by James Riley
At first, the magic made each of them glow a bit, which wasn’t exactly the best for sneaking around. But gradually each of them grew more transparent until he could see right through the others, and the glow disappeared. Glancing down, Fort realized he could also see the ground through his hands, which was a new experience.
“Cool,” he said, his voice sounding less solid, almost ghostly.
“It’s even cooler to master it yourself instead of stealing it,” Jia said, her voice also just an echo of its former self. “Now be careful with this. I’ve practiced this a lot, and even I’m not used to floating up or down through floors. The magic defaults to keeping you on the level you start at, but you can still rise or fall at will, if you work at it.”
Rachel poked her head through the side of the Training Hall, then gave them a thumbs-up. “We’re by the offices,” she said, pulling back out. “No one’s there, so we should be good to enter.”
“Any cameras?” Fort asked Cyrus.
His friend tilted his hand back and forth, as if to say, sort of. “Not right here, but if we move much farther in, we’ll get caught for sure.”
“There are floors below the Viewing Room that only Dr. Opps and Colonel Charles have access to,” Jia said. “If Sierra’s anywhere here, it’d be down there. I’ve explored a little on my own but never went too far down.”
Cyrus closed his eyes, then frowned. “If we find the girl down there, I’m not seeing it. Everything starts getting weirdly fuzzy in a bit.”
Fort gave him a worried look. That didn’t exactly sound promising.
“Guess we’ll have to just jump in and hope for the best,” Rachel said with a grin. “Should I go first, or . . . ?”
Jia groaned at this but led the way inside, and the rest followed after her.
Moving through a solid object was a strange experience, and not one that Fort particularly enjoyed. It wasn’t just like walking through air; instead, he could feel the wall within him as he moved, and it wasn’t a comfortable sensation by any measure. Not that it hurt . . . but this was not the normal way one got past walls. From now on, Fort would take the door.
Jia held up a hand as they all made it inside, then nodded silently at a security camera aimed at the ground just past them. She pointed down at the floor, then closed her eyes and slowly began to sink right through the tiles. As her head disappeared, she waved her hand at them to follow, right before that sank through as well.
Not waiting for Fort or Cyrus, Rachel dove forward into the floor like a dolphin into a wave, a huge grin on her face. Cyrus shrugged, then sank at the same rate as Jia had, waving for Fort to follow him.
Fort closed his eyes and concentrated hard, willing himself to sink into the floor as well. After what felt like plenty of time to descend, he opened his eyes to see where he was.
Unfortunately, he was still standing in the offices on the ground floor.
Gritting his teeth, Fort tried again, squeezing his eyes shut, imagining himself descending through the floor, picturing it as clearly as he could in his mind. But when he opened his eyes again, he hadn’t moved.
Why wasn’t this working? He pushed his foot down through the tiles, and there was no resistance: It was as insubstantial as the outer wall had been. So why couldn’t he sink through like the others had?
Cyrus’s face appeared out of the floor. “You’re too used to floors holding you up. Let go of that as a concept. Right now, you could sink right through the whole planet if you wanted.”
Fort’s eyes widened. “That actually doesn’t help,” he whispered.
“Oh, come on,” Jia said as her face and arms appeared. “We don’t have time for this.”
She grabbed his legs (apparently ethereal people could touch each other?) and pulled down, yanking him out of the concept of floating and right into the floor before he could even object.
- THIRTY-FOUR -
AS THE FLOOR ROSE UP toward him, Fort instinctively held his breath, like he was about to dunk himself underwater. His chest passed through the tile, and he decided to let the air out to experiment with something.
When his face reached the floor, he opened his mouth to breathe in, to see if it was possible while passing through a solid object. Unfortunately, there was no air inside the floor, and for a moment he began to panic as his body decided it must be drowning.
Thankfully, he emerged from the other side a moment later and took in a nice, deep breath. Jia pulled him down to the ground, and he found himself standing in Dr. Ambrose’s classroom.
“You can’t breathe inside things!” he said, his heart still racing.
The other three just looked at one another. “Are you usually able to?” Jia asked him.
“Well, no,” he said, turning red. “It’s all just strange. Like how are we breathing now, if we’re insubstantial and can’t touch anything? How do our lungs take in air?”
“It’s magic,” Rachel said. “If we couldn’t breathe, the spell would have killed the first people to try it.”
“Maybe it’s ingrained in the spell,” Jia said. “But can we discuss that later? We still have a bunch of floors to go, and I don’t want to get caught.” She glanced around. “The only thing on this floor other than our classroom is the Healing bandage storage. Next one down should be the stronger magical items.”
“I really like this side of you!” Rachel said, nodding with respect.
Now it was Jia’s turn to blush. “I had to practice somewhere.”
“So bad,” Rachel said, laughing lightly. “How can you even live with yourself?”
Jia didn’t answer; she just sank slowly down through the floor again, steadily avoiding Rachel’s gaze. Rachel waited for a moment, then dove through after her, and this time Cyrus offered his hand to Fort.
“Maybe floating just isn’t your thing,” Cyrus said as Fort took his hand.
“Apparently, none of this is,” Fort told him as the other boy slowly descended, pulling Fort with him.
At least Colonel Charles believed in him, that there was some power to be awakened inside of him. Hopefully he’d be better suited to whatever that was than Healing.
They landed in a room filled with filing cabinets, and Jia led the way to the door, peeking just her face through at first to make sure there weren’t any guards around. Cyrus confirmed they were out of camera sight too, so Jia passed through the door and then motioned for them to follow.
They found themselves in a long hallway with metal doors to their right and the elevator to their left. The metal doors were all locked by elaborate, highly technological locks, which couldn’t stop their ethereal forms from peeking into the first few rooms.
“Whoa,” Rachel said, pulling her head back out of the first door. “I’ve never seen so many fireball bullets. There are thousands of boxes in there! Who had time to make all of these? There’s no way we did them all.”
Fort threw a look at Jia, but she ignored him.
The next door held what looked like plastic egg carton containers, each one labeled with various Telepathy spells: MEMORY/THOUGHT SHARING, SLEEP INDUCEMENT, and more.
“She wouldn’t be on this level,” Jia said as Fort started to look in another door. “Too many people can come down here, especially the military. Dr. Opps doesn’t like to give access to anyone he doesn’t trust, so she’d have to be at least one more floor down.”
After three more floors turned out to be empty, however, Fort began to wonder how paranoid Dr. Opps really was . . . and how far down the complex extended. Each of the floors had been filled with similar vaults to the ones holding the fire bullets, but none were in use.
Two floors later, Fort was almost ready to give up.
“Maybe she’s somewhere else on the base?” he said to Jia, who seemed to be getting more annoyed with each new empty floor.
“She has to be here,” she said, slamming her fist through a wall without leaving a mark. “There’s nowhere else that’s anywhere near as secure.”
&
nbsp; “What if she’s really not here at the school?” Rachel asked. “It’s not like we have any solid proof—”
“No, she’s close,” Fort told her, hoping he was telling the truth. “Come on. Let’s keep moving.”
As Jia and Rachel both disappeared through the floor, Cyrus stopped Fort for a moment. “Just so you know, we’re running out of time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, before we left, I thought I saw Sebastian still awake,” Cyrus said. “So I did a quick look into his future, and he should be reaching Dr. Opps’s door any minute now.”
Fort’s eyes widened. “He’s turning us in?”
Cyrus nodded. “I probably should have mentioned that sooner, huh? I kind of forgot when Rachel showed up.”
Fort squeezed his eyes closed and took a deep breath. “Yes, that might have been helpful. How long do we have?”
Cyrus’s eyes unfocused for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said, looking nervous. “Everything is fuzzy now. Either we’re too close to the books upstairs, or something else is going on.” He frowned. “But I got us to the Viewing Room last night without having this problem. Weird, huh?”
“So there could be guards here at any moment?” Fort said, sighing deeply. “Great.”
“Should we turn around? We could probably sneak out before they find us.”
For a moment, Fort considered it. But if they backed out now, there’d be no way he was ever getting another chance, both because Jia would never agree to it, and Dr. Opps would for sure be kicking him out of the school just for leaving the dorm at night.
“Nope, we keep going,” Fort said. “Our only hope is to find Sierra. Sebastian doesn’t know that Jia and Rachel came with us, so at least they should be okay.”
Cyrus nodded, then took Fort’s hand and floated them both down into the floor. “Maybe she’s on this next floor anyway!” he said optimistically.
Five floors later, even Fort was starting to wonder if Sierra actually existed, let alone was somewhere in the building. “I don’t get it,” Jia said, staring around in the darkness. “Cyrus, you can’t see anything about her in our future?”
He shook his head, looking uncomfortable. “It’s all just a blur from this point forward. Something’s wrong.”
The others shared a look. “Maybe it’s time to give up,” Rachel suggested.
“One more floor,” Fort said, knowing he’d continue on even if the others all left. “We can’t give up now.”
“Okay, but if we don’t find anything, we’re going to Dr. Opps and telling him everything,” Jia said. “Especially about how you stole my spells.”
Why bother, when he’ll be catching us down here any minute now? Fort thought.
They descended through the floor, expecting more empty vaults . . . but this time they found just one door at the end of a very short hallway, mirrored by the elevator on the opposite side.
“Finally, something new!” Rachel said, and advanced to the door. She pushed her face through slowly, only to pull back suddenly, her eyes wide. “You guys have got to see this.”
Fort tried to move past her, but Rachel held him back. “Let me go first,” she said. “Just in case it’s dangerous. And don’t argue about it. We don’t have time.”
He started to object in spite of her words, but then stopped and nodded, waving her ahead. She was right, they didn’t have time. As soon as she was inside, he leaped into the door, his meager list of spells at the ready just in case he had to cast one quickly.
But instead of anything dangerous, the warehouse-sized room was filled with huge wooden crates. At the far end, a small set of stairs led down to a lowered floor, adding height to the ceiling for some of the taller crates.
“See?” Rachel said from across the room, pointing at the wall behind her. “Now this is the good stuff.”
Fort looked where she was pointing and felt his knees go weak.
Behind Rachel were large glass cases set into the wall, almost like the kind found in a museum. And just like in a museum, the cases were filled with skeletons.
But not the skeletons of dinosaurs or prehistoric animals.
“Are those . . . ?” Jia asked.
“Yup!” Rachel said proudly, pointing at what looked almost like a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton with wings. “They’re dragons.”
- THIRTY-FIVE -
THEY’VE BEEN KEEPING THEM DOWN here this whole time?” Jia said, walking over to the glass cases slowly, almost reverently. “Look at those wings!”
Fort followed her over, not sure if he should feel terror or awe. The dragon skeletons were immense, and even with their wings tucked behind them, they still barely fit in the cases. They weren’t the only items on display, though. Next to the two enormous dragon skeletons were four human ones, and Fort got a chill just looking at them.
“These are the magicians they found on Discovery Day,” he said softly. “The ones with the books of magic. I saw one of them in Dr. Opps’s memory.”
Two of the magician skeletons were displayed next to a dragon, while a third hung to the left of an enormous felinelike skeleton, almost like a sabertooth tiger or something. The fourth, though, was alone. Maybe that magician didn’t have a ride?
“I can’t tell if they’re male or female,” Rachel said. “Either of you healers have a guess?”
“Two of them were women,” Jia said, looking closely. “There are a few indicators that tell us based on bone shape and size. This one here, and there.” She pointed at one of the skeletons next to a dragon, and the one next to the feline monster. “The other two are male.”
“Nice,” Rachel said, giving the dragon-riding female magician an approving nod. “Too bad they didn’t dig up any dragon eggs or something.”
“I wish we knew the history,” Jia said. “Where the books actually came from. Who wrote them? Why were they in the hands of these magicians at the end? Why did we find them all on the same day? So many important questions—”
“Look! Dwarves!” Cyrus said, a little ways to the left. The others turned to where he stood before two half-sized skeletons, these broader than a normal human, and much more stout.
“Are you sure they’re not just children?” Rachel asked.
“The bones are too dense,” Jia said after giving Cyrus a dirty look for interrupting her. “Whatever they are, I don’t think they’re human.”
“Okay, but dwarves aren’t real,” Rachel said.
The others all stared at her for a moment, before she realized what she’d said and then laughed. “Right, okay, I just heard it myself. Yeah, yeah.” She pointed at some taller, thinner skeletons next to the half-sized ones. “So, what, those are elves?”
“Look at how narrow and thin the bones are,” Jia said, pointing at the tall creatures’ arms. “They would have been so delicate.”
Fort stared up at the skulls of the taller creatures, which were more elongated than the magicians’ skulls. What would they have looked like before they died? “Don’t elves have pointy ears?”
“Ears aren’t bones,” Jia pointed out. “They’re made of cartilage, which decomposes. You really do need to study, don’t you?”
“Hey, I just got here, like, two days ago,” he said, touching the glass in front of the elves. “So do you think they dug all of these up on the same day as the dragons and books?”
Rachel shook her head, pointing at a plaque. “Not according to the date here. See? This is later the same year as Discovery Day.”
“And these they found almost two years later,” Cyrus said, pointing at two slightly thinner half-sized skeletons. He leaned in, squinting at the plaque. “In Europe.”
“The elves were dug up there, too, looks like,” Jia said.
“Look at this,” Cyrus said, pointing at a smaller case that had been covered in a thick black cloth, which he held up so the others could see. “Is that a sword?”
Fort peered in closer, feeling a weird chill as he did, like this area of the room
was ten degrees cooler. It did look like some kind of sword, but it wasn’t made of metal. Instead, it seemed almost like it was made of crystal, a foggy quartz or something. Next to it were an armored glove and a jaggedly sharp crown both made of the same material. The crown looked like it’d been broken in half, while the glove looked relatively intact.
Not that Fort even considered putting it on. All three items gave him a weird feeling in the base of his spine, like watching someone in a horror movie walking into a dark basement.
“Does the sword light on fire or something?” Rachel asked. “ ’Cause otherwise, there’s better stuff in here.”
Cyrus leaned down to read the plaque on the case. “These were found in the middle of some kind of battlefield,” he said. “Surrounded by hundreds of skeletons. Wow. Who do you think wore the crown?”
Fort frowned, knowing he’d seen that crystal somewhere before. The odd sense of fear he felt from the items made it hard to concentrate, though. Where would he ever have. . .
And then it hit him. The officers’ mess. The creature had been wearing armor made of that same material.
His eyes widened, and he quickly pulled the black cloth back down over the case. “Let’s not play with that,” he told Cyrus, his heart racing.
Cyrus gave him a smile and nodded, thankfully not asking any questions, because Fort wasn’t sure he could answer them anyway. Had those things left the sword and crown on this world when they went . . . wherever they were now? And more importantly, how could they use a glove that looked like it fit a normal human hand? Had the items belonged to a human in their service?
Or what if the Old Ones had once looked . . . human?
Just to calm himself down, Fort paced along the displays to stand before the dragon-riding female magician. He stared at her for a moment as his heart slowed to a normal speed.
