“Not to object to your plan,” the Professor spoke, hoarsely, from his spot wrapped in blankets, back in the girls’ hidden cave. They’d docked the ship in a darkened harbor a few points away and left it guarded by the freed sailors and some of Kalani’s girls. Kalani was now outlining a plan for sneaking back into the school to find information on where her missing girls had been taken. “But what languages do you have, and in what languages does the administrator keep his correspondence?”
“I know three island tongues,” Kalani said, “Trade Common, Cormuradan and Levour. The administrator also knows Germhacht, Vespiri, and probably Firausvau.”
“I know Germhacht and Vespiri,” Jon said. “I’ve been studying to catch up with the Professor and Djaren. Firausvau has two separate alphabets, and I haven’t had the courage to tackle them yet. I’m sorry.”
“Will you come with us, Jon?” Kalani asked.
“If they’ll let me go inside a girls’ school,” Jon considered.
“Then I’m coming too,” Tam said. “Someone ought to protect you lot, especially if you’re going into danger and like to be kidnapped.”
Kalani made a mixed smile and frown. “You’re going to be harder to smuggle in.”
“I could be making a delivery and carrying something. People let you just walk in when you do that.”
“Not into a girls’ school.”
“Those tend to be as well guarded as most jails,” the Professor agreed.
“Did you ever have to break into a girls’ school, sir?” Jon asked, caught by something in the Professor’s voice.
“That was on a matter of national security.” The Professor coughed.
Tam and Jon looked at him. “It is also a very long story that shall have to wait for another day, and only if the Queen gives me permission.”
“Oh!” said Tam. “The Queen! Oh dear, I was supposed to—what time is it now in Shandor?”
“Still day,” Jon said.
“Doesn’t hardly seem right does it, being so far?”
“We’ll bring you both into the school by the secret way we get out,” Kalani said. “You will have to hide silently until after first bells. If you’re caught it will be bad for you.”
“Ought I bring a mallet?” Tam asked.
“That’s not quite what I planned, but bring one just in case.”
“I feel I should object to you both going,” the Professor said, looking at the boys.
“Please, sir, it’s right to help,” Tam said. “I know you want to go, and can’t, and that you’re worried, but I’m sure on this, sir.”
“You’re fast becoming an adult,” the Professor said. “I’ll let you make your own decisions. And I think you should have that talk with the Queen soon.”
“And me, sir?” Jon asked. “They need me for languages!”
“If you’re with Tam, I know you’re safe.”
“Then we have a plan,” said Kalani. “I will speak to the few teachers I trust, and Jon will look through the administrator’s desk. Get what sleep you can. We’ll need to wake in three hours.”
Jon was not sure, upon being woken, that Tam had slept at all. He had an odd expression that made his face look older, somehow.
“Are you all right?” Jon asked. “Are you worried about the plan?”
“It isn’t that,” Tam said. “I talked to the Queen after all last night. She says we’ll talk more in person once we’re all home. And she’d like to see us back soon.”
“Does she know where Doctor Blackfeather’s team is?’
“She said yes, and they’re on the move again, out of that odd place they’ve been holed up. I’m not sure quite what that means, but it feels like sense, if you like.”
Jon nodded, and rubbed sleep from his eyes.
“It’s time,” Kalani whispered, and both boys rose and climbed up the rope ladder, followed by the girls, all in uniform again. Together they crept through dark jungle paths, down along rocky cliffs, and back underground through more tunnels than an overgrown arbor, where a girl waited sentry to let them in through a tiny old door, down dark, silent, thin passages between the walls, and up through a trapdoor under a bed, into a dim dormitory room. Every bed had a human shape in it, most with visible long black hair. The girls began tumbling all the shapes, which Jon now saw were just stuffed sacks sewn to look like people, back down through the trapdoor.
“So you never sleep in these beds?”
“No.” Kalani said. “Things are not always safe in the school. We would rather keep our own ways, and guard the holy sea cave. It is a way of keeping something precious to us.”
“And one person always has to stay, to let you back in?” Jon asked, looking at the girl who was closing the trapdoor. She didn’t seem familiar.
“We take turns, though Inna has taken many watches.”
“How is your sweetheart, Inna? Were the watches easy?” another girl teased, smiling.
“Fine.” Inna straightened her hair. “We’re to be married soon.”
“We’ll go down to breakfast soon, and leave you here to watch the door. Once we’re ready to try the office, I’ll come back for you, Jon. Don’t stir unless you hear screams.”
“Frightened screams,” another girl amended. “We can cause a din in the halls sometimes just talking.”
“So we’re to know something’s gone wrong how?” Tam asked.
“Instinct.”
“Right.” Tam sighed. “Be careful.”
Kalani woke them both sometime later, when light was streaming in the dormitory windows. “He’s out of the office, come quickly!”
Jon stumbled upright. “Right. Sorry. I read things.”
Kalani laughed into her hand. “Your hair,” she said.
Tam tidied it. “Ought I come too?”
“As far as the mop closet, yes,” Kalani said. “It’s just a door down from the office. It should be easier to stay awake in there.”
Tam reddened, and the boys followed her as quietly as they could down the corridor and round several corners.
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