“Could I?” Arthur leaned forward to do just that.
Only to be met with a hand in his face, pushing him back gently. “You could,” Linus said. “Or we could go and see why we were allowed to sleep so late. I swear, if they’ve brought home another animal they call a friend, we’re going to have words.”
“The last one wasn’t so bad,” Arthur said, taking the robe and sliding it on.
Linus made a face. “It was a lizard the size of Calliope that tried to eat my loafers.”
“And you handled it with your usual grace and aplomb by shrieking and calling it a boa constrictor.”
“I know you got it in your head at some point that you’re funny. And you are, but now is not the time for humor. Now is the time for panicking.”
“Perhaps nothing’s wrong and we’re overreacting,” Arthur said, trying to be semi-reasonable.
Linus rolled his eyes. “You know as well as I do that with them, it would not be overreacting. Remember when Talia— Where’s Calliope?”
Calliope, the so-called thing of evil. A cat, but unlike any other cat Arthur had seen before. It wasn’t just her size—her gorgeous, fluffy hair made her appear far larger than she actually was—or her coloring, mostly black with a small patch of fluffy white on her chest. No, it was her bright green eyes that made her different. Watching, always watching, undoubtedly plotting the demise of anyone she deemed unfit to exist in her presence. Though Arthur knew humans had a tendency to anthropomorphize their pets and extoll their intelligence (“He’s so smart! He can do what I trained him to do over a period of six months!”) Calliope was something else entirely. If Arthur hadn’t known any better, he’d have thought she understood them. But, true to her species, she held her own counsel and tended to ignore everything else.
Most nights, she lay curled at the foot of their bed, purring in warning should they even move their legs an inch. But her space was empty, leaving only behind black hairs on a blanket that Sal had knitted for her. When he’d presented it to her, Calliope had meowed her pleasure so loudly, it could be heard throughout the rest of the house.
“She must be with them,” Arthur said. “And if she is, I know they’re all right. She wouldn’t let anything happen to them.”
“Too right,” Linus said. “I pity anyone who tries to cross them with her around. I expect it’s painful to lose your eyes to a cat.”
The long hallway was quiet. All the bedroom doors belonging to the children were open and the rooms empty. Sal’s room had his desk in front of the window, typewriter tucked away in a monogrammed oak case Arthur and Linus had gifted him for Christmas. Chauncey’s room smelled faintly of salt, warm seawater covering the floor, pumped in from the ocean through heated pipes. In Phee’s, amidst dozens of plants hanging from the ceiling, a mural covered the walls showing a forest in varying degrees of talent as all the children had helped: Lucy’s trees looked like skeletons, while Talia’s appeared to be green candy floss on top of brown sticks. Speaking of the garden gnome, Talia’s own room was oddly plant free; instead of flowering vines, there were cork boards attached to each wall displaying a magnificent collection of garden tools. And last—but certainly not least—through a hatch in the ceiling up to the attic, where a particular wyvern had built one of several nests. Climbing up the ladder that descended from the hatch, Arthur peered into the semi-dark of the attic. Theodore’s nest: blankets, towels, and a brick he’d had a three-week love affair with. But no wyvern.
Arthur didn’t want to panic, but not knowing where the children were caused an icy grip to squeeze around his heart. Zoe would have warned them if someone had attempted to come to the island uninvited, but that did little to ease Arthur’s worry.
“Anything?” Linus called up from below him.
“No,” Arthur said, climbing back down.
“Where could they be? They wouldn’t leave without asking, so it’s not as if—”
A thump from the first floor, followed by a loud crash.
“Kitchen,” Arthur and Linus said at the same time.
They calmed as they neared the stairs that led down to the first floor. Peeking over the railing, Arthur and Linus saw Phee sitting on the bottom step, her fiery red hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, her wings fluttering behind her. The forest sprite wore shorts and a green tank top, her pale shoulders dotted with freckles. Shortly after her twelfth birthday, she’d gone through a bit of a growth spurt, sprouting up like one of her trees.
In front of her stood Chauncey, the amorphous green boy with tentacles for arms, suckers lining both lengths. On top of his head rose thin, foot-long stalks, his eyes at the top, bouncing up and down excitedly. He was wearing a trench coat cinched around what could either be his waist or his chest, and it didn’t take long for Arthur and Linus to learn why.
“You think they heard that?” Chauncey asked, voice like a thick, wet sponge being squeezed into a metal bucket.
“Shh,” Phee said. “Not so loud.”
His stalks shrank until his eyes rested on top of his body, wide and unblinking. “You think they heard that?” he whispered.
“Probably not,” Phee said, tugging at the bottom of his coat. “They both snore, so I don’t think they heard anything.”
Linus huffed next to him, and Arthur did little to hide his smile.
“Oh,” Chauncey said. “Do I snore?”
“You’re a boy, so probably. What’s with the trench coat?”
He puffed up proudly. “We’re on a secret mission. Everyone knows when you’re on a secret mission, you have to dress like it.” He flipped up the collar of his coat. “Secret Agent Chauncey, at your service.”
“I thought you wanted to be a bellhop.”
“I can do both,” he said. “Save the day and carry your luggage. It’s called going undercover. I read about it in a book.” His eyes turned 360 degrees. “Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone before?”
“Sure,” Phee said. “What is it? You all right?”
He flapped a tentacle at her. “Yeah, I’m good. No, not just good. I’m prodigious.”
Linus elbowed Arthur gently. “You hear that?” he whispered excitedly. “My vocabulary lessons are working.”
“—which means to cause amazement and wonder,” Chauncey was saying when they looked back down the stairs.
Phee laughed. “What did you want to tell me?”
“Right,” Chauncey said. “Have you ever been walking through the woods, and you see a pine cone on the ground, and no one is there to tell you that you can’t eat the pine cone?”
“Well, sure. But—”
“Oh my goodness,” Chauncey breathed. “Me too! I thought I was the only one. I feel better now.”
“Did … did you eat the pine cone?”
