by A. L. Knorr
“I can accept failure,” Basil said, startling everyone in the room as he adjusted his glasses and gathered his thoughts.
This wasn’t what I would expect a coach to say to their team before any kind of tournament.
“What I can’t accept is not giving it our all. Just promise me you’ll do your absolute best and whatever happens, happens. Okay?”
We agreed.
Tagan suddenly leapt up from his seat by Peter, dancing in place and reaching for his back pocket. “Oh, oh, oh!”
Christy put a hand over her heart. “Tagan, what on earth—?”
He whipped his buzzer out of his pocket, fumbled, caught it, then held it up for everyone to see. His disk vibrated quietly against his hand, the small plastic light on top blinking a robin’s egg blue. He looked around the room, then at Basil, the whites of his eyes visible. Given that he’d not bothered to run comb through his hair that morning, he looked like a loon.
“It’s me! I’m first.” He was breathless, but I didn’t know why. Aside from fumbling his buzzer, he hadn’t done anything yet.
“Right.” Basil got to his feet. “I’ve never been a sporty person, but I see this in movies sometimes.”
He put a hand out, palm down over the floor at waist height. He adjusted his spectacles with his other hand, and it was only because of that gesture that I noticed his hand was shaking.
We swarmed in close to the headmaster, dodging furniture. Dr. Price came too. Putting our hands in a layer-cake, we looked at Basil expectantly.
He looked lost for words. Then, uncertainly: “Go, team Arcturus?”
There was a pause, then Brooke began to chant. “We’re fired up, we’re sizzlin’ hot! We’ve got the heat, we will not stop! We’re fired up, we’re sizzlin’ hot! We’ve got the heat, we will not stop!”
Everyone added their voices, picking up speed as we bopped our hand-cake to the beat of the chant. When it got too fast and we could hardly go any louder, Brooke slipped her hand to the bottom of the pile where she began to drone in a low voice: “Gooooooo…”
Picking up the cue, the team joined in, stooped over and slowly raising up to standing. Our wail lifted along with our hands until we broke at the top with, “Team Arcturus!”
Basil looked delighted, even clapped twice, eyes shining. “I say, that’s very clever, Brooke. How very clever. Bravo.”
We broke into laughter at Basil’s old English gentlemen impression, which wasn’t an impression at all. Tagan began to high-five every team member. He almost fell over when Cecily bowled into him with a hug.
Dr. Price eyed Tagan’s outstretched hand with suspicion.
“Come on, doc.” He laughed. “Don’t leave me hanging. It’s bad luck!”
Christy gave Tagan’s hand a resounding smack, looking quite pleased with herself but also relieved that he’d moved on to someone else. Felix loosed a deafening whistle as Tagan headed for the door, followed by Christy (carrying the basket of phones) and Basil. Giving us a last shining look and a wave goodbye, Tagan disappeared, the first of the Arcturus competitors to face the challenge that awaited all of us.
Eleven
Tomio’s Secret
After an hour of sunshine in the back yard, monitored by Dr. Price, we were served a catered lunch of soup and sandwiches. With full stomachs, we settled into the lounge to wait for the next buzzer to go.
Tagan had been gone for three and a half hours. Maybe he was finished already and the first Firethorne competitor had started. No one knew, and no one would tell us.
Tomio moved to take the other end of the window seat where I’d resumed the crossword puzzle I’d begun before lunch. He set his buzzer on the cushion by his hip.
“There hasn’t been time for you to bring me up to speed about Gage and Ryan,” he said, settling with his back to the wooden paneling and drawing his knees up. “What’s the story?”
I put the crossword puzzle and my pencil down. “Gage is still in Italy with his mum. He says they’ve met with Ryan once but couldn’t get much out of him other than he’s got business to attend to. He doesn’t have any interest in going home yet, or coming back to Arcturus.”
“But he won’t give them any details?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got an impressive collection of photographs of the Amalfi coast, though. It seems they’ve taken the opportunity to turn it into a bit of a work vacation. Gage says it’s been nice that it’s been just him and his mum. They’ve been antique hunting together. He says his mom booked a whole shipping container and wants to fill it.”
“They must not be stressed about Ryan, in that case.”
I shrugged. “I haven’t been thinking about Ryan at all, with all this going on.” I gestured to the situation at large.
His head bobbed, his thick, black hair bouncing. He hadn’t had it cut in a while.
Giving me a weighty look and lowering his voice, he said: “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the conversation we had the other night. The one we had as a group?”
I lowered the volume of my voice as well. “You mean the one where everyone dumped the responsibility to win this thing on me?”
He either missed or ignored my sarcasm. “Exactly. You can’t go into the challenges assuming you haven’t got what it takes to win.”
I glanced at Felix and Harriet who were the closest to us. They appeared to be deeply absorbed in a game of chess.
I worked to keep my frustration out of my tone and didn’t entirely succeed. “It’s not fair to put it all on me. No one has any idea what the game-makers have come up with, aside from the fact that the first challenge is an obstacle course. Assuming that I’m the best chance we’ve got is putting the cart ahead of the horse.”
“No, it’s not.” Tomio spoke patiently, confidently. “You didn’t spend that much time as an Unburned mage. You underestimate the difference between us.” Tomio let out a sigh and cast his own sideways look at Felix and Harriet. He started to say something, then stopped. His discomfort deepened as he hesitated.
“Spit it out, we haven’t got all day,” I whispered with a half-smile. “Your buzzer could go at any moment. If you have advice, I want it.”
Tomio looked out the window, chewing his cheek. “It’s not common knowledge, even Basil doesn’t know, but I received my fire by plenary endowment, too.”
My mouth drifted open. I’d been expecting him to say something about the games. “Why didn’t you say so sooner?”
“I was embarrassed.”
“Why?”
He looked sheepish, rubbing his stomach in an absent gesture. “I didn’t want to be thought of as counterfeit. It wasn’t until Basil told the whole school about you that I realized that no one seems to care.”
“Wait, don’t the registration forms ask applicants for specific history?” I knew they did because I’d had to give a brief explanation of the facts when I’d gone through the formality of filling out the forms.
Tomio turned red. “I lied.”
“So Basil still doesn’t know?”
“No one at Arcturus does, except you.”
Was I hiding my astonishment well? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t want Tomio to feel judged but I was shocked. “How did it happen? When did it happen?”
“I was nine and already an MMA phenom. I was small, but strong, mentally as well as physically. My sensei—I was his uchi-deshi at the time, a live-in apprentice—knew a mage with a baby girl. Her fire was developing but as it grew stronger, she grew weaker. They were concerned it would soon kill her, and she was in pain all the time.”
I shifted closer to Tomio, tucking myself into a cross-legged position and leaning my elbows on my knees. “That’s how it was for Isaia as well. His fire was going to kill him, it was only a matter of time.”
Tomio studied my face, his eyes wide. “How old was he?”
“Six. Yours?”
He winced. “Only three. It was awful. Her parents begged my sensei to find someone worthy to accept her fire.
They didn’t want just anyone to have it and they trusted my instructor. In the beginning, I couldn’t figure out why my sensei was asking me all these weird questions.”
“Like what?”
“I can’t remember specifically anymore but he wanted to know if I believed in the supernatural, or if anything supernatural had ever happened to me. He wanted to know my heritage, which was tricky because I had been adopted. I never knew my birth parents.”
“What?” I squeaked, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “You’re a deep well of secrets.”
He smiled. “My sensei became obsessed with finding them, caring about it even more than I ever had. I’d been adopted by really nice people, I loved them. I didn’t feel the need to know about my biologicals. Eventually, I learned that it wasn’t my genetic heritage he was after, it was where I had been born and spent my life up until I’d been adopted. Something to do with the earth’s grid and supernatural energy.”
“Ley lines,” I whispered.
His dark eyes shone, wide and bright. “Exactly. He didn’t share all this with me, but he sure was invested in doing his homework. What he found seemed to satisfy him because he introduced me to Junko and her family, and explained the opportunity. He said there was a risk involved, as well as pain. But I was already a fighter. Risk and pain was my life. So I agreed.” He sat back and spread his hands as if to say, that’s the end of the story.
I stared at him, questions surfacing like bubbles in soda. “Why are you ashamed of that?”
“It’s not the circumstances I’m ashamed of. After receiving Junko’s fire and surviving, her father trained me how to manage it before I returned to my sensei. He’d warned me to keep it a secret, especially among other fire mages. He didn’t want me to be looked down upon for not having been born with it. It wasn’t until you were outed that I realized that his warning applied within Japanese culture, it wasn’t universal. Over here, no one cares.”
My head swam as I imagined Tomio at nine years of age, accepting a dying girl’s fire, bracing himself for the pain, knowing it was coming. I had known squat. It wasn’t like Isaia had been able to warn me or ask my permission. The strength of character Tomio must have had at such a young age was staggering.
“Did your parents know?”
He shook his head. “They still don’t.”
I arched a brow. “Where do they think you are right now?”
“Well it’s just my mum now. My dad died of a heart attack on his way to work three years ago.”
I closed my eyes in horror but Tomio spoke matter-of-factly, with no hint of grief or self-pity, which was typical Tomio. I’d hardly seen him without a smile on his face, let alone looking down in the dumps.
“It’s okay. Mum thinks I’m studying law in London. She’s pretty deaf these days and hates to wear her hearing aid, so the less I say the more she likes me.” He chuckled and raked his thick strands upright. He gazed out the window for a moment, where lamps circled the fountain. The sky was overcast now and dark enough the lamps had turned on, casting a pale, geometric design across the driveway. Pulling himself back to the present, his sharp gaze returned to mine. “Anyway, that’s a bit off topic. The point I was trying to make was, you can’t go into these games without the right mindset.”
I struggled to see how Tomio’s story had anything to do with the games, but humored him. “Well, being an MMA champion, competition is nothing new to you. What’s the right mindset?”
Tomio launched into a stream of consciousness, moving his hands as he spoke. “You have to trust yourself, be confident in your ability to perform when the time comes. If you go in not owning that you’re Burned and that makes you a front-runner, you’re selling yourself short— therefore selling your team short. Focus on the task at hand, walk into the ring relaxed but ready, then let your instincts take over. That’s what instincts are for. I’ve trained with numerous women over the years and I’ve coached them, too. Consistently, their fatal flaw is that they underestimate themselves and they over-analyze everything. Don’t think so much. Be in the moment. Failure is acceptable but don’t accept it before you’ve actually failed. In fact, don’t even think about it.”
I blinked, wondering if I should ask him to write it all down. His little pep-talk was giving me goosebumps because he was right. I did think too much, I did over-analyze, and I did underestimate myself because I didn’t want to be arrogant and then fall on my face. I knew I was good enough to coach first-year Unburned magi, but facing Firethorne’s best was the unknown. I’d be facing magi who’d been born with the fire, and some of them would even be Burned. But Tomio had just admitted he’d been born without fire and he won Top Marks this past year, relegating the assumption that time-with-fire meant an advantage to the realm of myth.
“Anything else?” I asked.
His black eyes sparkled. “Play to your strengths and, when face-to-face, make chaos for your opponent.”
“Right.” I wasn’t sure what my strengths were, I had no other Burned peer to compare myself to.
“Oh, and try to enjoy yourself. I know the outcome is big for Basil, but this wager is not of your making. Try not to dread it. Competition is so much a part of us that when the time of the gladiators passed, both humans and supernaturals invented other excuses to compete, other ways of opening those primal outlets again.”
Tomio studied my face. His brows pinched and I knew he was mirroring my expression. “What did I say about thinking too much?”
I laughed, he was right, there was a frenetic conversation going on inside me.
“Find the calm in the storm, Saxony. Take it from someone who has faced a thousand opponents. You’re strong, smart, Burned, and have home court advantage. You can do this.”
“Thanks.”
Tomio grinned good-naturedly and slapped both of my knees. “You’re welcome.”
Twelve
Alchemy’s Entrance
By the time supper had been served and consumed, the atmosphere in the lounge had grown tense. It was nine fifteen and no one’s buzzer had lit up. All conversation had ceased. Peter, Cecily and Brooke, who had at one point had a raucous game of Hearts going, had separated and gone quiet. Brooke was stretching on the carpet along the far wall, Peter was staring into the dead fireplace while Cecily had taken a post at the window seat and was watching the darkening sky. Tomio lay stretched out on one of the couches, a ratty looking John Grisham thriller open but face down on his chest as he stared off into space.
I slouched in a wingback, feet propped up on an ottoman, contemplating reaching for the sudoku book on the bottom of the stack of books on the coffee table.
Harriet held a cup and saucer, but paced back and forth along the library shelves looking at the titles, not drinking her tea. Felix was doodling in a sketchbook, the only one of us who still seemed somewhat relaxed.
“It’s been nearly twelve hours since Tagan left,” said Tomio to the ceiling.
Brooke let out an exasperated breath, like she’d been waiting for someone to bring it up. “Exactly! I mean, I know the game-makers told us the game might last for days, but I didn’t fully believe them. It’s going to take ages if everyone takes this long to get through the course. What are they making us do?”
“Hang on.” Felix set his sketchpad on the arm of the chair and spoke with a calm I wished could be bottled. “Tagan could have been done by lunch time. We don’t know how long it takes for them to reset the course for the next competitor. It could take hours. The first Firethorne kid could be a dodo, stuck on a single obstacle for ages. We don’t know anything and shouldn’t make assumptions. Stop worrying so much.”
We fell silent and the grandfather clock in the corner ticked on, marking time in a relentless rhythm.
A soft buzz began. We grabbed frantically for our buzzers, except Felix, whose buzzer was sitting on the table in front of him. Its light was not flashing.
“You see?” He relaxed against the plush chair-back, making the springs
groan. “No reason to fret.”
Harriet lifted her blinking buzzer, her face pale but set. “Right. My turn.”
“Well, don’t look like that.” Tomio rolled off the couch and onto his feet, graceful as a cat. He put his hands on her shoulders. “You’re not going to a firing squad. You’re going to play a game.”
Harriet smiled and nodded, her shoulders inching downward in an effort to relax.
We gathered around her and repeated the spirit chant Brooke had taught us, with a little less vigor this time. We sent Harriet off with cheers and good wishes, but after she’d left the atmosphere turned gloomy. It was rotten luck. No one was at their best after a long day of lounging around and eating.
The following morning just before lunch, Tomio’s buzzer went off. He left us looking like he was headed to a buffet, eager and hungry. Then it was Brooke’s turn, her buzzer went off the next day at nine fifteen. She popped off the bench we were seated at in the back garden with a whoop, pronouncing that the waiting around was killing her.
Peter taught me, Cecily, and Felix how to play Bridge and we kept ourselves distracted by running a marathon tournament. Our buzzers never left our sides and Peter’s went off shortly after seven in the evening.
It wasn’t until late-afternoon the following day that my buzzer lit up. My heart gave a surge of relief and anticipation. If Brooke thought it had been hard waiting around for two days, she should have tried four. Not knowing how our teammates had done, or even being able to see them or text them, was slowly driving us all mad.
Cecily and Felix hugged me good luck and I met Dr. Price outside the lounge door, my backpack slung from one shoulder.
“Nervous?” She asked as we crossed the archway and took the steps down into the fire-gym’s lobby.
I nodded. “A little. More excited to get at it though. It’s brutal being toward the tail end of this thing. I don’t suppose you can tell me how the others are?”
