Noa shuddered. She thought of the assassins who had slipped into her bedroom at night. We’ll find the little one first. She thought of other families, other children asleep in their beds. In her head, they all looked like Mite, down to the chocolate smeared on their chins. She heard the soft murmur of the assassins’ voices, saw the light of a lavastick glint off the edge of a knife. She squeezed her fists around the sand.
“There’s more, isn’t there?” she said, reading Julian’s expression.
Julian nodded. “The mage also told me that Xavier’s looking for the Lost Words. Do you know that myth?”
Noa frowned. She knew more about magic than most nonmagical people—she’d grown up surrounded by magicians, after all, and as a habit, she paid attention to things. “Something about long-lost spells, right?”
“More than that,” Julian said. “The Lost Words are magical languages that disappeared a long time ago. As you know, there are nine magical languages. Briar, Worm, Gleam, Salt, Marrow, Eddy, Squall, Spark, and Hum. Each named for a different power. Plants and harvests. Rock and soil. Metal of all kinds. The thirteen seas. Healing. Air. Weather. Fire. And finally, light. Some mages believe there were once more than nine languages. That there were other powers that the ancient mages decided were too dangerous for anyone to wield. So they bound them and scattered them across Florean, concealing them with magic on various uninhabited isles.”
“You’re saying King Xavier is searching for a myth?” Noa frowned. “That doesn’t sound like him. He’s too smart to waste time chasing fairy tales.”
“What if he learned one of the fairy tales was true?” Julian said. “The story of the Lost Words makes sense. Why can mages command the sea, but not the rivers and streams? Why can I summon light, but not darkness?”
“Um, because you can’t do everything?” Noa said. “Maybe? Besides, I don’t understand why Xavier would want to unleash any more magic on Florean. If he hates magic, why doesn’t he hate the idea of the Lost Words?”
Julian gave a short laugh. “He does. But you’d be surprised how people can learn to love what they hate if it will bring them power.” His expression grew thoughtful. “You said it yourself—Xavier’s smart. He doesn’t waste time on wild-goose chases. If he truly thinks he’s found a weapon that he could use to defeat me, he’ll go after it. The mage said he found some ancient maps buried in the archives at the royal library, which gave him the approximate locations of two lost magical languages.”
Noa chewed her lip, mulling it over. “Is that why he risked attacking us with those mangoes? Because he thinks we’ve figured out he’s looking for them, so we’re looking now, too?”
Julian blinked. “I— Yes. That’s what the mage told us. Apparently Astrae came close to the location of one of the lost languages—at least, where Xavier believes it to be—a week ago. It was a coincidence, of course. How did you know?”
Noa shrugged. “It’s an obvious guess. If he really wants these Lost Words so bad, he’d be terrified of us getting them first. You said they were a weapon. What did you mean?”
“According to the stories, the ancient mages trapped the Lost Words in books,” Julian said. “One of the mages who could speak the language they wanted to bind would fill the book with all the words in that language, and trap them in it.”
“Like a dictionary,” Noa murmured. “Well, an evil dictionary. One that doesn’t teach people words, it takes them away.”
“I suppose. Anyway, according to the stories, all a mage has to do is read the book, and that mage will gain its power. They have to be born with the ability to speak the language, just like any other, of course.”
Julian absently pushed sand into a tower. “So. If Xavier gets his hands on the Lost Words, he can pass the books around to his mages and acolytes until he finds one who can read it. And then—”
“Then he has access to a power we don’t.” Noa’s mouth was dry. “A power we won’t even know exists until he uses it against us.”
Julian knocked over the tower of sand. “You can see why I came to you. We need to figure out what to do about this.”
Noa’s heart was pounding. “What’s to figure out? We need to get our hands on those books before Xavier does.” She pictured Xavier’s mages wrapping Astrae in a cloud of darkness, or stealing the water from every well. Julian and his mages couldn’t fight a power they didn’t possess—they couldn’t even protect themselves from it, because they didn’t know what form it would take.
If King Xavier found just one of those books, he could destroy Astrae—and Julian.
But there was more. Noa’s brain riffled through the possibilities. “Julian, you’ll be able to speak those languages.”
He frowned. “I don’t see—”
“Don’t you? You can speak all the others. It’s likely, at least, that you can speak the forgotten ones, too—if we can find them first.” Her words tumbled out in her excitement.
Julian’s eyes glimmered with speculation, and Noa felt a prickle of unease. If Xavier found the Lost Words, it would be the end of them. But if Julian found them, he could win the war.
And yet, said a little voice at the back of her mind, Julian was already powerful enough. What would he become if he found the Lost Words?
“You’re right, of course,” Julian said. “The only problem is convincing the council. Most people think the Lost Words are a myth, if they’ve heard of them at all. They’ll want me to continue with our current plan, capturing Thirial Island.”
Noa shook her head. “You have to tell them that this is too important. If these Lost Words are just a myth, we’ve wasted a few weeks searching. If they’re real, we’ll