The Unwanteds (14 page)

A
lex flew through his first weeks of Magical Warrior Training, determined to catch up to the others. Whenever he wasn’t in class or in training, learning how to paint himself invisible, studying slam poetry charms, or drawing chalk outlines that would freeze a targeted person in one position indefinitely, he was in his room practicing all these things. He slipped into his classes late and left early so he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. He took most of his meals in his room, still percolating with disgust at Lani for continuing to badger him with her pranks. He didn’t respond to any of his friends who left messages for him
through his blackboard, though Clive of course delivered all of the messages rather loudly. Alex wished desperately to have his shush button back.

And so it was that ever since the governors’ visit, Alex had completely abandoned his friends. Yet he missed the companionship they’d all had during those moments when they weren’t laughing at him or disgusted by him. Finally, one morning, Alex decided to come down to the dining room to eat.

“Why won’t you answer our messages?” Lani demanded over breakfast. She pouted dramatically.

“Yes, why?” Meghan said.

Alex put his breakfast on the table and sat down wearily. He was tired of being yelled at. He looked at Samheed, who simply raised an eyebrow and took another spoonful of jam for his toast.

“Hello, Samheed,” Alex said pointedly.

“Awex.” His mouth was too full to say more.

“It’s not like we were going to yell at you. We just … we were worried since you haven’t been around,” Lani said.

“I wasn’t worried,” Samheed said after swallowing. “
You
were worried.”

“I meant Meg and me.” Lani shot Samheed a cross look.

“I wasn’t worried either,” offered Meghan. “Well, not much, anyway.”

Lani blushed furiously and flounced in her seat. “Fine. I was worried.”

“Well, get on with it, then,” Alex said. “Have at me and get it over with.”

“You mean the governors’ inspection thing?” asked Meghan. “It’s over. Hardly anybody’s talking about it now.”

“Yeah, right. Then why is Ms. Morning sitting over there shooting pins at me with her eyes?”

Meghan turned to look at her focus instructor and waved. Ms. Morning startled and blinked, and then her face broke into a pleasant, almost sheepish smile as she nodded hello. “See, Alex? She wasn’t even looking at you.”

Alex shrugged and began to respond when the giant blackboard in the dining hall came to life, and Oscar—for that was his name—spoke. “Attention, students. Please report to the theater in place of your first class this morning.” The children could hear the announcement ringing in stereo throughout the mansion. Oscar melted into the screen once again, and the
words he’d just spoken were written in large neon letters, sure to catch the attention of even the least aware.

“Oh, look, Alex,” Samheed said. “They’ve added bright colors to make sure you don’t miss it.”

On a normal day, when Alex might have been in a better mood, he would have laughed, or fired back a reply just as snide. But there hadn’t been any ordinary days for Alex in well over a month. And even though he was thrilled with his first weeks of warrior training, he was still very hurt that Lani kept knocking him off his feet with spells even though he’d asked her to stop, and he still felt bad about the mess he’d caused with the governors’ visit, and he was still very lonely, missing Aaron, and probably in need of a kind word, but none of his friends seemed compelled to give it now that he’d snubbed them so much. And he didn’t much care for Samheed’s sarcasm this particular morning after he’d gotten a full dose of mocking from Clive already, who had laughed and laughed when Alex had failed several times to cast an invisibility-paintbrush spell on himself.

And so, instead of ignoring it, Alex shoved his chair back and leaned toward Samheed, his clenched fists on the table, a wild look in his eye. “Not funny, Burkesh.”

“Geez, Alex. It was just a joke.”

“I’ve had about enough of everybody’s blasted jokes,” Alex said.

“Ease up, man,” Samheed said, pushing his chair back slowly. He knew Alex was no match for him, and he didn’t want to have to punch him in the face again.

“Me? Ease up? Oh, that’s ripe.” Alex slowly moved around the table toward Samheed.

Lani stood up. “I’ll take him down for you, Sam!” She began speaking an incantation.

Alex whirled around to face her. “And you! One day soon you’re going to be very sorry you did th—” He stopped short and stared as Lani pointed up in the air above Alex’s head and shrieked, frozen mid-spell. She fell to the floor. Immediately the dining room erupted into shouts and fearful screams.

“What—who—” Alex whipped around to see what had happened.

Samheed, a shocked look on his face, pointed upward and then dove under a nearby table, while Meghan scrambled out of her chair and ran for safety.

Alex looked up. Descending toward their table at a rapid
rate were the enormous back paws of the great winged-cheetah statue, nearly upon him. He dove off to the side, almost getting slammed across the room when the tip of the cheetah’s stone wing caught him on the back.

Simber landed gracefully, though his wings flapped with such force that the wind blew the teacups right out of their saucers. “Enough!” he roared, looking at Lani. “Save yourrr spells forrr yourrr enemies!”

And after a moment of complete silence, the enormous creature ceremoniously folded in his wings, turned about carefully in the space between tables, and loped gracefully back through the dining room and down the hallway to the front entrance, where he leaped up and assumed his normal position.

Ms. Morning rushed over to the table, helping Lani sit up and checking to make sure Alex was okay. Samheed crawled back out from under the table and brushed himself off, and Meghan returned wide-eyed as well. The room remained hushed as the four stood there looking at each other. Lani was still a bit pale and shaky but otherwise unharmed … that is, if you didn’t count the pointing and laughing from others, for
days and years to come, for being the one who drove Simber just a little bit over the edge.

The four, no longer having much of an appetite, turned without further ado and made their way to the tubes, meeting again in the theater a split second later. There was no need to mention the event again; one of them wished to forget it entirely, while another hoped to remember it forever as the time the most frightening creature in all of Artimé came to his defense. Desperately Alex wished it would set in motion a better, happier time.

He bit his lip, thinking he was a big reason things weren’t good now. He glanced at Lani, feeling bad about his outburst. He really needed to get a handle on things. “Sorry, guys,” he said as they walked toward their seats. “I’ve been kind of a jerk lately.”

Meghan smiled, and Samheed punched Alex lightly in the shoulder. Lani just nodded and kept her eyes on the floor. “It’s okay,” she said finally.

The seats in the theater filled rapidly, and one could hear murmurs through the crowd, half of them discussing the
drama of the dining room, and the other half wondering what could be so important as to prompt a meeting such as this, with all of the creatures, students, instructors, families, even the little children required to attend. Simber and Florence appeared rather suddenly as well, standing elegant and tall near the back, and Meghan wondered for a moment how they could have possibly fit in the tubes. But when Mr. Today walked briskly to the stage, all stray thoughts ceased along with the buzz of the crowd.

Most of the creatures sat near the front since they were shorter than the humans. The winged creatures hovered at the ceiling, including Jim, who sort of bounced up and down like a yo-yo in his slow-flapping fashion. Each push down with his powerful wings brought him to the ceiling, and each flap up allowed him to sink several feet, sometimes more, such that the creatures sitting directly below him glanced up nervously from time to time just to make sure he wasn’t about to free-fall and make feathercakes out of them.

“Good morning,” Mr. Today said. The crowd was silent. Even the platyprots held their tongues whenever Mr. Today began speaking, though it was surely very difficult for them,
especially when they could have had such a large audience.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice. Which reminds me, has anybody seen Alex Stowe? What’s that? Oh, he’s here? Tremendous!” The mage chuckled heartily and smiled in Alex’s direction, and the crowd laughed as well, some feeling quite relieved that Mr. Today was making a joke out of it. Alex turned bright red and grinned reluctantly, which turned out to be the best thing he could have done; it took the pressure off him enormously. Later, when he thought about it again, Alex was quite grateful for the attention.

“To the business of the day, the task we may face,” Mr. Today began in a serious tone of voice. “First of all, I do not wish to frighten anyone. We’ve all learned that there is enough fear of the unknown in Quill to strike us all into a panic on a whim even years later. Fear is a difficult thing to unlearn. But you know that is not my way of doing things. Rather, I called you all here this morning because I do not wish to hide anything from you.” He paused, his eyes roaming the crowd.

“I have reason to believe, as I have made clear for the past several years, that we may at some point be discovered. You all know this—I’ve never tried to hide it. And while Artimé is
magic, it was created by my flawed human hands, and therefore perfection, complete safety, isolation, is not something I have ever promised, or will ever promise you.

“Today I come before you with nothing more than a hunch, an inkling, that sometime before the next class of Unwanteds arrives a few months from now—and yes, ‘sometime’ could mean next week or it could mean the day of the next Purge, but I rather think it will come somewhere in between—we will be discovered by the people of Quill.” A wave of whispers passed from one end of the theater to the other.

“What will happen then, you may be asking. I do not have the answer. Perhaps nothing at all. But more likely the High Priest Justine and her governors will be so completely furious that they will stop at nothing to kill us all.”

In the silence that followed, no one panicked. Each member of the crowd realized that they had been preparing for a day like this to come, and while nobody wanted it, everyone knew the purpose of Magical Warrior Training and the potential danger that faced them. And since most humans in the room had faced death once before, this was not as big a shock to them as it might have been.

“And so,” Mr. Today continued, “today we begin preparing in earnest, and we shall be adding more group classes to help us better learn the benefits of fighting as warriors together, rather than as individuals, each with his own plan. We will be doubling our instruction in spell casting and offering you opportunities to create spells of your own. You’ll have plenty of chances to practice in class.

“Please do keep in mind that while I do not wish to tell you how to fight, for we all have our different methods and emotions involved in this issue, it is my personal policy to use nonlethal weapons and creative ingenuity to fight. Some of you will feel that it is wrong to kill another person no matter the reason, no matter that they once tried to kill you. You will no doubt create other means to protect yourselves and those around you.

“Others of you still seethe with anger and spite for what the brainwashed people of Quill have done to you, and you will not hesitate to give them the same sentence that they once gave to you—or at least the sentence they didn’t stop from happening. To you, I ask only that you begin now to consider your future actions and your motivations so that you are sure
of your choices. I don’t wish for anyone to live to regret a hasty decision for the rest of his life.” Mr. Today lowered his head for a moment, and then went on in a strong voice.

“Be assured, my dear citizens, that it takes more than strength and intelligence to win a battle—it takes creativity and skill and common sense, and Artimé is brimming with it! Let’s work together now, everyone, to maximize our ingenuity and skills. To grow strong and confident. To take on any challenge that comes our way with reason and with dignity.

“My greatest hope,” he said in conclusion, “is that my hunch is incorrect. But if it is not, we shall be prepared.” Mr. Today folded his fingers together and bowed his head slightly. The people of Artimé hesitated, and then rallied together in cheers and applause for their beloved leader.

In the ruckus no one seemed to notice Will Blair and Samheed sneaking away to the tubes.

S
amheed was the last to arrive at the Library of Magical Art. He plopped down in the chair next to Lani, who leaned over a large, ornate book of spells, reading intently. Alex and Meghan worked together with colorful sheets of origami paper, first following directions they had received in their group warrior class, and then branching out a little. Alex was determined not only to catch up to the others in his private warrior lessons, but also to make something of a name for himself by creating a unique charm that actually worked and was useful.