Into the Fire (The Mieshka Files, Book One) (15 page)

Her dad came out of his room, the door dragging as it opened. His head popped around the corner as she shuffled toward the living room.

“How was it?” Same shirt as yesterday. He hadn’t gone out.

By the benign tone of his voice, he hadn’t noticed anything wrong yet. Maybe she should thank the dim light. She’d cleaned up at the office, but she felt her chin bruising where she’d whacked it on that counter.

“It was interesting,” she said carefully. Where did he think she’d gone? What time was it, anyway? The sun had set long ago.

How much should she tell him? He was frowning, eyes focused on the air between them. They did that whenever he was thinking. She kept her face passive. She didn’t want to ruin this thin father-daughter relationship they had been improving on.

Which would be worse? Telling the truth and having him worry, or lying at the risk he’d discover it later?

“I have to do something tomorrow. With Aiden.”

“What is it?”

“Well, there’s a problem with the shield. Two crystals have gone missing, and I could help find them.”

“Crystals?”

“They power the shield.”

He was quiet. He was still looking at the air between them. Mieshka stepped over and dumped her backpack on the sofa. Her laundry was still on it.

“What happened to your hand?”

“I fell. Cut it on something. Hit my knee, too. And my wrist. Buck fixed it up. He’s one of the former soldiers Aiden has.”

“What did you cut it on?”

“A broken window.”

“A broken window?”

“And I hit my chin on a counter-top.”

His focus flicked to her face. “It looks swollen.”

Probably. She resisted the urge to touch it. This wasn’t going nearly as well as she’d hoped.

And now for the hard part.

“Aiden said I’d need to miss school tomorrow afternoon. I’ve already planned for it. I’ll get all my homework in morning block, and deal with it later. Aiden said he’d write a note.” Okay, she lied about the note. She decided not to mention any more about the crystal. Or that she might miss the rest of the week if it all went wrong.

She slowed at her dad’s stare. His hands gripped his arms; their tendons showed, stick-like, under his skin.

“A broken window, right?”

This really wasn’t going well.

She nodded. He semi-turned, as if to go back to his room, but he didn’t move from the spot. His shoulders shook a little.

“Not fighting, then?”

“Why would I be fighting?”

“You tell me, Mieshka. Grief can do a lot of things to a person. You’re angrier than before Mom died.”

He thought this was about Mom? She was speechless for a moment.

In the next, she made up for it.

“This isn’t about Mom. This is about my future. Am I angry? Right now, no. I have been angry. I have been angry about a lot of things. I was angry when we moved here. I was angry that Mom died. I was angry that people looked down on me, and I was angry that I was an outsider. I was even angry at my friend.” She took a breath. Dad stared, unflinching. The tension was still in his arms. “I was angry about a lot of things, but I am not now. Now, I am tired. I have stuff to do tomorrow. And I’m not fighting.”

Yet
, she said inwardly to herself. She wasn’t going to make any promises on the next Underground mob that hunted her. Especially not with a Phoenix inside her.

Her dad didn’t speak. After a while, he swallowed and reached under his glasses to rub his eye.

“I guess if you were, you wouldn’t be coming to me for permission to skip class.”

That was logical.

“I suppose not,” she said, wondering where this was going.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay?”

“Okay. You can skip class tomorrow. Don’t forget to get your homework. And don’t burn anything important.”

He moved back to his room. The door dragged across the carpet when he opened it, and dragged across when he closed it.

She stared at it. The light underneath moved for a minute, then settled into a steady pattern.

Okay
, she thought.

She found some leftovers in the fridge and retreated to her room. Looked at herself in front of the mirror. Yep, that bruise was starting to show.

A glint of light on her dresser caught her eye. She picked up her mother’s dog tag, feeling the beaded metal chain between her fingers. She waited for the room to get blurry.

It didn’t. No tears, no nothing.

She didn’t smile.

She ate dinner cross-legged on her bed. After, she half-heartedly picked through her math book.

When she climbed into bed, she fell asleep quickly. It had been a long time since she’d done that, and an even longer time since she’d done so on a dry pillow.

CHAPTER 10

Gravity seemed stronger here. Whether it was the residual earth magic of the place, a minor objection to it by his fire element, or all in his head, he wasn’t sure. It made all the hairs on his neck stand up.

They were trespassing. That’s what Aiden felt as he walked back into the Earth Mage’s home.

People normally used garbage to bury old cities. Lyarne had shortened a mountain. Aiden felt it press on him.

If Roger or Jo felt the same, they didn’t show it. They both fanned out, quietly going opposite ways. Aiden paused at the end of the first hallway, trying to pinpoint his unease.

The Earth Mage had converted the bottom two floors of an apartment building to suit his needs. It created a long, narrow, open-concept home that he’d filled with rich-looking paintings, gleaming mahogany woodwork—salvaged from older Underground houses, by their look—and book cases on half the walls. Behind one Maanai-backed, book-filled case was a secret door to the engine room.

Aiden couldn’t tell where the original apartments had been divided, except for one Michael had kept as a spare bedroom.

Aiden’s eyes lingered on the front door. Except for the odd delivery, Michael never had company, as far as Aiden knew. Aiden had asked about it once. And immediately regretted it.

“Loneliness is preferable,” the Earth Mage had said, a cultivated sneer in his accent. The man was older than Aiden, which apparently made him feel more entitled. Aiden’s question had been spawned out of worry. There had been a lot of deaths to get over. Grief can do things to people.

Apparently, it made the Earth Mage a lonely old prick.

Aiden pushed the thought from his mind, focusing on the task. He and Sophia had gone through his apartment just after his disappearance, but their search had been cursory. This time, Aiden had brought a toy.

He swiped the surface of the same magic detector that had located Mieshka, watching the orange light follow his thumb. A screen rolled up from the top edge, glowing translucently in the comfortable lighting of the Earth Mage’s home.

An Underground building was easily defensible for someone who could move earth. He had no doubts Michael had reinforced it, too. It was worrying that the man had apparently been defeated without a fight.

Sophia was right. Someone knew what they were doing.

Aiden supressed a shiver and moved into the study area. Two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves blocked it off from the rest of the open floor. A curtain covered the bricked-up window on the wall. A computer sat on a desk whose wood matched the mahogany accents around every door. Opposite it, a tan-coloured banister led the stairs to the second floor's overhanging hallway. It created a nook with a clouded-ivory coloured couch and a glass coffee table. Behind that was the bookcase to the engine room.

A cold cup of coffee rested on a coaster. It looked like the Earth Mage had just gone on a grocery-run.

“He has a son, doesn’t he?” Jo leaned her shoulder against a bookcase, the white, bandaged blob of her right hand drifting to where her holster normally sat.

“Yes. Somewhere. Poor kid.”

Kid might be an understatement. If Aiden recalled correctly, the boy had been seven when they had crossed over. Now, he’d be twenty-five. He pitied him. The Earth Mage was a hard person. From what he’d heard, the son kept far away. Aiden didn’t blame him.

He flicked a hand over the detector he held, watching the screen flick out of the top as if it had always been there. He sent a query out, redefining the parameters of its search.

“Man, I don’t think I could keep my place this clean. Do you think he was expecting company?”

“No.”

The detector beeped in his hand. He skimmed through the information. Frowned.

There was still magic in the air. An odd thing, since the Earth Mage had been gone for a week.

“Roger?”

“Yes?”

Roger leaned over the balcony like he’d never left. Jo looked up from where she had been browsing the bookcase.

“You didn’t use magic here, did you?”

“Haven’t used since yesterday.”

The magic was more recent than that. Aiden looked around again, as if maybe he could see it.

“Well someone has. Still is, actually.” And it remained stubbornly invisible.

Invisible.
An illusion? His blood stopped. Illusionists had been rare in his old world. They’d messed with the Light element. Who knew what facsimile the new world would create.

“Where is it?”

He moved the detector around, confirming his theory.

“Everywhere. Get down here.”

As Roger complied, Aiden pulled on his element. Fire-hot symbols ran down his arms.
Nue
,
Argath
,
Malbroch
. Old names, old words.

They’d do the trick.

The detector’s display flared as he gathered the spell. He handed it to Jo without a word. This required both hands.

The room dimmed around him. He concentrated, brushing metaphorical dust off the spells he’d learned in school. He closed his eyes, pouring more and more power into the spell. Those three names multiplied, attracted other old names to run through his skin.

He took a slow breath, and they flowed from him to the room, running down the walls, the floor, through the air itself. Like code from the Matrix. He smelled smoke in the air.

Jo shifted beside him. Roger was quiet.

Too bad they were used to magic. He missed the early days. Still, they should have been impressed. It wasn’t everyone who could pull down an illusion.

His arms shook. He felt as if he’d just stepped out of the sun. His head felt lighter. That pressure was gone.

As the symbols faded, he looked around. Took in the changes. There were quite a few of them.

Jo broke the silence.

“Well, I guess there
was
a fight.”

Robin sat alone in the crowded cafeteria, ignoring the shouts and laughter and the clacking of trays around her. The back of her chair poked her spine and her butt kept sliding over the chair’s worn-smooth seat. Light glared through the high windows to her back, not helping the sharp pulse of her headache. She poked through her macaroni with a fork. Part of it had congealed.

Her teeth gritted together.

Comfort was lacking today.

Two trays clacked down in front of her. She glanced up, took in Chris and Meese, and immediately forgot her discomfort.

“What the hell happened to you?”

Chris had a shiner around his left eye. Red veins crowded toward the iris. His lip was swollen and split, newly congealed blood coated the edge.

Meese looked slightly better. Her chin had a splotchy purple-green bruise, and her finger had a neat white bandage around it. Meese’s jaw tightened as she stiffly lowered herself down.

Robin looked between them.

“Did you get into a fight…with each other?”

They glanced at each other.

“No,” Chris said. He slumped over his food. Today he wore a black t-shirt with a band insignia. Meese had switched to a different hoodie. The orange hair was pulled back, though some had caught under the straps of her backpack.

Robin waited. Meese glanced at Chris again.

“We’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to tell. There’s some serious stuff.”

“Stuff we could both be expelled for,” Chris added around a mouthful of macaroni.

Robin held Meese’s stare. Despite the soreness, Meese didn’t seem as tired as usual. Her brown eyes were sharp and bright.

This story promised to be good.

“I promise,” Robin said.

Meese nodded, pierced some macaroni with her fork, and began.

She told Robin about an underground city where the refugees live. She told her about the Water and Earth Mage’s kidnapping. She told her about the crystals and the shields. She ended with the chase through the underground shopping mall.

Robin sat back, ignoring the discomfort of the chair. She realized her mouth was open.

What the hell was Meese on?
Lyarne was a boring city. Nothing happened in Lyarne. Nothing like this. Robin’s eyes dropped to the bandaged finger. That’s where Meese had cut her hand. And the bruise on her chin. The injuries all fit.

But it wasn’t possible. There was no secret underground city. And the shield was fine.

Robin didn’t believe it. Except the two of them seemed serious.

Chris half-listened. Like he’d heard this before. Was this some kind of joke?