“It’s too bad more of your friends can’t see her,” Ms. Octavia said, digging into the job.

“That’s for sure.” Alex was thinking particularly of Sky, who would probably really like Spike. And Lani and Meg, too, of course. But they couldn’t get into this wing. He’d have to paint a rendition for them, which was hardly the same as seeing Spike’s gloriousness in person.

There was a noise at the door, bringing Alex back to the moment.

“Ah, herrre they arrre,” Simber said. “We’ve recoverrred the sky vessel frrrom the sea. Florrrence, Carrrina, Sean, and Samheed arrre brrringing the pieces up now. We thought they could go in herrre with the otherrrs. Is that all rrright?”

“Yes, that’s perfect,” Alex said. He looked around. “They can set them right there, where the pirate ship was.”

A moment later the floor quivered and Florence entered the museum, carrying a large piece of the vessel. Following her were the others with smaller broken pieces, some salvaged equipment, and other curious-looking goods. Alex and Ms. Octavia put down their brushes and hurried over to observe the contents.

“What about the passengers?” Alex asked gently.

“Buried at sea,” Carina said, setting her things down. “Three of them.”

“We found a lot of interesting stuff,” Samheed said. “Papers and more books and clothing, and other things we’re not quite sure about.” He and Florence spread the goods out across the floor. “Some of it needs to dry out a bit. Mr. Appleblossom is taking care of the papers and books—he’s done this before and knows the best way to care for them without ruining everything.”

Alex studied the pieces, walking around them to get a full view. He pictured how the pieces fit together to make the vessel. It was larger than he had imagined. There was a long cockpit made of glass and some other strange white material. The cockpit was shaped a little bit like one of Artimé’s tubes lying on its side. Inside were four seats and an instrument panel that looked somewhat like a blackboard, with lots of buttons and gauges and letters on it. Some of the glass was broken, but the rest of the vessel seemed like it was in decent shape—just a few dents. There was one long wing jutting out, and another piece that looked like a second wing that had broken off.

At the nose of the vessel there were several blades attached, like a pinwheel, and a few more loose blades, bent and broken, that had been recovered from the ocean floor. Simber loped over to other pieces in the museum that had been collected years before to compare.

“They look similarrr,” he said.

“That’s what Mr. Appleblossom said too,” Samheed remarked. “He said he did some research in the library, and he thinks this is something called an airplane. I guess there was a manual in the stack of books we found.”

Alex tapped his lips, deep in thought. “Interesting. So it’s supposed to stay in the air? Like, it flies? How does it ever land safely without crashing? Do you think people just live in these things forever?”

“No,” Sean said. “Sigfried also said that they are like ships—they just transport people from one place to another. Like riding on Simber’s back, I suppose.”

“Except I would neverrr crrrash,” Simber muttered.

“Easy there, cat. I’ve seen you crash,” Alex reminded him. “You might not remember it, but it happened.” He held his hand to his forehead dramatically. “I’m still traumatized.” He was only partly joking. He still had regular nightmares about Simber’s frozen body crashing into the sea.

Simber frowned and walked back to the others. “That won’t happen again.”

“If it does, I may not survive my grief.” Alex reached out and let his hand rest on the cat’s neck in a rare show of the deep affection between the two. He thought he could feel Simber purring just the slightest bit, but he wasn’t sure.

“Harrrumph! Anyway. Wherrre do you suppose the airrrplane came frrrom? And what made it crrrash?”

Alex was as mystified as everyone else. “No idea.” He looked at the pieces again and shrugged. “I guess we just store these here until we can think of something useful to do with them. I wonder if we can restore it. Make it fly again.” He looked sidelong at Simber. “You know, in case Simber ever does take another nosedive into the sea and we need some air transportation.”

The cat growled. “We have morrre imporrrtant things to do,” he said.

“Good point,” said Ms. Octavia. “And we’ll be ready to go soon. Alex, do you have a finalized list of who will be accompanying us?”

“I will by tomorrow.”

“Perfect.”

» » « «

Later, when everyone had left, Alex stood alone with the whale once more, doing some final touch-ups with the paint and thinking about the upcoming rescue, and the reverse aquarium full of pirates and their captives underneath the strangely disappearing fiery volcanic island. “You know, Spike,” he said as he finished, “we could really use somebody like you on this trip.” He sighed, imagining it. “If only I knew how to make you come alive.”

Certain Death

The High Priest Aaron stood with one toe inside the tube and wiped the sweat from his forehead, commanding himself to pull it together. How was he supposed to fix the panther’s tail? He had to do something—if he just turned and escaped through the tube, he’d lose all hope of having these creatures on his side. And at this point, with the Quillitary still not very keen on Aaron because of his role in Justine’s death, the high priest could really use these creatures to take over Artimé. How would that be for giving the Artiméans a taste of their own medicine? Aaron was practically drooling over the idea.