Island of Legends (The Unwanteds) (21 page)

Soon six squirrelicorns could be seen circling their posts, while everyone else remained still and on the watch for Copper.

From time to time, when there were few pirates moving about, Alex’s glance moved to the distant glass cage where the sea creatures were kept. Florence lay in the same position as before, unmoving. Alex’s gut twisted.

As the evening progressed, colorfully dressed pirates emerged through the set of large doors on the upper floor and mingled with each other, leaning over the sides of the walkway and looking out at the sea creatures in the glass cage. Or they appeared briefly, barking out orders to other, younger pirates or to the few in drab brown clothing like Copper. Not one of
them looked up at the skylights, but the Artiméans were also careful not to attract any attention.

Although Lani gasped once, and nearly fell onto the glass when she was observing two pirates talking to one another as they unrolled a scroll and studied it.

“What is it?” Samheed asked. “Did something happen?”

Lani stared at the scene below. “That scroll—those two pirates are looking at it. The drawing on it looks . . . interesting. Like maybe I’ve seen something like it before.”

“Oh, brother,” Samheed said. “You’re supposed to be watching Copper, remember?”

Lani scowled and didn’t respond. She strained her eyes to get a better look, but just then one of the pirates glanced around, so she had to duck to keep from being seen. When she dared to look again, they had gone down to the lower floor. They opened a glass display case near the stairs, unrolled the scroll, and pinned it inside. Then they closed the case once more and looked down into it at their drawing.

“What are they doing?” she whispered.

Samheed turned to look at her. “Will you focus, please?”

Lani felt like arguing—she was definitely focused. But not
on Copper. Reluctantly she held her tongue. “I guess it was nothing,” she said.

Copper stayed in view below, scrubbing the wood-plank walkway near a young man who was washing the glass walls. For the most part, the pirates ignored them.

Eventually the top level of the underwater island quieted, and more people made their way down the stairs. On the lower floor, they went individually through smaller doors.

“It looks like the upper floor is where some of them work, and the lower floor is where they live,” Alex noted. “Plus, there’s a stairway that goes down another flight.” He couldn’t see anything down there.

Soon Copper stood up straight and stretched, wiping her forehead with her sleeve. She signaled to the window washer, using Warbleran sign language.

“Do you think he’s from Warbler too?” Ms. Octavia asked.

“Yes,” said Fox. “I’m sure of it.”

Alex couldn’t help but glance at Simber to see the cat’s reaction, but when Simber did the same to Alex, both quickly looked away. Alex frowned and concentrated on Copper and the man below.

The man nodded. The two of them packed up their cleaning supplies and made their way down a sweeping spiral staircase to the terrarium floor, where the pirates had gone. But Copper and the man kept going down the stairs to the floor below that. Soon their heads disappeared from sight.

When Alex heard a sound behind him, he looked up. It was Sky and Lani.

“Alex,” Lani said, “we need a meeting. You, me, Henry, Sky, and Ms. Octavia. Sky has an idea.”

I
noticed something interesting about the pirates,” Lani began. “Henry noticed it too. They look like us.”

Alex knit his brow. “Like us?” He didn’t understand. “You mean like Unwanteds? I didn’t know we had a look.”

“No,” Lani said. “Like Henry and me. Most of them have our skin color, and, well, they just look like us.”

“A lot of the kids down there have straight black hair, like Lani and me,” Henry explained. “And many of the pirates we can see have blue eyes, like us. You know what I mean? Like they could be in our family.”

“Okay . . . ,” Alex said, still unsure why they needed to have a meeting about this. “Do you think you have relatives here too, who need rescuing? Is that what you’re saying?” If so, Alex was getting a bit tired of this rescue game.

“I—” Lani started to say, then paused, considering Alex’s question for a moment. “Well, I don’t know about that, but I just noticed the resemblance, and I said something to Sky about it. And she came up with a remarkable plan. Tell him, Sky.”

Sky’s orange eyes lit up. “Well, I was thinking, if Lani and Henry were willing, and if you didn’t think it was too dangerous, that maybe they could go inside disguised as some of the people who live here. They could find my mother and explain who they are, and then plot an escape out the fishing hatch.”

Alex pondered the idea. “Yes,” he said slowly, “and they could help her with the underwater part. I’ve been very worried about that—I assume your mother is like other Warblerans and never learned to swim?”

“Right. She can’t,” Sky said. She flashed a grateful smile at Alex.

“Henry and I can take her right through it and swim her to
the surface fast,” Lani said. “She’ll be fine, right, Henry?”

Henry nodded.

“But how are you going to get inside?” Ms. Octavia asked. “You’ll be soaking wet if you just dive down and go in. The pirates use waterproof suits and helmets when they go out to fish. I’ve been watching.”

“I’m going to sneak in through the hatch and borrow them,” Sky said. Her voice held an edge to it, as if daring Alex to say no.

Alex stared at the water, lost in thought. He didn’t say no. He thought it was a great idea, actually. “Fine. I’ll go with you. We’ll get two suits in one trip—that’ll be the best way.”

“But then there’s the matter of our clothes,” Lani said. “Once we get in there and get the suits off, we won’t look like pirates. Our clothing will make us stand out.”

“I can sew,” Sky said. “I did it all the time on Warbler. We’ve got to have some clothes packed on the ship that I can fashion into something similar to what the pirates wear—bright, solid-colored shirts, gray or black pants. It won’t be hard once we have the materials to work with.”

“I can help you with the sewing,” Ms. Octavia said. “I’m
quite good. And rather fast.” She waved four or five tentacles as proof.

Sky grinned. “Then let’s not waste any more time here. Everyone’s gone to bed anyway, it seems.”

“I was just about to say that,” Alex said. “Let’s see what we can do. I haven’t felt any tremors at all, have you? Maybe we can get in and out of there before it sinks. I saw Copper head down the spiral stairs to somewhere below that main floor where the trees and plants are. At night would be an even better time to sneak in and rescue her, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” Henry said. “Let’s do it. I’m tired of sitting around this stupid volcano all day.”

With that, Simber delivered Octavia, Sky, Lani, and Henry to the ship so they could get started right away, and the rest of the crew so they could get some sleep.

» » « «

Five hours later, when sunrise was still a long way off, Sky shook Alex awake. “We’re ready,” she whispered.

He flashed a sleepy smile at her—there was no better face to wake up to. And then he remembered.
Focus, Stowe.
The smile slipped away, and he scrambled to his feet, serious once more.

Alex, Sky, Lani, Henry, and Ms. Octavia climbed onto Simber’s back, and they soared out into the night. Simber first circled the skylight to see if anyone was strapped into the wall seats. Seeing only a few pirates meandering about, Simber landed on the island, directly above the fishing hatch. He stood there for a few minutes to check for tremors, and when he was satisfied that all was well, he gave the go-ahead for the group to pile off.

“You guys totally look like pirates,” Alex said to Lani and Henry. “We’ll be back soon with the suits. He turned to Sky but didn’t look her in the eye. “Ready?”

Sky nodded. “Ready.” Her fear of the water was long gone, and she could swim with the best of them. Plus, she was so eager to finally get this rescue started that it didn’t really matter how Alex was acting.

Alex turned to Ms. Octavia. “You’re the lifeguard in case something goes wrong, okay?”

“Of course,” Ms. Octavia said.

Then Alex took off his robe and draped it over Simber’s shoulders. “And you’re the mage,” he said.

“We know how well that’ll worrrk out if we lose Arrrtimé,”
the cat said dryly. But he held Alex’s gaze for the first time since they’d lost Florence. “So be carrreful.”

Ms. Octavia nodded. “Yes. And watch out for eels.”

“Believe me, we will,” Alex said. He hesitated, then held out his hand to Sky. She took it, and together, on three, they dove into the water.

They swam to one side of the hatch first, staying out of the light that came through the glass walls of the reverse aquarium. It was an interesting though slightly distorted view, looking in through the side rather than from above.

When all looked clear, Alex signaled to Sky, and they went toward the sliding hatch door. Alex moved his hand up and down the side, looking for the button that would open it and let them into the small drainage room. Finally, fumbling along a side panel, he hit it. The door slid open. There was already water in the holding place, so instead of getting whooshed into the open space by a wall of water under extreme pressure, he and Sky merely swam into the box.

The outer door slid closed behind them, and the door in front of them opened. The water in their box rushed out and fell through a grate in the floor. Alex and Sky landed haphazardly
on top of the grate. “Looks like there’s probably an art to this,” Sky said, laughing under her breath as she got to her feet.

Alex grinned, and all the reasons he liked Sky rushed through his mind along with a dull ache. He
had
to focus. “Okay,” he whispered. “No mistakes. Let’s get the stuff. Coast is clear.”

They each grabbed a suit and a helmet and rolled the suits up carefully so they wouldn’t get wet inside when they went back out. Sky pressed the button. The inner door opened to the now waterless holding space. They stepped in, and the door closed behind them. “Stand back and hang on,” Sky muttered. “Here comes a wall of water.”

She cringed and pressed the second door’s button, bracing herself. But this time the door opened very slowly, letting the water in at a manageable speed. “Very sciency,” Alex remarked as the water level reached his neck. “Here we go.”

They took deep breaths and held them. Once Sky and Alex were completely submerged and the water had reached the top of the box, the door opened all the way. They exited and swam the distance to the surface, eventually popping up out of the
water directly in front of Lani and Henry, who had leaned over the edge of the island, trying to see.

“Here you go,” Alex said, flinging his helmet and suit up over the edge. Sky did the same. They hauled themselves up with a little help and stood before their friends, dripping. “Nice and easy,” Alex said. He took off his shirt, squeezed the water out of it, and put it back on. “No problems. Nobody saw us.”

Sky explained how the doors worked while Lani and Henry put on the suits.

“You guys okay? You know where you’re going?” Alex asked.

“Of course, you dolt,” Lani said.

He smiled. “Just . . . don’t get caught here, okay? Your dad will kill me if anything else happens to you.”

“We won’t. In fact, Henry calculated it, and he thinks we’ll be back in ten minutes or so—if we can find the right room for Copper.”

“That’s a big if,” Alex muttered. He was definitely nervous about Operation Copper working as planned. So many things could go wrong.

“Oh!” Sky said. She rummaged through her wet pocket and
pulled out a thin gold chain bracelet. “Show her this so she’ll know it’s safe to go with you. She’ll recognize it.”

Lani took it and, since she couldn’t reach her pockets with the suit on, slipped it on her wrist. “Got it.”

“Let’s go,” Henry said, bouncing a bit.

Alex gave them both a quick embrace. “Best of luck, you two,” he said. “Be smart and be careful. You can do this.”

“We know,” Lani and Henry said together, both wearing smug smiles. And with that, the Haluki children dove into the sea.