Noa didn’t bother to mention that it was Beauty who hadn’t left her be. “I hope you don’t mind that we moved the prow.”
“Not one bit!” Kell’s warm brown eyes grinned down at her. “Nice to have a change of scenery once in a while. Though I must point out, the spot you chose is lousy with lizards. Not a moment goes by without one running over my toes, which are fearsome ticklish. . . . Speaking of the prow, I’ve got you down for a shift tomorrow night. Up to it?”
“Oh, yes,” Noa said with a stab of excitement. Taking a shift at the prow mostly just involved sitting around and making sure no storms blew the island off course. Still, Noa loved it. There was nothing like sitting at the wheel as the stars gleamed above you and Astrae glided through the sea like a ghost, knowing you had an entire island at your command.
“Thought I could teach you some mariner’s knots, too. You proved yesterday you’ve got a knack for sailing. Where would we have been without you?”
Noa didn’t think mariner’s knots would come in handy on Astrae—after all, the only bits of ship the island had were the mast and the wheel—but she agreed readily. You never knew when something like that would come in handy. Noa was of the opinion that it made good strategic sense to collect as many skills as possible.
Reckoner limped into view, belly swinging from side to side. The old dragon sat down heavily and sniffed Noa’s pockets. Finding them empty, he heaved an enormous snort, as if resigning himself to the injustice of the world, and slouched off to the grass to take a nap.
Reckoner’s appearance was a sign that Julian was nearby, and sure enough, there soon came the sound of his light footsteps on the path. Kell and Renne bowed, murmuring, “Your Highness,” and left them.
Julian settled himself gracefully on the beach beside Noa, unclasping his black cloak to use as a blanket. He had healed his injuries, but his eyes were shadowed from little sleep. Like most of his magicians, he’d been up all night, searching for mages and villagers who were still corrupted and assessing the damage wrought by the king’s attack.
“Where’s Mite?” Noa said.
“We just finished today’s lesson. I made her take a nap, though she insisted she wasn’t tired. She fell asleep halfway through the first sentence.”
Noa snorted. Mite refused to sleep unless Julian read her a story first. The last time he went away, she had refused to go to bed at all, and had driven her nursemaid to distraction by leading her on a chase through the castle, which had only ended when Mite fell into an exhausted slumber in one of the kitchen cabinets.
Noa didn’t often get Julian all to herself these days—at least, Julian undistracted by his books and maps and experiments. She wasn’t going to waste the opportunity, so she arranged her arguments in her head like soldiers. “I have some ideas—”
“Yes, I know you do,” he said, regarding her with amused exasperation.
Noa hadn’t expected this. “You . . . do?”
“You’re like the sun, my Noabell. I know that it will rise in the east and set in the west, just as I know that you’ve already hatched a hundred plots and schemes to prevent another near-disaster like yesterday’s. And you will badger me until I agree to all of them. Your arguments are unnecessary. That’s why I came to talk to you.”
Noa’s surprise was slowly giving way to suspicion. “Is it.”
“You don’t have to look at me like that. What, do you think I came here to give you a lecture? After what you did yesterday?” Julian rubbed his head. “You saved us all. You saved me from—” A shadow crossed his face. “I won’t ever forgive myself for how close I came to hurting you two.”
“That’s nonsense,” Noa said huffily. “You weren’t you.”
Julian shook his head mournfully, and Noa knew that he was going to blame himself no matter what she said, which was melodramatic and thus entirely like him.
“And worse,” Julian went on, “you were right about those fishermen. You tried to warn me, and I ignored you.”
“Sorry, what was that?”
“I said I ignored you.”
“No, the first part,” Noa said. “Say that again.”
Julian made a sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh. He placed his hand over his heart and made his blue eyes wide and tragically earnest. “You were right. You were right. You were right.”
Noa leaned back on her hands, grinning. “You can go on.”
His mouth quirked, but then his face grew uncharacteristically serious. “I need your advice on something,” he said. “Something of a strategic nature. One of the mages we captured during the attack has confessed Xavier’s plans.”
Noa’s jaw dropped. She snapped the Chronicle shut and gave Julian her full attention. “What plans?”
“Well, for one, he isn’t just going after dark mages anymore.” Julian looked at her for a moment, seeming to weigh something in his head before continuing. “He’s sending out assassins across Florean to quietly kill other kinds of mages, and to make it look accidental. Not just the mages, either, but their families—you know how magic often runs in families.”
Noa felt faint. “Why?”
“You know why. Xavier hates magic. Or rather, he hates that he doesn’t have any.”
Noa knew how that felt. “But how can he do that? His mages won’t stay loyal to him if they find out what he’s doing.”
“Some of them already know what he’s doing,” Julian said. “They’re still loyal.”
Noa shook her head slowly. “That doesn’t make any sense. They can see what he’s doing to people like them, and yet they still follow him?”
“No, it doesn’t make sense,” Julian agreed. “But people don’t always make sense. I’d guess there are two reasons his mages stick with him. One, it makes the mages he doesn’t kill more powerful as their gifts become more rare. And two, they think that as long as they’re fiercely loyal to Xavier, he won’t come for
