“But I want to go with Noa. Maybe they can teach me about Hush,” Mite said. Julian had let her name the language of fear, and Noa couldn’t think of a more appropriate name for a language she wished to never hear again.
Julian settled on Noa’s bed, surveying her progress with bemusement. He looked more relaxed than Noa could remember seeing him, which probably had something to do with the fact that after the battle with Xavier, he had taken Astrae to the Iskial Sea for a few days. Iskial was the nicest of the thirteen seas, in Noa’s opinion, being a sunny blue expanse dotted with over a hundred tiny islands of white sand and scalesia trees. There Julian and Noa had spent their time swimming and lounging about and generally avoiding work altogether, while Mite had spent her time collecting crabs (Mite’s interests were expanding from bugs and spiders to bugs, spiders, and things that looked like spiders), and everyone was in agreement that it had been a splendid holiday.
Noa started as a sock jumped out of her suitcase and flopped across the floor like a woolly worm. It flopped purposefully toward the wardrobe, where several cats had their lairs, and when Noa picked it up, she was rewarded with a telltale hiss from an unseen source. The invisible cats had migrated from Astrae to Queen’s Step along with the Marchenas, though Noa often wished they hadn’t. Packing was a difficult task with invisible cats. To be fair, though, most things in life were more difficult with invisible cats.
“Does everyone at magic school dress like that?” Mite said dubiously.
“Probably,” Noa said, though she secretly hoped not. She wanted to stand out—she was a rare and powerful death mage, after all. She adjusted her sleeves, which were intimidating but not overly practical. She had asked Petrik, the village weaver, to make her a cloak that befit her new powers. It had an enormous, dramatic hood that could cover her entire face if she wanted it to (good for scaring people, but only if you stood in one place and didn’t try to walk anywhere) and drapey sleeves that resembled bat wings. Obsidian beads ran along the hem and cuffs and made an eerie clacking sound if you twirled around, which Noa did often. She paired the new cloak with a hairband woven with whalebone and black garnet. When Julian had received the bill, he had asked if Noa had purchased the entire shop.
“I have something to show you two,” Julian said.
“Are we moving back to Astrae?” Mite said eagerly. Mite asked to move back to Astrae almost daily. Noa understood why. As much as she loved her old royal home, it was strange to live on an island that didn’t move again. She missed the resident sea lions that sometimes got left behind when Astrae took off, and followed in its wake, roaring indignantly. She missed the winds that buffeted Astrae from all sides and made the confused trees grow crooked. She even missed the little jerky motions the island made after it passed through a whirlpool, as if all that bubbly water had given it the hiccups.
“Not exactly, Maita,” Julian said. There was a mischievous glint in his eye that Noa knew better than to trust. He led them through the palace and out the smaller rear door, which opened onto a winding stair down the back of Queen’s Step. It was fine weather—the salt spray caught the sunlight like handfuls of pearls. Guards bowed to them as they walked, and Noa held her head a little higher. Her attempt at magician-like dignity was spoiled somewhat by her drapey sleeves, which kept catching on the railing.
“Here we are,” Julian announced when they came to the bottom of the stair. A few hundred yards off Queen’s Step was Astrae, rotating slowly in the jewel-blue water. A path led around the side of the crag, up and down the uneven basalt until it came to the harbor, which was now full of General Lydio’s warships.
Julian’s warships, Noa corrected herself, and felt a little rush of self-satisfaction. The novelty of seeing Julian as king of Florean—even if it wasn’t all of Florean yet—hadn’t worn off. Surprisingly, though, Julian didn’t act much like a king. He performed all his kingly duties, of course, but he did them in ordinary clothes and without feeding anybody to a sea serpent. He spent as much time talking to ordinary sailors and mages as he did with his councillors, to the point where most people he met went away only mildly scared of him, as opposed to terrified. Noa could see that something about him had changed since those terrible moments on the Nose, when their minds had filled with dark visions, though whether the change was permanent or not, she had no idea. It would certainly make her life easier if it was. She had other things to worry about besides Julian—starting with getting her sleeves taken in. They trailed in the seaweed on the rocks, and she would have a hard time impressing anybody covered in seaweed.
“I know you both miss Astrae,” Julian said. “I have to say, I do, too. After all, there are a lot of advantages to a moving island. So!”
He lifted his hands and released a stream of bubbly, gritty, windy words. Astrae gave a little hop, and then it began to move toward them. A fishing boat off the coast of Astrae rocked in the wake the island left behind. Astrae picked up speed, the forest blown back like windswept hair.
“Uh, Julian,” Noa said.
“It’s all right,” he said breezily. He spoke another incantation, and the island slowed. Not enough. It was going to slam right into them! Screams filled the air as the inhabitants of Queen’s Step came to the same conclusion.
“Julian!” Noa yelled.
“Hold on!” he said. He grabbed
