by Hanna Peach
“What does it do?”
“Air magic,” said Balthazar. “You create gusts of wind, move and lift things with the air.”
“Could I lift myself?” He had always wanted to fly and the idea that he might be able to…
“Theoretically, yes.”
Israel opened his palms, directing them towards a small book on the bedside table. He thought magical thoughts and…
Nothing happened.
“How do I activate it?”
Vix raised an eyebrow. “You should just be able to use it.”
“I’ll try again,” Israel said, his blood filling with annoyance. He was able to remember how to fight; this should be easy.
“Maybe if you say ‘Abracadabra’,” Balthazar said, a sly smile on his face.
“Really?”
“No. But it would have been cute to see you try.”
Vix smacked Balthazar in the ribs. “Leave the boy alone. Go on, Israel.”
Israel glared at the book. He was going to make it move. He yanked at the magic inside him again and again, growing more frustrated by the second at Balthazar and Vix’s unhelpful commentary.
“Maybe the magic’s out of date.” Balthazar shot an accusing look at Vix.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Magic doesn’t have an expiry date.”
“Maybe it was a bad batch, then?”
“Try relaxing, Israel.”
“But don’t relax too much. You’ll drop it on your foot. God, I remember a time when I dropped a pulse of Gigantious magic on my little toe. Swelled up to the size of—”
“How is that story helpful, Balthazar?”
“I don’t see you being any more help.”
Try as he might, Israel just couldn’t grab the Air magic. The more he tried, the more it seemed to retreat farther out of his reach. “I can’t do it,” he let out in frustration, glaring at his palms.
“Sorry, Israel. It looks like our time is up. I can see right through Vix,” Balthazar said staring at her. Both of them were fading fast.
“Wait!” If only he could cling on to them and keep them here. “You can’t go yet.”
Vix gave Israel a soft smile as her image thinned out. “You’ll figure it out, Israel.”
“But what if I don’t?”
Vix opened her mouth again but she disappeared before he could even make out the first word.
Chapter 11
Alyx stumbled back and her sword went flying, skittering back against the marble.
Symon shook his head and snarled. “Come on, Alyx. I trained you better than this.” His voice was rough, his piercing blue eyes didn’t blink as they watched her like a hawk watching his prey squirming against his claws.
Her breath came out heavy from exertion and slick beads of sweat clung to her whole body. Symon’s breath had barely quickened and his demeanor was an icy calm.
She glanced over to her fallen sword and tried to calculate the distance between Symon and the blade. Would she make it in time? She had no chance of reaching it first. Symon moved like a panther and he’d be slicing down on her before she could pick it up.
But she had to try.
She ran for her blade. She stumbled but kept going, her focus on her sword. To her surprise, he didn’t move. He just stood there with his sword at the ready. She grabbed it and faced him again, her palms sweaty.
Why hadn’t he killed her while he had the chance?
Because he wasn’t afraid of her. He wasn’t even concerned that he might not win. He was toying with her.
Symon raised an eyebrow. “Got your head in the game yet?”
Without waiting for an answer he attacked. Alyx stumbled back, barely avoiding a blade tip to the face.
Symon made no sound as he moved across the marble floor, his sword poised like a python. “Don’t you remember anything I taught you?”
She lashed out wildly with her sword. Symon ducked effortlessly. “I don’t know what you want me to remember.”
Another failed attack sent her skidding across the museum floor and crashing into a pedestal, sending an antique Greek vase tumbling over the other side. She flinched as it smashed across the floor.
“Stop thinking too much,” Symon said, his voice like frost. “I can hear you over-analyzing everything from here.”
That was easier said than done. She rolled aside and onto her feet to face him again. He flicked his sword out and the flat side tapped her on her side. He did it again in the same spot.
“Stop it!”
He slapped her again and again with the flat of his sword, her ribs, her thighs, her arms, but never drawing blood. It was deliberate. He was just trying to show her how easy it was to get past her defenses. And how many times over she’d be dead if this were a real fight.
Why wasn’t it a real fight?
She let out another roar of frustration. “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with.”
Symon frowned. “Why would I kill you?”
“You died because of me, isn’t that right? Aren’t you here for revenge? Go on, have it. Just get it over with.”
He began to laugh. “I died for you. And I’d do it again, Alyx. I’m here to help you remember.”
“How? How do I remember?”
“Just let go.”
Those three little words were so familiar. They filled her with a calming warmth. She let out a breath. Just let go. She relaxed her grip on her sword.
Just
let
go.
Alyx felt her breath steady, she felt the balance returning to her feet, the tension dropping from her shoulders.
Symon launched at her. She reacted without thinking, her blade clanged as she blocked his weapon. For a split second she stared at her sword as if it’d grown a mind of its own. She’d blocked him. She’d actually blocked him.
Symon attacked again, his sword moving faster. But so did hers. She blocked him again.
Her focus sharpened. She saw his chest shift as he breathed, she saw the tension in his thigh muscles right before he moved and the twitch of his shoulder right before he attacked, and yet out of the corner of her eye she was taking in the layout of the museum around them. She had no thoughts, no emotion, she just was. The museum echoed with the clanging of their swords as they fought across the room, avoiding pedestals and statues, moving faster and faster with each block and attack.
Their swords met in close quarters and they pressed against each other. This close to him she could see his forehead beginning to bead with sweat. She kicked him back to give herself some breathing room.
“Finally,” he said. She swore she saw the ghost of a smile on his face.
He moved to attack. She blocked his sword and at the same time she leaped up into the air, twisting her body, kicking off the edge of a large marble statue and over his head. Her sword pierced his back like a snake’s tongue.
She heard him suck in a gasp. Mid-air she realized what she had done.
As soon as her boots touched the ground she was running towards him, her sword forgotten, clattering to the floor.
“Symon!” She caught him in her arms before he dropped. She lowered his head into her lap. Blood was leaking out from the wound in his back, staining her fingers and the floor. “Oh God, what have I done?”
“You were perfect, Alyx,” he whispered, a soft smile stretching across his face before he went still.
His body cracked like dry earth and broke apart. The pieces of him crumbled and collapsed until all that was left was dust.
From dust to dust.
Then even the dust coating her hands and her lap disappeared into small puffs of smoke that drifted off into nothing. Not a single drop of his blood was left, like he hadn’t even been there at all.
It was all just a test.
Symon had appeared to be a villain to her but really he was her greatest friend, her teacher, her mentor. He was fighting her because that’s what she needed to grow. She needed adversity so she could remember who
she was.
She leaped to her feet in one swift move and walked over to her sword, her boots barely making a sound now against the marble. Using her toe she flicked her weapon up into the air and caught the handle in her hand.
Would you look at that?
Pride filled her body with a lightness that she hadn’t remembered feeling since…since she was a girl. She’d once believed that she could do anything if she put her mind to it. When had she stopped believing?
At the exit, Alyx took one last look over her shoulder at the museum. It hadn’t been the right place but in some ways it had been. “Thanks, Symon,” she whispered. “I won’t forget what you’ve done for me.”
She swung open the front door, squinting into the light outside before she stepped out. And collided with something solid. Something grabbed her by her upper arms and held her.
“Alyx?”
She knew that voice. She pulled back to stare at Israel’s face and her heart thumped away in her chest so hard that she could swear he must be able to hear it. She’d never been so happy to see anyone.
“Hi,” she said, not being able to come up with anything else.
“Hi.”
She studied him. He was so lovely to look at: wide, thick lips, a strong jaw, and those deep-set hazel eyes, an explosion of chocolate and amber and caramel, flecked with moss and silver. She’d never noticed that lovely freckle on the top of the left side of his lip. Funny, she kept thinking that there should be a scar there instead.
“Alyx?”
Dear God. How long had she just stood here staring at him? She pulled herself back and cleared her throat. “Where did you disappear off to?”
“You’re the one who disappeared. By the time I entered the castle you were already gone.”
“Castle?” She frowned. “It was a museum inside.”
Israel shook his head. “It was a castle.” He snapped his fingers. “The museum in the mirror. That was where you had gone.”
“What?”
He explained the mirror that he saw in one of the castle rooms. “This building,” he turned back to look at the museum/castle, “it must have taken us both to two different parts of it.”
“That’s impossible.”
“This place doesn’t follow the rules of real life, remember?” He explained what had happened with Vix and Balthazar and showed her the AirWhisperer tattoo on his muscular, tanned bicep. She couldn’t help herself, she brushed his tattoo with her fingers. His skin was warm and smooth. She noticed him watching her with a strange look on his face.
She looked away. “So…Air, right?”
He shrugged his jacket back on. “Yeah, Air. But I couldn’t get it to work.”
“What do you mean?”
“I couldn’t even get a tiny book to move.”
“You’ll get it. You just need a reason to remember.” Alyx explained her fight with Symon and how she’d finally been able to remember.
Israel’s face broke out into a grin. “I knew you’d get it. After all that, did you get the globe?”
She shook her head. “We’re at the wrong place again.” Past Israel’s shoulder she spotted a leaf, edges turning yellow, on a tree in the museum garden. Time was marching on. “It’s almost autumn. We’re running out of time. We’ve got to figure out this riddle. We’re missing something.”
She pulled out the scroll and read over the cursive scrawl, trying to ignore Israel’s breath on her cheek as he stood close to her, too close to her, and read over her shoulder.
In a place of memories old,
Of distant lands and lessons told.
With stiff spines and arms fold’d,
That can be borrow’d but nev’r sold.
There ’neath the spiral stars of gold.
Lies a world within a globe.
“You know,” Israel began, “maybe we’re looking at this all wrong. What if the spines aren’t literally spines? What if they’re talking about something other than bones?”
“So like the spines on a plant, or…the spine of a book?”
Israel’s eyes widened. “Books! Books have spines and the front and back cover are like folded arms. And ‘in a place of memories old, of distant lands and lessons told’, I’m guessing we’re looking for really old books, some fiction, some nonfiction. So, a bookshop? But which one?”
The final piece clicked in. “Oh my God, the bit we’ve been missing… That can be borrow’d but nev’r sold… It’s not a bookshop. It’s a library.”
“Saint Joseph’s Public Library,” they both said together.
Israel grabbed her arm. “Come on.”
* * *
Saint Joseph’s Public Library was housed in a large stern and imposing cluster of buildings that stretched across the whole city block. Solemn white walls rose up all three stories, broken only by tall, arched windows, and capped with a steep red-tile roof. Three towers rose up out of the monolith reaching the height of almost another three stories, each domed with ornate copper spires now lime green with age, and crowned with a glimmering gold cross. The tallest one loomed over the entrance, housing a disused bell tower and a large brass clock face.
“This used to be an old monastery,” Alyx said as they walked towards the silent entry, a large door fit for a giant with a small working door in the center. She shuddered as they passed under the great stone overhang, bursting with flowers and guarded by two fierce crouching lions about to pounce.
“What’s wrong?” Israel asked. He must have noticed her shiver. He seemed to notice everything with her.
“Can I just say, I’ll be happy if I never have to walk under another gargoyle again.”
Inside, the library stretched out in a main hall soaring all three levels with wings branching out to the sides. You could tell this had been a monastery. All the stoic white pillars were carved with recognizable holy figures and the ceiling was covered in painted biblical scenes. The heavy wooden bookcases were their own pieces of art, carved like thrones and inlaid with gold, housing thousands and thousands of ancient volumes. “With stiff spines and arms fold’d…” Alyx whispered as she traced the cracked and worn leather spines of the closest bookcase to her.
On the right the grand staircase circled up to the heavens and protruded out into the open space like a giant nautilus shell. She inhaled softly, letting the scent of old leather and paper fill her lungs.
“This place is huge.” Israel chewed on his lip and a crease appeared between his thick dark brows. Alyx found herself staring at his mouth. His top lip was a defined cupid’s bow, and when he released his teeth from his bottom lip, it sprung back out like a pillow, revealing a natural slight pout. What would they taste like?
“Alyx?”
She blinked and realized Israel was staring at her. “Huh, what?”
Israel smirked at her like he knew what she had been thinking, and she fought a flush. “I asked you what you thought. Where should we start looking for the globe?”
“There ’neath the spiral stars of gold, lies a world within a globe… The spiral stars of gold sound like they could be a constellation.” She frowned and stared up at the ceiling. All the ceilings here were painted, but did any of them have constellations in them? With globes underneath it?
Then it struck her. She remembered where she’d seen a large globe of the world here. Several, actually. “The Theological Hall,” she cried out.
“The what?”
“Follow me.”
Alyx led Israel down one of the wings. Her heart was hammering like mad and her stomach was bubbling. They’d found it. They’d finally found it. She stopped at a wooden door and tested the handle. It was unlocked. She shot Israel a grin. She could remember the first time she had stepped foot inside this room. It had filled her with wonder then and it never ceased to since. She pulled Israel inside.
“Welcome to the Theological Hall.”
“Wow, this is some room,” Israel said from her side.
It was indeed. The ceili
ng was vaulted as if they were in a tomb, the arches and corners of the ceiling were engraved with vines and flowers creating decorative frames around circles and ovals of painted sections. All four walls were lined with heavy gothic bookcases in dark wood. But most important were the aged browned and brass globes sitting proudly in their stands across the black and cream tiled floor.
“The Theological Hall houses a collection of globes,” Alyx said as they walked through the hall. “And over 18,000 original theological books.”
“Some of these globes look strange,” he said. He stopped at a large one that was mainly made up of circles. “Like this one. It doesn’t even have the world on it.”
“That’s a celestial globe. It represents stars and constellations, and it’s used to make some astrological or astronomical calculations.”
“Well this looks like the right place.” He brushed the globe with his fingertip, making part of it turn.
Alyx stared up at the ceiling as she walked about. “We should find a golden constellation above the correct globe. You take that half of the room and I’ll take this half.”
Starting at each end, Alyx and Israel scanned the ceiling until they met in the middle. There were angels and clouds and birds and moons painted across the ceiling. There were even single silver stars but none grouped in constellations and no golden stars.
“I can’t see it,” Israel said.
“But this has to be the right place. It fits the riddle perfectly.” Her shoulders drooped with disappointment. “Maybe this isn’t the right room? Maybe it’s on another ceiling?”
Alyx and Israel spilt up so they could search all three levels of the library in half the time. They agreed to meet up on the third floor by the staircase. Usually Alyx would have taken her time going through this library, marvelling at each new thing she noticed engraved or painted on the walls or ceilings. But she wasn’t here for fun. Her nerves strung tighter and tighter as she slowly ran out of rooms and halls to search.
By the time she met up with Israel at the top of the staircase, her neck was aching from looking up for so long.
“Did you find it?” Alyx asked, rubbing her neck with her hand.
