by A. L. Knorr
“Saxony?” April’s voice quavered.
Her face blurred and then swam into sharp, bright focus. Every line a slash, every minute muscular twitch amplified, as though I was on the verge of manifesting evanescent vision.
“Does he know you’re talking about this to me?” I asked, sniffing like a blood hound for the traps of a double-agent.
“N-no.” She shook her head, taking a step back, probably feeling the heat baking off me. “He’s private. He asked me to keep the plans for our special night a secret, but I had to. It’s my first time…”
The kettle of my anger reached a boil and began to whistle a high-pitched scream. I reached out very deliberately and squeezed April’s shoulder with a precisely measured pressure, one that would elicit comfort, not pain. What I wanted to do was break something. I shook my head, at a loss for words, then released her. Moving with the single-mindedness of a cyborg, I passed her and emerged from the stacks, sweeping the study area.
If April followed, I couldn’t tell. All I could hear was my own heartbeat thundering in my ears. Gaze raking the space for Ryan, I found the table he’d been sharing with April empty.
The library doors swung shut with a thud. I made a beeline for the exit.
If Gage saw me or spoke to me, I didn’t notice.
Passing through the library doors, I looked right down an empty corridor. I looked left, past Secretary Goshawk’s office, and caught the flash of a sneaker as Ryan rounded a corner heading in the direction of the washroom. Striding after him, my hands and fingers flexed and clenched. Turning the corner, I saw his broad back. He was halfway to the toilets.
I exploded down the hall after him, fire detonating in my lower body. The sound of my pursuit made him turn. He hadn’t fully faced me when I hit him with a forearm across the chest. His body flexed a moment before impact. As I shoved him down the corridor, his shoes squeaked against the hardwood floor. Snarling, I slammed him into the wall where the hall t-boned with another corridor.
Ryan winced as his back struck the wall, eyes lit up like lamps. His grunt turned into a pained, guttural laugh.
“Did you think I would give up so easily?” he growled and bared his teeth. His arms were out, his hands splayed against the wall in a posture of submission.
My own glare lit his face. It felt like flames were shooting from my ears. I slid my forearm up from his chest to the base of his throat where I braced against him.
“Careful, Saxony.” His voice changed as I added pressure. “Remember what happened the last time we danced?”
“You disgusting, contemptible, worthless, scheming—”
“You want me to leave your friend alone? You know what to do.” Ryan’s pupils—dark pinpricks in the orange glare of his eyes—roamed my face, his voice slithered from between his teeth. “You want to warn her? Tell her I’m just using her to get to you? Go ahead. You’ll never win when it’s your word against mine.”
My exhales came out hot and hard.
Ryan’s brow wrinkled with fake sympathy. His tone turned patronizing as he put on the expression and voice of someone reasonable and logical. “Look at you. So upset. You sound like a bull ready to charge. What April and I get up to in the privacy of our bedroom is our business.”
His hands came forward to rest gently on my hips. He pressed his head forward so his face loomed, even with my forearm braced against the base of his throat.
“Help me Burn and it all goes away,” he whispered.
My skin wanted to crawl off my body at his touch. I recoiled like a loaded spring, taking my forearm off his neck. His hands slipped away as I stepped out of reach.
Not taking his eyes from mine, Ryan’s hand drifted up and he rubbed the base of his throat, daring to smile.
I wanted to say, ‘Just when I thought you could sink no lower...’ but my mouth felt nailed shut. I glared, unblinking and unwavering, willing some level of shame and regret on him. Part of me was afraid I might start crying, I was so furious.
He did not wilt or cower, but stared back openly, baldly, with full intention to go through with this next level of blackmail. Determination was carved into his features.
“Saxony?” Gage’s call made me turn and temper the fire in my eyes. He appeared at the end of the hall, too far away to read the situation clearly. “There you are. I was wondering what happened to you.”
When I turned to see what explanation Ryan would come up with for his twin, he was already gone, slipped down the side hall like a shadow.
Eleven
Metal Mastery
I watched from the opposite side of a hafnium basin in the forge as Basil held up a chunk of metal and laid it on the basin’s edge. He lined up five more metal spheres, discs, and cylinders, then rested his hands on either side of the sink and looked up.
“Ready?”
I nodded, resisting the urge to lean forward and get closer to the metals. This was a test. Not one which would count toward my final grade, but it was the first time he’d ever asked me to identify metals purely on sight. I wasn’t allowed to touch or hold them.
With a finger, Basil pointed at the central sphere.
“Brass.” I was grateful he’d picked an easy one. The alloy of pinkish-orange copper and blue-silver zinc had a patina that wasn’t easy to mistake for anything else.
Basil’s finger moved to another.
“Nickel,” I said.
“How do you know?” Basil’s finger still hovered over the disc.
“Because it’s sitting next to gallium, which makes it easy to contrast the two.” While they were both silver metals, gallium was silvery-blue and cool, but nickel was a lustrous silver-white with a pale gold tinge.
“Very good.” He shifted his finger to the one on the end, adding his other hand to point at the chunk at the opposite end of the row. At a glance they looked identical.
I narrowed my eyes, focusing on the detail and comparing and contrasting them. It would be easier of they were sitting next to one another, but there were four other metals between them. I blew out a breath.
“Take your time.” Basil let his hands relax. “I’ll go get a sandwich, shall I?”
I snorted. “Would you rotate them for me?”
Basil shook his head and gave a smug smile.
“They’re both antimony,” I guessed, unable to pick out any differences.
Basil shook his head and my shoulders dropped.
If I could pick them up, feel their weight and texture, this would be so easy. I clasped my hands behind my back to quell the urge to reach out and grab them. I strained, my rebellious vision blurring.
“Relax,” Basil said softly. “Don’t try so hard. Look away or close your eyes, then try again.”
I closed my eyes and took a few slow breaths before opening them. I swayed on my feet, watching as the light reflected off one chunk, then off the other, as I moved.
“The one on your left is antimony, the other is tellurium,” I said, then winced.
Basil nodded. “Excellent! How do you know?”
“The tellurium is a fraction more lustrous and sparkly.”
“I’m impressed. They are very difficult to tell apart unless you’re trying to melt them.”
I nodded and relaxed, coming closer to the basin. “Tellurium melts at 841 and antimony at 1167 Fahrenheit.”
“Yes, and speaking of melting, did you wear your sports bra today?”
I did a double-take and then laughed when I realized which exercise I would get to try next. I nodded and walked away on the hafnium floor, untucking my Arcturus polo and pulling it over my head. My black fireproof sports bra didn’t match my navy blue shorts, but I was beyond caring. Arcturus students went through a lot of gym-clothes. I deposited the shirt on a chair near the wall before coming back to stand at a distance from Basil. My stomach fluttered with excitement. The time had come.
Basil came around the basin to stand at the opposite end of the hafnium, hefting a small sack in his hand. Upendi
ng its contents into his palm, three silvery-white bearings tumbled out.
“Just so there’s no confusion,” Basil held up one of the spheres between a thumb and forefinger, “this is tin.”
I nodded. Tin had a melting point of 449.47 Fahrenheit, but depending on the speed it struck me at, I needed to produce more heat than that, and in the right place. It wouldn’t do to focus heat at my stomach if the bearing struck me in the chest. The trick was not only to master the coordination of my eye to the force and aim of Basil’s throw, but to produce enough heat to melt the tin while not wasting energy.
“Three shots,” Basil said. “The first I shall merely toss. The second I shall pitch, and the third I’ll overhand. Okay?”
Nodding, I bounced on my toes, fire churning in anticipation, already sweeping to just under the surface of my skin. Blooms of light flickered and blossomed like soft pink lightning in my torso. My gaze was glued to the hand that held the first tin bearing. I thought I understood something of what a dog must feel before their owner threw a ball in a game of fetch.
Basil held up the tin and I let out a slow exhale as he swung his arm back for a gentle underhand toss. He released the tin and I watched it arc into the air, calculating its speed and trajectory. The shot would miss if I didn’t step under it, so I swept forward, face tilted up, heat blossoming under my collarbone and through the front of my shoulder.
The tin struck the hollow just above my right clavicle and splattered like a paintball. Basil was already cocking back for the next throw so I ignored the feeling of liquid metal sliding down my chest.
My brain measured the throw as heat exploded in my stomach. The bearing hit my belly and splashed across my skin before dribbling down to pool against the waistband of my shorts.
My clothing was fireproof, not indestructible, but I had no time to lament the damage the hot metal would do to my bottoms. Basil wound up like the pitcher in a baseball game. He paused for a fraction of a second, giving me the slightest nod of encouragement, then fired.
With a barely suppressed panic, fire swept forward to the front of my body, lighting my entire torso, neck, face and both arms. The tin flew too fast for me to judge so I compensated by flooding my upper body with heat.
Sharp pain, like the sting of a hornet on the front of my left shoulder made me wince, but I looked down to watch the paint-splotch of hot metal as it ran down my arm.
“Ouch.” I looked up with an exaggerated pout. “That one hurt. What did I do wrong?”
Basil chuckled as he beckoned me to join him at the basin. “Nothing. It hurts when high-speed metal strikes your body, even when you can keep it from penetrating. Nothing can change that.”
I moved to stand over the nearest gutter, using fire to sweep the molten tin down my arm and into my palm. I let it dribble into the receptacle beneath the floor, the heat beneath my skin acting like a broom. When it was gone, I inspected the holes in my clothing.
Basil noticed my dismay. “Your uniform budget increases as you move up levels in your training. Fireproof we can do. Molten metal resistant hasn’t been cracked yet. The agency is working on it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
I joined him at the sink, shoving the problem of more damaged clothing aside and wondering just how far this defensive art could be pushed. If it stung like a hornet when struck with a thrown bearing, which wouldn’t exceed speeds of a hundred miles an hour, how did it feel when someone used a slingshot or a gun? I shuddered, not sure I wanted to find out.
A clinking sound brought me back to reality as Basil slipped something cold around my wrist. There was a metallic snap and Basil stepped away.
I looked down. “Handcuffs?”
“Does that bother you?” Basil smirked, leaning his elbows on the edge of the basin and resting his chin in his hands. Peering at me through his specs like that, he reminded me of a mischievous kid.
I blinked at him. “Are there rules, here? Or should I just get out of them?”
He pushed his glasses up his nose. They always slid down to the tip when we worked in the forge. We were both slick and sweaty. “Please don’t destroy them, or my sink. These basins clock in at 5000 pounds per unit.”
“Gosh.” I lifted my hand and looked at the silver-white chain and the cuff around my wrist; the other cuff was threaded through a hole bored in the rim of the basin, locking me to it. “I don’t even want to ask how much these cuffs were. This is platinum.”
Basil nodded. “Another reason why I’d like you not to wreck them, if you please.”
I let a long slow breath out through pursed lips, lifting my hand this way and that, observing the details of the cuffs.
“I have them in hafnium, tungsten, rhenium, or osmium if you prefer.” Basil straightened and jerked a thumb toward the door, faking as though to leave and fetch an alternative.
I shot him a look of long-suffering. All of those metals had melting points of over 5000 Fahrenheit, while platinum melted at a little over 3000. I could produce that kind of heat, that wasn’t the difficult part. The tricky part was not wrecking the restraint in the process.
“Just saying,” Basil continued with a smile. “You have options.”
“How kind of you.” I scratched my head with my free hand, eyeballing the platinum chain, the thinnest part of the metal. But if I attacked the chain and re-welded it, my wrist would still be bound. I had to tackle it from the cuff.
Pinching the cuff between the fingers of my free hand, I sent the fire sweeping into my cuffed wrist. Stoking the heat quickly at first, then slowing it down as my entire body began to throb and my head pound with the monstrous intensity I was building toward. The air around me shimmered. Basil took a few steps back.
Backup ventilation on automatic sensors turned on as the forge heated up. Basil had made the lineup of metal chunks disappear, a wise move as they’d all be running down the edge of the hafnium basin.
My clothing would also melt away completely if I wasn’t careful. It took all of my focus, mental power, and any telekinetic authority I had over the platinum at my wrist to keep excessive heat from spilling everywhere. But the air in the forge still wavered and warped the world around us, which couldn’t be helped.
As the cuff softened and lost shape, my heart buoyed to see the fruits of my labors rewarded. A steady exertion of will and a tightly focused direction of heat reduced the cuff to silver slop from one breathless moment to the next. Moving quickly now, I put my newly freed hand under the cuff to catch falling molten bits. A few drops splashed into my palm, but as I reversed the build up of heat and backed off, I coaxed the platinum back into shape.
I lost all track of time as my inner furnace and my mental powers channeled focus on nothing else. The platinum cuff nudged into its original shape, and—as my heat fell away—hardened and resolved itself.
A few minutes later, I held the unmarred cuffs up with a triumphant smile.
Basil approached, inspecting them. He looked up with unabashed admiration and my whole body warmed with the pleasure of that look. The approval of my esteemed coach and captain was a great reward.
“Congratulations,” he said softly, unlocking them from the basin and dropping the valuable cuffs in a velvet sack. “You’ve just done something that only one other person under this roof has been able to do, and you’ve done it in less time. Bravo.”
I flushed and ran a hand across my sweaty brow. “Thank you.” Then I cleared my throat and smacked my lips, looking around for my water bottle and hoping it hadn’t been reduced to a stinking puddle of red plastic.
I slipped on my shirt and helped Basil put away all the metal bits and clean up the forge. Students had begun to filter into the CTH to warm up for the next class.
“Easter break is coming up in a few weeks,” Basil said, pocketing bearings and cylinders of metal into the proper repository. “What are your plans?”
At the mention of Easter, my stomach gave a sickening twist. April and Ryan’s ‘romantic night’ was plann
ed for Easter. I had a few weeks to figure out how to thwart the whole thing without eviscerating my friendship with April. Politics and sabotage were foreign to me but it seemed I’d have to get acquainted.
“One of my best friends is up in Blackmouth, Scotland,” I replied, melting the random droplets and globules of metal which speckled the basin. I used heat to guide them into the gutter where they funneled into a receptacle beneath the floor. I wondered if at the end of the year, Basil recovered the alloy made by the waste. “Her cousin wants to surprise her, so he’s booked me a train ticket so I can spend the holiday up there with her.”
Basil brightened. “Your siren friend?”
I shook my head, smiling. “That’s Targa. No, it’s Georjayna that’s in Scotland. The Wise.”
He slid the drawers closed and snapped the cupboards shut. “Right, the earth elemental. Have you kept contact with Petra?”
“The Euroklydon? No. Petra was never part of our group. Targa, Georjie and I went to school together, along with Akiko, who’s gone now.” I gulped down the lump of sadness that never failed to swell at thoughts of Akiko. I cleared my throat as we finished up and closed the storage closet.
“Shame. The Euroklydon is one of a kind,” Basil said. “Have you a way of getting a hold of her?”
“I have her number but I’d hesitate to use it unless it was for something important. Why?”
We left the borders of the forge and I walked with the headmaster as we went to the lockers where flammable belongings were stashed. I put my water bottle inside my backpack and slung it over my shoulder.
“Because, I’ve been meaning to ask you if your supernatural friends would be open to visiting Arcturus as guest speakers.” Basil looked down at me as we walked the perimeter of the dojo toward the CTH’s double doors. “Dr. Price mentioned she’d like to have a variety of species come in and do workshops.”
That made some sense. After all, Dr. Price taught Supernatural Biology and The Supernatural Landscape, both classes touched on species beyond our own.
