“I—” Nolan shivered as he perched on the railing, still cradling his bad arm. “If I had to.”
“Out in the open, where anyone could see you?” Despite the deadly look on Malcolm’s face, he helped Nolan to the ground. “Do you understand what would happen if you shifted?”
“He didn’t, though.” Simon climbed over and landed on the cobblestones with a solid thud. Nolan was dripping wet, and his lips, which were no longer twisted into a self-satisfied smirk, were quickly turning blue. “And they didn’t catch him. I would never let them,” added Simon fiercely.
Most Animalgams could only turn into a single animal and belonged to one of the five kingdoms: mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, and underwater creatures. But Nolan was special. He had the supposedly unique ability to change into any animal he wanted, a gift he had inherited from the Beast King, a tyrannical ruler who had lorded over their world and absorbed the power of countless Animalgams hundreds of years ago. Eventually the five kingdoms had banded together to defeat him, but they hadn’t known about his secret child who had inherited his powers. And so, for the countless generations that had followed, heir after heir had kept their talents secret, because if the five kingdoms found out the Beast King’s abilities still existed, they would undoubtedly ensure that no Beast King could rise up again and threaten the Animalgam world.
Malcolm sighed and pulled off his coat, draping it over Nolan’s shoulders. “No flying until after the holidays,” he said at last. “And that means during vacation, too.”
“But—” Nolan started to protest, but Malcolm cut him off, bending down so they were eye to eye.
“If you can’t obey the rules I set out for you, then I’ll just have to tell your teachers to give you extra homework each night. Is that what you want?”
Nolan’s mouth dropped open. “That’s not fair!”
“Neither is scaring me half to death and forcing your brother to risk his life to protect you.” Malcolm checked his watch. “Breakfast starts in a few minutes. We need to—”
“Can I stay out longer?” said Simon suddenly, rubbing the fresh scratches on his shoulder. “I—I want to visit Darryl.”
Malcolm’s expression softened, and though he pursed his lips, he nodded. “Fifteen minutes. Not a second longer, understood?”
Simon nodded and watched as Malcolm helped Nolan toward the Arsenal, with a pair of hulking wolves trailing after them. The pack was always present in the zoo during closing hours, protecting the school entrance from intruders. While normally Simon was annoyed by their presence, today, as he glanced into the brightening sky, he was grateful.
He made his way to the secluded spot, where his uncle was buried under a stone statue of a howling wolf. Beside it stood a second wolf statue marking his father’s grave, but Simon didn’t linger there today. Instead he patted the first wolf’s muzzle, staring up at the scar running down the statue’s face. Sometimes he talked to his uncle, and sometimes he didn’t. Today, the silence said it all, and he sighed into the cold morning air.
Out of instinct, or habit, or maybe even a little hope, he glanced at the base of the statue, where a loose rock stuck out. Twice he’d discovered postcards from his mother there, but his heart sank as he saw that once again, there was nothing. When he’d lived with Darryl, she had sent him a postcard every single month while she supposedly traveled the country studying animals, and it was yet another thing missing from the life he’d known. He couldn’t be mad at her for leaving, though, not now that he knew what she had really been doing: searching for the pieces of the Predator, the Beast King’s weapon that had given him the power to absorb others’ Animalgam abilities. The leaders of the five kingdoms had destroyed the weapon and each taken one of the five pieces to hide, and now, centuries later, both Celeste and Orion were trying to put the Predator back together. While Celeste had nearly succeeded, Simon had managed to stop her—but he hadn’t been able to stop Orion from kidnapping his mother, who knew where each piece was hidden.
Between Darryl’s death and losing his mother, the past four months had been the worst of Simon’s life. He knew his mother was alive—thanks to her last postcard, he even knew she was in LA, where the General of the underwater kingdom lived. But he was stuck all the way across the country, under the careful watch of his uncle and a pack of wolf Animalgams who knew most of his tricks by now.
“Hey, Simon!” called a member of the pack, a wolf who was usually a curly-haired woman named Vanessa. “Your fifteen minutes are almost up. Aren’t you cold?”
“A little,” he admitted. He was already frozen through his thick down jacket, but he had been determined to visit. Each day he didn’t see his uncle, he felt guilty, even if he knew Darryl wasn’t really there anymore. If, somehow, Darryl did know, Simon never wanted him to think he’d forgotten him. He may not have had any memories of his father, but he had a lifetime of his uncle, and some days—most, if Simon was being honest with himself—he couldn’t fully accept the fact that there would never be more.
Simon gave the statue one more pat before following the wolf back to the warmth of the Arsenal. A steep staircase led deep beneath the building, and he ran his fingers over the wall to keep his balance. The secret door at the bottom of the stairs opened up to a massive cavern that was as big as the entire zoo, and the pentagon-shaped school stood on the opposite side of a moat filled with piranhas, jellyfish, and Simon’s least favorite—sharks.
Thankfully it seemed mostly empty now, save for a few schools of fish doing morning drills, and Simon hurried across, his stomach rumbling. His friends would be at breakfast by now, and maybe telling them about the trip to Sky Tower would ease the knot of anxiety in his chest. Nolan’s stupidity still rankled at him, and it was the only thing keeping him from mentally berating himself for his own idiocy. It had been a close call—too close. Simon knew better than anyone that Orion was trying to put the pieces of the weapon together for one reason and one reason only: to kill Nolan and steal the Beast King’s powers.
Unbeknownst to Orion, though, Nolan wasn’t the only one who had inherited those abilities. Simon had them, too—a secret no one but his mother and closest friends knew, not even his uncle and brother. For now, all he could do was use them to hunt down the pieces and protect his brother. But if the five kingdoms ever discovered that there were two living Beast King heirs, they would tear the entire Animalgam world apart until Simon and Nolan were both dead.
To Simon’s relief, as soon as he entered the noisy dining hall, he spotted a familiar shock of blond hair. Jam’s head was bowed as he buried his nose in a novel, and Simon grabbed some breakfast before hurrying over.
“You won’t believe what Nolan did this time,” he said, setting his tray down with a clatter and nearly upsetting his juice. “We were flying, and—”
“Say that a little louder. I don’t think the mammals heard you.” Ariana dropped her own tray onto the table. Her hair was a freshly dyed shade of royal blue, and she flipped it over her shoulder as she slid into a chair beside Jam, who still didn’t look up.
Simon frowned. She was right—they may have known his and Nolan’s secret, but the other students had no idea, not even Nolan’s close friends in the mammal kingdom. And Simon had to make sure it stayed that way. Just because he was angry didn’t mean he could be careless, and he dropped his voice so only his friends could hear him. “We were flying—”