Island of Dragons (Unwanteds #7)(30)

But a surplus of petals had built up over the months since Thisbe first discovered the flowers, and because they were magical they didn’t shrivel up and die. They kept their pristine beauty, and no one quite knew what to do with them all, until now.

“They’re perfect for covering the dragon wings,” Ms. Octavia declared. She ordered the surplus to be delivered to her classroom and sent Crow and the twin girls to pick more immediately, to their delight.

In Ms. Octavia’s classroom, Alex had finished the official designs for all five sets of wings, and now Aaron, Samheed, and Lani were experimenting with different materials, trying to create the best “bones” for them.

Lani had a book of birds with full illustrations and diagrams that she and the others referred to. Alex sat alone at a table with the scales he’d taken from each of the young dragons, trying to replicate them magically so he’d have enough scales to match the patterns on the young dragon bodies. Sky was busy nearby, hand sewing sheets of canvas to cover the structures.

Samheed and Lani were working with various pipes and hoses that they’d found, but the pipes were too solid and the hoses too floppy to work. They needed something firm yet pliable, so when the wings were magically instilled with life, they would move and flow naturally and fold up when the dragons weren’t in flight. They pondered other ideas for the bones, like tree branches and rope, but they ran into the same problems.

Aaron simply stared at the drawing for a long time. After a while he looked up and excused himself. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. None of the others really paid much attention to him, expecting little from him design-wise, at least, for they hadn’t witnessed him in action. So his departure went largely unnoticed.

He returned a short time later with several long strands of vines hanging from his shoulders, the ends dragging on the floor. He coiled them on his worktable and began to shape one into an outline of a dragon’s wing. When he got to outlining the joints of the wing, he doubled up the vine and used ribbon and glue to keep it in place, for that part needed to be a little firmer than the rest. Eventually he was satisfied that the shape was correct. But would it move properly? He put his hands on it and closed his eyes, and whispered, “Live.”

The structure came to life, swishing gently on the table like Panther’s tail. Aaron studied it, picturing the wing on a dragon and imagining the movements it would need to make in flight.

“Whoa!” said Lani when she noticed what Aaron was doing. “How’d you do that?” She dropped her sticks and went over to Aaron’s table. “Vines! Where’d you get these? These are great.” She picked up a vine from Aaron’s desk. “May I try one?”

“Sure,” said Aaron. “I brought enough for all the wings in case it actually worked. What do you think, Alex?”

Alex looked up from his project, and his eyes widened at the sight of the moving outline of a dragon’s wing on Aaron’s table. He stood up quickly, upsetting his chair in his rush to see what was going on, and hurried over. He studied the wing skeleton for a long moment, and then looked at Aaron. “It’s great,” he admitted. “And you just did this instinctively? First try?”

Aaron blushed and looked down at the table.

“Can I pick it up?” Alex asked.

“Sure,” Aaron said again. “I’ll help you.”

Alex picked up the base of the wing in one hand and lifted the first dart of the wing joint with his other. Aaron picked up the second wing-joint dart and the very tip of the wing. Together they held the wing loosely so it could continue to move as it wanted to.

“Hey, Samheed,” said Alex. “Come over here. I need you to be a dragon for a minute.”

Samheed frowned and put down his crafts, but once he saw what was happening, he came over willingly and turned his back to the brothers. “That’s pretty cool,” he said begrudgingly.

“I know,” said Aaron, sounding a bit smug this time.

Alex stifled a laugh and pressed the base of the wing to Samheed’s back. “Do you dare to let go of your end, Aaron? Or do you think it’ll break without the added magic of the flying material?”

“It’s pretty sturdy,” said Aaron, “but it’ll need some more reinforcement before it’s finished. I’ll let go for a few seconds, and we’ll see where the weaknesses are.”

Alex nodded, and Aaron let go of the tip of the wing, then the joint. The wing sagged slightly, but it continued to move in a swishing pattern that, with a little help from the cloth cover and the flower petals, would give the wings excellent movement and a great look. After a moment Aaron lifted the tip again and carefully bent the wing at the joints to make sure all of his measurements lined up and the movements were perfectly fluid.

“That’s excellent!” Sky called out from her side of the room. “But how am I going to cover it with material while it’s moving like that?”

Aaron pressed his lips together. “Um . . . I’m not sure,” he said. He tried fully folding the wing and it became still, but it only stayed still if he was holding the dart, as if the wing could sense through his fingers that he wanted it to stop moving. As soon as he let go of it, it began moving again. He had no idea how to make the wing stop moving for good. He’d never done a spell like that before. What was he supposed to say—“Die”? He looked at his brother. “Alex, do you know how to make it stop?”