Just before they reached the exit hole, Rufus shouted, “Whoa!” He dove into a hairpin turn and the steed slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt. With no time to react, Samheed wasn’t so lucky. He flew forward off the steed, clanged against the glass wall Alex had left, and bounced to the floor of the tunnel.

“Ooof,” he gasped.

Rufus came back around more slowly and began ramming the glass spell in the hallway with his horn. “We need—to get—through here,” Rufus said between jabs, but he was getting nowhere.

At first Samheed didn’t know what had hit him—or what he’d hit. And then he reached his hand out and moved it across the glass. “Dang it, Stowe,” he muttered, rubbing his shoulder, and he would have laughed if it hadn’t hurt so much. Quickly he got back up. The men were on his tail.

He released Alex’s glass wall spell and cast a new one between him and the approaching guards. Then he dispelled the steed and crawled up the ladder as fast as he could go. He was free! Rufus zoomed up and out the hole past him to make sure the coast was clear.

“Lani!” Samheed yelled at the top of his voice, not caring about anything else. He was free, but was she? He thought so, based on the glass walls. But he wasn’t going anywhere without being sure.

He looked around and nearly fell back into the hole. The queen faced him just a few feet away, and at first he didn’t realize she was stuck to a tree.

“Release me!” she screamed, but no one came to her aid. Certainly not Samheed. To his right he saw two enormous guards lying in a heap—probably one of them was the one who had dragged them out of the dark cave.

He heard Simber roaring somewhere nearby but couldn’t see him. Samheed blasted the queen with a silence spell, which was a relief, and tossed shackles on the two guards, who weren’t moving. Then he shot another round of scatterclips at the queen just to make sure she was stuck fast. He ran down the path.

“Lani!” he shouted again.

Simber landed on the ground in front of him and raced past Samheed to a tree in the woods just as an orange-eyed girl ran up to him. Samheed whirled in alarm.

“No—Samheed, it’s me. From the raft. I’m Sky. You need to come with me. Hurry!”

It took him a second to recognize her as the Silent girl. He hadn’t even seen her with her eyes open before. “Oh. Sorry. You look like . . .”

“Everyone else here. I know. Come.”

He followed her, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Have you seen Lani?”

Sky nodded. “She’s hurt.”

The look on Samheed’s face startled Sky. “Where!” he cried. “Where is she?”

She grabbed his arm. “This way. I’m trying to take you to her. She can’t walk.” She ran in the direction of the lagoon, where Lani lay off the path. It was as far as she had been able to go. Her eyes were open but she was breathing hard, her face telling everything.

“Sam,” she said, reaching for him.

He ran to her and knelt down. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he lifted her up. She stared at him, and he stared at her. Sky watched, a little puzzled, and then her lips parted. A second later she snapped her lips shut and tugged on Samheed’s sleeve again. “We need to hurry,” she said.

Sky led Samheed as fast as he could go to the lagoon, where Florence stood. She paced, looking around anxiously. The ground shook slightly around her. “Ah, there you are.” She took a giant step to reach Sam and Lani and picked them both up like they were a sack of arrows. “Thank you, Sky,” Florence said over her shoulder as she walked Sam and Lani to the ship, where a cheer rose up at the sight of the rescued Unwanteds.

But Sky was not there to hear it. Instead she raced back to the trees as Simber gently nudged the young mage of Artimé into his jaws.

Simber looked up when he sensed Sky standing there. His eyes were sad. He unfurled his wings, letting one come to rest at her feet, and tipped his head, indicating she should climb on. She scurried up his wing and settled on, grasping him tightly around the neck, pressing her face against the cool stone.

Just then a silent army of Warblerans, unstuck from their temporary spells, melted out from the cover of the trees and spread like lava, surrounding them.

Simber flashed them a disgusted look as he bolted down the path and leaped into the air, pumping his mighty wings. The Warblerans’ spears, rocks, and sabers only fell back to the ground, harming no one but themselves.

A Somber Ride

Simber lowered his hindquarters into the water at the edge of the ship and folded his wings to give the Artiméans a better chance to remove Alex safely from his jaws. Once Alex had been brought to their temporary triage area, Simber made a bridge of his wing for Sky, who crawled across it and waited anxiously, watching as Henry came running with Ms. Octavia to see how they could help. “Wherrre’s Carrrina?” the cheetah growled. “She has some healing experrrience, doesn’t she?”

“She’s over there where you left her, still out from the sleep dart, Sim,” Ms. Octavia said. “I’ll do my best, and Henry’s here. He’s been studying.”

Simber frowned. There was nothing else they could do. He glanced back at the shore and then turned to the ship. “Leaderrrs,” he roared, sounding fiercer than they’d ever heard him. “Is everrryone accounted forrr? Sound off, just as yourrr mage would have you do!”

Those who could, did, and Florence covered the rest. “You’re the last ones in, Simber,” Florence said gently. “Unless we want to try to rescue some of the other people of Warbler.”