Noa mulled it over. One question wasn’t much, especially given how long it took Tomas to prepare a serpent-sized cake. But Beauty likely knew more about the Lost Words than anyone living, so maybe it was worth it.
“Very well,” she said. “My question—”
“Oh.” Beauty pouted. “I’ll need a cake first, dear.”
Noa gritted her teeth. “You just had one.”
“That was before I agreed to anything.” Beauty’s voice was sinuous.
And so Noa and Tomas had to go back to the bakery to fetch the day-old lemon-lime cake. Tomas muttered mutinously the whole way about moisture and crumb quality, but in the end, Beauty seemed just as delighted with the second cake as she had been with the first.
“I believe you owe me an answer to one question,” Noa said. “Unless you have a complaint about the cake?”
“It would be impossible to complain about such a delicacy,” the serpent said, narrowing her eyes at Tomas in what Noa could have sworn was a smile.
Noa rubbed her eyes. “Good. Now, tell me everything you know about Evert.”
“That isn’t a question, dear. Have you forgotten our bargain?”
Noa shrugged. It had been worth a try. “I’m assuming you’ve seen this island before.”
“Yes. Well, that was easy.”
“That wasn’t a question, either,” Noa said. “I think you’re the one who’s forgotten our bargain.”
“Your remarkably talented friend has put me in a good mood,” Beauty said. “But not that good. Do get to the point, dear.”
“Fine.” Noa crossed her arms. “Here’s my question: What secrets is the island hiding?”
Beauty blinked. “How do you know it has secrets?”
“You can only find it by sailing backward,” Noa said. “Plus, it’s really funny-looking. It obviously has secrets.”
“That’s a rather broad question.”
“Well, it was a rather large cake.”
Beauty let out a slow hiss. “Very well, clever little Marchena. I know that, long ago, something was hidden here. I don’t know what, but I know that the mages hid it well—they made the island difficult to find, and they changed its shape to conceal their secret. It used to be called something else, too—Orchid Island. After the mages enchanted it, they called it Evert.”
Noa’s heart leaped. So the Lost Words were hidden here! “How did they change its shape? You have to answer that, Beauty. It’s part of the question.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.” Beauty slid back into the water. “If you have any more questions, little Marchena—and I do hope you will—you know where to find me.”
Noa hopped from the boat onto the beach, which wasn’t easy. Evert’s barren rock was weirdly slippery, as if it had been greased. There was no seaweed anywhere, nor any barnacles or mussels.
Julian marched up the shore as soon as his boots touched ground, forcing everyone else—all the mages on the council, plus several scouts—to hurry after him, slipping and sliding. Noa remained behind on the beach, which wasn’t much of a beach, except in the sense that it was where the sea met the island. There was no sand. No stray pebbles. Only that strange, smooth rock, which had a reddish undertone, as if the island had been flayed.
“Evert,” Noa muttered to herself. “Evert.” She walked along the shore and over a little rise, beyond which was more featureless stone. She was looking for a place to sit, but there wasn’t any, really, so in the end she squatted on the uncomfortable stone, which sweated and steamed and made the back of her trousers wet.
She was certain the island’s name was important. The mages had changed it after they enchanted it, after all. She opened the encyclopedia she had snatched from the library. Encyclopedias weren’t magical texts, so of course they were covered with dust, because Julian never bothered looking at them.
Evert meant a lot of things, it turned out. It was the name of an ancient goddess, and a species of crab with a bad temper, even for crabs, and also an ice cream dish eaten on Caraway Island. But Noa’s eyes zeroed in on one definition.
“Julian!” she shouted. No reply. He was too far away. She shoved the encyclopedia into her pack—it barely fit next to the Chronicle—and sprinted up the shore. Evert was not an island made for sprinting—the rock was so wet and slimy that after a few falls, Noa abandoned the idea and settled for fast marching.
Julian stood on a rounded hilltop, obscured by a swirl of magic. Little stars of light opened and closed, and a strange breeze lifted the ocean spray and spun it around him. Beneath his feet, unlikely spears of grass and flowers sprouted from solid rock, and daisy petals rose in the air to join the vortex. He held a piece of rock from the island that glowed and crackled; as Noa watched, it became lava and dripped slowly through his unscathed fingers. His eyes were narrowed in concentration as he muttered words in the nine languages, strange words that sparked like fire or glinted like gold.
“Julian!” Noa called again. She pushed through the others, who were clustered below the hill, muttering and darting glances at him. She had to stop outside the vortex, which was now flecked with fire. “Julian!”
The vortex sputtered and died. “What?” Julian said irritably, brushing ash from his hands. “Noa, can’t you see I’m in the middle of something? The mages cast some sort of spell on this island to hide the Lost Words—”
“It’s inside out!” she interrupted. “Julian, the mages turned the island inside out!”
He looked at her as if she’d barked at him. “What?”
“Evert!” She didn’t seem to be able to stop yelling. “It means ‘inside out.’”
“I thought it meant ice cream.”
She made a frustrated sound and flipped opened the encyclopedia. “‘Evert: noun. To reverse, to turn inside out.’”
He looked exasperated. “I’m sure it means a lot of things. It’s also a name. Augustine Evert, fourth-century fire mage, known for—”
Noa slammed the book shut. “Beauty told me the mages renamed the island after they enchanted it. They obviously meant for it to be some
