Island of Dragons (Unwanteds #7)(31)

Alex squelched a grin. He certainly did know. “Why yes, I do,” he said.

Aaron narrowed his eyes. “How?” he said, suspicious.

“You have to sing a song to take away the magic,” said Alex, clearly delighted.

“What?” cried Aaron. “I can’t do that.”

“You have to. That’s the only way you can get it to stop.”

Samheed and Lani began to chuckle, and Sky looked on, eyes filled with merriment.

“Well, then, you do it,” said Aaron. “I—I don’t know how. I mean I wish I could sing. But I’ve never done it, actually.”

“You may as well learn,” said Alex. “Besides,” he lied, “only you can stop the magic since you’re the one who made it alive in the first place.”

Sky almost called Alex out on the lie, but it was so entertaining to watch Aaron squirm that she held back.

Aaron gave Sky a pleading look. “Are you sure you can’t attach the fabric when it’s moving?”

Sky shook her head. “Nope. Sorry,” she said.

Aaron glanced at Lani and Samheed. He knew he wouldn’t get any help from them. Finally he sighed and gave up. “Fine. What do I have to sing?”

Alex wrote down the lines to Ol’ Tater’s song, changing a few words to make the spell work for the wing. He handed the spell to Aaron and then hummed the tune for him. Alex was slightly off-key, but it was the best he could do.

Aaron read the chant. “Are you serious? This is absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “Who designed this spell?”

“Mr. Today, I think.” Alex shrugged. “It’s the only way to fix it.”

“Well, it’s a lot easier to make things come alive,” muttered Aaron.

“And you’re awfully good at that for having no training,” said Alex, “so I’m sure you’ll be great at this, too.”

Aaron didn’t answer. He opened his mouth, and then he closed it again and sighed. He cleared his throat. He shuffled his feet, and held the paper at different distances from his face to find what would feel most comfortable. Then he looked at the wing moving around on the table. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

The others watched silently, exchanging mischievous glances.

Finally Aaron opened his mouth again and croaked out the words:

Dragon wing, dragon wing,

Too much sadness, no repeats.

I am sorry, more than sorry,

But it’s time for you to sleep.

The wing ceased to move. And the room exploded in laughter and applause for Aaron’s terrible singing.

Aaron was surprised and confused by the outburst, and he felt his cheeks grow warm. He looked from one face to the next, at first thinking he was being ridiculed, and it reminded him of what things were like when he had been thrown out of the university long ago. But slowly it began to dawn on him that the people in this room were not acting mean-spirited. They were just plain spirited. And they had played a trick—no, not a trick, a joke—on Aaron.

The former high priest wasn’t 100 percent sure what the joke was, but instead of yelling at them as he initially wanted to do, he sought out Sky to make sure this was supposed to be funny.

Sky smiled warmly at him. “It’s okay,” she mouthed.

Aaron glanced at his brother, who was laughing and coming toward him.

“This is a joke on me,” Aaron said.

“It sure is,” said Alex.

One corner of Aaron’s mouth turned upward as Alex slapped him on the back. Aaron risked a glance at Lani, and then at Samheed, who wasn’t sneering.

“You’re a pretty good sport,” Samheed said. “I’ll give you that.”

Aaron laughed a little. “Thanks,” he said. “And the song worked. Maybe I’ll take singing lessons since I’m so good at it.”

The friends howled in laughter, and encouraged him to do so.

Aaron smiled. He still didn’t know precisely what he’d done that was so funny, but he was enjoying this new feeling inside him—the feeling that he was not only useful, but also that he was finally a part of something good in Artimé.





Preparing to Fly


With such a competent group of mages working on the task, the five sets of wings were assembled, tested, and covered in canvas in a matter of days. All that was left to do was to line them with flower petals and scales before the rest of the magic would be added.

Sky, Samheed, and Aaron were the most skilled at attaching the delicate petals and scales without damaging them. Once they finished each wing, Alex used the preserve spell on it, then added a shimmer spell he’d invented to make the wings as beautiful and iridescent as the bodies of the dragons. With a few final touches, the wings were perfect—lithe and beautiful and just the right dimensions.

At first Alex wasn’t sure how he was going to attach the wings to the dragons, but he had a few ideas. He asked Samheed to make up a new variation on scatterclips and stickyclips, called superclips, a permanent spell that would attach one thing to another thing without harming either one of them. But it was troublesome trying to get the wings to seal completely to anything, and it left the base joint stiff and unwieldy, so they gave up on that idea.

Lani came up with a melding spell by using a bit of soft eraser from Ms. Octavia’s cupboard as a component. She stretched and kneaded the eraser into a wonderfully pliable material, then instilled magic in it that would meld the wings to the dragon, making them appear continuous and leaving them perfectly flexible.