been nearly impossible to tell apart, but it was easy enough for people to do so now. Alex was rarely seen without the colorful robe of the head mage. He wore his dark brown wavy hair longer than Aaron, who kept his cropped short. Up close, Aaron had a distinct scar between his eyebrows and another on his forehead from a shipwreck some months before the big battle. And Alex, of course, had lost the use of his left arm.

  When Crow, Seth, and Fifer finished sorting through the pile of petals, they gathered up the light blue ones and carried them over to Alex and the others, who were talking earnestly about the structure of the wings. Thisbe tagged along so she could get an even closer look at what they were doing. So far, no one had done any magic.

  Still holding the baby, Aaron struggled to lay out one of the vines on the table. Crow set his load of petals down on a free work surface nearby and offered to take Daniel so Aaron could use both hands. Aaron gratefully passed the baby to him and bent low over the table, artfully sculpting the vines according to the outline of the dragon wings.

  Thisbe, Fifer, and Seth hung around for a few more minutes, watching. Silently they wondered if Alex would start talking about the potential journey with Hux to make wings for the other dragons, but the adults were intently focused on the task before them and didn’t discuss it.

  Soon Fifer and Seth grew bored and went outside to the lawn. Thisbe lingered a few more moments, hoping to catch some magic in action, but then Alex noticed her watching them. He raised an eyebrow and shooed her out of the room. Reluctantly Thisbe went outside too.

  Most of the people of Artimé had dispersed by now to do whatever they normally did on the Day of Remembrance. Some spent a few moments in the hospital ward to thank Henry Haluki and Seth’s mother and the other healers, or remember a friend or loved one who’d spent their last moments there. Others paid their respects at the new memorial fountain at the far end of the lawn, where the giant rock from the jungle had once shielded all the orange-eyed children and the twins and Seth from the pirates and Queen Eagala’s warriors. Thisbe had a slight memory of that because of Fifer screaming and destroying a huge flock of Queen Eagala’s magical eye-pecking ravens, which went up in a cloud of smoke. Ever since then, Fifer had been able to call flocks of birds to come to her . . . but unfortunately she hadn’t figured out yet what to do with the birds once they came. Thisbe shuddered thinking about them. Only two things really freaked out Thisbe: heights, and Fifer’s creepy, useless birds.

  As they strolled along the shore of Artimé, Thisbe and Fifer told Seth about what had happened in the jungle. Seth didn’t seem sorry to have been at Magical Warrior Training during that adventure.

  They stopped at their favorite spot to sit and looked out over the sparkling sea. The two dragons had retreated to the lagoon at the edge of the jungle to wait for Alex’s decision and Hux’s wings, so the children were quite alone. Thisbe sprawled out on the lawn and plucked a long piece of mint grass to chew on. Fifer sat down a bit more carefully on her left, and Seth followed Fifer’s lead, not wanting to get grass stains on his vest.

  “Do you remember the dragons from before?” asked Thisbe. “From when we were young?”

  “I remember the stories about them,” said Fifer. “But I’m not sure if I actually remember them. Or being with them.”

  “I do,” said Seth. “We stood right down there by the water and watched them swim and fly around. What about you, Thiz?”

  Thisbe shook her head. “Sometimes I imagine I do—I can see the stories in my head almost as if they were real. But all I can actually remember about those days were those awful black ravens attacking us. I was severely traumatized. I hate birds.”

  Fifer whooped uncharacteristically at the mention of the ravens—she’d ended their existence with a scream, or so the story went. After her whoop, the children heard the distinct tinkling of glass. Fifer cringed. “Oops. I was trying to call the birds.”

  “Please don’t,” said Thisbe, rolling her eyes.

  One of the mansion windows opened and a perspiring chef from the kitchen leaned his head out. “Fifer, please!”

  “Sorry!” said Fifer. “What did I break?”

  “Two hundred water glasses,” said the chef, glaring.

  “Is everyone okay?” Fifer asked meekly.

  “This time, yes.”

  Fifer knew the chefs would never stay mad at her or Thisbe. The two had been helping out in the kitchen since they first came to Artimé as nameless one-year-olds. They would spend hours with Crow sending up room service meals and snacks through the tubes to the people of Artimé. And the girls never got mad or upset working in the kitchen, so the chefs had little to fear . . . oth
er than occasional exploding glass when they least expected it.

  “I’ll come in and clean it up,” Fifer offered.

  The chef waved her off with a dish towel. “Just try to stop doing it,” he blustered, and closed the window, continuing to grumble.

  Seth leaned back on an elbow, eager to continue the conversation. “Is that all you remember about the big battle, Thiz? You don’t remember killing the pirate captain?”

  Thisbe frowned. She hated having that image in her head. Hated how she couldn’t stop thinking about it when people brought it up. And it was an especially tender topic after what had happened yesterday with Panther. “No,” she said tersely. “I was two.”

  “Well, you did it, you know.”

  “Yeah, Seth, I know.”

  Seth’s face grew puzzled. The twins lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, looking at the sky. Around them colorful platyprots repeated snatches of conversations they’d overheard around the grounds. “I know, I know, I know,” said one nearby. It exploded into giggles. The three friends barely noticed, having grown up surrounded by them.

  “So . . . what’s the matter?” Seth asked Thisbe, feeling uneasy. He could argue with Fifer and not feel too bad about it, but he didn’t like it when Thisbe was mad at him. And not just because she might accidentally blow him to bits with her crazy killer magic.

  She looked at him crossly. “Nothing.”

  Fifer rolled to her side and wrapped a protective arm around her sister’s waist. “Nothing,” she echoed. She hardly realized she’d said it, for the two often echoed each other without intending to. But both girls knew what was wrong. Thisbe didn’t like talking about the fact that she had killed someone—an actual human—at the age of two. She didn’t even like thinking about it. It made her feel weird . . . and really very awful. She’d also nearly killed others in her younger years, including Alex, almost effortlessly with magic that was beyond her control. It was terribly unsettling, but it just happened sometimes when she didn’t want it to . . . like with Panther.

  As she thought about it, Thisbe didn’t really blame Alex for being strict, even though it made her feel bad that he didn’t trust her. And it wasn’t at all fun that he’d had to stifle the twins’ creativity and magical abilities for the safety of the people, but she could see why it had been necessary when they were younger. Even though stifling creativity went against everything Artimé stood for, it had seemed a fair enough trade when lives were at stake.

  But now they were the same age Lani had been when she came to Artimé and began to learn magic. Fifer had begged their brother incessantly to let them start Magical Warrior Training early, alongside Seth and the other thirteen-year-olds. She kept arguing that Florence, the Magical Warrior trainer, could help them figure out their strange brand of dangerous magic and learn to control it. But Alex kept digging his feet in, saying they had to take responsibility for their actions and learn self-control first. Besides, he often argued, becoming a mage in the traditional sense brought with it a whole slew of problems, one of which was being forced to grow up really fast and make some very difficult decisions. It had happened to Alex, and he didn’t wish the same thing on his sisters. In fact, it almost seemed like he’d rather they didn’t do any magic at all. Ever.

  But that was impossible. So even though the girls weren’t supposed to practice the few odd noncomponent spells that they’d picked up by observation, they did it anyway, in secret. And now that Seth had earned his component vest and was learning what all the different components were for and how to use them, Thisbe and Fifer couldn’t wait for him to teach them.

  At least that would give them something to do. Because Thisbe and Fifer were bored out of their skulls. They’d done everything nonmagical they could possibly do on a small magical island. They were expert swimmers since the age of four and could hold their breath underwater for seven minutes like the other mages. They’d been good gardeners since they were six thanks to chief healer Henry Haluki, and their adopted grandfathers—Ishibashi, Ito, and Sato—three old shipwrecked scientists with whom Aaron, Kaylee, and Daniel lived on the Island of Shipwrecks. The girls were pros, thanks to Aaron, at inventing unnecessary machines that cluttered the hallways of the mansion, and experts at riding Simber despite Thisbe’s fear of heights, thanks to the winged-cheetah statue himself taking pity on the bored girls. And they had pretty good knife skills after chopping thousands upon thousands of vegetables alongside Artimé’s chefs.

  They had also explored every inch of the land of Quill, which took up the larger, northern part of the island that was adjacent to where Artimé’s mansion, lawn, and jungle were situated. Quill was much less desolate now than it had been when Alex was growing up. Before the final battle, it had been destroyed by a terrible fire, but Alex had rebuilt it magically, so there were lots of rocks and cliffs and a beautiful lighthouse to visit. And it was no longer ruled by a tyrant, so it was safe to go there. Now, Lani and Henry Haluki’s father, Gunnar, was in charge, and he continued to slowly impress upon the people of Quill that there were much smarter and more humane ways of being a great nation than sending creative children to their deaths.

  The girls had also visited Warbler Island to the west, where Queen Eagala had once tormented her people by taking away their ability to speak and marked them as slaves by changing their eye color to orange. There were lots of caves and tunnels there, but Thisbe and Fifer had been in all of them. Warbler was where Sky was now, helping her mother, Copper, who’d stepped in to lead the people after Queen Eagala’s death.

  They’d been to Karkinos, the crab island, many times—only when Magical Warrior Training was not in session there, of course—visiting with the unusual legendary creatures who lived there, like the sea monster named Issie, who had been searching forlornly for her baby for over seven hundred years. Thisbe and Fifer had helped her search, to no avail.

  And the girls had been to the Island of Shipwrecks through the tube countless times to visit Aaron, Kaylee, and the grandfathers. And while there was a lot of weird collected junk to investigate inside the rock structures, and some shipwrecks underwater to look at, it could only keep Fifer and Thisbe satisfied for so long.

  They wanted more. They wanted to do magic without having to hide it. They wanted to figure out exactly what strange, incredible things they were capable of and actually practice them, not stifle their abilities. Why wouldn’t Alex see that they were ready?

  Thisbe chewed her mint grass thoughtfully. Despite her deep longing to do magic freely for once in her life without getting yelled at, she still hated that she had the ability to kill someone. And she would never, ever purposely use that kind of magic again, now that she understood it . . . if she could help it. The incident with Panther had scared her. The creature was too close to human. And even though Panther was okay now, Thisbe couldn’t stop feeling terrible about it.

  She had to make up for it somehow. “Why can’t you do something good with your uncontrollable magic for once? Do you always have to be so destructive?” Thisbe cringed, remembering Alex’s words. Maybe it wasn’t possible. But if it was, they had to prove it to him.

  How to do that was another problem. Lying here on the grass, thinking things through, Thisbe was starting to understand Alex’s point—she needed to figure out how to control her natural magic so he could trust her. And she needed to do something good with it for a change. Something Alex would be proud of, instead of angry about.

  Thisbe sighed. She would talk to Fifer about all of this later, when Seth wasn’t around. Maybe doing something good really was the answer to earning Alex’s trust . . . and making up for the accident with Panther. Maybe it would even lead to better control.

  Maybe.

  But for now the dilemma remained. The two most magical people in the history of Artimé were completely untrained, stifled by a stubborn brother who seemed nothing like the adventurous leader they’d heard so many stories about, and reliant upon their own devices if they were ever going to
see some excitement. They could only handle lying around being good for so long before something had to be done about that.

  As Thisbe, Fifer, and Seth wrestled with their thoughts, Thisbe turned her attention to the dragons in the lagoon, who awaited Alex’s answer. Sadly, she had a feeling she knew exactly what that answer would be.

  Weighing Risks

  That night at dinner, Fifer and Thisbe saw Alex sitting with Lani and Samheed Burkesh, who was the theater instructor. The three were deep in conversation, no doubt talking about whether to help Hux.

  At a long table nearby, Henry Haluki, Lani’s younger brother and the chief healer of Artimé, sat with a young man of a similar age named Thatcher. With them were a group of new Unwanteds who’d been sent to Artimé from Quill. Even after peace had come to the island and magic had covered Quill, some of the people there still insisted on purging their creative offspring once a year, cutting ties with them and sending them to Artimé. The practice had troubled Henry horribly, so he’d set out to make the transition less traumatic for the newcomers. From the time he and Thatcher were barely twenty, they began adopting Unwanteds, and now they had quite a large family.

  The twin girls also spotted Seth sitting with his family across the room. They waved to him but headed to Alex’s table.

  “I thought you’d take dinner up in your living quarters because of the Day of Remembrance,” Thisbe said to Alex, interrupting the conversation. She and Fifer greeted Samheed and Lani. Both girls eyed the empty space next to Lani, wanting to sit there. Fifer was closer, so she casually slipped into the seat, giving Thisbe a triumphant look.

  Thisbe sat down between Samheed and Alex. “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re talking about what to do with Hux,” said Lani. “Whether to help him or not.”

  Alex flashed Lani an annoyed look, but she stared Alex down. “The girls are old enough to hear this. They’re not babies anymore, Al. They’re the same age I was when we fought our first battle.”