“It will not capsize,” Radane said. “It is a massive ship.”
“It’s a massive storm,” Caz said. “I can feel it in my leaves.”
Larran headed for the door. “I’ll mobilize as many merhorses as I can—”
Kiela blocked him. “Their ship will be farther out than Radane’s was. She was coming toward Caltrey; they had a healthy start away from it. You won’t be able to reach them in that chaos.” The waves, the wind, the lightning—he’d never make it.
“I can’t just let them drown. If I can only save a few, then that’s—”
She interrupted him. “I think the best chance of saving everyone on that ship and protecting everyone on the island is if we stop the storm.”
Radane shook her head. “Absolutely not. Please, be practical. It takes an experienced, trained coven. You and I alone . . . Can the plants cast spells? Larran, do you have any experience with spellwork? Have you ever spoken a word in the First Language?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned back to Kiela. “This is not magic for amateurs. Do you have any idea of what can go wrong with a spell of this magnitude?”
Kiela crossed to the window and looked out the slit that Larran had opened. Between the vines, she saw a strip of angry purple sky. “Can we make it to the town? Bryn, Eadie, and Ulina—we need them.”
Larran shook his head. “The stairs won’t be safe.”
She thought of Ivor. “Can we fly?”
“That’s a terrible idea,” Caz said.
The cactus agreed. “Meep.”
“But it could work,” Kiela said.
They didn’t fly.
Instead they glided. Ivor produced a polished walking stick that he held horizontally. Larran grabbed one side, and Kiela and Radane held on to the other. Meep tucked themself into one of Kiela’s pockets, while Caz wrapped himself around her neck.
“Hold on,” Ivor said as he ran off the edge of the cliff.
The winds were smacking into the island, but Ivor knew how to ride them. He picked a current that was sweeping along the side of the cliff and used it to glide straight into town. Kiela felt the wind in her face, and she didn’t know whether to scream or laugh as they sailed above the rooftops where the winged cats often sunned themselves. She’d never felt the world disappear beneath her before or been surrounded by forces that felt so immense. For the minutes they were part of the sky, she felt both unstoppable and incredibly fragile.
As lightning skittered across the sky, they landed near the fountain. Rain pelted the streets diagonally. All of them were soaked through. She felt Meep’s prickles through her shirt but didn’t complain—of all of them, they were the one least suited to a downpour. Ivor kept his wings spread to block the worst of the rain and led the way until they reached Bryn’s bakery. He knocked on the door with his antlers.
Kiela heard a plaintive yowl from beside the steps and squinted through the rain to see one of the cats, a tabby with bright parrotlike green wings, huddled under the bakery window. “You shouldn’t be—”
Throwing the door open, Bryn gawked at them. “What on all the islands—” She yanked Ivor inside by his antlers and then shooed the rest of them in. “Kiela, you too.”
Kneeling down, Kiela called to the cat, “Get inside. Come on.”
“Meep!” the cactus ordered, from within Kiela’s shirt.
At Meep’s command, the cat darted into the bakery, his wings plastered to his sopping-wet fur.
As soon as they were all inside, Bryn shut the door against the wind and demanded, “Why are you out in this? We’re way past the harbor bell!”
Huddling together, they dripped on her floor. The winged cat hid beneath the counter, shivering, and Kiela wished she could join him. Now that they were here . . .This is too wild a plan. It’s too great a storm. We’re too inexperienced.But she’d dragged everyone this far. Kiela pulled a piece of paper out of a pouch and laid it on a counter, being careful not to drip on it. “Radane wrote out the spell, but it’ll take all of us to cast it.”
“It works if and only if it’s done correctly,” Radane said. “It’ll stop a magic storm, but it needs to be cast by at least five sorcerers simultaneously.”
Bryn peered at the spell. “It doesn’t list any ingredients.”
“We’re the ingredients,” Kiela said.
“It’s explained in the papers of Ivini,” Caz said. “Fascinating theory, actually, that the breath of the sorcerers acts as the ingredients, if every exhale is coordinated.” Ivini had won a medal for his pioneering research. It was displayed in the North Reading Room—or it used to be.
“It’s imperative that the spellcasting be absolutely simultaneous, including inhales and exhales,” Radane said. “Usually the wind-speakers practice for hours until they match one another in cadence. I think this idea is foolish at best. Reckless at worst.”
