Authors: Anthony Francis
“Jewel, you told me you were going to come clean,” I said. “Molokii’s life is on the line here. We need to know everything you know. You claim you can’t decipher these messages, but you’ve got a hell of a lot of context we don’t and you need to cough it up now.”
“You always were too smart for your own good,” she said, eyes fixed on me. “Yes, I know the point of those messages, and more you haven’t seen. He’s demanded that I yield, that I keep quiet, that I defend myself, that I defend my actions—and that I give up my crown.”
“That’s pretty damn specific. I thought the one on the Rogue was a ransom demand,” I said. I’d wrestled with it for the whole trip, trying every trick in Cinnamon’s books to find a handle, and now Jewel just coughs it up? “The one you
claimed
you couldn’t decipher—”
“Of course I couldn’t decipher it,” Jewel said. “It’s ancient ritual challenge magic, and I’m no historian. But I don’t need to decipher it . . . Daniel has been sending me texts.” She pulled out her phone. “The last one was just before we took off.”
I looked at Philip. “Could we track him with that?”
“No,” Philip said, with a quick shake of his head. “A disposable phone, untraceable—”
“How do you know?” Jewel said. “I haven’t even shown it to you yet—”
“He probably read it before you did,” I said, and Jewel hissed and turned away.
“The call was made from the airport in Los Angeles,” Philip said. “I doubt they moved Molokii on a commercial aircraft, but some of their people may have. That leaves us about twelve thousand suspects, but we’ve narrowed it down to about two hundred likely—”
“I hate this!” Jewel said, turning and stomping to the forward window. “A secret strike-fortress in the sky, full of black helicopters, led by a man who sifts through the people like they’re grains of wheat! Why did you show me this, Dakota?”
“Why are you still keeping secrets?” I asked. “I’m trying to save your best friend.”
“And there’s a living calculus to that,” Philip said, hands in his pockets. He didn’t look hurt by Jewel’s accusation—he just looked resigned, standing there in his expensive clothes. “I don’t recommend negotiating with terrorists . . . but is your title worth Molokii’s life?”
Jewel’s head lowered . . . then she looked back at me, fearfully.
“I can’t,” she said, voice so quiet we could barely hear her over the drone of the engines. “Daniel doesn’t care about titles, just what he can do with one. He wants to lead a very specific magical ritual, which will have a very terrible result.
We’ve seen hatchsign
, Dakota, and now the Order of the Woven Flame is split between those, like me, who want nature to take its course, and those who . . . well, want it to happen so badly . . .”
“That they’re willing to kill,” I said, “to get a supply of liquid fire.”
Jewel looked at me in shock. I don’t think she expected me to be that up front, but I’d never have gotten Philip to spring for this expedition if he hadn’t had an inkling of what was at stake—and neither Philip nor I had realized how key Jewel was to the whole affair.
“Oh, Jesus,” Philip said. “We’ve got a magical war over a dragon hatching.”
“Precisely what Devenger was afraid of,” I said. “This is such bad news—”
“You have no idea. Wizards nearing the ends of unnaturally extended lives don’t care about consequences,” Nyissa said, her voice ominous beneath her hood. “Trust me, I was one. I became a vampire because my side lost the
last
war for a supply of liquid fire—”
“When was this?” Philip said. “I haven’t heard about a recent magical war—”
“You’ve heard of it,” Nyissa said. “Before your time, but you’ve heard of it.”
“Almost everyone on Earth has heard of it,” Jewel said. “And everyone on the Indian or Pacific Oceans heard it when it happened. The wizards and the fireweavers battled over the last hatching, and it got . . . far . . . before someone a lot like Daniel finally got their way—”
“And failed,” Nyissa said. My Dragon shifted on my back, whispering dark things to me about wizards and their crimes . . . which Nyissa quickly confirmed when she said, “The spell went horribly wrong. It killed the hatchling . . . and thirty thousand people—”
“In an explosion felt round the world,” I guessed, and Nyissa and Jewel glanced at each other. That confirmed it, so I continued, “One that darkened the skies for an entire year. The war was fought in 1883—and ended when the entire island of Krakatoa was blown out of the water.”
Philip scowled, then turned back to the captain’s deck.
———
“Wonderful news,
magicians,
” he said. “We land on Maui in forty-five minutes.”
50. The Exposers Exposed
“OK,” Jewel said. “Philip may have a point—magic is dangerous.”
The
Georgetown’s
route had been dictated by the intersection of winds and tourism. The airship had slipped over a lush forest on east edge of Maui just out of sight of the town of Hana, then climbed the cloudy and increasingly cracked slopes of Haleakala volcano.
As we’d passed, I’d found myself transfixed, staring in fascination at the upper ridge of the crater—the tip of one of the largest mountains in the world, as measured from the seafloor—but from the
Georgetown,
we could not see the crater floor, as our route carefully avoided too close an approach to the observatory complex called Science City.
After much careful maneuvering, the enormous ship settled, completely undetected, in a secluded ridge valley that everyone assured me was “near the Kona highway.” There, on a half-hidden airstrip at the edge of forest and desert, the
Georgetown
had set down for eleven minutes, disgorging me, Jewel, Philip, and two of his agents into waiting black SUVs that spirited us away toward the DEI’s Maui compound. The waiting agents shoved us into the cars so fast that I bumped my head, and before my door was closed, the airship was lifting off.
Our driver had looked at me strangely, but I ignored him. I couldn’t stop thinking about the
Georgetown
. Where did they hide the thing? The captain claimed that Maui’s winds limited where it could land, so where was it going? A hangar near the cliffs . . . or over the water?
“Well,” Jewel said frostily, turning away from me in the back seat, staring out at a fading ocean sunset muted by the black glass of the SUV, “I guess me admitting my long-cherished beliefs were wrong wasn’t as much of a surprise as I thought it would be.”
“Which beliefs?” I asked, unwilling to risk a guess.
“I never really put two and two together before,” she said. “I knew that magic could be incredibly dangerous, but I’m used to hearing that from people like Daniel, who have their own agenda. And I knew non-magicians feared us, but I thought it was just prejudice.”
I grimaced. It wasn’t just prejudice—Nyissa made that clear. The enmity between wizards and vampires? They had been harvesting each other’s mystical blood, at least since Krakatoa. The fear normal people had of wizards? Whispered stories of Krakatoa, and disasters like it.
“I used to believe the same thing,” I said. “I
hated
all the secrecy in the magical world. I
chafed
at all the restrictions. Now . . . after all I’ve learned? I don’t know anymore.” I shook my head. “It’s all fun and games until someone blows up a mountain and blots out the sun.”
“It’s not that funny, is it?” she asked dryly.
“Not one bit,” I replied. I stared off into the distance. “I . . . saw a monster earlier this year,” I said. “Huge. Fists bigger than elephants. Veins like fire hoses. Head the size of a hill. Scary thing was, it wasn’t even the real monster. It was just a long-distance
projectia
—”
“Jesus,” Jewel said.
“It was an evil thing a sad and wounded wizard let in to avenge the death of his family,” I said. “I’m not one of those man-was-not-meant-to-know types, but they have a point. Liquid fire creates the same kind of fear. People will break the sky trying to live forever.”
“Are you suggesting we give it up to you?” Jewel asked, with an edge to her voice.
“Not at all,” I said. “I’ve got my own source—”
“Jesus, Dakota,” Jewel said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Do you want the spooks to know that? It’s bad enough you told them why the hatching is important—”
“Philip’s proved himself, and if we are at war, we need all the help I can get,” I said, though I lowered my voice too—not that I thought it would help; now that the war was on, all of this would come out. “Still, if this is a war over liquid fire . . . I think I could probably replicate it chemically. Other practitioners are learning to synthesize it in other ways. One of those approaches, ultimately, will succeed. Once there’s enough to go around—”
“You think scarcity is the problem?” Jewel said.
“Basically,” I said. “I’m not saying it’s the only problem. There’s something effed up with all the practitioners I’ve seen who’ve used liquid fire as a longevity treatment, but I have no doubt we’ll be able to make tattoo ink and firespinning fuel—”
“You’re missing the point,” Jewel snapped.
I didn’t say anything; I just looked at her and waited for her to let it out.
“Look . . . I
love
spinning magic fire,” Jewel said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to give up my supply, but . . . I see that preserving life is more important than spinning fire a little longer. And I don’t begrudge anyone who’s used liquid fire to lengthen their life.
“But those . . . those aged
things
aren’t the problem,” she said. “
Dragons
are the problem. Everyone knows what happened the last time one hatched, and you know why wizards fought over it. But liquid fire isn’t just a byproduct of a hatching. It’s the catalyst for one.”
My eyes bugged. “Liquid fire can
cause
a hatching?”
“Hatchsign is only the half of it,” she said. “It’s the sign of a newborn dragon’s spirit on the move. But this world long ago cooled past the point that would support a true dragon’s life cycle. There’s just not enough fire, or magic. Eons can go by before conditions are right—”
“Unless some
magician,
” I said, now feeling the flavor of the word the way Philip used it, “decides to trick the poor bastard into hatching. How does that even work? If the egg is ready to hatch, then it seems like it would hatch, or not—”
“I don’t think hatching begins with a conventional egg,” Jewel said. “I mean, there’s an egg. That’s where liquid fire is harvested from. Even if the dragon hatches successfully, the yolk tailings themselves are a form of liquid fire. But I think the spirit of the dragon
makes
the egg.”
We were pulling up a narrow, bumpy drive to a sprawling compound of linked cottages surrounded by a white stone fence. Fields of dark green shaded into the distance in the dying light, flaring with gold flowers like a frozen field of fireflies. Narrow plots of carnations hugged the road as we pulled into a circular turnaround in front of the compound. I stared up from the cluster of huts to the looming slopes beyond. Far above us, the tip of the dark triangle glowed with fire where the top of mount Haleakala was still touched by the last rays of the sun.
“Cinnamon read up on volcanoes for class,” I said. “She told me lava forms like rain. Droplets of molten rock, deep within the earth, turning liquid under heat, trickling upward under great pressure, collecting in huge lakes beneath the surface, waiting to explode. Maybe that’s where dragon’s eggs grow. Waiting for humans to fight over them.”
We got out. A Chinese-American man stepped out of the shadows and spoke to Philip. His eyes seemed to glint in the darkness, like he was a closet werekin, or touched by the fae. Then a new thought occurred to me . . . was he, perhaps, touched by liquid fire?The man turned toward us. “I am Mr. Iloa,” he said. “I—”
And then his neck practically popped as he turned to stare at me.
“What?” I asked. I wondered if he could see the new fire in my eyes.
“I,” Mr. Iloa said, regaining his calm, “am the owner of this compound. My family have been longtime friends of the Department . . . and the Department has been a longtime friend to us. We provide this space for those the Department needs to shelter. Please respect it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Iloa. We will,” I said—then pulled out my phone, which was off. “But I was told this is a DEI safe house. Does this mean it is safe, or not safe, to place a call? I don’t want to give away our location, but I have a twitchy weretiger daughter back home—”
“I understand,” Iloa said, a smile creeping onto his face. “I have a daughter too, though not so twitchy—but her children might give your child a run for your money. Please be discreet, but otherwise consider yourselves welcome guests in our home.”
Nyissa stepped forward, no longer hidden deep within her cloak, but walking openly now, hood thrown back, violet hair flashing over that porcelain skin. “Thank you,” she croaked. “I believe Special Agent Davidson called ahead. May we discuss the arrangements?”
“Please,” Iloa nodded, gesturing to the rest of us. “Enjoy my hospitality.”
Philip led us into the spacious foyer of the house. All the cottages were airy, open—and had not-so-obvious features, like a maze of bushes, well-spaced brick pillars, steel doors and grates, and even retractable steel shutters, that in minutes could turn this place into a fortress.
Or a prison.
“Are you Cinnamon’s mother,” Jewel said, as I texted furiously, “or her BFF?”
“A bit of both,” I said with a smile. “Oh, to have been friends with her in school.”
“Let me sync up with field command,” Phillip said. “Then let’s plan our next move.”
Philip disappeared into an inner secure room. Jewel and I set down our bags, Nyissa’s chauffeur set down hers. I stood, but Jewel sat on the edge of a chair, brooding. A federal agent built entirely of muscle stepped up to take our bags—then stopped, staring at me openly.
“What?” I said. I no longer thought it was the magic in my eyes. “
What?
”
“It’s . . .” the man began, eyeing me strangely. “You really don’t know?”
“Dakota,” Philip said grimly, motioning to me, “could you join me in the security room?”