Desperately he searched for Meghan, waving his hands around through the water. His lungs felt like they were going to burst. He came up for air and whipped his head around, looking for any sign of her, but there was nothing. Then down he went again. Please! he screamed in his mind, thinking of Lani and Samheed. I can’t lose everyone.

That thought nearly made him break apart, but it also gave him the strength to dive deeper, to search harder. He surfaced once more, panting, and looked everywhere. Only the boat, upright again and drifting toward the shore, was visible. He knew there was no time to waste.

He sucked in an enormous breath and down he went a third time, deeper, farther, until his ears ached and popped. He strained to reach anything he could touch in the murky water. Just when he was about to give up he kicked his feet, and his toes got tangled up in something.

It was hair.

He turned sharply and reached for her hair, grasping it with his hand, and yanked as hard as he could, rushing, kicking, with all of his might, pulling her up alongside him and then pushing her above him to the surface. When they broke through, Alex gasped and sucked in air, flipping on his back and holding Meghan tightly to his chest, trying to float, and unable to do another thing until he had replenished his oxygen stores.

He squeezed Meghan’s stomach and started kicking toward the shore. “Breathe!” he cried. And then, between ragged breaths, he chanted to keep himself focused. “Breathe. Please breathe.”

Meghan choked and silently coughed up water. She took a raking breath in and coughed some more.

“Come on,” Alex said. “Breathe! That’s it!”

Meghan struggled. The sharp thorns around her neck cut into Alex’s chest like lethal scatterclips hitting their mark, but he couldn’t do anything to adjust his pain or hers right now. Waves constantly washed over their faces, causing them to feel like they were drowning over and over again.

“Come on, now,” Alex said again, barely whispering. “We’re going to make it. We’re going to make it.” He put everything he had into getting through the next second, and the next, and the next.

It took almost an hour to reach the shore of Artimé. When Alex could touch the bottom, he stumbled, dragged Meghan to the measure of sand, and collapsed. They rested there for several minutes in the dark, Alex just feeling the solid wet earth beneath him, Meghan not feeling anything at all. Alex didn’t let go of her. The only way he knew she was alive was by feeling her stomach rise and fall beneath his arm.

Finally, when he was able, he called out in a hoarse voice. “Help’anyone? Is anyone out here?”

No one answered.

No one? On a beautiful evening like this? Carefully he rolled Meghan off of him and staggered to his feet, his legs wobbly and his arms feeling like seaweed. He picked up Meghan under her arms and walked backward, dragging her up the shore, and then when he could go no farther, he set her down gently and turned toward the mansion to go and find help.

But there was no mansion there.

There was no mansion, no trees, no water fountains, no beautiful colors. No happy little creatures wandering about. No brightly lit lawn to sit on.

There was only a gray shack, sitting on a slab of broken cement. Burned-looking weeds grew out of the cracks. A stark wall stood in the distance, with a gate standing open. And strewn across the cement were the lifeless bodies of squirrelicorns and beavops and owlbats.

Alex felt his head spinning. Was he hallucinating? Had he landed on the wrong island? He stumbled forward in the moonlight, leaving Meghan lying on the sand. He went past lifeless body after lifeless body, not comprehending anything, until he saw a familiar lump with seven and a half quiet legs, none of them floating about at all. A pair of vanity glasses had fallen from her snout and lay next to her. “Ms. Octavia?” he whispered.

He kneeled at her side, feeling panic bubbling up inside. “Ms. Octavia!” he shouted in her face, but she didn’t blink or move. He touched her. Her face felt like cloth. Like she was some ridiculous patchwork doll.

Alex looked up. “Florence,” he murmured. “Florence!” He got up and started to run toward the gray shack, where Florence stood unmoving, in full stride, as if she were heading for the entrance. Alex went up to her and tugged on her arm. “Florence!” he shouted, but by now he knew.

Everything Mr. Today had created was dead.

But what about the humans?

“Mr. Today! Ms. Morning!” he screamed, his voice failing him. “Mr. Appleblossom! Sean? Eva? Anybody?”

He ran to the gate now, watching the path carefully so as not to step on any platyprots or other creatures. “Tina,” he whispered, not even bothering to yell anymore. The three girrinos were giant heaps in the dark. From somewhere beyond the gate he could hear voices’angry ones’and the sound of weapons clashing. He ran into Quill, encouraged to have heard some hint of life. But then out of the shadows someone strong reached out and grabbed Alex, clamped a hand over his mouth, and pushed him up against the wall.

To the Next Frontier

Aaron couldn’t stop the heart palpitations that apparently came packaged with the honor of killing the great mage of Artimé. When everyone had left the room, he sank weakly to High Priest Haluki’s desk chair and mopped his face with his hands. He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath.

It didn’t matter that it had been pure luck. An accidental ambush. A surprise attack from both perspectives. It didn’t matter that he was young and rash and quick, and that the old man wasn’t willing’or intelligent enough’to kill on first draw. This wasn’t some planned duel where each had the advantage of fairness. This was the enemy, without warning, entering Aaron’s own private quarters. Or, at least this place felt like Aaron’s home now. It was self-defense.