“Really? It’s probably just fucking with—” The woman almost ran into him. Mieshka saw her follow Buck’s gaze. “Her?”
Buck took a step forward out of silhouette. The shoulder holster was a shade lighter than his shirt. The tempo of beeps increased like a persistent alarm.
“Jo, why don’t you give Aiden a call?” Buck’s voice was low and calm. He stared at Mieshka from across the pit.
“Right-o.” Jo turned on her heel and disappeared through the door.
The man stepped into the fountain’s light. They watched each other. Beeping filled the silence.
“Hi,” he said.
“You have a gun,” she said.
“I do.” He lowered his hands.
“Are you a soldier?”
“Was.”
For some reason, that made it better. She’d had enough of soldiers today. Apparently he had too, if he wasn’t one any longer.
“So was my mom.”
He didn’t speak, but his gaze dropped to the small pyramid of crumpled Kleenex at her side. It practically glowed against the dark floor. The beeping continued. As if he suddenly remembered it, he glanced down at the thing he held.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s a bit complicated. Mind if I sit?”
She pulled her backpack closer.
“Who are you?”
“We work for the Fire Mage.”
Just because they had guns did not mean they were bad people. She knew that, but she had to keep reminding herself. Her mom had carried a gun, but a gun had also killed her.
Lyarne had strict gun control laws. If he carried, his claim was probably true. If they worked for a Mage, they could likely carry any weapon they pleased.
She shoved her backpack down the steps to make room at the base of the pillar. Buck took the hint and, slowly, manoeuvred down next to her. She scooted over to create space between them, feeling the pillar’s edge on her shoulder.
The beeps changed into a continuous tone as he sat. He fiddled with the device in his hand until it became silent. It was a dull black, about the size and shape of her dad’s TV remote, although lacking visible buttons. A slip of light slid along its edge.
He offered it to her, and she took it. Its surface was cold and smooth as glass. She flipped it around, holding it farther into the light.
Was it some sort of touch-screen? She couldn’t see anything on the surface, and it didn’t react to her touch. Buck had handled it all right.
“It was set to detect magic,” he said.
She almost dropped it.
“I don’t have magic.”
“You sure?”
She handed the remote back.
“Yep.”
Buck leaned back. Bright orange flashed under his thumb.
The beeps returned.
“It seems to disagree.”
She stared. The light had looked similar to what burned on the walls around them.
What was magic, anyway? She knew it powered the shield. If the Mage’s titles were anything to go on, it had an elemental base. Not the chemical elements but the old, mythological ones. There were three Mages in Lyarne: Fire, Water, and Earth. The Mage in Terremain was Electric. Beyond that, her education was sorely lacking. Robin said they’d learned about Mages last semester. Too bad Meese hadn’t arrived earlier.
She winced at the thought. A lot of things would be different if she had.
Buck was watching her. She pushed away the memories.
“I definitely don’t have magic.”
“Jo’s calling Aiden now. He can say for sure.”
“Aiden?”
The big man shifted.
“The Fire Mage. He is looking for an apprentice.”
Wasn’t that the old name for ‘student’? Mieshka’s mind spun away from that thought, fiercely finding an excuse for the beeping-thing’s mistake. That woman—Jo—she’d said something before, hadn’t she? That something had been… fucking with the device? She glanced at the orange screen hovering above the fountain. It looked magicky.
That was probably it: the tracker probably meant the screen, but pointed to her instead. Like a bloodhound scenting something and getting distracted by a person with treats in her pocket.
Treats. Hah. All she had were textbooks and Kleenexes.
“So, what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” He had a wry look in his eye.
“Skipping.” She kept her tone dry. Despite that, there was a flash of teeth in his smile.
“Had enough?”
She folded her knees closer to her chest, hunching over to hug them.
“You could say that.”
They were interrupted by footsteps approaching in the corridor. The shadows at the entrance danced briefly across the floor before a man appeared. The woman—Jo—was close behind.
“—probably just the ship,” she was saying. She stopped short at the opposite side of the pit, leaned against a pillar, and crossed her arms over her chest.
Ship? Robin had said the Fire Mage’s ship was underneath here.
“Probably not,” said the other man—the Fire Mage, she assumed. As he crossed the pit, she tried to make herself smaller. He stretched a hand out to Buck.
“Gimme that.”
Buck handed over the silent tracker. The beeps returned as the man flipped it over, holding it lengthwise between his hands. Orange light reflected off his face as he operated it. Mieshka stared.
It was hard to see in the dim room, but both his hair and his eyes were light-coloured. His worn t-shirt had several dark smudges across it. There were holes in his jeans.
Not quite what she expected.
A four inch square orange screen rolled out of the front edge of the device and hovered in the air. It was a miniature version of the one above the fountain.
“So? Did Buck break it?” Jo slipped onto the dais, ignoring the shimmering display of names. She carried two guns, Mieshka noticed.
“No.” Aiden was still fiddling with it. He hmmed, suddenly catching her eyes. “Ever set something on fire with your mind?”
Mieshka froze, feeling as though she were in the headlights. “No?”
“Damn. That would have made it easy.” He put the device away. It stopped beeping.
“What’s your name?”
“Mieshka.”
He paused. For the first time, she saw him smile.
“Bonus points for the name. Well, Mieshka, I need a bigger computer to scan you properly.”
“What?” Scan?
“This thingy here says you have magic, but it wasn’t made for this world. It can’t tell me what kind you have.”
“I have magic?”
“I’m afraid so.”
She sat there, stunned.
The Mage apparently didn’t have time to deal with a confused teen.
“Wanna see my spaceship?”
So this is what happens when you skip school. She’d been missing out.
CHAPTER 3
Aiden led them behind the fountain, where a black wall stretched up to meet the memorial’s screen. Backlit by the fiery names, their reflections became dim silhouettes on its glassy, obsidian surface. Behind them, the mythological tapestry wavered in the gloom.
Aiden splayed his hand against the wall. The main screen flickered above. Burning orange lines slid across the black surface like a magic Etch-a-Sketch. They formed a square in the wall, which slid aside with a subtle hiss. Behind it, the aluminum doors of a freight elevator were slower to open.
The four of them walked in. Mieshka found herself crowded against the control panel, wincing at the light. As the doors rumbled to a close, Aiden reached around to push the lowest button. With a lurch, the elevator began its descent.
Buck held her backpack, and Mieshka tried not to fidget as its absence weighed on her. She stared straight ahead, aware of three sets of eyes discreetly studying her. Her head throbbed. There was no sound except for the less-than comfortin
g, grinding screeches from outside the elevator.
Aiden was the first to break the silence: “You’re a redhead.”
“Well spotted, sir.” Jo leaned against the opposite wall, arms folded over her chest.
“Shut it. I’m tired.”
The elevator rumbled on. Mieshka caught her blurred reflection in the brushed aluminum siding, the light blue of her jeans, the darker blue of her hoodie, and the blob of orange that was her hair. She glanced to the other reflections, noticing a similar orange blob on Aiden’s head.
“So are you.”
The elevator kept rumbling down. She examined the control panel. It only had three buttons: up, down, and panic. She resisted an urge to press the latter.
Just how far were they going, anyway? They’d already been—
Ding!
The door stumbled back, spilling light across a square of smooth concrete. Beyond the square it was pitch-black.
They filed out, Mieshka last. Aiden slipped off to the left, Jo walked straight into the dark. The elevator lifted slightly as Buck stepped off.
Mieshka toed the edge of the light square. A dry cold pressed in on her, and she hunched over, jamming her hands into her hoodie’s pouch.
The doors closed behind her, shutting out the light like blackout curtains. She heard a hydraulic hiss just after it closed. Then, nothing.
She couldn’t see anything. She held her breath, heard the scuff of a boot against concrete. By the way the darkness swallowed it, she felt she was in a large place.
She was right.
With a thunk, a row of lights switched on high above her head. As she squinted in the sudden light, another row switched on, and a third row after that. The pattern continued until the whole room was lit.
Room was an understatement. The place was a hangar, its high ceiling secured by a complex pattern of metal framing. The walls were a darker mix of concrete than the floor, with bare pipes and naked wires snaking across them. The lights, suspended from the ceiling’s framework, were bright and industrial. They burned with a baseline hum.
In the middle was the ship. It had a triangular shape, with its head tapered to a sharp point and fixed wings swooping out from the middle to the back. It was black, and seemed to drink the light in. It reflected the room through a dim, oily sheen.
It was smaller than she’d expected. Maybe the size of three cars, end-to-end.
Aiden returned from the light switch, rubbing his hands.
“Don’t worry, she doesn’t bite.”
Mieshka took the hint, following him to the ship’s side. Only once did she glance back at the now closed elevator.
Closer, she noticed there were no joints or seams in the metal. It appeared to have been made of one continuous piece. Her reflection distorted in its side like a fun-house mirror.
Aiden patted it gently before he splayed his fingers as he’d done in the memorial. This time, Mieshka felt something pulse in the air before the orange light sliced open a door. The door hissed back just as the door to the elevator upstairs had. She was starting to see some correlations.
“Ladies first.”
She peered inside. Lights glowed to life from beneath the floor’s grating, under-lighting a cramped space with smooth black surfaces and a chrome-like trim. As she watched, the controls began to glow with a familiar orange light.
She found a couple of handles on the inside of the door and hauled herself up the three-foot step. Her sneakers clunked onto the grating, and her head automatically ducked. Up front, a console was arranged in a semicircle, alight with many orange symbols. The tops of two chairs blocked out part of the console’s light. Pilot and co-pilot, she assumed. A bright white light flicked over the pilot’s seat.
She crowded forward as Aiden climbed in after her.
“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the center chair. He squeezed by to tap a few keys on the front console. Three screens flicked on: the center displayed a video feed of Buck and Jo loitering around the hangar, their weapons highlighted and magnified onto the left-most screen; the right-most screen was completely filled with text.
A soft hiss distracted her. She looked back in time to see the door close, the edges glowing briefly orange as it cut off the outside light.
Great.
She slid around the chair, leaning heavily on the armrests as she sank into it. The light felt warm.
Right. Scanning. What was that like? She thought of the hospital.
“It’s not going to hurt, is it?”
Aiden gave her an alarmed look.
“No.” He hunched close to the console, eyes returning to the screen. She looked away, feeling heat rush to her face. Well, what did she know about planes? Or spaceships?
He slumped back into the chair, watching the screen.
“It’ll just feel warm. Won’t take long.”
She tried to follow his example, settling against the chair’s rigid cushion.
“Try to relax.”
She watched the center screen. Buck and Jo had been replaced by a single string of words. A soft whir sounded overhead. The light grew warmer, touching her skin like a tropical sun. A warning about tanning beds slipped briefly through her mind.
The light thickened. A dust mote drifted in front of her face, glowing. Data began to stream in on the screen.
“Ah, there we go.” Aiden sat upright, watching his mirror of the data. From his pocket, he took out what looked suspiciously like a USB flash drive. A chart popped up, minimized to the corner, and was instantly replaced by a second one. At the bottom of the screen, she recognized the graph of a heartbeat.
It looked a little fast.
“Cool. So you’ve got magic, and…” He drifted off, squinting at the screen.
The light continued to get warmer. It felt nice after the cold of Lyarne’s autumn. It heated her right down to the bones. Her eyes felt less raw and dry than before, and they drooped under the light. She smiled, wiggled down into the seat, and closed her eyes.
The light pulsed like a heartbeat. Her smile faded. Something clicked above her, and her wrists pressed down on the chair's arms. She couldn’t move.
Her eyes snapped open. The screen no longer raced with data. Instead, it said:
HELLO, MIESHKA.
She jerked upright—or tried to. Her back fixed to the chair, as if the cushions were a magnet for her spine. The pulse continued, beating into her bones. A curl of smoke lifted into the bright light. She wrestled against the armrests, staring at the words.
“Aiden?”
“Yeah?”
She glanced over. He hadn’t looked away from his screen, which still showed a graph. The metal end of the USB drive gleamed in the console.
A movement made her look back. The writing had changed.
I WILL NOT HURT YOU.
Something brushed against her skin like feathers. Orange lines awakened on her knuckles, sliding across the skin just as they’d slid across the black metal hull. They left a warm track. She felt them follow her arm, disappearing under the cuff of her sleeve.
“I can’t move.”
Aiden finally looked over. He stared at her, a small frown cutting into his brow. The heat traced up her neck and around her jaw, and his eyes went wide. He turned back to his console and typed a few flurried commands.
Nothing changed. Heat sunk into her shoulder blades.
He swore.
The lines covered most of her body now. A glow rose from her cheek. Aiden scrambled out of his chair and made to grab her. His hand entered the light, and there was a sharp hiss. Fire snapped up his skin, and he snatched it away.
The lines slid into her eyes, and everything went black.
Sounds disappeared.
There was no ship, no console, no Aiden. Just pure, abyssal black.
She couldn’t feel her body anymore.
She couldn’t hear her breath.
Silence. Nothing. Darkness. A place without time.
A tiny prick of light app
eared. In this infinite place she couldn’t tell if it was in the distance and getting closer, or simply growing larger. Slowly, it shifted into the shape of a bird, red-orange wings beating against an unknown wind. Their sound was quickly swallowed by the dark.
As it grew closer, she saw that it was a large bird. It had a wingspan wider than her arms, and its body was made of a deep red-orange colour. On either side of its tail, two feathers trailed like a peacock’s train, their deep ochre colour ending in an eye of yellow-gold. Its body seemed to move between solid and flame, blurring in parts. At the end of a long, slender neck was a tapered head. It tilted, staring with eyes like white, burning ash.
“Mieshka,” it seemed to say. Words moved like thoughts in this dark place. Heat shimmered around it, matching the fire that now coursed through Mieshka’s bones. It drew slowly closer, its outstretched wings unmoving. Perhaps it didn’t need them to fly.
Those white-hot eyes blinked once, and its head dipped lower.
“I have been waiting for you,” it said. Its great wings beat once, and the power of a thousand suns raced through her soul. It didn’t hurt.
Its wings stretched out once again, spreading to the horizons in this infinite place. Fire crackled with thought. She would never be cold again, it promised.
“I have been alone,” said the Phoenix, ashen eyes blinking fire like tears. “Now you are here.”
It raised its head in a cry—a long, fierce, musical cry that shook her non-existent lungs—and it vanished.
Everything went black. Again. And cold.
Her hands gripped the armrests. Slowly, she lifted them off. There was no resistance. Putting them safely in her lap, she sat up and looked around. There was no light, but she heard a noise behind her.
“Are you okay?” Aiden’s voice came from beside her, close to the floor.
She swallowed. Her whole body tingled.
“I think so.”
Fire slipped into the air like a wayward will o’ wisp, illuminated the dead console to her left. She flinched away from it. Warmth danced over her skin.
“I pulled the kill-switch. Once you get out of the chair, I’ll turn the power back on.” The firelight danced over Aiden, who lay on the floor with his head under the console.
She did so stiffly, careful not to touch the armrests again. The tingling turned to pinpricks as she squeezed around the chair. She stepped over his legs, ducked her head away from the low ceiling, and moved from the console. Her shadow stuttered wildly across the hallway.
“What happened?”
“Your magic happened.” He fiddled with something underneath. Metal scraped against metal.