Donal was small and blond and moved like a ferret who’d been given too much caffeine. He was still smudged with soot when they made it up into his tower, and he barely looked up from his latest experiment.
“Were you expected today? I didn’t remember.”
Jes took a breath. “No, Donal, we’re escaping from evil identical regents who’ve tricked our parents into leaving.”
“That’s too bad. Could you hand me that silver wire? No, the other one.”
Chris looked ready to explode, but Amalia kicked him and motioned for him to wait. Jes handed over the silver wire.
“Are the regents all pale women with dark hair and sharp features?” Donal asked as he fastened the wire between two parts.
“Yes, that’s them.”
“Hmm. I did wonder if perhaps Lady Violet wasn’t human.” Donal tightened a tiny dial. “She’s left me alone, so I didn’t investigate.”
“Has your mother been called away like our parents?” Jes asked, while Amalia clamped a hand over Chris’s mouth. Another explosion seemed imminent.
“Yes, yesterday morning. Here, could you give me the notched copper disc from that table?”
Jes handed it over and counted to a hundred. Before she’d quite finished, Donal turned a hidden switch, and the little machine came to life.
“There, that’s done. So, do you think Mom is in any danger? Oh, hello, Chris. I didn’t see you there.”
There were many crucial questions Jes wanted to ask, but Chris blurted out first, “What does that do?”
“It’s a voice-activated smoke machine. It should fill a ballroom with thick smoke in under a minute.”
Why anyone would want such a thing was a question that could wait. “Yes, your mom could be in danger. We thought, since you two made the earrings for Alex, that you might be able to contact your mom”
Donal frowned. “Unfortunately, we based those on the structures running through the islands. Anywhere on the islands or in the tunnels, they should work fine, but I doubt they’d have more than a few hundred yards of range away from here.”
“So, you don’t have any way to reach your mother?” Amalia asked.
“I didn’t say that. I can track her, which is one option. Taking apart Lady Violet to see what she’s up to is another.”
Chris and Amalia gripped their swords with matching smiles, and Jes shuddered. “Isn’t torture a little … extreme?”
Donal blinked at her. “I wasn’t going to torture her. I was going to find her off switch and analyze her programming. It’s obvious that she’s an android.”
“Who can make an android that can pass as a human?” Amalia objected.
“Well, my Uncle Kegan could. At least, he was nearly there the last time I saw him. Some of his machines helped in the fight to raise the islands.”
“Eight!” crowed Chris.
“So why isn’t he royalty, then?” Jes asked.
“He didn’t want it. He told Gregor he’d rather have a good workshop then a kingdom any day.” Donal paused as though considering. “I think he was right.”
Amalia and Jes shared a look. Gregor had given Kegan a workshop. Kegan knew how to create androids. Gregor had sent four androids to be their regents. It was what Jes’s father would call circumstantial evidence, but it didn’t look good.
Chris turned at a sound and glanced out the tower window. “Um, Donal? There are six people with weapons headed this way. Is there another way out of here?”
Donal looked up and grimaced. “Oh, I expect Lady Violet went into my study.”
Amalia perked up. “Booby traps?”
Donal smiled back. “Several.”
Jes held up one hand. “You can talk shop later. Is there a way to avoid bloodshed and dungeons?”
Donal stood up, slipped his latest device into his pocket, and walked across the room. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”
Terrified. “We’ll be fine. Lead the way.”
Jes imagined clinging to the sheer wall outside, taking a zip line between towers, or jumping to almost certain death. After refusing the last tower climb, she just hoped that she could jump quickly without having to think about it. In comparison to these thoughts, the spiral slide Donal told them about wasn’t nearly as bad.
“It’s in the space under the staircases,” Donal explained. “More fun, much faster, and an extra way out for emergencies.”
Jes could not imagine finding it fun, but she hadn’t faced near drowning and Amalia’s dozens of traps to back down now. “Lead the way,” she repeated and forced herself to sit down on the slide before she could change her mind.
There were muffled sounds above her as Amalia and Chris tried to contain their own glee, but Jes held her breath, counted, and focused on not throwing up. The slide ended at last in a pile of pillows, and she scrambled out of the way before the other two could careen into her.
“So now we can go down into the tunnels, or …” Donal paused at Jes’s head shake.
“We had to flood them to prevent the bad guys from sinking the islands.”
Donal shrugged. “Well, I had wanted to do some more testing, but I’m sure it’s ready.”