The door to the throne room slammed open, and Noa jumped. Julian strode in, cloak billowing and hair sticking out every which way. He looked angrier than she had ever seen him.
“What on earth were you thinking?” he demanded before he even reached her. “Sneaking into the palace like that. If Xavier had seen you—if anyone recognized your face—not to mention you barely know how to use your magic, and here you are leaping in and out of the afterlife as if it’s a swimming pool—”
“So you figured out where I went,” Noa said. “Good. That saves time.”
Julian looked as if she’d thrown a handful of ice in his face. He wasn’t used to being interrupted, Noa knew, but they didn’t have time to wait until he calmed down.
“Julian.” She closed the Chronicle for emphasis. “I went to the palace undercover to figure out if Xavier’s found the other lost language. And it’s a good thing I did, because I found out that he’s planning to attack Astrae again. He’s going to send someone to steal something from you. Something important.”
“What?”
She shook her head. “My guess is that he knows we found one of the lost languages. Maybe his mages went back to Evert and noticed that you turned it right side out. We have to avoid the Devorian Rocks—he’s planning to ambush us there. I don’t know how he knows we’re going that way.”
Now Julian was staring at her as if she’d dumped a bucket of ice on his head. For a moment, the only sound was that of the waves drifting in through the open windows.
“How do you know all this?” he said finally.
“I heard it from Xavier,” she said. “I eavesdropped on him and his councillors.”
Julian blinked a few more times. Then he strode up to the throne, knelt, and pulled Noa into his arms.
She rested her head on his shoulder, and some of the tears she’d been holding back in the palace spilled out. She wanted to tell him about all the familiar places she had visited, and how wrong it had felt. Their mother’s throne, now guarded by soldiers in Xavier’s colors, and Xavier himself, striding around as if he owned the palace and always had. But there wasn’t time.
Julian drew back. His blue eyes were serious. “Noa, I realize that I can’t stop you from using your magic. But promise that you’ll tell me before you do something like this again. At least give me a chance to talk you out of it.”
Noa wanted to point out that if he had talked her out of it, they never would have learned about the king’s trap. She also wanted to point out that he hadn’t given her many chances to talk to him lately. But she just looked away and nodded.
Julian’s brow furrowed. “What are you wearing?”
“I was undercover,” Noa said, exasperated. “Obviously.”
Julian sighed. “You have a lot of explaining to do, my Noabell. But I suppose we don’t have time for that now, do we?”
“No, you have to go tell Kell to change course,” Noa said. “And double the sentries.”
Julian rose. “All right. Go get dried off and have something to eat. We’ll talk more about this later.”
Noa wondered if that was true. She watched Julian sweep out of the throne room, then headed for the door to the main hall. She paused by the statue that had been Esmalda. She had been lurking there in the shadows this whole time, and Julian hadn’t even looked at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, because she felt like someone should be. Then she left, trying not to imagine the statue’s eyes boring into her back.
“Noa, look!”
Noa looked up just in time to see the lava leap up in the cauldron, then collapse with a hiss.
Mite frowned. She said something else in Spark, but all the lava did was spit out a cloud of ash. It was beginning to harden, a dark crust spreading across the surface.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said, chewing her lip.
Noa sighed and picked up the poker. Julian’s spell kept the lava in a liquid state, provided you stirred it occasionally. “Mite, you don’t need to teach me magic. And leave the lava alone. It’s cold out.”
A storm had rolled in that afternoon, pelting Astrae with chilly rain. The wind howled and the waves crashed so high that the castle foyer was now two inches deep in seawater. They were perfectly dry in Julian’s tower, of course, but the wind kept finding crevices in the walls to squeeze through. The cats had come up with a new game in which one of them, invisible, would grab at the end of Noa’s blanket and yank it around, while another would pretend the writhing blanket was a mouse and pounce on it. At least every five minutes the blanket would be yanked off her lap. Noa was used to the inconvenience of invisible cats, but this was a bit much.
She settled herself before the lava again, shivering. She didn’t like this storm. While it was perfectly normal to encounter squalls in Malaspina Pass, caught as it was between two towering volcanoes, this one had come out of nowhere. She was glad that Julian had ordered the sentries to stay on duty.
There came the sound of metal scraping against wood as Mite dragged a bucket of earth across the floor. She scooped out two handfuls and placed them on the rug. “It’s important to be loud when you do magic,” she said, her face serious. “Sometimes I’m too quiet, and the dirt just ignores me. Julian said it’s okay to be quiet most of the time, but not when you’re casting a spell.” She babbled something in Worm, and the pile of earth rose into the air. Mite grinned.
Noa smothered a sigh. “Thank you. That’s good advice.”
“You try it.” Mite looked around. “Are there any ghosts here? You could try bossing one around. Not
