“None that I can see,” Florence replied. She pointed and said, “It’s a pretty small island. When I stand up I can see between rock formations to the water on the other side. I think I saw Spike’s spike flashing a minute ago in the water over there.”

“Oh, good,” Alex said. “Do you see any animals? Food or water? Anything?” His stomach growled loudly, and his tongue felt thick with thirst.

Florence shook her head. “Not even a bird. There’s not much plant life on the island either, as far as I can tell, but I haven’t explored everything yet, and obviously I don’t have Simber’s infallible sense of smell to detect things. The shipwrecks all seem old, weathered, and abandoned—I can’t imagine anyone surviving a violent wreck like the one we had, without also having the swimming capabilities of our Artiméans.” She looked at Alex. “Other than the wrecks, there’s nothing much here but these giant rock formations with moss and lichen growing on everything. It must rain a lot here.”

“I wondered last night if the storm is permanently stationed above the island,” Alex said, looking up at the circle of dark clouds above their heads that didn’t seem to be moving anywhere. The thought didn’t seem as weird now that the weather had remained so consistently stormy throughout the night. He looked beyond the shoreline and could see far enough to discern sunshine on the water in the distance. He ventured farther into the drizzle. “All those shipwrecks,” he said.

“Yes,” Florence said. “I counted at least ten. Ours is over there.”

“You found it?” Alex asked, looking up at her. “It didn’t sink?”

“It’s lodged on the rocks, split in two. Or maybe it’s in more pieces than that, but there are two large ones for sure.”

Alex and Florence walked to the island’s edge and stared at the wreck.

“Oh dear,” Alex muttered.

“You said it,” Florence said.

Alex absently raked his fingers through his damp, tangled hair, setting it on end, not unlike Mr. Today used to do. He took in the scene. The ship sat half underwater, split from port to starboard. Its gaping maw made a V, like a giant window allowing them to view the water on the other side of it.

“Do you, um,” Alex began, and tilted his head as he studied the ship. “Do you think it’s something we can . . . repair?”

“Not out there.”

“Right, right. No, of course not. We’d all get swept away.” He squinted. “Well then what?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can try to put it on land, you know.”

Florence tapped her lips with her finger. “So you can. I’d forgotten about the transport spell.”

Alex sized up the land nearest the water, trying to figure out if there was a flat enough spot on the shore for the ship, and then he looked back at the wreck. “I don’t know if it’ll all come in one piece, though, if it’s a complete split.”

“I fear it is, or it’s close, anyway—look at the angle. It can’t be held together by much, if anything. We’ll have to try it and hope for the best.”

“Yeah, that spell is a little finicky,” Alex said, remembering how hard it had been to find Spike when he’d transported her to the water. “I’ll do what I can to land it in a good place. I just hope . . .” He trailed off, wondering what sort of mess it would be if he had to transport it in pieces, and whether they’d end up anywhere near each other. He decided to put that out of his mind. “You know,” he said, “if we can find a rope, I bet we can attach one half to the other with it. That way it’ll technically be one piece.”

“Good thinking, kid,” Florence said. “You’re smarter than you look.” She grinned. “We may as well try now while no one’s wandering about to get crushed to death.”

Alex laughed. He was really starting to enjoy Florence’s sense of humor, and he liked it when she teased him. It made them feel like friends. “You should take cover then too—or better yet, will you carry me out there so I don’t have to get wet again now that it seems to have stopped raining for the moment? My skin is shriveling up.”

“Oh, sure,” she said drily. “Now you let me carry you, when there isn’t any danger. Stubborn mages. You’re all alike.”

“Sorry,” Alex said sheepishly.

“Shall I clear an area on the beach so you can aim for it?”

“That would be excellent.”

While Alex ran back to the shelter to tell everyone to stay there for a while, Florence quickly uprooted a few scraggly bushes and tossed several large boulders out of the way near the flat, open area of the beach. She approached the remains of an old fishing boat that had somehow made it through the maze of jutting rocks and all the way to the mainland before wrecking. After peering inside it, she carefully picked it up and moved it to another area, leaving behind a small army of crabs scuttling across the wet sand. When she was finished, she met up with Alex again, hoisted him up to her shoulders, and set off through the rough water to their ship.

“You know, we used to climb on you when you were frozen,” Alex confided. “You happened to be standing in a very convenient spot when the magic disappeared.”

“Is that so?” Florence said. She narrowed her eyes. “Who is we?”

“Oh, me and Sean and Carina and Sky and Mr. Appleblossom—”