Source Fire

Chapter One: Idle Talk

 No one was smiling.

Wind lashed rain at Chaplin Manor, making the chimney whistle, and the fire swell and crackle.

Ryan, leaning against the radiator under one of the lobby’s huge diamond-pane windows, glowered at the floor, his face pinched and pale. Tomio sat on the front edge of an overstuffed chair, with his elbows on his knees as he looked into the fire with a frozen, sightless stare. Basil paced in front of the fireplace with his hands behind his back, adjusting his glasses every few minutes when they slid down the bridge of his nose. Mehmet—who was short and broad in the flesh, with lively eyes—sat on a couch with his laptop open on his knees, utterly absorbed by the screen. Ms. Shepherd stood behind Mehmet, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. She had developed a rash on the side of her neck, but I knew it was from her nervous tic.

Now that I’d met the woman in person, she was much less intimidating. Over our video conferences she’d seemed stoic and in control. In person, she seemed nervous and uncertain. Or maybe that was because the situation had deteriorated since Naples. Another fire had gone out. Tomio and I had assumed she was a mage, but we were mistaken about that as well. Ms. Shepherd wasn’t even supernatural; she was ex-military with competencies in logistics and operations.

“So, the new data point proves it, the question is, what can we do about it?” Basil sent a piercing look toward Ryan and the rest of us followed his gaze. Ryan had more first-hand knowledge of Nero’s shenanigans than anyone else, yet he’d been cryptic and evasive about what he knew.

The collective of agencies had added a new metric to their data gathering after Ryan suggested they track the colors of the snuffed mages’ idle fires. The agency had resisted. Idle fire was a thing of childhood, they claimed, something whimsical and cute—certainly nothing to consider in this matter—just a passing phase in the youth of all magi, like losing baby teeth. The collective (under Ms. Shepherd’s leadership) argued that with the limited resources they had, they’d be better off adding more relevant data points, like ethnicity, since there was a correlation, even if it wasn’t consistent.

But Ryan insisted, and when Ryan was proven right, Ms. Shepherd had looked appropriately sheepish and the agency had gone quiet. Idles came in seven colors, like a rainbow. Five had now been snuffed out: orange had been first, last December; yellow in March; red and pink in early July—although we didn’t understand how Nero had managed that only three days apart; and now a fifth one, only two weeks later.

No one openly discussed the fact that Ryan’s father had been a member of the pink group, and was even now speechless in his grief. The pink group had also included my friend Jade, the Academy’s professor of Fire Science, Tyson Hupelo, the beloved Dr. Price and her daughter Cecily, not to mention many others.

Ryan rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “The quenching that happened yesterday,” he blinked at Mehmet through a bloodshot gaze, “Do we know which color that was?”

Mehmet looked up, eyes as red as Ryan’s, but from straining at his computer screen. “Yes, it was indigo.”

Silence coalesced again over the lobby.

In the heavy pause, Tomio moved from the chair to sit beside me on the couch. He took my hand and tucked it inside his own with a squeeze. His thigh pressed alongside mine, solid, reassuring.

There hadn’t been time for Tomio and me to think, let alone talk, about our blossoming feelings, or the passionate kiss we’d shared outside the Mount Vesuvius observatory. My throat went dry with desire every time I relived that moment: his lips against mine, urgent, with an edge of desperation. We’d been painfully aware that there was a chance Tomio and Ryan might run into Nero in the subterranean lair. There had been more raw honesty and vulnerability in that kiss than in any other kiss, conversation or glance I’d ever shared with anyone before it. He’d laid it all bare, saying everything without saying a word, his body calling to mine with all the bright clarity of a ship’s bell. There was nothing I wanted more than to be alone with Tomio, listen to him, touch him, kiss him, pretend this whole ghastly nightmare wasn’t happening.

But the threat Nero posed to the remaining magi loomed like a hurricane gathering on the horizon. Janet was missing, and Gage lay in a hospital bed in the quiet wing of a Neapolitan hospital. Comatose.

Angelica had promised she’d call the moment anything changed, but so far, all we’d received were texts with Gage’s vitals and the haunting words: no change yet. There was always a tiny bit of good news (I suspected Angelica made extra effort to wheedle some small bit of encouragement from Dr. Burr or one of the medical staff); if there was no improved measurement to share then Angelica would add something subjective, like: I think his breathing seems deeper today, more robust.

I appreciated her effort to keep our spirits up but every time my phone lit with a notification that Angelica had texted, my heart picked up speed. I longed for the call or text containing only two simple words: He’s awake.

Instead, the same message came on repeat.

We’d arrived at the academy three days ago, on July 21st. England rarely got summer thunderstorms like the one we had right now, but this was Dover. It was unpredictable, temperamental, and also somehow remarkably in tune with how everyone under the academy’s roof was feeling right now.

With all the intel we had, there was one piece of vital information that we desperately needed in order to mobilize: where Nero was going to strike next.

We also didn’t know exactly what he was doing to snuff the fires, but the actual mechanics of it seemed less important than stopping him.

“Think back.”

Ms. Shepherd’s voice broke through the fragile webbing of my thoughts. For a second, I thought she’d been addressing me, but she was looking at Ryan.

“There must be something you noticed, something you remember from your interactions with Nero that will give us a clue as to where he’ll go next.” She fiddled with the teal scarf at her neck and did the hard rub underneath it. The woman needed restraints.

Ryan’s jaw flexed with impatience. He looked harassed. “Nero acts immediately on new information, he doesn’t store it for later or sit on it. If he hasn’t revealed the next location for himself then how can I know it? And if he’s only figured it out now, then you’d have better luck scanning your network for flight bookings under one of his aliases, or combing security footage. Just because I’ve spent time with him doesn’t mean—” Ryan’s expression snagged like a fish caught on a hook. He took on the faraway look of someone deeply lost in a revelatory new thought.

The rest of us exchanged nervous glances and waited.

“What? What is it?” Basil asked.

Ryan looked like a newly enlightened sage. “Just, let me think for a second.”

Tomio and I, holding our collective breath on the couch, let out long simultaneous groans as Ryan moved away from the window and headed for the stairs leading to Basil’s office. He settled into pacing in front of the antique telephone booth.

“I think we’ve lost him,” Mehmet muttered matter-of-factly, sounding unbothered as he went back to his laptop.

“I need a drink.” Basil moved away from the fireplace. “Anyone want anything?”

Mehmet’s head snapped up. “I would murder for an old fashioned.”

The headmaster raised his brows.

“Right. Magi. There’ll be no alcohol under this roof.” Mehmet gave Basil a bright, comically exaggerated smile. “I’ll have water.”

“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? [Binge Books Sample Ends Here]

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 make 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.”