“Kiernan! They said I’d find you here. We’ve got to see Xavier at once.” He stopped when he caught sight of the girl. “In the name of the One True God and all his holy missives,” he gasped. “Who is that?”
“We aren’t entirely sure,” Kiernan said, standing and wiping his hands on his trousers before extending one to James to shake. “I’ve taken some samples, so we should know more by the day’s end. What on earth is all this fuss about then?”
Leo couldn’t stop staring. James Roth looked just the same as when Leo had seen him in The Great Picando, except he was in normal clothes. He had brown skin, thick, dark hair, and piercing green eyes, and he was a bit shorter than Leo had thought—perhaps he seemed taller onstage.
“My god, haven’t you seen the papers?” James said. “There’s been a development. An island in Pelago has been discovered. We’re needed at—oh, hello,” he said, just noticing Leo. “Sorry, are you new to the production?”
“Why, this is Xavier’s son,” Kiernan said, surprised. “Surely you two have met before.”
“I haven’t had the pleasure,” James said, holding out a hand. “James Roth.”
“Leo McLellan.”
“Leo caught our newest addition here,” Kiernan said with a nod to the girl.
“Really?” James looked impressed. “Any idea what she does? Is she like the others?”
Leo assumed he meant the mertag and the Arboreal, but since he still didn’t feel entirely confident of what they did, he shrugged and said, “We don’t know much yet.”
“Well, you’re Xavier’s son, so I’m sure you’ll have it solved and sorted in no time.” He gazed down at her, cocking his head. “She’s sort of pretty, isn’t she? In an odd way. Unique.”
Leo hadn’t thought much on the subject either way. James glanced at Kiernan.
“All right, come, we’ve got to get going.”
“What does Father want us for?” Leo asked as Kiernan knelt to pack up his bag.
James’s eyes filled with pity. “Sorry, old chap, but he didn’t ask for you, just Mr. Kiernan.”
“Oh,” he said, trying to swallow his disappointment. “Right.”
He had thought things would be different now, after the talk in Xavier’s study. He supposed he should have known better.
“Just about ready,” Kiernan said. “We need to get her back into the—”
Suddenly, the girl leaped to her feet in a movement so fluid Leo could not discern the shift from when she was prostrate on the ground to when she was standing.
“Hey!” James cried, stepping back.
Her eyes darted from Kiernan, to Leo, to Francis still hovering off to one side through this whole conversation, to James, then up to the glass ceiling, then back to Kiernan.
“How is this possible?” Kiernan said with astonishment.
The girl looked down at her wrist, then clutched at her neck in desperation and let out a mournful stream of unintelligible words.
“I think she wants her jewelry back,” Leo said.
Her head snapped toward him and she growled.
“She doesn’t seem to like you,” James noted. “All right then, my lady,” he said gently, taking a careful step toward her, hands outstretched like he was talking down a skittish horse. She stepped back. “No one is going to hurt you. I promise. We just want to keep you safe.”
Another round of gibberish followed that remark. She was backing up closer and closer to the Arboreal, which, Leo noticed somewhere in a distant part of his mind, was far more beautiful than in the photograph he’d seen, with silvery bark and turquoise leaves. It was also quite small, six feet tall at most. He’d thought a magic tree would be more intimidating.
“Francis, get the dogcatcher,” Kiernan said, keeping his focus on the girl. Francis looked torn, staring at her with pity until Kiernan snapped, “Dammit, Francis, now!” and he jumped and scurried offstage. The girl’s eyes were wild, desperate to find an exit, as Leo, Kiernan, and James began to encircle her. Leo was closest, on her right side, with James in the center and Kiernan on the left.
Quick as a whip, she darted toward the space between James and Kiernan, knocking over the medical bag and spilling its contents across the stage.
“My vials!” Kiernan cried, as James reached out to grab her. She wrenched free of his grasp and ran in the opposite direction, around behind the Arboreal, as Kiernan bent to collect the spilled items. Leo stepped on something and looked down to see the necklace with the star pendant—without thinking, he picked it up and put it in his pocket. Francis came running back with a long pole with a loop on its end, and Kiernan snatched it from him.
“Get her in a corner,” he demanded. Leo could see her through the tree’s branches, her face alight with fear. He took a step closer.
“Leo, to your right!” James called, as the girl shot out from behind the Arboreal and made a mad dash for the edge of the stage. Just as Leo reached for her, something rough and solid smacked him across the face, sparks exploding in front of his eyes as the theater and the girl were swallowed up in darkness.
He awoke in his bed.
His head throbbed, and he moaned and touched his cheek. Pain shot through his jaw like fire.
“Swansea!” Janderson’s voice was muffled, as if Leo was hearing it through a headful of cotton. “He’s awake.”
Leo’s vision was blurry, and it took a second for the world to focus. His body was stiff, the slightest movement setting off a series of jagged aches. A minute later, his father entered his room, followed by Kiernan and James. Having James Roth in his bedroom was not something Leo had ever anticipated, and he tried to sit up and look nonchalant but instead cried out in pain.
“Be still,” Xavier said.
“That was quite a blow to the head you took,” James said.
“It was absolutely incredible! I had no idea the Arboreal could move.” Kiernan seemed delighted, as if it was a minor detail that Leo’s skull had been the price of this discovery.
“Incredible, indeed.” There was a feverish look in Xavier’s eyes. He turned to James. “And you said it was trying to protect the girl?”
“That’s how it looked to me. Just as he reached for her—wham! One of Boris’s branches shot out across his face and knocked him to the ground.”
“Luckily, she seemed as stunned as we were,” Kiernan said. “I was able to catch her, and James and I returned her to the crate.”
“Is this something we need to be concerned about?” Xavier asked. “We can’t have the Arboreal attacking our buyers.”
“Or actors,” James added.
“I’m not rightly sure, to be honest,” Kiernan said. “I’ve never known it to happen before. Boris has not moved once, in all the months we’ve had him. He mostly hums those strange songs that help his saplings grow.”
“Francis said he’d never seen anything like it, and he spends the most time with them,” James said.
“Such a wondrous turn of events,” Kiernan was muttering to himself. “First this girl appears, then those ruins in Braxos, then Boris comes to life.”