Free Island of Legends (The Unwanteds) by Lisa McMann

air? Like, it flies? How does it ever land safely without crashing? Do you think people just live in these things forever?”
    “No,” Sean said. “Sigfried also said that they are like ships—they just transport people from one place to another. Like riding on Simber’s back, I suppose.”
    “Except I would neverrr crrrash,” Simber muttered.
    “Easy there, cat. I’ve seen you crash,” Alex reminded him. “You might not remember it, but it happened.” He held his hand to his forehead dramatically. “I’m still traumatized.” He was only partly joking. He still had regular nightmares about Simber’s frozen body crashing into the sea.
    Simber frowned and walked back to the others. “That won’t happen again.”
    “If it does, I may not survive my grief.” Alex reached out and let his hand rest on the cat’s neck in a rare show of the deep affection between the two. He thought he could feel Simber purring just the slightest bit, but he wasn’t sure.
    “Harrrumph! Anyway. Wherrre do you suppose the airrrplane came frrrom? And what made it crrrash?”
    Alex was as mystified as everyone else. “No idea.” He looked at the pieces again and shrugged. “I guess we just store these here until we can think of something useful to do with them. I wonder if we can restore it. Make it fly again.” He looked sidelong at Simber. “You know, in case Simber ever does take another nosedive into the sea and we need some air transportation.”
    The cat growled. “We have morrre imporrrtant things to do,” he said.
    “Good point,” said Ms. Octavia. “And we’ll be ready to go soon. Alex, do you have a finalized list of who will be accompanying us?”
    “I will by tomorrow.”
    “Perfect.”
    » » « «
    Later, when everyone had left, Alex stood alone with the whale once more, doing some final touch-ups with the paint and thinking about the upcoming rescue, and the reverse aquarium full of pirates and their captives underneath the strangely disappearing fiery volcanic island. “You know, Spike,” he said as he finished, “we could really use somebody like you on this trip.” He sighed, imagining it. “If only I knew how to make you come alive.”

Certain Death
    T he High Priest Aaron stood with one toe inside the tube and wiped the sweat from his forehead, commanding himself to pull it together. How was he supposed to fix the panther’s tail? He had to do something—if he just turned and escaped through the tube, he’d lose all hope of having these creatures on his side. And at this point, with the Quillitary still not very keen on Aaron because of his role in Justine’s death, the high priest could really use these creatures to take over Artimé. How would that be for giving the Artiméans a taste of their own medicine? Aaron was practically drooling over the idea.
    But all hope would be lost if he failed to fix the tail, he argued with himself. Unless he could stall them. “I . . . um . . . ,” he began.
    The dog barked and started sniffing around in the under-growth. He barked a few more times, then backed out from under a bush, pulling something in his mouth.
    “Did you find the tail?” the giant rock rumbled, rolling closer to the dog and nudging Aaron away from the tube.
    Aaron stumbled forward. The dog kept tugging as Aaron’s hopes sank. Eventually the dog pulled hard enough to reveal the source of his endeavors. It was a vine.
    “There,” said the rock.
    The panther looked on with disdain that slowly turned to interest. After a moment she leaped over to the dog’s side, snapping at it until the dog retreated. Then the panther bit hard on the vine, severing it in two places to form the right length. She turned and screamed at Aaron, startling him.
    His nerves frayed, Aaron jumped to pick up the vine as the panther circled him, edging him even farther away from the tube. Aaron knew now that there was no way out of this. The panther was sure to attack him if he tried to run.