“He bribed the generals,” Julian said. “General Albion’s death last month wasn’t an accident, either—he refused to side with Xavier, so Xavier sabotaged his ship.”
Noa swayed. If the navy was on Xavier’s side, what hope was there? None of the islands would challenge the takeover, because Xavier could reduce them to ashes.
“But Julian is the king now.” Mite’s lip trembled. “That’s what Momma said.”
“Maita.” Julian drew her into his arms. “It’s okay. I’ll figure something out. But right now, we have to go.”
“Where?” Noa said.
“We’ll steal a boat. Come on.” He pulled up their hoods.
Noa hardly recognized the palace—some of the rooms were on fire, and smoke hovered in the air, and everywhere there was fighting, fighting, fighting. It was difficult to tell what was going on—who was winning or losing, or even how many sides there were. Not all the guards had abandoned their posts—some of them were battling other guards in halls and stairwells and doorways. Servants cowered in corners or unlit fireplaces.
“Wait,” Noa said as they passed the north courtyard. “I forgot something!”
“Noa,” Julian hissed, but she was already darting through the greenery.
And there was Willow—on the bench just where she’d left him. Willow was a stuffed blue whale Mom had given Noa last month for her eleventh birthday. Noa and Mom were in agreement that blue whales were the best whale, and likely the best animal overall. Together they watched them migrate past the palace every spring.
Noa tucked Willow under her arm and ran back to Julian.
They escaped the palace without being recognized, though Julian had to blind a group of mages with a spell in Hum, the language of light. Outside, it was less of a mystery who was winning: the turquoise Marchena banners had all been taken down and replaced with bright red ones bearing an X that looked like a twinkling star.
The palace had been built atop a sharp crag of an island called Queen’s Step, which was near the center of the Florean Archipelago. Queen’s Step was so small that it was mostly all palace, with a harbor attached. Julian picked a fishing boat with a generous cabin at the end of the pier, and they clambered aboard. He pulled a lavastick from his pocket and blew on it to ignite the ember.
“What about my shoes?” Mite said. Her voice was so small that Julian had to ask her to repeat herself.
“We’ll get you new ones, Mighty Mite,” he said.
Noa hugged the whale to her chest, reveling in his stuffed-animal smell. “Where are we going?”
Julian blinked. He didn’t look like he was covered with ice anymore. His eyes were red, and he seemed closer to twelve than sixteen in the oversized, wet cloak. “Astrae,” he said finally. “You remember—we used to go there on holiday before Dad died.”
Noa didn’t remember, or at least not very well—Dad had died when she was six. Suddenly, staring out at that dark sea, the ship seemed less like safety than it had in the palace. She wanted to go home. “Julian—”
His gaze sharpened on something behind her. Noa turned.
Clomping up the dock from the palace were at least two dozen royal mages. They stopped at the first tethered boat, and the lead mage shouted, “Julian Marchena, you and your mother stand accused of the crimes of murder and treason. You will surrender now to face justice.”
“Why would anyone come out if you yelled that at them?” Noa whispered. She had her answer three seconds later. The fire mages chanted an incantation, and the boat burst into flames.
Julian, bizarrely, wasn’t looking at the mages. He was staring down at the water, leaning over the railing as if he was about to be sick.
“Julian.” Noa yanked on his sleeve. “Julian. What do we do? They’re coming this way!”
“I have an idea,” he said.
He began to murmur the strangest incantation Noa had ever heard. Julian was the only person in the world—possibly in history—who could speak all nine magical languages. Noa couldn’t tell how many different languages Julian was speaking now, only that he was making a sound like a kettle full of boiling leaves that a porcupine was tap-dancing on.
Noa bit back a scream. Julian’s reflection was moving—it skimmed over the water, and then it jumped out onto the dock, where it stood gawping at them like a nightmare. The reflection was Julian to a T—if you only looked at it out of the corner of your eye. If you really looked at it, which was a horrible thing to do, you saw that its limbs undulated like waves and its face was a mass of folds like ripples. Again Noa was almost sick.
Julian babbled another incantation at the reflection, and it took off. It sped soundlessly past the mages, who only took note after it made it past them. Then they started yelling various versions of what they had yelled at the boat, and running after the reflection.
That was when Reckoner chose to amble onto the dock.
Reckoner was about the size of a pony and nearly toothless. Julian had found him—or Reckoner had allowed himself to be found—when he had gone looking for dragons to use as familiars. Reckoner had been dying, skinny and shivering in a cave in the Halfmoon Islets. Mostly blind, the old dragon couldn’t hunt anymore, and was hardly an intimidating sight with his cataract-clouded eyes and omnipresent drool, but Julian had taken one look at him and declared him the finest beast he had ever seen. Noa had never known Reckoner to protest his changed circumstances, and he spent most of his time hobbling around the palace sniffing at carpets or curled up at Julian’s feet. He had become part of Julian’s legend—the magician so powerful he had tamed a dragon with a word—but it was likely more accurate to say that Reckoner had taken a practical look at his options and decided that being tame was the best of them, particularly when it
