The people didn’t move.
“And now you may go,” said Alex, with a grand flourish that made Lani crack up and have to hide her face.
Alex stepped back from the podium and turned to Aaron as the Wanteds and Necessaries began to disperse. Only a few small groups stayed around to voice complaints. “Whew,” he said. “Tough crowd.”
“Yes,” Aaron said. “That was pretty clever how you did that, though.”
A group of five or six Wanteds approached Aaron.
“We don’t want to live in the magical world,” one said grumpily. “We want nothing to do with that Unwanteds magic.”
Aaron and Alex exchanged a worried glance. “But . . . ,” said Aaron, “there’s nowhere else for you to live.”
“We don’t care,” said the spokesperson.
Alex scratched his head, perplexed. How was he going to satisfy everybody?
But Aaron took hold of the situation. “No problem,” he said. He turned to Alex. “Can you leave a small portion of Quill untouched by magic for these fine Wanteds?”
“I—” Alex began, then hesitated. “Well, sure, I can, but . . .”
“Very good,” Aaron said smoothly. “Our problem is solved. Give them a bit of barren, burned-out land to live on.” He thought about what Ishibashi might say, and added, “And make it as far away from here as possible.”
Aaron Longs for Home
It had been a crazy few years for Aaron Stowe. He went from Wanted, to university student, to assistant to the secretary of the high priest, to leader of the Restorers, to high priest of Quill. He’d killed a kind magician; nearly killed his brother; sent his father to the Ancients Sector and made his only friend, Secretary, get him back; and sent Secretary to the Ancients Sector only to watch her die because he stupidly set loose a wild creature upon a group of innocent children.
That was a lot of horrible deeds to deal with, and Aaron would be lying if he said he didn’t think about them often. He spent hours roaming the smoldering ruins of Quill alone, contemplating. He stood where the portcullis had been, and looked at the charred remains of the palace—his former home. Yet there was nothing he could think of that he missed about the place. Nothing had made that cold, gray palace feel as cozy as his cot on a rock floor in the middle of a hurricane.
Thinking back upon his life in Quill made Aaron feel numb inside. Everything he had once lived for was gone. He smiled ruefully, wondering what sort of metaphor Ishibashi would make from it. He missed the old man, sometimes desperately.
Every now and then Aaron thought about what it would be like if the pirates hadn’t mistaken him for his brother—if they’d captured Alex instead, and Aaron had remained in power. Would he still be high priest, or would Gondoleery have ousted or even killed him by now? Would he still sneak to the jungle to be in the one place he felt at ease, among the misfits . . . the misunderstoods? Would he have eventually confided in Liam that he was so terribly uncertain about what he was doing? Or would he have kept it all in, as always? As one is expected to do in Quill?
And would he be raising his sisters to be bad like him? Thisbe and Fifer were almost two years old. When he looked at them, he couldn’t imagine them growing up in that horrible, stark palace.
One quiet morning he sat on the lawn with his sisters, watching them play in the sand, making sure they didn’t venture too far into the water. They were learning to swim, but it was the current that worried Aaron the most, knowing they could be swept off their little feet and pulled out to the sea.
Aaron could swim a little now. Not like Alex and Sky and the others, but at least he wasn’t terrified anymore. Not really, anyway, though he still had nightmares about the little pirate boat and the hurricane. But he also had good dreams about returning to the Island of Shipwrecks.
Carina Holiday and her son, Seth, walked up to the beach. Seth ran over to the girls, and Carina sat down next to Aaron.
Some of Alex’s friends had begun to trust Aaron by now. Simber, for sure, and Sky, of course. But Carina had kept her distance, watching him—he saw her and others, too, like Claire Morning and Samheed Burkesh, always, always watching him. And while Aaron knew their skepticism was deserved, it was hard to take, and it didn’t feel very good. He wondered why Carina chose the spot next to him to sit.
“Good morning,” Aaron said.
“Good morning,” she replied, crossing her ankles and pulling her knees up. She sipped from a steaming mug.
Aaron watched his sisters shriek with joy when they saw Seth, who was a year or so older than them. They had become fast friends—most of the time anyway. As good friends as two-and three-year-olds could be, he supposed. “The girls really love Seth,” he said to break the silence.