THE PLANE BANKED sharply right, away from the campus.
“Where are you going?” I demanded. “The airport is in the other direction!”
“Back of island,” Torquin said. “Change in plans.”
“It’s all jungle on that side!” Cass said. “We’ll never land this thing there.”
“Airport too dangerous,” Torquin declared.
“It’ll take hours to hike through the trees,” I said. “We need to get there fast, Torquin. The institute is on fire.”
Torquin ignored us both, yanking the steering mechanism again.
My stomach jumped up toward my throat. We were out over the water, circling farther away from land. As it vanished over the horizon, Torquin banked again.
We zoomed back in, toward the rear of the island. It was a blanket of green, surrounded by a thin sliver of beach. “The sand is too narrow!” Aly said, her voice rising in panic.
“Banzaiii!” Torquin yelled.
The plane’s nose pointed downward. I gripped the armrest. From behind, Cass grabbed my arm. He was screaming. Or maybe that was me. I couldn’t tell. As the plane dove, I closed my eyes.
We hit hard. My back jammed down into my hips, like I’d been squashed by an ogre. Cass slammed into the back of my seat. A deafening roar welled up around us as water slammed against the windows.
“Sand too narrow,” Torquin replied. “But sea not too narrow.”
As the jet’s forward momentum slowed to a stop, the windows cleared. I could see the island shore about a football field’s length away from us, separated by an expanse of ocean.
Cass’s eyes were tightly closed. “Are we dead?”
“No, but I think I sprouted some gray hairs,” Aly said, “aside from the lambda on the back of my head. Torquin, what are we doing here?”
Torquin mumbled something in a hurry. He jabbed a button, and Slippy began speeding toward the island on its superlight aluminum-alloy pontoons.
Cass, Aly, and I shared a baffled look. My heart was racing. As the pontoons made contact with sand, we jumped out. Torquin opened a compartment in the back of the plane and pulled out a huge pack of equipment. I’d never seen him move so fast.
Aly stared, ankle-deep in water. “Torquin, I am not moving another step until you talk to us. In full sentences. With an explanation!”
Torquin handed us each a flak vest, a machete, a lightweight helmet, and a belt equipped with knives and water canisters. “These are for protection,” he snapped. “Island is under attack.”
“You know that just from that smoke?” Aly said.
“Where smoke, fire,” Torquin replied. “Where fire, attack.”
His logic was not perfect, but when I saw the furious glint in his eyes I decided not to argue. Aly and Cass clearly felt the same way. We suited up quickly. Weighted down by the equipment, we waded to the shore. The trees formed a thick, impenetrable wall. No paths in sight.
Torquin stopped, carefully looking around. “Wait. Easy to get lost.”
“Just follow me,” Cass said. “We have the sun, the shore, the slope of the land, and Mount Onyx. More than enough points for geographic triangulation. We don’t need a map.”
We didn’t question him. Cass was a human GPS. He could memorize maps and routes to the inch.
“Need dictionary,” Torquin gruffed, as we all started after Cass.
* * *
I didn’t know which was worse—the smothering heat of the sun, the bug bites that made my legs look like raw hamburger, the screeching of animals we couldn’t see, or the smell of the smoke.
It was all horrible.
I knew Torquin’s analysis had to be wrong. The island was shielded by some force that made it impossible to find by anybody. But what had happened? An electrical short circuit? A lightning hit?
I dreaded what we would find.
Cass stumbled and stopped. His face was bright red, his clothes drenched. Setting his backpack down, he sat on a tree stump. “Dry …” he said.
“Have some water,” Aly said, unscrewing her canteen.
Cass waved it away. “I’m okay,” he said. “I meant, the land is dry. The trees, too. If the breeze pushes the fire in this direction, we’re toast. Literally.”
I nodded. “Let’s stay close, in case we have to retreat to the beach.”
“We have to help them,” Cass said, wiping his head. “We have to be like Marco. He would never retreat.”
“Marco,” Aly said, “retreated from us.”
I helped Cass to his feet. He quickly slipped ahead of Torquin, taking the lead. We were passing Mount Onyx now. Below us were Jeep tracks, where we’d raced back to the campus when the griffin attacked.
Cass picked up the pace. The smell was pungent and strong. White ash floated down through the treetops. Monkey screeches and birdcalls echoed around us. But I could hear other sounds now. Voices. Distant shouts.
“Stop!” Torquin ordered.
We nearly plowed into each other. Torquin passed us, squinting into the smoky air. I followed closer and saw what looked like an enormous spiderweb, strung between trees. “Security fence,” Torquin said. “High voltage.”
“Aly knows how to disable that,” Cass said. “She did it when we tried to escape.”
“From the inside,” Aly reminded him. “Not from here. We’re stuck.”
Torquin crouched silently, grabbed the top of an umbrella-shaped mushroom, and pulled hard. The stalk broke cleanly, revealing a blinking red light, flush with the ground. I heard a soft click. “Voilà,” he said. “Disables. Thirty seconds. For KI people stuck in jungle.”
“You know French?” Cass asked.
“Also croissant,” Torquin replied proudly.
Cass took the lead again. The scent of smoke was growing stronger. We were practically running now. The sweat on my back felt like a lake against the heavy pack. But up ahead, the dense jungle darkness was giving way to the light of a clearing.
A light made brighter by fire.
Cass stopped first. He dropped to his knees, his jaw hanging open.
“This can’t be …” Aly said.
We all sank down beside Cass, at the edge of the jungle now. The Karai Institute spread out before us, but it looked
