“No,” he said. “Stay here in the water. Please. I’m sorry— you’re right. I was a jerk.”

She looked into his eyes, so brown and earnest. “You’re just being like this to get me to come back with you,” she said, setting her jaw.

Alex tilted his head, about to protest, but then he changed his mind. “You know what?” he asked. “So what if I am? I’m not afraid to say that I care about you and I don’t want you to die, and yes, I want you to come back to Artimé with me. So I’m not just ‘being like’ anything but me. But the truth right here, just you and me and no hiding on top of roofs or in pirate ship stairwells, and no giant cat hovering overhead—the truth, Sky, is that I think about you all the time. And when I’m not with you I miss you, and I feel like we have this, I don’t know, connection or whatever, and maybe that’s because of all we went through restoring Artimé. But I don’t know, you know? You’re the one I broke down in front of that first night on the roof, and I hardly even knew you. You’re the one I went to when I needed somebody smart to help me solve things.”

He was out of breath. He winced and pulled himself up, lurching to get a new grip on the raft. “The problem is, I just don’t know what to do. Because there will be a lot of times where I’m plastered with all the messes this magical world makes. And I guess that’s a lot—I don’t know. All I have is what I’ve experienced so far, and this job about killed me. So I don’t know . . . exactly what, or how much, I’d have left . . . over . . . for someone.”

He swallowed hard, and his foot brushed the sandy bottom. “But the one thing I do know, and I’m not just saying this to get you to come home, is that I told you on the ship that I would help you get your mother out of there. And I meant it. I meant it then, and I mean it now. And I’m sorry it has taken me so long to get healthy, and I’m fifty times sorrier I didn’t let you know I was thinking about it . . . and you. But if we do this Pirate Island rescue, we need to do it right. And there’s no way I’m going to break into an underwater pirate island with a team of people who can’t swim, because that would be stupid, and we are not stupid.”

Sky was quiet. And then she gently draped her arms around his neck and hugged him.

He closed his eyes, digging his foot into the sandy floor of the sea.

When he turned to see just how many witnesses he’d had to his latest spectacle, the beach was strangely empty.

“You can touch the bottom here,” Alex said, loosening his grip so she could slide down to her feet. “Come home with me?”

Sky nodded.

“Stay until we’re ready to crush the pirates and live to tell about it?”

“Okay,” she said.

He cast a sidelong glance at her as they slugged through the shallow waves in their wet clothes. “Promise?”

She grabbed his forearm and almost tripped over her own feet. “Promise,” she said, laughing.

Alex caught her and laughed. “Ow. You’re seriously killing me now.”

Back to Normal

Alex’s ribs slowly knit back together over the next months, and Artimé resumed its normal routine. Alex began wearing one of Mr. Today’s robes all the time, knowing that if the world disappeared and he didn’t have one, they’d be in another mess. After tripping a few times on the long hem, Sky took the robes and tailored them to fit him.

All the various classes, Beginning and Advanced Magical Warrior Training, and picnics on the lawn began again.

And so did Alex’s plan for Pirate Island. With Artimé situated on the sea, most Unwanteds learned how to swim whenever they felt like going into the water—there was always somebody older willing to teach a new Unwanted how to hold his breath underwater and how to move through it safely using arm strokes and leg kicks. But now Alex asked Ms. Octavia, in addition to her art classes, to begin teaching an extensive swimming course for those who wanted to volunteer to help rescue Sky and Crow’s mother. Dozens of people signed up. After the initial lessons, when some naturally dropped out upon realizing they were not suited for this quest, and only the strongest swimmers plus Sky and Crow remained, Ms. Octavia began to share the secrets of sea breathing with the determined ones who remained.

She began to teach them little tricks and helps that would allow them to eventually hold their breath for an extraordinarily long time by utilizing the oxygen that was stored in their blood, not just in their lungs.

It was the most strenuous, exhausting exercise Alex and the others had ever tried, and the progress was slow. But it was necessary if they were going to succeed.

In the evenings, when Alex wasn’t spending time in the lounge with Lani, Sam, Meghan, and Sky; strategizing about Pirate Island; or training his lungs and muscles for the rescue, he went to the Museum of Large to clean up the mess of whale bones in there. Claire, Gunnar, and Octavia all offered to help, but he declined. It was something very soothing for Alex—an enjoyable, creative task he could do alone. It gave him the opportunity to decompress from his day and think up new ideas for Artimé. Now he understood exactly why Mr. Today had spent so much time fixing up the pirate ship. It was a relief to realize that not every day as mage of Artimé would require him to work at a breakneck pace.

Alex placed each whale bone carefully into its socket, sometimes looking for hours to find the exact piece he needed next. It was a glorious puzzle with hundreds of pieces, and it took him months to finish it.