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

  “Me too,” Ms. Shepherd said.

  “I’ll bring enough for everyone.” Basil left the lobby for the nearest lounge.

  Tomio spoke so low so that only I could hear him. “Funny how Mehmet acts like he was never one of us to begin with, now that he’s lost his fire. It’s incredible how well he’s coping.”

  I nodded but my mind was on something else. I sank deeper into the furniture and let my head rest on the poufy back as I studied Tomio. “You’ve had fire for a lot longer than me. You were—what, did you say—nine when you were endowed?”

  Tomio nodded as he sank into the couch alongside me and let his head tilt back.

  “Did you ever see your idle fire?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I must have been too old. Basil did say the idles don’t often show themselves after the age of six or seven. You’re lucky you got to see Ryan’s. It’s super rare for an adult to be carefree enough for it to come out.”

  After the snuffings by idle fire color had been confirmed, I’d told Tomio in detail about finding Ryan on the beach, throwing green flames into the wind and watching them twist and spiral into the sky. It had been spectacular, beautiful, and savage in the way only nature could be.

  “But we know that I’m green, because Basil and Ryan are green, as was Gage, and I have bonds with them. Had, in the case of Gage.” My voice hitched and I took a hard swallow. “That would logically make you—”

  “Violet, since my fire didn’t go out with this last group.”

  We stared at one another, thoughts and fears spilling out through our eyes. Tomio touched my cheek and traced my bottom lip with his thumb. “Try not to think about it.”

  “That’s impossible,” I whispered.

  Whatever Nero was doing and wherever he was headed next, it would most certainly mean that one of us would lose our fire if we didn’t figure out a way to stop him. How would Tomio react if it was him? How would I react if it was me? Would one of us go on fighting to protect the last idle while the other fell apart?

  The reason we were having these meetings at the academy was because the agency’s offices in London were being used as a convalescent home, since they had medical facilities and staff. Felix, Harriet and Brooke, our friends from the Fire Games, were all sequestered there, being cared for and therapized. I wanted to visit them but I had to prioritize protecting the remaining idles. Basil had convinced me that visiting the bereft magi, as nice a gesture as it would be, would only serve to traumatize and distract us, and possibly make the patients worse as they were reminded, in the flesh, of what they had lost.

  “Where are you, Green?” Tomio asked, touching a fingertip to the end of my nose.

  “Just thinking about what it must be like at the agency’s headquarters.”

  His brow creased. I could almost see the gears turning, his imagination firing up. Suddenly, I felt bad for reminding him that most of our friends were among the snuffed.

  “Sorry, Violet,” I whispered. “Let’s think about the artifacts we saw in Nero’s bunker instead, maybe we’ll remember something helpful, a clue or something.”

  His expression lifted almost imperceptibly. “We’re going to stop him, Saxony. We will figure this out. We have to.”

  “For the greens and violets.”

  Basil returned to the lobby carrying a tray stacked with glasses and a large carafe of water. He set them on the ottoman in front of us. “Where did Ryan go?”

  We sat up and looked behind our couch. Ryan was indeed no longer pacing the lobby.

  “Didn’t see him leave.” Tomio turned the glasses upright as Basil filled them.

  I handed Ms. Shepherd and Mehmet each a full glass. “I hope he’s remembering something good, because it feels like we’re coasting on fumes, here.”

  Mehmet barked a single, “Ha!” Then: “Fumes would imply that there was gas in the tank to begin with. We’ve been four steps behind Nero this whole time.”

  Ms. Shepherd bristled, holding her glass of water close to her narrow chest. “Easy now. We know more now than we ever did.”

  Mehmet slouched and kept his eyes on his laptop as he tapped away at the keys. “Yeah, thanks to a bunch of teenagers.”

  Ms. Shepherd raised her eyes heavenward in an expression like a prayer, then took a drink. Basil winked at me as he picked up a glass and turned his back to Ms. Shepherd so she wouldn’t see his thinly veiled amusement.

  It was the first time I’d seen something of Basil’s old self since we’d arrived from Naples, and it lifted my heart.

  The sound of thumping on the stairs made everyone turn, glasses poised in the air.

  Ryan crossed to the seating area, eyes fever-bright. He had his cell phone in his hand, lit and open to some webpage that was all text. His hair stood up in tufts and spikes, like he’d been yanking at it compulsively.

  “Good heavens, man.” Basil said at his harassed appearance.

  Just for good measure and thoroughness, Ryan raked his other hand through his already-tousled mane. He looked from Basil to Ms. Shepherd. “By some wild and unlikely chance, do you have any radiation physicists on staff?”

  Ms. Shepherd and Basil shared a confused look.

  Mehmet did a double take. “A radiation physicist? Like, a human one?”

  Ryan waved a hand. “Human, supernatural, doesn’t matter. Someone who knows about radioactivity.”

  Ms. Shepherd straightened with bewildered curiosity. As she pondered Ryan’s question, her expression crept to the threshold of understanding but didn’t quite cross over. “Because Nero is radioactive? You think we might be able to track him that way?”

  Gage’s twin began to pace, looking more like his brother than ever as he exuded the excitement of his eureka moment. “Thinking about airport security got me wondering how he is managing all this flying around the world. Even if you take a private plane, if you were actually as radioactive as Janet and Nero both seem to think he is, then security would be the least of his problems.”

  “Actually, I don’t think metal detectors are built to detect radioactivity,” Mehmet murmured. “But maybe the planes themselves have alarms.”

  Basil’s brow furrowed, his gaze fastened on Ryan. “Go on.”

  “Now, I don’t know anything about radioactivity, but a quick search”—he held up his phone and shook it, looking a little like he was on the edge of madness as he did so—“tells me that radiation breaks apart chemical bonds, including the ones inside our bodies. Enough decay and you’ll die. But Nero isn’t anywhere near dying; in fact, he’s only getting stronger, which goes against the laws of physics. Am I wrong?”

  The room was quiet.

  “Go on,” Tomio said, shifting to more easily view Ryan’s fascinating presentation.

  I turned on the couch too and propped myself on a hip. “Janet thought she was suffering from radiation poisoning whenever she spent too much time with Nero. Something was making Janet feel sick, but are you saying Nero isn’t radioactive?”

  Ryan pointed at me and paced in the other direction, his head swiveling on his neck like an owl’s. “Yes. What I’m thinking is that he’s not actually radioactive, but that he’s expelling some kind of… supernatural effluent… that a nearby human reacts to with symptoms that look like radiation sickness.”

  He paused and a shadow of something ugly crossed his features. It was there and gone so quickly that I had no time to identify it. Maybe he was recalling what Nero had done to Gage.

  He went on, “Whatever he’s doing when he travels to these places is increasing that supernatural effluent, which is why Janet felt progressively sicker whenever he came back from another journey.”

  “And you think this supernatural effluent might register as radioactivity on human-made devices?” Ms. Shepherd had a look that was positively hungry. “But how would we get close enough to Nero to detect him if we have no idea where he is? We have no evidence of him leaving Italy by plane, and no visuals of him crossing any official borders.”


  “There’s been no sign of Janet anywhere either,” I muttered, my stomach cramping with worry. The last words I said to her rang accusingly in my memory: We’ll be back for you.

  But Ryan was shaking his head. “We’re focusing on the wrong thing. We’ve been so busy watching for clues about where Nero is going that we haven’t paid enough attention to where he’s been.”

  Ryan held up his phone so we could see what he’d been reading.

  Tomio and I crawled onto the back of the couch together to get closer to the screen. Ms. Shepherd and Basil came around either side of the sofa to peer at the information on Ryan’s phone. The four of us crowded so close together that I could smell coffee on Ms. Shepherd’s breath and Basil’s aftershave.

  My pulse sped up as I took in what he was showing us. Ms. Shepherd’s hand flew to her mouth in shock.

  Basil muttered, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “Would someone please read that out loud?” Mehmet said from the couch, his laptop chirping and buzzing with the sound of processing. “I can’t abandon my post here.”

  “Areas of naturally high background radiation are known as HBNRAs,” I husked, reading from the screen until a dry spot in my throat made me choke and cough. I took another drink.

  Tomio patted me on the back as he resumed reading. But soon his hand stilled and lay warm between my shoulder blades.

  “These areas include Yangjiang, China. Guarapari, Brazil. Ramsar, Iran, and Karunagappalli in India.”

  Goosebumps rippled across my arms. “Ryan”—I looked up—“these are words I never thought would fall from my lips, but you’re a genius.”

  Ryan gave a grin so wide that he looked certifiably insane, especially with the hedgehog hairdo. “What’s that saying about skinning cats?”

  “Is Australia on that list as well?” Ms. Shepherd asked.

  “Not on this site, but yes. Arkaroola, Australia is also an HBNRA,” said Ryan, lowering his phone.

  Ms. Shepherd turned away. “I need to make a phone call. We have to get someone on this immediately.” She began rooting through the red satchel she’d set on the floor, unearthing one of her many mobiles. She left the lobby for the nearest lounge, presumably to call the agency.

  “Are those places ranked in order starting from the highest?” I climbed over the back of the couch to peer at Ryan’s phone.

  “Not at this website, but Wiki says Ramsar is the number one spot in the world.”

  “Where Nero sent you,” Tomio said.

  “Yes.”

  “What were you doing there?” I looked up into Ryan’s face, studying his micro-expressions.

  His eyes shifted and he stepped away, like he felt crowded. “He said there was an orb there. He told me to fetch it and bring it back for him.”

  “And did you?” Basil took a cloth from his jacket pocket and cleaned his spectacles.

  Ryan’s energy changed, the same way that look had come and gone from his face earlier. His gaze flicked to a nearby window, then to the fire, then to Basil where it steadied. “Yes. And speaking of the orbs, you’ll be wanting to fetch those from the agency.”

  The headmaster tucked his kerchief and fixed his glasses into place. “Why?”

  “Because even though the HBNRAs are a clue, we’re still going to need those orbs to confirm Nero’s targets.”

  “And, you know how to do that, I presume? Because I have handled those orbs extensively and I can assure you that they are as inanimate as garden gnomes.” Basil crossed his arms, expression doubtful.

  “I might.” Ryan stared at Basil, unflinching.

  Basil blew out a breath. “Right, well. I don’t have to go to the agency to fetch them, they’re here, at the academy.”

  Ryan appearing unsurprised to hear this, held out a hand and flicked his fingers twice in a hand-them-over gesture.

  Four sets of eyes settled on Basil. The headmaster looked like he wanted to protest.

  “Why are you hesitating?” I asked, assuming that Basil didn’t trust Ryan, and completely understanding if that was the case. “Ryan is on our side now. If you’d seen him inside Vesuvius, you wouldn’t doubt him.”

  “Thank you, Saxony,” Ryan replied, not taking his eyes from Basil. “If you’ll recall, my twin is still in a coma thanks to Nero. I want to stop him more than anyone.”

  Truthfully, I did trust Ryan now, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep things from us to protect himself. I already suspected he was keeping something private about what he’d been up to in Ramsar, but the important thing was to rescue Janet and save the magi, and if Ryan said he knew how to demystify the orbs we had in our possession, then that’s what we needed to do.

  “It’s not that.” Basil tugged at his lower lip with his teeth. “It’s just that they are priceless, and no one has handled them except for me. If anything were to happen to them…” He trailed off, perhaps realizing that it sounded as if he was prioritizing a couple of artifacts over the well-being of the remaining magi and a certain ancient language expert. “Right”—he tugged on his jacket—“I’ll fetch them, shall I?”

  Ryan put down his waiting hand, jacking his eyebrows with an impatient: “That would be great.”

  Basil headed for the stairs.

  Ms. Shepherd reappeared from the lounge. “Ok, we have someone looking into the radiation theory. Good work, Ryan. It’s not a pin-drop, but it’s a start. Where’s Basil?”

  “He went to get the orbs,” Mehmet said, eyes skimming his laptop screen.

  “Excellent, that is the next item on the agenda. If we can figure out how Nero unlocked them, then we should be able to formulate some kind of plan, rather than sitting around with our thumbs up our butts, feeling helpless.”

  I shot her a look of surprise. I’d never heard Ms. Shepherd express personal feelings about any situation before and wondered if she’d been feeling closer to the end of a rope than she’d let on.

  Basil came down the stairs, cradling a shiny black box against his chest. He crossed to Ryan and stopped, hesitating a moment before handing the box over.

  All the air seemed to vacuum from the room as Ryan took it and moved to a table. Tomio and I crowded in on either side of him for front-row seats. Ms. Shepherd came to stand behind me, and even Mehmet finally put his laptop aside to view the moment from behind Tomio.

  My mouth felt dry and my heart thrummed with anticipation, even my hands felt shaky as Ryan unclasped the golden latch holding the lid down. He opened the box and let the lid settle back on the table, exposing a bright silver orb nestled in a red velvet cushion, like a Fabergé egg.

  My breath caught, and Ms. Shepherd let out a gasp of admiration.

  It was beautiful; perfectly round and made of a metal too bright to be silver but not reflective enough to be mercury glass. It had been laced with a raised, organic line, like the stitches on a baseball, but meandering in an aimless way. The line stood proud of the orb’s surface without crackles, fractures, or tell-tale welding lines. It was as if some elegant, celestial worm had crawled beneath its surface, leaving a trail raised in the glimmering metal behind it.

  Ryan seemed unimpressed as he looked up at Basil, but then again, he had handled one of these orbs before. “You said you had two.”

  “And so I do,” Basil replied, defensive yet resolved. “If you can get information out of this one, then you’ll have earned the right to the second one. Prove I can trust you and we’re in business.”

  Ryan let out a breath and closed the lid. “Fine. I can live with that.”

  A mild disappointment settled over me now that the orb was out of view. I wanted to hold it, examine it, but didn’t have the courage to ask, at least not in this moment when Basil was looking so tense and paranoid.

  “But, mark my words”—Basil raised a warning finger—“if you do anything to damage it, you’ll be very, very sorry.”

  2

  Crash Course

  “What do you suppose he’s doing?” Tomio ask
ed, leaning back in his chair and resting a hand on his full belly. “Did you see the look on Basil’s face when Ryan didn’t show up for pizza?”

  We sat in the cafeteria, empty pizza boxes on the table between us. Basil had eaten and gone into London to see how things were at the agency. Ms. Shepherd and Mehmet had wolfed their food and enclosed themselves in the headmaster’s office where they were in ongoing talks with Ms. Shepherd’s team about the radioactivity lead.

  Ryan had taken the orb and left without waiting for pizza or telling anyone where he was going.

  “Yeah, he looked like someone kidnapped his child.” I closed up the boxes and took them to the nearest bin. There were no cleaning staff and it was my turn to take the bag to the dumpster on the street for the town to pick up. No one would be by until morning, so I could at least procrastinate until then. Returning to the table, I slid a leg over Tomio and settled on his lap.

  “Oh, hello.” He put his hands on my hips and looked up into my face with hooded eyes.

  “I’m not sure I care much where Ryan slipped off to if it gives us time for… other things.” I curled my fingers through the hair at the back of his head and enjoyed the way his eyes rolled back in his head in an exaggerated fashion.

  “Sorry, did you say something?” Tomio slurred as though drunk.

  I lowered my lips to his, pulse jumping, stomach warming.

  “Plenty of time for that later, kids,” Ryan said from the doorway.

  I jerked upright and got off Tomio’s lap, face heating with embarrassment. He shot me a weird look, appearing completely relaxed and unbothered by being walked in on. He was so much cooler than me, I had to admit. Maybe it was all the MMA—conceal your thoughts, or some other martial wisdom.

  “Relax, Saxony,” Ryan said, looking bored. “I don’t give a crap who you snog.” He clutched a full brown paper grocery bag in one arm.

  “What’s in the bag?” Tomio got to his feet.

  Ryan’s expression grew sly. “Just a few household chemicals. Come with me, Cagney. We’ve got work to do. Get your gear on.”