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

  “One-oh-seven,” she murmured, focusing all her powers of concentration on my words. “What’s one-oh-seven?”

  “Basil’s suite. He’ll come to you. Tell him what’s happened.”

  Someone bellowed in pain behind us.

  “Go!” I shoved her and she took off running.

  Turning to the battle, my heart jumped into my throat. The back wall of the fire-gym was ablaze with lime green fire shot through with indigo streaks. The smell was dizzying. Bodies collided within otherworldly illumination: flashes, pulses, sparks, flickering lines of blazing alchemy. There was another cry of pain, and it sounded like Tomio.

  Heat blossomed through my chest and swept into my limbs, catapulting me into the fray. Ryan’s form was at the firewall, hands up and trying to absorb the supernatural flames before they consumed more of the gym.

  Thuds and grunts came from my left, where Tomio and Nero attacked and deflected. Tomio’s body moved through masterful sequences of detonations, while Nero’s fists were ablaze with color, drawing shocked hisses of pain from Tomio as he seared him with chemical fire. Dodging fire was very different from dodging fists—to be precise, it was impossible.

  When Tomio planted a perfect kick in the center of Nero’s chest and the mage staggered back toward me, I saw an opening, and leaped forward, firing in both legs. Wrapping an arm around his throat from behind, I detonated along my spine, raked an ankle across the back of Nero’s legs and slammed him to the ground. There was a flash of wide, surprised eyes and bared teeth before he grunted on impact. His dark glare gripped mine as I cocked back a fist and fired, popping in my shoulder and back and throwing redheat into my punch. Nero spat green copper-chloride-fueled fire at me as my blazing yellow fist cracked his head to the side. The green jet of flames sprayed wildly like a snake springing from a joke can, narrowly missing my face. Stinking sparks sprayed across the neoprene and smoke swirled over the floor, shrouding my feet and part of Nero’s body.

  With a violent roll to the side, Nero was out from under me and up. I blinked to clear my stinging eyes. My skin burned where the green fire had touched me. I had to absorb what he was throwing, or it would hurt. But absorbing and detonating while in full combative motion was a big ask. I had no practice with this, only the theory Ryan had given me.

  I bolted forward for another try as Nero came at me. We clashed in an explosion of light as my training swept its cold rationale over my mind like a veil. Heat and power banged off throughout my body, backing every shot I fired, every deflection, every block, without thought or hesitation.

  When an open-handed slap caught me by surprise, I spun across the floor to my knees, left cheek stinging and vision whirling, my face flushed with fire and blood. An open-handed hit was somehow so much more humiliating than a fisted punch.

  By the time I’d found ground again, Tomio was on Nero like a panther from jungle shadows. I caught a flash of bright red blood, moving too fast to know who it belonged to.

  My nose was split and throbbed painfully with every heartbeat. I wiped at it, glancing at Ryan, who’d extinguished the chemical fire, but not before it had exposed the skeleton behind the folding wall and the gym’s structural layers of I-beams and braces.

  My heart jumped to my throat as Ryan tugged the wooden case, blackened and smoking, from its hiding place, moving it while Nero was distracted. But as he squatted to heft it, part of the crate broke and crumbled. The statue slid out and hit the floor as Ryan stumbled back.

  All Nero had to do was look up for one second to see his prize, exposed and waiting to be plucked, like ripe fruit hanging low on the tree.

  I sucked in a huge breath and spewed dense, boron-laced blue fire into the air, turning my head back and forth to spread it as much as possible. Ryan had told me that blue left the most opaque smoke, which could provide some level of cover. He shot me a grateful look when he saw what I’d done, picked up the shell and hefted her as the blue smoke enveloped him.

  Turning to the battle, I saw Nero launch a kick at Tomio, catching him in the shoulder. Nero was clearly the less skilled at martial arts, but he had all that extra alchemy, all those idle fires, running through his body. He didn’t even move like a normal mage anymore. His hands flashed violet as Tomio staggered back, but instead of gripping at his struck shoulder, he reached for his face. Tomio’s eyes flashed purple and his teeth bared in a grimace. He started to cover his eyes but reversed the motion as his instincts kicked in. Had he been blinded? He had an unfocused look, and sank into half-squat, hands out, anticipating an attack he couldn’t see.

  Detonating everywhere, I barreled into Nero, flying at his ribs. We rolled over the floor. Gracelessly, firing at whatever I could reach, I pummeled his body as he pummeled mine. Pops and snaps of accompanied grunts and heavy, forced exhalations of breath. Blunt impact struck all over my body, leaving aching, sizzling and prickling sensations as I tried to absorb what I could, and then turn it back on my foe.

  Nero hissed in Italian. Blood streaked across his cheekbone from a cut on the side of his head, and his lip was split.

  So, he could still bleed.

  I connected with the other side of his face, but he only snapped his head back, then planted a hand on my sternum, between my breasts. I made to knock his hand away when my entire body was consumed by a stretching, breaking pain. I screamed as every muscle went stiff, like I was being electrocuted. From its home in the center of my body, my fire bowed toward Nero’s hand. I felt it shift off-center like it was being pulled by a powerful magnet. It was agonizing, like pressure on a joint to dislocate. I couldn’t move, could only pant my breaths.

  “P-p-p-ple…” I tried to beg, desperate for the pain to stop.

  It felt like he was drawing my very heart out of place, stretching apart the very core of me. At any second I would break into pieces. My vision shrank to the size of a penny, black closing in from all sides. Much more of this, and I would lose consciousness. Through a small hole in a dark wall, Nero bared his teeth in effort. Like he was trying to remove the fabled sword from its stone. He redoubled his efforts, and I was certain my body would rupture. The sight of Nero came through a pinprick now. Moisture glinted on his forehead, his eyes narrowed to slits.

  He meant to rip my fire from my body.

  I slipped toward unconsciousness, losing all sight completely. The sound of my heartbeat echoed through my head, the only sign I had that I was still alive outside of the pain itself.

  Then I hit the floor. Hard.

  The wind was knocked from my chest, and my fire snapped back into place like it was fastened to my spine by an elastic. All the pain immediately stopped, leaving me stupid with shock. My vision returned. I sucked in air and staggered to my feet. My legs felt like they were made of pudding. Scanning for Ryan and Tomio, I saw that aside from the ruined crate and fading blue smoke, there was no one there.

  Where was Nero?

  At the sound of a thud and a grunt, I looked to the doors in time to see Tomio fly backward into the gym like he’d been vaulted from a cannon, straight at me. I barely had time to fill my body with fire-power in an effort to break his fall. He hit me full in the torso as I wrapped my arms around him, firing into my legs and hips. We staggered many meters back but managed to keep upright.

  Ryan lay on the floor near the doors. He wasn’t moving.

  My blood turned to ice as I saw Nero standing over the statue, his fist cocked back. We were too far away to stop him, and Ryan was either unconscious or dead.

  Nero slammed the shell in the chest. There was an outward blast of energy—absorbed by the neoprene—and a beautiful green flame was exposed, flickering inside the cavity.

  I screamed and bolted forward, Tomio at my side, but I already knew we were too late. The gym was too vast to cross in time.

  Nero’s fist closed over the flame and snuffed it, as easily as blowing out a birthday candle. His arm and chest flashed with the power of the green idle, lighting his madman’s grin. He glanced at Rya
n with a predatory smile and had taken a step toward him when he looked up and saw we were upon him. His body rippled into transparency as we dove at him.

  We flew through him and staggered into the lobby, barely arresting our momentum in time to turn and see a flickering human shape made of black fire as it passed through the wall and disappeared.

  Part III

  The Eighth Fire

  14

  Caught

  The world stopped.

  All but our labored breathing seemed held in suspended animation. Tomio’s hands flew to his chest, eyes round.

  “Did you? Are you—” I could hardly think the word fireless, let alone say it.

  He looked into his open palms and a moment later, fire danced there. “No,” he croaked, clearly amazed. “You?”

  I could feel the roaring heat of a fire recently engaged in combat, licking up my insides. I made a flame in my palm, just to prove it. There was pain in my side and the skin of my right forearm was red and blistered, and my jaw felt the same.

  Ryan lay on his side, still and unmoving, facing away from us. We crouched over him. Gingerly, afraid of what I might learn, I pressed my fingertips to the place under the jaw where the pulse is easy to detect.

  A wash of heat raced up my arm to my heart, making me cry out in surprise and snatch my hand back. It didn’t hurt, but it gave me a hell of a start. I stared at Tomio.

  “What?” His voice was shredded.

  “He’s still got fire, too. Our bond is intact. But, I can’t feel his pulse with all the heat in the way. Can you try?” My mind raged. Why? I’d seen Nero absorb the green idle. Ryan’s fire should have gone out simultaneously? So should mine, for that matter.

  Tomio darted a hand to Ryan’s jaw. His eyes drifted shut and he nodded. “He’s alive. Should we move him? What if bones are broken? I read somewhere you shouldn’t move someone whose been knocked out.”

  “Leave him.” I sprang up, feeling dizzy and electrified with adrenaline. “I’ll get Georjie.”

  I bolted before Tomio could say anything else, rushing through the empty corridors, past the lecture halls, through the lobby and up the main staircase to the block of private rooms. Skidding to a halt at her door, I rapped on it but didn’t wait for a response before rushing through into the darkness of her room.

  The lump on the bed moved as she rolled over. There was a click and the lamp on the bedside table flushed light across the floor. Georjie blinked in the sudden glare, her brows pinched, her hair a messy blond halo. “Saxony?”

  “Sorry to wake you. You need to come.” I located her sneakers, though I still had no shoes on myself, then dropped them as I remembered that she didn’t like to wear shoes that much anymore, and maybe she was going to have to be barefoot to fix whatever was wrong with Ryan. I grabbed the cardigan draped over the foot of the bed as she swung her legs out of bed, fully awake now.

  “What’s wrong? You’re bleeding!” She came for me, hands reaching. “Let me see.”

  “No time.” I threw the cardi around her shoulders, and steered her to the door.

  Once she got in gear and I’d told her where we were going and why, I almost had to use fire to keep up to her long-legged sprint. We found Tomio still crouched over Ryan, who now lay on his back, one eye open in a narrow slit. One side of his face was puffy, the eye swollen shut. Blood dribbled from his nose and lip, and his collarbone was raised under the skin, definitely broken.

  Georjie knelt over him, putting a hand to his brow.

  “An angel…” Ryan’s voice was a dreamy, drugged murmur that might have been funny under other circumstances.

  Georjie slipped a hand around the back of his neck to cradle his head. Her eyes drifted shut and all went quiet for several long seconds.

  Ryan’s eyes widened a fraction, then more yet. The swelling diminished and the flow of blood stanched. He moaned and jerked as the broken ends of his collarbone pressed down and back into place.

  Tomio shot me an amazed look. I grinned, my heart doing somersaults. We were so lucky Georjie had decided not to go home. Too bad she wasn’t able to return the bereft magi to their former glory, too.

  When she was finished, Ryan sat up, gazing at Georjie like she was made of solid gold. “That’s quite a trick.”

  Tomio helped him to his feet, though he clearly didn’t need the help anymore. When Ryan’s eyes fell on the blackened zone surrounding the broken pieces of sculpture, all the joy and relief that had been in his face vanished. The volcanic refuse and rubble clinked against our shoes. A set of legs, an arm, and part of her head were all that remained of the statue.

  “We failed.” He said this flatly, like he knew all along we would. A hand flew to his forehead and his gaze darted around, through the gym doors, around the lobby. “Where’s Nero?”

  “Gone,” I told him, as Georjie ran her hands over Tomio, healing his bruises, cuts and chemical burns.

  She came for me next, and I closed my eyes and stood still for her, relishing the feeling of her soothing magic filling my body. My nose tingled softly as the fae magic did its beautiful work. The ribs on my right side complained for a breathless moment, then the pain eased and I could breathe without pain. I hadn’t realized they’d been broken.

  “Where’s Janet?” Tomio asked.

  “I sent her to Basil’s office and told her to call his suite. Come on. She’ll be waiting for us. Basil too, by now.”

  We made our way to the headmaster’s office and found the door open. A frightened, pale Janet lay curled up on his couch with her head resting on a throw pillow. When she saw us, she got off the couch, scanning us from head to foot. She hugged me, then Tomio. She didn’t hug Ryan, but she squeezed his upper arms.

  “I’m Janet,” she said to Georjie, holding out a hand. “A friend.”

  They shook, and Georjayna introduced herself as an old friend of mine.

  “Did you call Basil?” My guts tightened like an irritated garden snake when I saw that the headmaster was not present.

  Janet nodded, then shrugged. “No answer. I wasn’t sure what else to do.”

  Tomio and I had seen Nero absorb the green idle with our own eyes. It was gone. We’d been spared the loss of our fire, which had only one possible explanation. But Ryan had his fire too, which threw a wrench in my hypothesis. I was quickly forming a new one. Basil needed to be here for me to share it, and the fact that he hadn’t answered his phone didn’t bode well. I doubted the headmaster had been spared the snuffing as well. If he had, then everything I thought I now understood might as well get thrown into the garbage. As much as I wanted to grill Janet about where Nero had been keeping her, I couldn’t focus on anything else until I knew Basil was okay.

  Georjie stayed with Janet while Ryan, Tomio and I made our way to Basil’s suite. As we turned the last corner to his hallway, the door opened. We froze, and for a second nothing happened, the door squeaked but no one came out. We stayed like that for long moment, barely breathing.

  Walking like someone still asleep, Basil stepped into the hall wearing striped pajamas, no slippers or robe, and no glasses. His hair was disheveled and his cheeks pale under his stubble.

  I felt Tomio grab my hand and squeeze it, hard. I took in a breath at the sight of the headmaster, and knew he’d not been spared.

  The headmaster looked at us.

  Something in my heart broke at the expression on his face. It hurt to see messy hair that I’d never seen mussed before, and feet I’d never seen bare before. I’d never seen the headmaster looking anything less than posh, even during intense combat training.

  “Hello,” he said, not looking surprised to see us. His voice broke. “I find myself taken back to the description Ms. Brown gave upon losing her… her. Well, she described it perfectly.” He raised a hand, fingertips tented together, then opened them in a smooth, quick motion. “Poof.”

  “Oh, Basil.” I closed the distance and threw my arms around him, my throat too tight to speak. The skin of his nec
k touched my cheek and I gave a sob when I experienced the sensation of normal skin-on-skin contact. No bond.

  His hand drifted to the middle of my back and patted me gently. “There, there,” he said. “I’m alive. We knew the risk of this was high. What I’m more shocked about is how it happened so fast. How did he manage to track us down so quickly? I’m quite flummoxed. I thought we might have a few more days, at least.”

  I drew back, wiping away tears and trying to smile. “You’re so calm.”

  “Well…” He blinked, focusing as though seeing me properly for the first time since he’d stepped into the hall. “So are you, now that we come to it.”

  He looked at the boys. “Why do you two look like dogs that have done something bad?”

  “We—we still have ours.” Tomio lit the end of one finger with a teensy flame, as though he was worried the sight of too much would be rubbing it in the headmaster’s face.

  Ryan was looking more and more uncomfortable, like he was watching a noose being slowly tightened around his neck. Suspicion resurged with a vengeance. The misgivings I’d had that he was hiding something were back in force, and now I thought I knew what that something was.

  Basil’s expression brightened when he saw Tomio’s finger-flame. He looked at me. “And you?”

  “Same,” I replied, though I didn’t feel the need to prove it. My mind was a blender, in the center of which circulated Ryan’s story about what had happened in Iran.

  “Remarkable, and completely impossible. How? Why?” Basil lifted the heel of his hand to his forehead like he was worried his brain might fall out.

  “I have a theory.” I turned a cold look on Ryan. “But before I share it, you should know that Ryan has also retained his fire.”

  Ryan bared his teeth and crossed his arms over his chest, appearing almost to shrink in size. “How do you know that, Cagney?”

  “Because while you were lying on the floor unconscious, I felt for your pulse, you know, to see if you were still alive. Your fire said a very healthy hello to my fire. That’s how I know.”