by A. L. Knorr
“What kind of sample did he take?”
Basil rested his arms over his chest and put his fingertips on his chin thoughtfully. “A proprietary alloy. A simple bar of metal no larger than a bookmark.”
“What’s so special about this alloy?”
Basil smiled. “Let me explain it this way; it took temperatures of less than 400 Fahrenheit to melt that metal sheeting. It’s galvanized steel I had installed over thirty years ago. Our technology has improved many times over since then, which is why I say I need to replace it. It took over 1400 Fahrenheit to melt the glass. The alloy sample he stole requires upwards of eight thousand degrees to melt.”
I perched on the arm of the chair across from the desk. “So … now that he has a sample they can reverse engineer it?”
Basil lifted a shoulder. “Maybe.”
“And he’ll use it for…”
“Not he, they. He was just the mole they sent to steal it.” He sighed and rubbed a hand across his jaw. “Weapons manufacturing, I assume.”
Weapons with a melting point the majority of magi could never produce. I was beginning to understand the scope of what had happened. “This isn’t good.”
“No, but it’s not the end of the world either.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It was only a matter of time before they were able to come up with a similar alloy themselves, we’re only just ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to refractory binary compounds. Others came before. Zirconium carbide, niobium carbide, tantalum carbide. Hafnium carbide is just the most recent in a long line of predecessors. Anyone with a decent forge and the right engineers can produce it, which is why we aim to produce proprietary alloys which cannot so easily be copied.” Basil steepled his fingers.
“You don’t seem concerned.” I crossed my arms. “What are you leaving out?”
“You’re in a privileged position to be aware of this much, Ms. Cagney.”
“Exactly, you’ve trusted me this far. Why not the rest?”
Basil relaxed against the back of his chair and swung the seat back and forth on its pivot in a relaxed manner. The movement reminded me of a cat batting a ball of yarn back and forth between its paws, but even more because of the curious and a touch superior look on Basil’s face.
“Why do you think I’m not all that concerned, oh singular Burned student?” He swung back the other way, eyes glued to my face.
Frowning, I turned the situation over in my mind. “You’re not concerned because … the sample isn’t that valuable, after all.”
He gestured that I should continue.
“But its more than that,” I wondered. “You’re not concerned because…”
The corners of Basil’s mouth flicked up with a hopeful expectation and I felt a rush of eagerness to get it right.
I knotted my fingers together. “It’s just one of many attempts to get the alloy right, and you weren’t expecting it to be the final version?”
“You’re getting close.” Basil looked pleased. “Take it further.”
A spark lit up my brain. “The whole thing was a set up? You wanted him to get the sample?” I gaped at the headmaster with respectful awe. “Because it’s not the true alloy.”
“Very good, Ms. Cagney.”
“How did you do it?” By now my brain was full of fireworks and the pleasant sensation that came from being trusted. I’d been let in on an agency operation.
“One of our regular couriers was turned against us. It happens from time to time, which is why we monitor all our third-party connections closely. A breach in the agency isn’t a good thing, but it provides an opportunity as long as we catch it early enough. We let it slip to the courier that we were excited about a new alloy we’d developed. We also let him know that the Fire Fair was happening here for the first time ever. From there, he could easily root out that the delivery date of the sample coincided with the date of the fair. The fair provided their carefully selected thief with the perfect opportunity to blend in with our guests. All we had to do was leave the package somewhere he might expect to find it, allow it to be stolen with some level of fuss, and voila.”
“They think they’ve got the next generation in supernatural weapons material. Wow, so the whole thing, even the fair, it was all a ruse?”
“Of course. Do you think I’d allow our competitors an opportunity to move freely through my academy and witness examples of the skills we teach? Why do you think the emphasis was on cooking and baking to start with?”
I shook my head. “You had everyone fooled. I think a lot of students will be disappointed the fair will never happen.”
He lay a finger on the side of his nose. “A price I’m willing to pay. They’ll be in the thick of fire-magic soon enough.”
Another thought bloomed and I narrowed my eyes. “You never would have let me join the hunt if you hadn’t arranged for the whole thing to happen. By sending an unskilled mage after him, it would convince the intruder that we were really trying to stop him, but still allow him to get away in the end.”
He gave me an apologetic but impressed look. “Very good, Ms. Cagney.”
I exaggerated a pout. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“Take heart, Saxony. You were the perfect agent. If I’d let you in on the ruse beforehand, you might have pulled your punches a little too much, tempered your efforts a little too obviously. That might have alerted the thief to what was really going on.”
“So, if you or Tyson or Alfred had caught him, you’d have put him down. But because it was me … he got away.”
“Don’t be upset. You did very well. A year of training and …” he trailed off and gave a delicate shrug.
“What he could do, those colored flames that smelled of chemicals, the jumping through the window, you can teach me to do that, too?”
“And more. Temporal fire has obvious limits, supernatural fire—while not limitless--is much more governable.”
It was at that moment I realized that the skills taught at Arcturus were not like physics or geography. Every school, great or small, taught roughly the same syllabus so that kids the world over graduated with some approximation of understanding. But it didn’t work like that in a supernatural school, because where science could no longer explain things was where magic took over, and magic was more than just a set of learned skills, it was an art.
Further to this realization was that the academy was not just a school but one organization in a landscape of supernatural institutions, and not all of them were benevolent.
“I’d best go address the students,” said Basil, breaking through my thoughts as he got up from his chair. “I’ll give you ten minutes to change out of those wet clothes and meet me in the cafeteria.”
Eight
New Priorities
Headmaster Chaplin stood in front of the guests in the cafeteria. Tyson and Wanda had already left to assess the damage and make arrangements for repairs and to have updated metal security sheeting installed.
“The intruder has left the building,” Basil said. “All the security systems are being reset. There is some damage in the manor, which as we speak is being cordoned off and will be put to rights.”
Students sat squashed on couches and loveseats, perched on armrests and coffee tables. They listened with interest as Basil gave them a brief overview of what had happened, omitting my involvement, and that the whole thing had been set up by himself.
“I apologize that the Fire Fair will have to be cancelled.” Basil lifted a finger to Krispy who sat at one of the tables by a stack of wafer thin electronic tablets. Another volunteer sat at her elbow. They stood at Basil’s signal, picked up the tablets and began to hand them out.
“The course descriptions will be sufficient to make your selections.” Basil clasped his hands behind his back, looking pleased to the point of smug. He’d never intended for the students to witness any secret skills in the first place, so of course he had an almost-as-good altern
ative ready to go. Still, disappointed grumbles filled the room as the students took their tablets and lit up the screens.
Gage and I stood with our backs to the wall as Krispy came by with the tablets. She handed one to Gage but as I held my hand out for one she shook her head.
“Hang on a minute, yours is different.” Setting down the stack, she shuffled through them until she found one with a bright pink sticker in the corner. She selected that one and handed it to me.
“Why is hers different?” Gage asked.
“Does it look like I have time to explain?” Krispy stood with the stack of tablets and shifted her body weight to stop them from sliding onto the floor. She moved on to the next group of students.
“Touchy,” Gage murmured as he flipped the cover of his tablet opened and lit up the screen.
I folded the cover back on mine as well. Gage’s screen required him to input his details before taking him to the course selection menu. The tablet asked him to select five courses. Mine opened directly to the course selection menu, of which the instructions at the top directed me to ‘Select Two’.
Peering over my shoulder, Gage noted the difference. “Oh right, you still have your high-school classes to complete. That’s why your tablet is different.”
I nodded. I had agreed to this, it wasn’t a surprise. I knew that a trade-off for being the youngest mage ever allowed into Arcturus meant that I’d only have time for less than half the course load of the other students.
Scrolling through the courses revealed several detailed paragraphs for each one with a tick box beside the title. Upon ticking a box, a list of questions popped up requesting the student to rate themselves on a collection of skills relevant to the class.
My mind picked up speed as I wondered if the tablet would let me choose three. Might I be able to convince Basil to let me take on a larger course load overall? I was a higher level mage than the other students, so maybe …
Scrolling through the topics I realized it wasn’t going to be a difficult choice given what I’d just been through with the intruder. All the courses looked interesting except for Food & Fire and Living with the Fire. Honestly, I had zero interest in cooking and Living with the Fire was for Unburned magi. The Unburned had to manage daily pain and a rebellious fire which seemed at times like it wouldn’t care if it killed its host. I didn’t miss those days one bit.
I skimmed the list. Fire Science, History of the Mages, Living in a Supernatural Landscape, Supernatural Medicine, Pyrotechnology… but the courses which leapt out at me and grabbed me by the lapels were Combat and Fire Skills.
I’d thought I had fire-skills until I’d faced off with the person who’d broken into this place. He had taught me that being Burned didn’t mean I automatically had skills, it just meant I had more horsepower and that power could get me into trouble if not properly harnessed.
I checked Combat and went through the list of skills, rating myself lower than I would have twelve hours earlier, and the same with Fire Skills. The moment I finished the rating part the rest of the classes grayed out, becoming inaccessible. I closed my tablet and waited for the other students to finish.
Peeking over Gage’s shoulder made him slide a step away. He looked up with a blush. “I don’t want you to see the way I rate myself, no offense.”
“None taken.” I turned away from Gage’s tablet and surveyed the room. My gaze caught on Ryan where he sat beside Mr. Wendig at one of the lunch tables. Either he felt me looking at him or it was chance, but he raised his head and caught my eye.
He held my gaze for a long time and I didn’t look away either. I raised my brows in a challenge.
A smug smile slid across his face and his eyes flashed red, then orange.
I couldn’t prevent my own smug smile from stealing across my lips but I wasn’t going to play that game with Gage’s evil twin. The color of Ryan’s pupils revealed the level of heat he had stirred up inside, if orange was all he could manage then I wasn’t impressed. I expected Ryan to be a problem but I wasn’t concerned about his skills, I was concerned about his nature. Unless he’d grown up in the last week, I knew him to be an arrogant bully and bullies weren’t easy to steer clear of. I’d run up against my fair share of them at Saltford High. The difference being that none of those bullies could light a fire with a flick of their wrist.
Rather than showing Ryan any of my fire, I rolled my eyes and mimed a yawn, patting my mouth and looking bored. Redirecting my gaze to the headmaster, I caught Professor Winkler stepping inside the room to converse quietly with him. Basil stood with his head down, listening and nodding. He gave her a smile and touched her on the shoulder before she left the room again.
Gage flipped his tablet cover closed as several of the other students did as well.
“When you’re finished making your course selections, please deliver the tablets to Kris,” Basil said.
Gage and I crossed to the table where tablets were stacking up to deposit ours. We stood against a wall near the door as the other students trailed over and left theirs.
Gage touched the end of one of my curls. “Why is your hair damp?”
“A sprinkler went off.”
He leaned closer and pitched his voice low. “So, what really happened with the intruder?”
“What do you mean?” I tilted my face toward his. “It happened the way the headmaster said.”
“He didn’t say much. Why were you gone so long?”
“I was the one who knew what the intruder looked like, so when I went to tell Headmaster Chaplin, he had me help look for him.”
Gage shot Basil a covert frown. “That’s a risky thing to involve a student in, especially a first-year. Don’t you think?”
I shrugged and tried to look nonchalant though a butterfly had taken flight under my ribs. If he kept asking questions, sooner or later I was going to tell a lie. I liked Gage, I didn’t want to lie to him, but maybe that was inevitable. “There wasn’t really any danger.”
Gage’s brows went up a notch. “You don’t know that. He might have had a weapon. He might have cornered you on your own.”
“He stole something, all he wanted was a way out.”
“Yeah but what might have happened if you’d gotten between him and the exit?”
“But I didn’t.” I put a hand on Gage’s forearm. “I trust the headmaster and you should too.”
Gage put a hand over mine and smiled, but he didn’t look convinced.
As Ryan deposited his tablet on the pile, his gaze caught on me and then dropped to where Gage’s hand covered mine. He turned away but not before I caught the disdainful curl of his upper lip.
Pulling my hand back I murmured, “Your brother hates me.”
“Ryan?” Gage’s head came up and he found his brother and his dad. They sat talking quietly at their table while the last of the tablets were returned. “Why would he?”
“He never told you we ran into each other back in Saltford the night the old barn in Swallowtail burned down?”
Ryan’s ex-girlfriend had been caught lighting fires back home and I’d caught her in the act. Now that I’d met Ryan, I had little doubt that Calista’s pyromania had been brought on by Gage’s twin.
“Yeah, he did actually,” Gage said. “Ryan tells me everything.”
This caught me by surprise. “What did he say?”
“Nothing of consequence. He said he’d met another mage and that you’d be coming to Arcturus this year as well. That was it.”
“Huh.” So, Ryan hadn’t told his brother how he’d baited me, tried to bully me into showing him my mage-mark, or how when I grew tired of him (which hadn’t taken long) I had left him in the dust by detonating fire in my joints. I’d shown him up and he knew it. Bullies didn’t like to be humiliated.
“Hey, you’re making me wonder if my brother has a shot at you.” Gage bumped my shoulder with his in that playful way he had.
“A shot at me?” A sequence of little red lights began to light up
in my brain.
“You crushing on my lookalike?”
“Oh.” I laughed and the little red lights went out. “Trust me, that’s not remotely the case.”
Gage’s smile faltered and I regretted the vehemence with which I’d spoken. I was repelled by Ryan but Gage wouldn’t want to know that, all he wanted was to know was that I wasn’t attracted to his twin. If Ryan and I actively disliked one another, that would put Gage in the middle, and that wouldn’t be fun for him.
“I mean, you don’t have to worry about that,” I amended. “I’m not crushing on anyone in the academy just yet.”
Gage’s smile widened. “Oh no? No one?”
I shook my head. “No one.”
Gage leaned close enough that I could feel his breath on my neck. The little hairs there stood up and I suppressed a shiver. “Challenge accepted.”
I tilted my face close to Gage and we made eye contact. Our lips were mere inches from one another. A warm glow flickered in his pupils from deep inside him. My own fire flared pleasantly, flickering back as if in greeting.
“This concludes our day,” Headmaster Chaplin announced as he moved to stand in front of the group again. “I’m sure you have plenty of unpacking to do. Please avoid the cordoned off areas of the manor until we can finish the repairs. Dinner is at seven, the rest of the day is yours. Orientation starts at nine tomorrow followed by the placement class. I expect you all to show up bright-eyed and ready to learn.”
The headmaster slipped from the lounge as the students began to talk among themselves.
Gage put a hand on my elbow. “I’ll catch you later?”
My tummy dipped. “Aren’t you going to show me your room?” I gave a gasp of exaggerated horror. “Please, tell me you’re not sharing one with your brother?”
“Thank goodness no.” Gage pulled a face. “Ryan is a slob. There are more rooms than there are students so the ones who are sharing do it because they want to. But I have to help Dad and Ryan bring in our stuff. It’s still in the van we rented.”
