“What’s a mage?” Lani asked.

“A magician. Someone who performs magic. Anyway, to answer your question, the mansion remains relatively the same size and shape now in order to keep people from getting lost, and instead of adding on and adding on like a labyrinth, Marcus created the tube so you could get to the places that aren’t in constant use. This is the most frequently used room, as far as I know. I haven’t kept up with some of the new places that get added to the tube board. You’ll have to tube it to some of the classrooms and to the theater. But don’t worry. The blackboards know everything and are there to help you if you need it.” Sean chuckled. “Some of them have strong personalities, though, so be on your guard.”

Meghan nodded. “You mean like Earl?”

“Well, yes. But he’s all right. A bit grumpy at times.”

Lani and Alex exchanged curious glances across the table as Meghan and Sean discussed Earl and the personalities of blackboards. Alex shrugged and made a face. Lani stifled a laugh.

When the brother and sister began discussing Quill and the more delicate topic of their mother and father, Lani pointed stealthily to the bar-stool area. Alex nodded, and the two slipped away to grab a snack before turning in for the night. They noticed and discussed all sorts of odd things, like creatures and students doing magic tricks with folded up bits of paper, pencils, and other things that Alex and Lani had never seen before.

What the two didn’t see at first was Samheed standing with an unfamiliar, older, sneery-faced boy near the tubes. Eventually, though, Lani noticed Samheed watching Alex through narrowed eyelids, a spiteful sort of look on his face. Startled, she poked Alex. “What’s his problem?” she whispered, pointing.

But by the time Alex turned to look, Samheed and his friend had disappeared inside the tubes.

School

Several weeks of school and life in Artimé flew by. There was so much to learn, like what acting was, and how to tell if music sounded happy or sad, and how to write—not a story, yet, but actually how to write numbers and letters. Alex and the others could read, of course. But they had not been permitted to write. They’d never seen pencils before. Only the governors could authorize a teacher to write out lessons in private, and even then they were very careful to monitor the sorts of things a teacher would teach. Mostly it was math formulas and equations. After all, to be successful in the Quillitary, one needed only to know certain things, and writing wasn’t one of them. The High Priest Justine warned that writing led to creativity, and creativity led to revolt, which was very bad.

But now, with this exciting world awaiting them, the Unwanteds dove into their studies. It didn’t feel like school at all. And while each child took classes in all the arts, each also had one particular art to focus on. For Alex it was drawing and painting. For Meghan it was music. For Lani it was writing and storytelling, but Lani excelled in almost everything she put her mind to. And Samheed was practically born to act on the stage.

While Samheed’s sharp edges had grown a little bit softer by the end of a month, his general sourpuss, angry disposition still reared up regularly. Luckily, these emotions came in handy on the theater stage when a role required it, and that seemed to diffuse much of the anger directed at others. But Samheed continued to hold some unexplained contempt for Alex, and for Artimé.

Occasionally, Samheed would be seen in the company of the same older, sneering boy. The friends found out soon enough that the boy’s name was Will Blair, and that like Samheed he was a theater focus. Will’s face wore a permanent scowl. Nobody seemed to like him very much. He would shove people in crowded hallways and say rude things, as if his work were more important than anyone else’s.

“I think Samheed likes hanging around with Will because Will is more of an outcast, and it makes Samheed more likeable by comparison,” Meghan said, crunching on an apple at lunch one day when it was just she and Alex at the table.

“Whatever,” Alex said. “I think Samheed is just mean. He was mean back in Quill, and he’s still mean. I have no idea what his problem is, and I don’t care.” Even so, Alex got an uncomfortable, prickly feeling whenever he saw the two boys hunching over in private conversation at a corner table in the lounge and stealing glances around them or studying Alex as they whispered. It was rather unsettling.

But mainly Alex absorbed himself in his art under the instruction of Artimé’s finest painting teacher, Ms. Octavia, an octogator, and he had very little time to think about Samheed and Will Blair.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Alex,” the octogator had said when Alex first met her, face-to-face with her alligator mouth full of teeth, and half her octopus tentacles floating about, almost as if she were walking on air.

“O-okay,” Alex said, noting the location of the door in case he would need to escape.

“I’m Ms. Octavia. Mr. Today created me many years ago to cover an area of instruction in which he was not particularly gifted—the fine art of drawing and painting. Wasn’t it thoughtful of him to give me so many ways to excel in my craft?” She carried with her an eraser, a paintbrush, a pencil, charcoal sticks, a palette, and a cup of coffee, and could work on various tasks simultaneously.

Alex nodded. He glanced at her sharp teeth, gleaming in the brightly lit room. “I bet all your students listen to you too,” he said.

“Quite right.” Ms. Octavia grinned toothily.

Alex learned quickly over his first few weeks to use a pencil, charcoals, ink, and paints, experimenting with colors and depth, precision lines and vast strokes with his paintbrushes. He began by drawing and painting simple objects like a shoe, a pineapple, and a cactus, and moving on to structures and landscapes.