Island of Dragons (Unwanteds #7)(14)

At the eel’s other end, Spike flailed in the water, trying to escape from its grip. She saw Pan and Florence and spurred toward them, hoping to move closer so they could help her.

Florence leaned over Spike and hurriedly unwound the trapped eel from her tail. “Go!” she cried through the water when Spike was free. The whale shot to the surface as fast as she could.

Still gripping the eel’s head between her teeth, Pan followed Spike to the surface so that Florence could help the boy, but the dragging tail of the eel thrashed and struck out. As Florence bent over Spike and saw that Henry wasn’t moving, the eel slammed into her head with a mighty blow, knocking her off Pan’s back. Florence yelled and made a desperate grab for Pan, trying not to sink all the way to the bottom of the sea. But Florence’s slick hands against the dragon’s slippery scales couldn’t keep their grasp.

Pan’s tail shot out like an arrow through the water. The dragon wrapped it around Florence’s wrist as the eel writhed and churned nearby. It was hard to tell which was which in the dark water. Florence grabbed on to Pan’s tail and pulled herself up hand over fist to the surface, desperate to see if Henry could be revived.

With a roar, Pan struck out with her claws and speared them through the eel’s skin. She opened her jaws wide to get a better grip, exposing rows of sharp teeth, and with a sudden movement, she clamped down again and chomped off the eel’s head, swallowing it whole. Its body dropped into the water, and with a few twists and splashes, it disappeared.

Florence made it to the surface and hoisted herself onto Pan’s back once more. When she was safely steady, she leaned over and began wrestling with the cocoon to get Henry out. “Henry!” she shouted, afraid. Was it too late?

The boy didn’t move.





A Close Call


Florence reached into the cocoon and pulled Henry out. His eyes were closed, and he flopped like a bundle of rags in her arms. She ripped off his component vest and threw it aside, then squeezed his abdomen and pressed on his chest and pounded his back, trying to get him to breathe. She had no breath of her own to lend him.

Pan worried over the scene as Florence tried everything she could think of to save Henry. But he didn’t respond, and he didn’t respond, and he didn’t respond.

Finally the dragon spoke. “Let me try,” she said. “Put him on his back and open his mouth.”

Florence turned Henry over, supporting his head. His arms fell to his sides. She took his face in her hand and gently opened his mouth.

Pan turned her neck, bent down, and closed her eyes as if making a wish. She blew a slow breath into the boy’s mouth.

Henry’s chest rose. Pan kept blowing, and then she pulled away and opened her eyes, watching him carefully.

Without warning Henry reared up, coughing and choking, water spewing from his mouth. He twisted to one side, Florence supporting him, and gagged and gasped until he’d cleared most of the seawater from his lungs.

Florence looked like she could cry. She turned to Pan. “How did you do that?”

“I didn’t know it would work,” the ruler of the sea said softly. “But dragons can do things one wouldn’t expect them to do.”

Finally Henry stopped choking long enough to speak. “My vest!” he rasped. “Florence, where is it?” He coughed again.

Florence looked around. She’d flung it aside. Where was it? “It’s gone now,” she told him. “But there are extra components in the crate in case we need them.”

Henry struggled mightily to sit up next to Florence on Pan’s back. His eyes were bloodshot, and his hair stood on end. “No. You don’t understand—I have to have it!” he cried. “The medicine for Karkinos is in there!”

“What?” cried Florence.

Alarmed, Spike wasted no time. She dove underwater in search of the vest, and Pan ducked her head below the surface to look around, letting her tremendously long tail slither through the water in search of it too.

“I didn’t know that’s where you kept the medicine,” Florence said, distraught. “I’m sorry. I thought it was packed with the other supplies.”

Henry stood on Pan’s back, holding on to Florence’s shoulder, peering anxiously at the water even though he could see very little in the darkness. “If we don’t find it we’ll have to go get more, but it comes from Ishibashi’s island,” he said. “We don’t have time to go all the way back there!”

Florence put a hand to her forehead as she realized the severity of the consequences. “I thought you were dead,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about the vest. I was thinking about you.”

“Oh, Florence,” Henry said, reaching out to her. “I’m not blaming you. Thank you—you saved my life. I just hope . . .” He stared at the water in the darkness, waiting.

Minute after agonizing minute went by. Henry coughed now and then, still recovering. He drew strength from his fear and focused only on the water. How could Spike or Pan possibly find the vest in the vast, churning waters of the sea?

After a time, Florence detected a ripple in the water’s surface a short distance away. “I hope that’s not another eel,” she muttered.

Henry looked up.

Pan lifted her head up out of the water as the ripple got closer, and soon the tip of Spike’s spike was evident, coming toward them. When the whale reached Pan’s side, she rose up, and there, hooked around the base of her spike, was the vest.