by A. L. Knorr
"Who are the new students?" I asked.
"I'm afraid I can't say more than that. Student files are confidential." He gave me an apologetic look. "But you'll meet them if you join us."
Dad's back straightened. "I thought you didn't take minors. Are we talking about this year, or next year?”
"Ah, yes." Basil set his fork down, then patted his mouth with his napkin. "That brings me to my proposition. I have never taken anyone under eighteen before, but Saxony is such an exception that I would be willing to bend the rules. Mr. Cagney, I sincerely believe that Arcturus is the right place for your daughter at this point in her life. I realize she is young, but she seems very mature for her age, and I can tell you that as a mage"—he leaned forward with a look of emphasis—"she is exceptional."
My dad's spine straightened a little. Warmth filled me upon seeing this, for I recognized it as pride in me.
Basil continued, "If you are willing, and you agree with me that the sooner she gets her mage education the better, I would like to invite her to join Arcturus this year. I would not charge any tuition, only living expenses. Consider it a 'full-ride' as they say in North America." He held up a hand. "You don't need to decide right this minute. Take your time to think about it. Please also take into consideration that I have tutors on staff who will follow any syllabus you require, so that Saxony can finish her high school credits without interruption."
A torrent of conflicting emotions and observations went through me. One was the sinking in of the very real possibility that I would have to say goodbye to my friends before I was quite ready to. The other was the feeling that I should have the right to make this decision for myself, in spite of being legally underage. What did the law know about my state? Did governments even know that supernaturals like me existed? I had no idea, but I most certainly felt that this particular legal restriction shouldn't apply to me. If we couldn't convince my mom to let me go, then she and I would go head to head, and that might make for a permanent rift. I deeply hoped that that wouldn't be the outcome here, but I was braced for it.
"There is something else you should consider," Basil added.
"What's that?" Dad leaned forward on one elbow.
"Saxony may prove to be so advanced that she learns everything I can teach her in a matter of half a year. Who knows. This commitment doesn't have to be years long."
"Do you have any documentation about what you plan to teach my daughter?” Dad asked. “Any certifications you have, that say you can do what you're doing?"
Basil was unruffled. "I would be happy to give you course descriptions, though they'll seem awfully strange to you, I'm sure. As for accreditation, well, we are a top-secret branch of SIS."
"British intelligence." Dad ran a hand over his mouth. "You answer to MI6?"
Basil shook his head. "We don’t answer to them, but they know about Arcturus. The only reason they don't try to dismantle my program is because they like to recruit from among our students, and they are unqualified to do what I do." He frowned. "We have a tenuous relationship that has held for years."
My dad was quiet for a while. "Do you have children, Mr. Chaplin?" he asked finally.
"Not anymore," Basil said.
My dad blinked and sat back, his mouth grim.
"I had a daughter," Basil went on. "Dara. I started Arcturus for lots of reasons, but Dara is chief among them." He spoke without self-pity, and my admiration for him went up another couple of notches. "She would be fourteen today had she survived," he added. "The fire took her when she was seven. And I couldn't do the only thing that would have saved her."
"I'm so sorry," said my father. "What would have saved her?"
"Having her pass on the fire to someone else near the moment of death. Anyway." Basil put up his hands to signal he didn't want to say more. "I do understand what it’s like to have a child with the fire, better than you think. I'll respect any decision you make." He put his hands flat on the table on either side of his plate. "Perhaps it's time to let you rest and I know you might wish to call Mrs. Cagney. It's been a long journey and this has been quite a paradigm shift for you. I do have some business to attend to this afternoon. Please feel free to roam the grounds, explore the manor as you wish. Sleep. Talk. Make a list of questions. Do whatever you like." He smiled reassuringly at the three of us. "We can meet again for supper."
Chapter 12
After lunch, my dad and I went upstairs.
“Are you going to call Mom?” I asked at the top of the stairs. “What do you think?”
“What do you think, Saxony? Are you ready for this?”
“More than ready,” I said.
“What about leaving the girls behind? Your friends? You won’t know anyone here.”
“It will suck to say goodbye,” I answered, truthfully. “But this is too important to pass up. Don’t you think?”
He nodded. “I do.”
“What do you think Mom is going to say?”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Leave your mother to me.”
I let out a long, pent-up breath, and went into my room. I lay on my bed for a time, tossing and turning. I finally got up and made my way downstairs and out into the back yard.
There were multiple dirt paths crisscrossing the hilly property and leading down to the ocean. Listening to the waves in the distance and the gulls crying out soothed me. If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend I was home. I followed a trail all the way down to the rocky shoreline and stood where the grasses met the pebbly shore. In the distance, I could make out a line on the horizon. I squinted at it, but it was mostly lost in cloud. I called on my fire to sharpen my vision, the way I had earlier, and as my eyes grew hot, the land across the water came into better focus.
"That's France," said a voice.
I turned to see Susan, Basil's chef, approaching from along the grass line.
"Yeah?"
"Yes, a port town called Calais." She came to stand near me. "This is the narrowest part of the English Channel and on a clear day, the French can see the White Cliffs of Dover. It was a particularly welcoming sight during the war. The soldiers coming home from Dunkirk wrote songs about seeing those cliffs and knowing they were almost home."
The wind blew the hair off my shoulders. It smelled of salt. "What makes them white?"
"They're made of chalk," she said. "It's sort of amazing that they haven't all crumbled into the sea by now. Every once in a while, a piece breaks off, so I guess it's only a matter of time. Are you going to go see them while you're here?"
"I think maybe tomorrow morning, Pete will take us by the Cliffs on our way back to the airport. We're so close that it would be silly not to," I said. "Have you lived here your whole life?"
"Ha!" She shook her head. "I grew up in London. The Whitechapel area. I was on a downward spiral when I met Basil. Not sure what I would do without that man. I probably wouldn't be alive."
She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and looked out to sea. I noticed a network of scars on the side of her neck that I hadn’t seen the first time I met her.
I was screwing up the courage to ask her what had happened and if she was in a relationship with Basil, when she asked, "What was it like?"
The question was so soft, almost lost on the wind. But I knew exactly what she was asking about. My forced burning.
"It's okay if you don't want to talk about it," she added when my answer didn't come right away.
"No, that's okay," I said. "I'm not sensitive about it. It was awful. Truly, truly awful. I wouldn't wish that pain on my worst enemy." The wind blew my own thick curls into my face and I pulled them to the side and held them there. "It's the only time in my life I wished for death. Imagine being a roast pig, cooking for a full day, but without dying."
She looked appropriately horrified, but she also narrowed her eyes a little, like she wasn't sure she believed me fully. "Was it worth it?"
I hesitated again. I began to get a sense of what a slippery slope
this could be. If I said yes, it might encourage Susan to attempt her own burning. I also sensed how an unburned mage might suspect that the burned ones would be motivated to keep the truth hidden, to give themselves a leg up, make themselves more powerful. There was no way this type of difference wouldn't cause some kind of divide between mages. Truthfully, it had been worth it because I no longer had to deal with the pain on a daily basis, but it was only worth it now that it was over.
"No," I said, finally. "I'll just say that if I had to do it over again, knowing what I know now, I would never choose it. The everyday pain wasn't so bad that I couldn't live with it."
"Hmmm," she said, and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans.
Feeling like I hadn't convinced her, and suddenly nervous that Basil might hear about this conversation, I added, "If I had gone into the burning knowingly, aware of the change that would occur, and there had been water nearby, I would not have cared. I would have drunk the water to stop the agony. I don't think there is a person on earth who could withstand that kind of torture willingly."
"Well, of course not," she huffed. "That's why mages get themselves locked up, so that they can't thwart the process. They would just have to start it all over again."
"There's more to it than that. From what I understand, there is only a tiny window of time to give water. A few minutes this or that side of it and you'll fail."
She nodded. "Yes. Basil says the window is between ten and twelve minutes."
"He's told you a lot about this?"
She gave a humorless laugh. "Not because he wanted to, but because I asked. It's natural for a mage to need to know more about it. It's one of the hardest parts of his job — educating the mages who come here, and discouraging them from wanting to take their skills to the next level. Arcturus is the strangest association you'll ever come across."
We fell silent and stood there in the wind for a time, watching the waves.
"Don't waste it, Saxony," Susan said abruptly.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you survived for a reason. Basil says that the percentage of mages who survive a burning is less than two percent." She turned her shoulders square to me, took her hands out of her pockets and crossed her arms. "Basil is the best man I know, mage or no mage, and he's offering to give you his personal time to make you the best you can be. If you say no to that, you're an idiot. He's never done that for anyone before. He's a busy man." She looked down at her feet. "I kind of can't believe he's even offering you this. Just"—she kicked a pebble down off the bluff and onto the sand—"don't throw it away."
I frowned. "I don't intend to, Susan."
She nodded once, then walked around the corner of the manor, disappearing from my sight. On my own way back up to the manor, my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw Jack’s name on the screen.
“Jack?” I answered, breathless. “Is it really you? I thought you might have run away and joined the circus or something, just to avoid me.”
“Ha ha,” Jack said. “It’s me.”
“You sound normal,” I answered, head perking up. “Like you don’t think I’m the devil anymore.” I walked up over the sandy bank and onto the grass behind the manor.
There was an audible sigh. “I owe you an apology,” Jack said.
“Excusez-moi?” My heart felt instantly lighter.
“I’m sorry. I was wrong about you.”
“You don’t think I’m the arsonist anymore?”
“I know you’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because there was another fire last night.”
I stopped walking. “No. Where?”
“You know that little antique shop down on the corner of Pepper and 7th?”
“Radar Antiques? It’s been there since before we were born.”
“Yeah, that one. Radar. It was burned to the ground last night. Police are saying it’s the same arsonist as the playground and the yacht.”
My mind immediately went to Gage. Was this Calista, his brother’s ex, at work? Why would she burn the antique shop? “Was anyone hurt?”
“The house behind the shop, across the alley, their roof caught fire, but the fire department managed to put it out before the damage got too bad. It’s fixable. The little old lady who lives there went to the hospital for smoke inhalation, but no one was seriously hurt.”
I frowned. “It’s only a matter of time, though.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Seems like whoever is doing it is lighting bigger and bigger stuff. How long before they burn down a house with people inside?” I heard him breathing into the mouthpiece and it sounded like wind. “Is there…”
I waited but when he didn’t continue, I said, “What, Jack?”
“Something we could do about it?”
“We?” I had already been considering whether I should involve myself, against what I knew would be Basil’s directive. “You mean me? Because I’m a fire mage?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Maybe.” I closed my eyes. Was I really thinking of taking this situation into my own hands? I knew what Basil would say. I knew what my parents would say, and I knew what the police would say. But what did my conscience say? “I don’t know, Jack. But thanks for telling me about it. Dad and I will be home tomorrow.”
“Okay. Sorry again, Saxony. I was wrong.”
I smiled. “Thanks. Let’s just put it behind us.”
“Sounds good to me. See you tomorrow.”
I hung up the phone and looked at it, chewing my lip. I pounded out a text to Gage.
Me: Are you connected with Radar Antiques?
Several seconds later, my phone rang.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Yes,” came Gage’s voice. It was rough. Stressed. “Radar was my mom’s business, and my grandfather’s before her. That store was in our family for forty years.”
“I’m so sorry, Gage.” I squeezed my eyes shut. Gage’s family had lost their livelihood. I could only hope the store wasn’t their only source of income. “Was this her? Calista?”
“I think so.” His voice trembled with anger.
“Have you talked to the police?”
“We had to. They’ve been asking us questions all day. My dad is livid. He’s got a temper at the best of times but I’ve never seen him like this. And my brother…” He cleared his throat. “He had to tell them about Calista, but as soon as he was finished making his statement, he left. Just vanished. He hasn’t been answering my calls.” His voice went soft. “I know what he’s doing.”
“What’s he doing?”
“He wants to catch her before they do.”
“And do what?” But the gooseflesh was already rising on my body.
“I don’t know.” His words whooshed out on a breath. “But it won’t be good. It’s not good.”
“Do you have any idea where she is?”
“None. Wherever she is, she’ll be hiding where there aren’t a lot of people. She’s got to know the police are on to her now. Along with Ryan, my brother.”
“I’m so sorry, Gage. Please let me know if there is anything I can do.” I could lay it out there that I was prepared to help, but Gage didn't know that fire was in my wheelhouse. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that it might be my responsibility to do something. But what?
“Thanks, Saxony. I’ll look forward to hanging out with you when all this blows over,” he said.
“Yeah.” But if I got my way, I wouldn’t be in Saltford much longer. Gage was just another cute guy who would pass through my life like a summer breeze through an open window. “Your family—are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, we’ll pick up the pieces. Mom had a huge insurance policy on the store, because it was full of expensive stuff. She’s a scrapper. She’s already scoping for real estate and planning buying trips.”
I smiled. “That’s good. It’ll give her something to focus on. In the meantime, let the police do the
ir job. They’re bound to catch Calista.”
He chuckled but his words were bitter. “If my brother doesn’t catch her first and do something stupid.”
Chapter 13
The exhaustion of two international flights within three days caught up to me in the van on the way home. I fell asleep in the back seat within minutes of pulling out of the airport parking lot. Once we reached the house, it was all I could do to drag myself up to my room and collapse on my bed. But the downside of falling into bed before dinnertime was waking up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at four in the morning.
I opened my eyes in a dark room, on top of my covers and still wearing my clothes. I rolled off my bed, stood up, and stretched. My room was stuffy and hot. I went to open my window, tripping over my still unpacked suitcase. I cranked the metal handle on my window and the hinges creaked as it opened.
The smell of smoke came in on the breeze and I inhaled more deeply, growing alarmed. The sky was dark, there was no sign of flickering light anywhere, but there was definitely fire somewhere outside. I took another sniff. It didn't have the scent of burning leaves or bonfire; it had the more acrid and rank smell of burning garbage.
I grabbed my phone and stuffed it in my shirt pocket. I took an elastic from my bedside table and raked my hair up into a ponytail as I padded silently down the stairs. The house was quiet, everyone asleep. I went into the kitchen to look out the large picture window we had in our dining room. The back yard and beyond were also in darkness. I went to the foyer and jammed my feet in my sneakers, then went out onto the porch.
The night air was alternately sweet and humid, and then stinking of smoke as the wind shifted. I scanned the street as I went down our front walk to the sidewalk. There was still no sign of light or life anywhere—all the houses were dark. Where there is smoke, there's fire. So where's the fire?
I wandered down the sidewalk. There was no moon in the sky, and the only light came from the streetlamps along our street, illuminating circles of pavement, grass and parked cars. I passed the narrow alley that led to the park, and beyond that, a large patch of forest where the old MacLeitch farmhouse stood. That's when I finally caught the sight of flickering light. It was faint, and a smudge of smoke above it blocked out some of the stars. I chewed my lip, weighing my options. Finally, I began to jog down the alleyway. I passed through the park and into the bush.
