Simber chose to fly. Immediately he scooped up an unresponsive Meghan into his mouth and carefully dug his claws into Samheed’s component vest, lifting them both. They hung limp from Simber’s grasp. Alex took his own advice and dropped to the ground, sliding himself along the side of the mansion to the door to help Simber.

A moment later squirrelicorns filled the air, picking up injured Artiméans far and wide and delivering them to the mansion.

Alex’s hands burned against the ice. He crawled up to the threshold of the mansion, past the Artiméans stationed there to help transition the injured inside. He rose to his knees and grasped the handle to open the door, praying that the ice was external only.

It was.

“Phew,” he said, pulling himself into the mansion and getting to his feet just as Simber lowered Alex’s two friends to within reach.

Alex stretched out his hands and pulled Meghan gently from Simber’s jaws. His face paled when he held her.

“She’s cold,” Simber said.

Alex’s heart fell. “From the ice, you mean?” he said, faltering.

Simber was silent. He dropped his eyes.

Alex’s eyes burned. “From the ice? Simber?”

“Just get herrr into the hospital warrrd!”

Wild with fear, Alex started off. “You guys grab Samheed so Simber can rescue more injured,” Alex croaked over his shoulder to the Artiméans at the door. “And tell Carina and Henry to hurry! Meghan’s . . . she’s bad off.” He ran with his best friend in his arms into the hospital wing, and laid Meghan gently on the nearest bed. Her freckled face was gray.

He couldn’t breathe. He put a shaking hand to his mouth.

From across the ward, Sean sat up, his leg in a cast and held up in the air in a sling. “Oh, thank goodness you’re all right, Al. Is everybody okay? That voice—did you hear it? That was Gondoleery Rattrapp! Eva told me about her, she’s—why, wait . . .” He sat up farther and peered at the figure in the bed. “Is that—is that Meg?”

Alex could barely hold it together as Henry and Carina burst into the mansion and came running toward him, and others rushed into the room carrying Samheed. He shot Sean a fearful look. “Yes,” he said in a voice that sounded far away. “It’s Meghan.” Numb, he backed off from the bed to let the healers get close, and then tripped over a side table as Sean, helpless in his bed, strained to see what was happening.

Carina began barking out orders to the nurses, and the more intense her voice became, the more Alex felt his world crashing in on him. He stumbled to the hospital ward entrance, useless, yet knowing there were many other wounded, and he had to help them.

Blindly he returned to the front door and picked up the next body that had been left there. He ran with it to hospital ward and deposited it on a bed, and then doggedly went back. Body after body he transported from inside the front door to the hospital wing until his limbs and lungs burned.

At first he tried to block the screams and shouts that were coming from Sean, and from around Meghan’s bed, but the cries were endless. Mentally he begged for a spell that would cause his hearing to fail while he did the job he had to do, but there was none. He couldn’t unhear the horrible truth. His dear friend Meghan, his freckled classmate and fellow Unwanted, was dead.

When Sean cried out Alex’s name and grabbed his shirt as he passed by with yet another body, Alex looked at the horror in his friend’s eyes and croaked, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, okay? There was nothing we could do to save her!” He ripped his shirt from Sean’s grasp and stumbled out of the hospital ward, hot tears singeing his eyes and throat as he went back for the next injured person. And all the while a sort of fatalistic mantra began forcing its way into his head, whether he wanted it there or not. It was the only thing that kept him going.

We can only save the ones we can save.

» » « «

By the time Florence and the rest of the ship’s crew had scuttled the distance across the frozen lagoon and reached the shore, Alex had almost singlehandedly delivered the last of the injured Artiméans to the hospital ward.

Hours later, as darkness settled over the island, only Henry remained beside Meghan’s now empty bed. He was crying inconsolably, his hands shaking as they clutched an unopened tin of fluorescent blue seaweed.

Another Shipwreck

With no water or food and in blinding pain, Aaron slid in and out of consciousness. As the pirate ship pulled his little fishing boat along, he didn’t notice the cylindrical island with the rocky crown on top as they passed by, and he didn’t notice the lush, larger island with the jutting mountain and waterfall on one side and the word “HELP!” spelled out on the beach with bones. Every time his eyes opened, all he could see was water. Where were they taking him?

Now and then the pirates above peered over the railing at him. Sometimes they jeered. Whenever Aaron cried out for water, some of them would spit at him and laugh. Aaron knew this was the end of him. His tongue swelled with thirst until he reached over the side of the boat and sipped a handful of sea water, but that only made him more thirsty.

His stomach twisted in pain, his shoulder felt like fire grew inside it, and his face swelled and throbbed. The sun beat down on him during the day, burning his skin, and when it went down at night, he shivered until he thought his teeth would fall out.

He drank more sea water and became delirious, shouting, “I am the high priest of Quill. Let me go!” And when the pirates laughed, he growled, “Take yourselves to the Ancients Sector!”