Rise of Allies (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 4) (33 page)

The next thing he knew, he plunged into the storm-tossed sea, twenty-foot waves crashing over him. Oh, yes,
this
famous painting he remembered. He recalled admiring all its drama and danger.

’Twas a fine thing to look at, but he had never counted on
visiting
the Turner shipwreck scene from the inside. He kicked his legs and clawed wildly at the water with his arms, struggling upward through the swells.

Just when he thought his lungs would burst, his head popped up above the waves. Sucking in huge lungfuls of air, he immediately looked around for Nixie.

Since she was so light-framed a girl and had leaped a few seconds after he did, she was still falling. He heard her shrieking as she approached and looked up. Treading water for all he was worth, he winced when she hit the water. He hoped she had not hurt her ankle even worse.

He swam in the direction where she had landed. It took several terrifying minutes of screaming each other’s names, but at last, they managed to find one another.

“Are you all right?” Jake demanded, pushing his soaked hair out of his eyes while the bitter cold of the sea seeped into his hands and feet.

Nixie looked even worse off. “I’m alive.”

In the distance, the great sailing ship had all but broken in two, and now the burning halves were sinking slowly into the waves.

Note to self
, Jake thought.
Don’t join Royal Navy.
True, they had steamships now.

Still.

“Jake, I saw an island while I was falling,” Nixie said, pointing. “It’s that way! We should swim for it.”

He nodded. “I saw it, too. Let’s go. If we get separated, we’ll meet up somewhere on the beach, yes?”

Nixie nodded, and then they both headed for the island, swimming side by side and taking care not to get separated.

The powder stores aboard the vessel must have exploded in the wreck, and as a result, much of the grand old frigate was on fire, its doomed masts burning like great candles in the night. By the orange glare of this giant bonfire, Jake could just make out the shape of the island in the distance, but it was difficult to tell how far away it was. He just prayed they could stay alive long enough to reach it.

It was their only hope.

Again and again the waves dunked him underwater, but he refused to be drowned and did his best to look after Nixie and keep the girl alive. Her face was a pale oval in the darkness.

Whether she had done worse injury to her ankle, he could only guess. If she had, she did not complain. Of course, this was no time for conversation. Every precious ounce of air had to be preserved for breathing as the waves arced under them and threw them forward and clawed them back again and again.

After what seemed like hours of swimming for their lives, they finally reached the gentle surf around the island and stumbled through the shallows, staggering up onto the beach amid the litter from the shipwreck.

Wooden planks, barrels, everyday items, and other bits of wreckage (including a few dead sailors that Jake hoped Nixie didn’t see) were already washing up onto the beach, drifting sadly back and forth as the waves rolled in.

Jake gained his feet in the shallows and spared Nixie the effort of walking, pulling her through the waist-high water like a tugboat. A length of wood that he thought was a broken yardarm from the ship floated in their way, but as he pushed it aside, he realized it was actually the paintbrush marking the boundary into the next picture.

He pointed it out to Nixie. “We’re entering a new painting,” he croaked, his voice raspy, his throat sore from having nearly drowned in saltwater.

She acknowledged his comment with the barest of nods.

Ahead, the island loomed, the black spiky leaves of tropical palm trees silhouetted against the predawn gray.

There was no sign of the sailors who had tried to escape the sinking ship in their rowboats. But as Jake recalled, the point of the Turner painting was to honor a tragedy in which there had been no survivors.

Or something like that.

At last, the two of them staggered up onto the empty beach and collapsed on the sand in sheer physical exhaustion. For a long time, they lay without moving, half-dead, bedraggled castaways.

Jake could barely move his body. But gradually, it occurred to him that, if all of the paintings had been booby-trapped with dangers and obstacles, then they could not afford to wallow on the beach like a pair of wounded seals.

The sun had climbed up over the horizon and had started to dry their clothes. It was really very pleasant, but for how long?

For all he knew, there could be headhunters living on this island.

He glanced over at his waifish, black-clad companion. The little witch had fallen fast asleep, and he hated to wake her.

Still, out here on this beach, they were exposed, easily seen by anyone else who might be on the island. It would be safer to at least move farther up the strand into the shadows of the trees.

“Nixie.”

She didn’t stir, and he found he didn’t have the heart to insist right away. Truth be told, he felt dashed sorry for her. If only he were as insightful as Archie, maybe he would’ve realized from the start that the poor little mite was in need of help instead of letting his offended pride get in the way.

He gave her a few minutes longer to rest while he sat up and took off his shoes. He squeezed as much of the dampness as he could out of his socks, then lay them on the sand to let them dry a bit more, and rolled up the bottoms of his trousers.

His stomach grumbled, which brought another ominous thought. What were they supposed to eat? If they got lost in these paintings for any significant length of time, might they starve to death?

Frowning, Jake visored his eyes with his hand and looked out to sea. There was no sign of the sinking ship anymore. Even the wreckage was gone, including the dead sailors.

The beach was pristine. All he could think was that Nixie and he must have crossed fully into the next painting.

Whatever that might entail…

Strange sounds were coming out of the jungle at their backs. Jake looked warily over his shoulder and stared, amazed, at a showy, jewel-colored bird that swooped along the treeline.
Maybe a parrot?

Many bird calls and insect chirps emanated from the trees, but when a lizard flicked among some rocks nearby, Jake had had enough. He was a city boy, accustomed to the hubbub of London, and this tropical paradise was giving him the creeps.

He shook Nixie by her shoulder. “Wake up. We’ve got to get going.”

She groaned, refusing to open her eyes. “Leave me be.”

“I know you want to sleep, but it isn’t safe here. Come on, open your eyes and take a look round. What painting are we in?”

“I hardly memorized all the pictures in the Enchanted Gallery, Jake.” Lying on her stomach, she heaved herself up onto her elbows and looked around, squinting in the brilliant sunshine. “I suppose, if I had to guess…I’d say we’ve arrived on Prospero’s island.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Prospero’s island? As in Shakespeare’s
The Tempest
?” She stared meaningfully at him. “Sound familiar?”

Jake pressed his lips shut.

She sighed. “You really are an ignoramus, aren’t you?”

“An ignoramus who just saved your life
again
,” he grumbled. “Can you walk or not?”

“What choice do I have?” she asked grimly, and climbing to her feet, to his relief, she found she could stand.

It was difficult for her to walk in the deep, soft sand, however, so once more, Jake gave her his arm to steady her. “Come on, we’ve got to find the next paintbrush. Is this Prospero fellow somebody we’re going to have to worry about?”

“No, not
him
. Prospero was the sorcerer in the story and the heroine’s father.” She paused, glancing around warily at the jungle. “It’s Caliban that worries me.”

“Caliban?”

“A monster Prospero created to be his servant.”

Jake immediately thought of Ogden Trumbull, and turned to her, wide-eyed. “What sort of monster?”

“Hard to say. In the theatre, they always show him with like…horns and a hump. He’s supposed to be very ugly and walk with a limp. I always imagined him like a minotaur, I guess.”

“Oh, perfect,” Jake muttered.

“Let’s just hope we don’t run into him before we find the paintbrush.”

Somehow, he doubted they would be so lucky.

#  #  #

Isabelle fidgeted in her chair, her hands folded in her lap, her palms sweating with anxiety.

Eleven debutantes dressed in their very smartest daytime finery sat in the marble anteroom, waiting in varying states of dread for the great honor of being summoned in as a group to see the Queen.

The chamberlain was expected at any moment to usher them in and present them to Her Majesty and her royal daughters, who had just joined their mother in the opulent stateroom a few minutes ago.

Isabelle decided that Queen Victoria had too many daughters to keep track of properly, but it would be nice to meet them, anyway.

Everyone was rather terrified. One could have cut the tension in the air with a cake-knife. Last-minute adjustments were discreetly made to gowns. Final flyaway hairs were smashed down by the girls’ hovering chaperones, governesses, and mothers.

The grown ladies all seemed a little distraught that their charges would be going in for their royal inspections without them, but those were the rules.

Her Majesty wished to see for herself what the girls were made of, who they really were, without their minders signaling to them what they ought to say.

The rumor was Her Majesty had a certain interest in adding a magical family member to her considerable brood by way of marriage.

Contrary to fairytales, however, none of the girls in the anteroom were keen to marry one of the Queen’s many younger sons. (The future king was already spoken for, of course.) Still, if the Queen wished to have any one of them for a future daughter-in-law, she got first dibs and it wasn’t like the chosen girl could say no.

Her Majesty clearly relished the task of choosing brides and grooms for her large brood of marriageable offspring.

Isabelle prayed she would not be noticed. She didn’t even want to
think
about how some spoiled royal husband might expect her to use her gift to help him politically or in other, less-than-ethical ways.

Truly, being an empath was a road fraught with perils.

Even now, she was all too aware of the undercurrents of hostility coming from three of the girls, who had decided at the Gathering two years ago that they didn’t like her. They had been making fun of her behind her back (as if this were possible) ever since.

Ah, well. Everyone has their detractors,
she thought, trying to ignore them. But surely this was proof that it didn’t matter how nice you were to people, how perfect you tried to be; there were always those who would find fault with you and delight in hurting your feelings, just because.

Frankly, Isabelle was feeling rather weary of trying to be perfect all the time, especially since she had failed to impress Maddox St. Trinian. Impress him—gracious, she couldn’t even read his emotions with her gift! She still did not understand why and was afraid to ask one of the older empaths, who might have had an explanation.

Across the room, meanwhile, her critics—two witches and a horse shapeshifter girl—were whispering about her behind their hands, laughing at her and at some of the other girls, too. As if they all needed something like that to make them even more nervous.

She frowned a little and looked away, and it was then that she heard low-toned arguing coming from beyond the doorway, out by the colonnade.