Source Fire: A Young Adult Fantasy (Arcturus Academy Book 5) Read online

  Ryan was staring at the drawing, but he was listening, and glanced at me surreptitiously. I gave him a warning look. Basil was on a roll, there was no need to confess that we’d known about his studio since first semester.

  “And did it work?” I asked.

  “Not at first, but eventually. Yes. Maybe it was because I got quite good at making the replicas, or perhaps the dreams would have gone away on their own. Either way, by the turn of the century, the dreams ceased completely, and the arts and crafts phase of my life passed. I got rid of most of the art, not wanting to explain it to anyone who might find it. But I never totally cleaned up my studio. I kind of forgot about it. And never once, in all that time, did it occur to me to do that with them.” He gestured at the cluster of orbs, as tightly packed together as newly hatched chicks in a nest.

  “Well, even if you had thought of it,” Tomio said, “seven orbs with lines like those don’t look like they’d snap together easily. It defies the laws of physics.”

  “Ah, but this is magic we’re dealing with,” smiled Basil.

  “Excuse me,” Ryan said with strained politeness. “What does this mean.” He pointed to the Italian phrase.

  I told him.

  “And what is it, exactly?” Ryan’s gaze darted around, a little defensively, I thought.

  He hadn’t been there when Basil had told Tomio and me the story of the legends, the Tunguska-like event that had led to the seven sacrifices. It hadn’t occurred to me to tell him about it. Maybe because everyone was always turning to him for answers, since he knew Nero better than anyone, and he was always acting like a know-it-all.

  Basil rubbed a hand across his jaw as he looked up at Ryan, peering at us over the seat like a precocious child. “The ‘it’ the saying is referring to, cannot be anything other than the Source Fire. The original flame from the legend.”

  Nevşehir Airport was a small facility placed well outside the city of the same name. It was early morning when we stumbled out of the plane and onto the pavement, but already heat waves baked the air over the tarmac, as the sun peered over the horizon.

  Ms. Shepherd, Basil, Mehmet and Shereen were in rapid-fire conversation as they strode across the concrete toward a set of small black helicopters, the blades already whirring.

  Ryan, Tomio and I shouldered our backpacks, which was all the personal luggage we’d been allowed to bring, and jogged to keep up. Both the ghost-steel blade and the journal were tucked into my bag.

  This part of Turkey was flat and dry; a lazily rolling, treeless terrain that looked as though it went on forever. We were a forty-five-minute drive from one of the world’s wonders, Cappadocia, but there’d be no time for sightseeing.

  I turned my phone on as we walked to see if I could get a signal. I wanted a map so I could see where we were headed. The intel was that the epicenter of the supernatural effluent was a mountain north of a village called Aladag. Punching it in called up a grid dotted with crooked roads and undeveloped terrain. Rolling over the names of places on the map triggered memories. Demirkazik. Yeniköy. Murtaziköy.

  “Hey.” I bumped against Tomio and showed him my phone. “Check out these names. Remind you of anyone?”

  The party ahead of us had come to a stop near the choppers, where two men wearing pilot’s gear stood waiting. One of them I would have recognized by his eyebrows alone if he hadn’t been wearing a helmet. But he was wearing a helmet, so I recognized him by his hulking presence, and the familiar aura of still waters running deep.

  “Davazlar?!” I blurted, interrupting Ms. Shepherd mid-yell. She sent me a look of annoyance. She hated disorganization, especially in conversation.

  The game-maker spotted me and quirked a smile. He had to call over the chopper, but even so, he was difficult to hear. I read his lips easily enough. “Hello, Ms. Cagney.”

  “Didn’t know you were going to meet us here.” I looked for Basil so I could send him a withering look for not telling me, but he wasn’t paying attention. We were already loading our gear into the choppers.

  Davazlar moved closer. “I’m originally from Ankara,” he said in that low, grinding voice of his. “Welcome to my country.”

  The other pilot, who hadn’t introduced himself yet, was in conversation with Basil and Ms. Shepherd as they threw their bags into the helicopter’s small rear hatch. Basil’s expression seemed brighter than it had in days as the pilot yelled at him over the sound of the blades. Ryan was already seated and doing up his belt when I ducked in and took the middle seat. Tomio took the seat on my right.

  “They had the whole plane ride to tell us,” Ryan groused, pulling a helmet over his head.

  “Tell us what, exactly?” I picked up the helmet that had been sitting on the floor in front of my seat. It was neon yellow with an attached mouthpiece. Settling it on my head, I then fumbled in between the seats for the straps to my harness and belt.

  Tomio pulled on a black helmet. “They already found it.”

  I froze as I was buckling my chin strap, staring at him. “What?”

  “Her.” Ryan added, fastening his own melon cage. “I overheard the other pilot refer to it as ‘she’.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said with artificial brightness as I swiveled my head to look at Ryan. “But you couldn’t possibly be referring to the volcanic husk of the last progenitor, could you?”

  Ryan nodded, still looking annoyed.

  My heartbeat picked up a notch at the possibility. I hoped Ryan and Tomio hadn’t misunderstood.

  Davazlar slid into the pilot’s seat as Shereen took the passenger side. She really rocked gear, no matter what it was; this time, a white helmet and black, bug-like, reflective glasses.

  There was a staticky sound from my headset, then Davazlar’s voice came through the speakers. He began flicking switches and doing other piloty things. “Shoulder straps, everyone. We’ll be there in less than an hour.”

  Tomio squeezed my knee as the chopper took flight and we swung out over the now sunlit, arid terrain of central Turkey.

  My mind tumbled and reeled at the speed we were moving, not literally—I’d ridden in a chopper before—but at everything that had already happened if the epicenter had been located. Ms. Shepherd must have had fit and able agents on the ground near the epicenter who’d been deployed the moment she’d made that phone call in Basil’s office. For all the complaining about incompetency, her team seemed pretty efficient to me. Why she hadn’t bothered to update us about these developments—especially if Ryan had understood correctly, and they really had found the seventh shell already— spoke volumes about what she saw as our position on this little team. A little more respect for what we’d accomplished in Naples, even if we’d later failed to protect the violet fire, would have been nice. Once more, I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of being an agent low in the hierarchy. I wanted to know what was going on, and have some say in the plan of attack.

  Rather than moaning about this into everyone’s earpieces, or harassing Shereen or the boys for details, which was what I really wanted to do, I watched the sky and land swing by the windows and let my mind wander. It wandered back to Dover where Georjie was waiting to hear from me. I really hoped we didn’t regret not allowing her to come. I’d seen her in action, and she’d only grown stronger since then, but earth was earth, and fire was fire. If she’d been hurt—

  “There!” Davazlar pointed a thick finger at a peak reaching into the sky from an otherwise mostly flat surface.

  Where the terrain we’d covered was dusty ochre with the occasional splash of brown and gold, the mountain we approached was a mottled gray, yellow and green. A blue snake of a river wound its way around the base of the range, pooling into sparkling lakes then dwindling to multi-layered threads. We passed over the water and into the mountain range, where farms and houses ceased and the earth grew rocky and treacherous. Another twenty minutes of swinging through the airspace above the valleys, and Davazlar began to slow our chopper. He spoke to the other pilot, who fl
icked switches as we spiraled toward a large relatively flat area, cradled between the mountains.

  Before the chopper touched down, I caught a flash of two human shapes waiting at a distance. Davazlar settled the bird and killed the engine. The blades gave a slow whine as they came to a stop, and we scrambled from the helicopter in a symphony of metallic clicks and snaps. Leaving our helmets on the seats, our boots hit cracked, rocky earth as the other chopper touched down a short distance away.

  Davazlar and Shereen were already jogging toward the people who were waiting for us, both men, both darkly tanned and dressed in khaki clothing. They wore dark sunglasses and pale hats. Matching sweat stains ringed their armpits and blossomed at their necklines.

  I jogged beside Tomio, not bothering to wait for Basil and Ms. Shepherd, who I guessed had decided this mission was somehow safer than the other. Probably because our target had already been located, the progenitor acquired. But if Nero did show up, it would be up to us to protect her, and that made her a liability. I scanned our surroundings for signs of Nero, but there was nothing. There wasn’t even wind, only the calls of birds, the buzz of insects, and the occasional rustle where little geckos darted across our path.

  Davazlar and the other men spoke to each other in Turkish as they headed up our crew, leading us on an angle up the mountainside. Clusters of prickly pear and cacti dotted the rocky landscape. Lonely old olive trees thrust from crags in the rocks, their silvery-green leaves still in the airless morning.

  Tomio, directly behind me as we kept to the narrow path through the inhospitable topography, brushed my shoulder. “Saxony, look.”

  Following his gesture, I looked up at a nearby rock face to see small square windows cut into the sandstone surface. Nearby, a section of rock had broken away, revealing a hollow space within, including a set of shallow steps and what were—unmistakably—the rooms of some ancient home. A feeling of awe came into me, but it vanished again as the men led us into a shaded cleft, and down an embankment covered with small stones and loose shale.

  In a pocket near a yawning black cave, sat a perfect, black statue. My heart jumped when I saw her.

  Davazlar and the men got there first, still talking at the speed of light. Heart pounding and pulse jumping, I stopped near the volcanic shell, crouching for a better look. She was dusty and covered in handprints. They’d clearly unearthed her from somewhere and then carried her here.

  She was an older woman, with sagging jowls and low-hanging breasts. But she had wide, beautiful eyes, and a broad forehead and mouth. She had hardened in a fetal position, lying on her side with her left elbow cushioning her head. Her left hand had been broken off—exposed, perhaps, to a rockfall—leaving the raw substance of which she was made, naked to the light. As the sun slanted overhead and the shadows crawled back, she glimmered in the places where she was clean.

  The rest of our crew arrived, and as I glanced up to see Shereen, Basil and Ms. Shepherd slide down the loose stuff to join us, I caught a glimpse of Ryan’s expression. His gaze was locked on her face, his cheeks pale and dark circles under his eyes, which I hadn’t taken much notice of before, were pronounced. He was the one who had held the orb which had revealed the ancient language of this region, the clue that had led us to her. I wondered what his traveling experience had been like.

  I moved closer to him, speaking low. “Do you recognize her?”

  It was silly to worry that someone might overhear what I knew from experience was an intimate question, but our party were closed in around the statue now, some watching the surrounding terrain for signs of Nero, others absorbed with what had been unearthed and discussing how best to transport her. No one overheard, but Tomio noticed, and joined us.

  Ryan seemed to tear his gaze away from her with effort. “Her face was the last thing I saw when I… traveled.”

  “You recognize her?” Tomio asked, as one of the men produced a large tarp from a backpack, and threw it over the statue.

  “Only from the orb.” Ryan rubbed at his eyes. “Come on, let’s scout ahead while they bring her.”

  I’d been so relieved that she’d been found in one piece, I hadn’t thought about what was next. Where would we take her? I had expected a battle, but the drone operators would have warned us if they’d seen anything strange within a five-mile radius. Nero wasn’t here. We’d actually beaten him.

  It only required two men to carry her. Davazlar and one of the men who’d been waiting for us when we arrived, set her on a collapsible stretcher with aluminum bars and a tough, nylon surface. Half our party followed behind and the rest of us went ahead, eyes peeled for anything alive that wasn’t an insect or an animal.

  It wasn’t until she’d been secured in the back of the larger chopper and the helicopters were in the air that the tension drained out of my body and exhaustion washed over me like a tsunami.

  We’d removed her from the predator’s path. She was mostly in one piece. Now we just had to hide her somewhere Nero could never find her, and pick up the pieces of our ruined species.

  11

  Absolution

  The large van that had picked us up from the London Airport hummed along the curvy, forest-covered roads leading to Dover. Ms. Shepherd and Mehmet had gone their own way from the London Airport: Shereen and Mehmet to the agency to visit friends, and Ms. Shepherd to her flat in London, claiming that all the stress was wrecking her immune system and she felt like she was coming down with something. When she’d rested, she’d visit Basil to discuss the long-term home of the sculpture.

  We called it a sculpture, but only because there was no better word for the remains of the final progenitor. She sat on the van’s floor, cradled inside a lined wooden crate, hidden from view. I was glad I couldn’t see her. Tracing her features made me feel a sadness I didn’t have the energy to cope with. It was the stamping out of the majority of idle fires, yes. That was a burdensome reality I knew would hit me when the madness of these days passed. But it was more than that. This mage had lived a full life, maybe even much longer than your average life. The headmaster had confirmed that magi had normal lifespans, but this mage was not your average fire magus. She was an original. A mother to all those who carried a green idle. She was the matriarch from whom Isaia had sprung, and Gage and Ryan and Shereen.

  That made her also my mother. Adopted, anyway. Chad and his twin sons were born with different colored idles. So, it was not genetics that determined a mage’s idle, but something else, something more mysterious. Perhaps something in the nature of the person, rather than the blood. Perhaps the birth date, or the position of the stars when a mage was born. Whatever it was, it gave Basil’s agency fodder for research for years to come, even if there were only green idles left to study.

  I wondered how my progenitor had come to be in this state. Had she died a natural death, but her body couldn’t decompose in the way of flesh because of the heat? I pictured her slowly hardening into the volcanic rock-like substance of which she was now made. Her fire perhaps slowly, or maybe even quickly, baking her into her final form the way terra cotta solidifies in a kiln.

  Ryan and Basil sat on the bench facing me and Tomio, our backs against the van’s steel sides. The vehicle had been delivered by a rental company, the keys passed over to Davazlar, who’d opted to see the sculpture delivered to the academy before he parted ways with us. The game-maker was currently driving. He appeared immune to exhaustion.

  We had reached Dover before I sent Georjie a text, letting her know we were back. She responded that she’d gone for a long walk down the beach. She’d return now that she knew we were home, but would arrive back at the manor after us.

  Ryan was slouched against the van’s wall, his head down. I thought he was asleep when he raised his head, eyes dark in the gloom of the vehicle. He gazed at the box. His voice was dry. Tired. “Nero might be able to track her. We don’t know how the effluent works. It might take centuries to saturate the area around it, but what if it doesn’t? What if he can
track her wherever she is, in real time?”

  Basil looked at Ryan. “That has occurred to me, too, but we can’t hide her at the agency, there are too many vulnerable mages there, and too many eyeballs. I’ll never get her inside a bank vault without arousing unwelcome questions. The academy is the perfect temporary hiding place, until Ms. Shepherd and I can locate somewhere more secure.”

  I lifted my head from Tomio’s shoulder. “But he’s been to the academy. That’s where he found the diary in the wall. The one with the formula.”

  “Yes. Many years ago, he was there. But he doesn’t know anything but the common rooms and the bedroom where he slept. Further, he doesn’t know that I’m involved, operating against him. I’m sure he’s arrived in Turkey by now. But our people covered our tracks well. He’ll reach the epicenter, but there won’t be anything there, and why should he have a clue as to who foiled him? It could be archaeologists who stumbled over her remains just as easily as it could be mages who got there before him.” Basil waved a hand. “There are many hiding places at Chaplin Manor. And with all that neoprene and fireproofing, it should help to cloak whatever supernatural effluent she is leaking, too. At least for a time.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Ryan leaned his elbows on his knees but twisted his head to look at the headmaster, resting his chin on his palm.

  Basil let out a long sigh. “My boy, I am sure of nothing. We are only doing what we can do. Our entire species is grieving and in a state of disarray. The agency, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists, not to mention all the agencies like ours around the world. We’re at war. In war, nothing is certain. But we’ve finally gotten the upper hand, and I’ll do everything in my power to preserve what few mages we have left. Over time, more mages will be born.”

  Maybe he was right, but from what—whom—would their idles spring? From Nero? With only a rare few springing from the shell in the crate? It wasn’t a comforting thought.