Gabriela’s arms were folded, one hand resting lightly against her chin. In her red cloak, she was like a wound in the blue-gray sky. Her beautiful face was thoughtful, which Noa took as a bad sign. Though only seventeen, Gabriela looked years older, her face aged and scarred by a childhood lived on a fishing boat in often harsh conditions. She had been truthful to them about that part of her past, at least, but almost everything else she’d told them had been a lie.
Noa’s face grew hot. Like most people on the island, she had liked Gabriela. But Gabriela had betrayed Julian to Xavier. Now she had attacked Astrae. Noa wished Julian had killed her.
Gabriela seemed to notice Noa’s expression. Slowly, she raised a hand, but whether in warning or greeting, Noa didn’t know. Gabriela knew how the prow worked, but Noa doubted she knew that the king’s cannons had nudged the island into motion. Otherwise, she would surely have stopped them already. Gabriela wasn’t a dark magician, but she was so good at Salt spells that she was widely considered the most dangerous mage alive, after Julian.
“Mite,” Noa growled.
Mite raised the sail with shaking hands. In the same moment, a group of black-clad mages charged over the hill—Julian’s mages, led by Renne. He must have rallied everyone uncorrupted to his side—now they were trying to retake the island.
Gabriela noticed their approach. She made a lazy gesture that reminded Noa of Julian, her lips moving in an incantation Noa couldn’t hear, and a wave leaped up and flooded the ground between her and the mages. One of the mages was washed away. A salt mage shouted an incantation, and a wave surged up the side of the cliff. Gabriela whipped around, holding up both hands, and barely managed to force the wave back before it closed over her head.
“Noa, look!” Mite cried. The sail was stirring in the wind—faintly at first, but then it opened fully, and the island gave a lurch.
Several of the mages stumbled and fell. Gabriela swayed, but caught her balance. Noa whooped, throwing her weight against the wheel. The island gave another lurch, and then it began to turn.
The mages were closing on Gabriela now. Her gaze flicked from them to Noa and Mite, her expression unreadable. Then, dashing her hair gracefully from her eyes, she turned and dove off the cliff.
Noa and Mite ran to the edge of the hill. But Gabriela had already vanished beneath the waves, with only a slight ripple in the water to mark her passage.
6
Julian Discovers the Lost Words
King Xavier tried to follow them, of course.
At first, it seemed like he might catch up. His cannons continued to bombard the island, though most of the missiles fell upon the beach. The captains of the ships put in a heroic effort, the ships’ vast crimson sails puffing out like frigate birds, but nothing could catch Astrae when it got going. The island had the added advantage of being invisible if viewed from behind (meaning whatever direction it was moving away from), so the captains were basically chasing a ghost. They didn’t have a chance.
Because it didn’t matter which way they went, as long as it was away from the king, Noa let out the sail and kept Astrae running downwind. She had watched Kell sail the island so many times that she didn’t even need to refer to her notes in the Chronicle. If the sail was properly trimmed, Astrae could outrun any ship in the royal fleet. It took only a few minutes for the warships to fade into the ocean mist. Islets whipped past alarmingly fast, and the wind was fierce enough to make Noa’s eyes water. Astrae vibrated a little but otherwise settled into the galloping pace like a well-trained racehorse.
Noa found out later that only one of the boats had made it ashore. Still, the twenty or so soldiers on board, including several mages, managed to come close to seizing control of the island. They had easily subdued the frenzied, corrupted mages on the beach, then broke into search parties to track down Julian and his council. Noa and Mite had met one of those parties. Another had entered the castle unopposed and made immediately for Julian’s tower. Poor Tomas had been so unnerved by their pounding on the door that he had hidden in the bathroom. Fortunately, though, an old spell Julian had placed on the tower door, barring uninvited entry to anyone not of Marchena blood, had kept them out until he woke up. Once that happened, of course, the invasion was over. Julian had ordered Beauty to capsize all the rowboats still in the water, and Noa doubted that many of those soldiers had managed to swim to safety.
Noa spent much of the next day writing in the Chronicle. She sat on the beach in the shade of a barnacly boulder, trying to ignore the racket the earth mages made as they shifted soil and stone to repair the castle staircase, which had fared the worst in the attack. Miraculously, Julian’s tower had taken only a few glancing blows. Mite had done more damage to it than the king’s warships had.
Noa turned to a fresh page, adjusting the tortoise shell she was using for a desk, which worked
