Fanning the Flames

by Chris Cannon

  “So, that wasn’t what I had planned for this evening.” Valmont propped his feet up on the coffee table. “How about you?”

  “Nope.” There was a voice of doubt tapping away at her subconscious. She scooted closer to Valmont and leaned into him when he put his arm around her shoulders. She swore she could still smell blood. Whether it was psychological, or if she had blood from Jaxon or the Rebels under her fingernails, she didn’t know. She’d washed her hands half a dozen times. “Logically, I know those hybrids probably wanted that book so they could sneak onto campus and convert us to their cause or kill us all, but it seems like there should have been a more peaceful solution.”

  “I’m not sure there was. And in a case of you-versus-them, I’m going to choose you every time. I believe that’s what Jaxon was doing. He was protecting Rhianna and George and you the only way he knew how. Not that I need his help protecting you, but it’s good to know he doesn’t hesitate in a fight.”

  “Is that where the old saying, ‘He who hesitates is lost.’ comes from?”

  “It definitely applies in this situation. If Jaxon had let one of those hybrids live and they’d been able to open the book and escape with it, then they could have taken over campus any time they wanted.”

  Logically, she knew that. Snuggling closer she laid her head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat. “I don’t understand why everyone can’t coexist peacefully.”

  “History is full of wars separated by stretches of peace. Hopefully, this war will end soon and lead to a time of peace. Until that happens, our best battle strategy is camping out on the couch this evening so neither of us has to be alone. Safety in numbers and all that.” He kissed her on the cheek.

  She turned her face so her lips lined up with his. “Who am I to argue with such a tried and true battle strategy?”

  “Smart girlfriend.” He pulled her closer and kissed her. Without breaking contact, he leaned backward taking her with him so they were lying down on the couch. For a moment, it felt like they were going to roll off onto the floor, but Valmont grabbed the arm of the couch and they didn’t fall.

  Bryn laughed. “Was that maneuver from the How to be a Smooth Boyfriend Manual? Cause I think it needs a little work.”

  “I guess we’ll just have to practice.”

  “If we must.” She threaded her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled him into a kiss. She had a stray thought that they’d be less likely to roll out of her bed, since it was wider. Valmont kissed her neck, heat thrummed between them, and all rational thought disappeared.

  …

  At breakfast the next morning, Bryn and Valmont joined Ivy and Clint at their usual table in the dining hall.

  “Is it true?” Clint asked before Bryn finished stirring sugar into her coffee.

  She pointed at her cup. “Did you forget the no-talking-before-caffeine rule?”

  “Then drink up,” Clint said, “because I have questions.”

  Bryn sucked down half a cup of coffee and waited for the caffeine to reach life-supporting levels. “Okay. My brain is now engaged. Ask.”

  Clint leaned in. “Rumor has it Jaxon killed two rebels last night.”

  What the hell? Bryn hadn’t shared that information with them when she’d called the night before because she didn’t want to publicize the gory details, but she wasn’t going to lie about it. “Unfortunately, that’s true. I can’t believe you heard about it already.”

  “That kind of information is hard to keep quiet. Jaxon probably told someone in his clan, and the information spread from there.”

  Ivy nodded toward where Jaxon sat. He wore a scowl worthy of his father as he ate his breakfast and ignored everyone around him. “I don’t think Jaxon is the one who shared.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Clint said.

  “I bet his father bragged about it,” Valmont said.

  That sounded like something Ferrin would do. “I hope they’re going to get him some counseling. It may have been the only option to keep us and everyone else safe, but that doesn’t mean it won’t mess with his head.”

  “And he’s already screwed up enough,” Valmont said.

  Not that Valmont was wrong, but the desire to defend Jaxon reared up inside of Bryn. She drowned it out by drinking the rest of her coffee.

  “There’s another ridiculous rumor going around,” Clint said.

  Ivy whacked him. “Don’t.”

  “But it’s funny.” Clint gave Bryn puppy-dog eyes.

  “I know I’m going to regret this,” Bryn said, “but go ahead and ask.”

  “Were you at any time in the back seat of a car with Jaxon and Rhianna?” He wiggled his eyebrows like she’d been involved in some weird tryst.

  “For the love of… Where do you hear these things?” Bryn felt her face color.

  Valmont set his coffee down. “The fact that you’re blushing disturbs me.”

  “I’m blushing because idiots talk about things when they don’t have all the facts. Jaxon was injured. I healed him. Rhianna held a light so I could see. End of story.”

  “And yet you’re still blushing,” Valmont tapped his fingers on the table.

  She leaned toward Valmont. “If Rhianna had driven and you’d been the one back there holding the flashlight so I could heal Jaxon and people made stupid comments about that situation, how would you feel?”

  Valmont flinched. “Point taken.”

  In Elemental science, Mr. Stanton rearranged the seating chart again. Bryn sat in a small group with Keegan, Ivy, and Garret.

  “Just so you know,” Ivy said. “I called Mary and released her. I didn’t want to be the reason she was hurt.”

  Keegan nodded. “I did the same.”

  Bryn glanced at Valmont. “There seems to be a trend. Should I conform to peer pressure?”

  “Nope.” He poked her in the ribs. “You’re stuck with me.”

  “Class, today, we are going to work on using your breath weapons to solve puzzles.” Mr. Stanton passed out several books with old cracked bindings.

  “Is it me, or does this look oddly familiar?” Valmont whispered.

  The books did resemble the book Jaxon and George had opened the night before using Blood Magic. “Since you’re the only knight in the room, I’m guessing I don’t need to bleed on these.”

  Keegan backed his chair up a bit and then grinned at Bryn. “Just giving myself a little room in case you make something explode.”

  Garret scooted his desk back a bit. “He’s not wrong. You do have a track record.”

  Bryn pointed at Ivy. “Want to give yourself room to duck and cover in case my life continues down its normal insane path?”

  Ivy squinted like she was giving the idea serious consideration. “I’m good. Being your friend means I’m exposed to more chaos than usual, so I probably have faster instincts.”

  Bryn rolled her eyes. “You should ask Mr. Stanton for extra credit when you have to work with me.” She opened the book they’d been assigned. Inside the cracked, faded red leather cover there was a title written in what appeared to be real ink. “It’s blurry, but I think it says, Maps of the Forest.”

  Garret scooted closer so his desk was next to Bryn’s. He flipped a few pages. “I’m not sure what we’re looking for.”

  “Maps?” Keegan said like he was being helpful.

  Garret snorted. “That part I understand, but maps of what? And don’t even think about saying the forest.”

  “How are our breath weapons supposed to help us with this?” Ivy asked.

  Garret turned another page, and then he pointed at something. “Look…there…and there.” He tapped several places on the pages as he turned them. “Some of them have symbols of the elements in random places. This one has the symbol for wind. Let’s see what happens.” He exhaled a small twister of air onto his palm and then directed it onto the page so it touched down on the wind symbol. That portion of the map shimmered, and some of the lines darkened and sh
ifted.

  “What does that mean?” Bryn asked.

  “I don’t know,” Garret said. “Use a pencil to trace the new lines while I maintain my twister.”

  She grabbed a pencil from her book bag and lightly shaded in the new lines. When Garret let his wind dissipate, they stared at the map.

  “Is that a hidden road or a tunnel?” Ivy asked.

  Keegan traced his finger along the original road. “It follows almost the same path as the first road, but it connects to a different road. Maybe it’s a shortcut.”

  “Why would someone want to hide a shortcut?” Ivy asked. “If a dragon was flying, he could travel whatever path he wanted.”

  “Maybe it’s a tunnel or something you can’t see from above,” Garret said.

  Mr. Stanton stopped by their group. Garret explained what they’d done so far.

  “I agree. It must be a tunnel or secret passage of some sort.” Mr. Stanton picked up the book and studied the map more closely. “This may be one piece of a puzzle. Check out the other pages and see what you can discover.”

  By the end of class they’d used all of their Elements except fire to discover secret drawings added to the maps. Most of them appeared to connect existing roads, which didn’t make a lot of sense.

  “Why would someone add secret passages to all of these maps?” Bryn flipped through the pages. “Why not create one map showing all the secret routes?”

  “Maybe we’re looking at it backward,” Valmont said. “Maybe the hidden parts are the original maps, and the other bits were added afterward to cover the information up.”

  Garret clapped Valmont on the shoulder. “That’s brilliant. It’s far more likely someone in the Directorate wanted information covered up rather than some Rebel going in afterward and adding new information.”

  “I won’t argue with the brilliant part,” Bryn said, “but why do you think one is more likely than the other?”

  “The Directorate likes to preserve as much of our history as possible. They may alter the facts, but they like to keep things intact. Rebels have to move quickly and act without detection. Adding all these bits and pieces of magic to a book would take multiple dragons, adept in magic, weeks to complete. Rebels would probably have one map of secret places because that would be far more efficient.”

  “Now what?” Keegan asked. “Can we do something to remove the Directorate spells so we can see the whole book how it was meant to be?”

  “We can’t,” Bryn said, “because that would probably break some sort of law, but Mr. Stanton could ask someone on the Directorate to do it.” Bryn raised her hand. When Mr. Stanton came to check on them, he listened to Garret explain their theory.

  “Well done. I believe your logic is sound. When you’re done, I’ll turn this book over to Miss Enid and see if she can attain the necessary permission to begin restoring the book to its original state or, at the very least, be allowed to copy the pages as they should be so we can compare the two.”

  “What made you decide we should look at these old books?” Keegan asked.

  Mt. Stanton frowned. “It has come to the Directorate’s attention that certain things have been concealed within the Institute. We are investigating anything from the era before the Directorate. We’re asking students to help because you can examine these items with fresh eyes. Most adults see things as they always have been, and it’s hard for us to look past what we expect to find.”

  “There’s something profound about that statement,” Ivy said.

  “One question,” Keegan said. “How am I supposed to apply fire to a flammable book without destroying it?”

  “Interesting question,” Mr. Stanton said. “Let me know when you’ve figured out the answer.” And then he walked over to another group.

  Something about this didn’t feel right. “They can’t be randomly picking books from a giant library for us to test,” Bryn said. “Which makes me think there is something they aren’t telling us.”

  “Maybe they’re picking books by certain authors or publishers,” Keegan said. “Or whatever they called the people who created these books way back when.”

  And then a lightbulb went off in Bryn’s head. “I bet these are books from the vaults of the library.”

  “That would make perfect sense.” Garret closed the book and turned it to look at the spine. “By the cracking of the leather, I’d bet this book is more than a hundred years old.”

  “Knowing where it comes from doesn’t help us decode it,” Keegan said. “Garret, turn to one of the pages with the symbol of fire. I want to try holding a fireball above the book.”

  “If it starts smoldering, extinguish your flame,” Garret said.

  “I don’t have to be a Green to figure that out.” Keegan produced a fireball in his hand and held it a foot above the page. Nothing happened. He lowered the fireball in small increments until it was four inches from the paper. Parts of the map shimmered and most of the roads disappeared.

  Bryn shaded in the remaining roads, and then Keegan extinguished his fireball.

  Valmont pulled the book toward him. “I know that road. It runs in front of my cabin.”

  “Maybe a field trip is in order,” Garret said.

  “A Directorate-sanctioned field trip?” Bryn asked. “Or a sneak-out-and-hope-we-don’t-get-caught field trip?”

  “I’ll speak to Mr. Stanton about it after class,” Garret said.

  Ivy opened her notebook. “And I’m going to make a copy of this map in case we need it.”

  After dinner, Clint and Ivy met Bryn and Valmont in her dorm room. They all sat at the library table in her living room and looked at the map Ivy had copied.

  Valmont pointed to the road that branched off the main throughway and twisted through the forest. “This road leads back to my cabin.”

  “What else is back there?” Clint asked.

  “Like I told Bryn before, there are cabins scattered throughout the forest. Long ago, the Directorate used them to house knights who protected those areas. This was pre-phone, so there are literally dozens of cabins or watch stations. In modern times, the Directorate allows citizens of Dragon’s Bluff to buy the cabins for a nominal fee, as long as the new residents promise to keep up the structures.”

  Ivy traced the road with her finger. “If this represents the modern-day road, then what is this?” She pointed to a line that connected Valmont’s cabin to another point in the woods.

  “Maybe it’s a foot path to another cabin,” Valmont said.

  “So you didn’t notice any secret tunnels or underground lairs when you were renovating?” Bryn asked.

  “I’m pretty sure I would have picked up on that.”

  “Who lived there before you?” Ivy asked.

  “The cabin was empty for years before I renovated it, because the previous resident didn’t update the air and heat. He relied on a fireplace for heat and opening the windows for air circulation.”

  “That so wouldn’t work for me,” Bryn said. “What kind of shape was it in when you started renovating?” Bryn asked. “Did you have to evict squirrels and fight through layers of dirt?”

  “No. The Directorate pays a housecleaning service to keep the cabins functional. I think they drop by once a month to clean and make sure no creatures have taken up residence.”

  “If that’s true,” Clint said, “then the cleaning service must have a map of where all these cabins are located. Maybe we could compare their map to the hidden roads in the books.”

  “It only makes sense that the cabins would be connected in some manner,” Bryn said. “Before there were phones, one guard would need to warn a guard farther down the road that trouble was coming.”

  “If that were true, then the Directorate would know the tunnels existed,” Ivy said.

  Valmont leaned back in his chair, like he was pondering something. “There was a root cellar behind the house. I didn’t touch it. Growing up in a family that owns a restaurant, I couldn’t see storing my food i
n what amounted to a hole in the ground.”

  “I bet that’s it.” Bryn stood and went to the phone. “I’m going to call Garret and see if he had time to talk to Mr. Stanton about all of this.”

  “Or,” Clint said, “Valmont could choose to go pick up a few items from his cabin. We, being the wonderful friends we are, could decide to accompany him so he wouldn’t be lonely.”

  “I am rather sensitive,” Valmont spoke in a mock-serious tone.

  Bryn frowned as she considered her options. “Honestly, before I saw two people bleed out at my feet I wouldn’t have hesitated to hop in Valmont’s car to go on an adventure, but now…”

  Clint sighed. “Fine. Be mature. Call Garret. Then maybe we can set up an officially sanctioned trip, but that does take some of the fun out of it.”

  Bryn made the call. Garret didn’t answer. “That’s weird. Maybe he’s studying in a friend’s room.” Who else could she call?

  “Try Mr. Stanton’s office,” Clint suggested.

  Bryn dialed and was relieved when Mr. Stanton picked up on the first ring. She explained their theory about the cabins being connected and about Valmont’s root cellar.

  “I’ll speak to Miss Enid. She’ll know how to find a map with the information we need. I’m sure the Directorate would be aware of any official tunnels between the cabins, but there could be some they don’t know about. Tomorrow before dinner, we’ll take a trip out to Valmont’s. Don’t tell anyone about this.”

  “Did I mention Clint and Ivy are here right now and they’ll want to come with us?”

  “I am not surprised,” Mr. Stanton said. “Fine. We should all fit in one of the Directorate’s SUVs.”

  The next morning in Elemental Science, Bryn could barely keep from questioning Mr. Stanton about the map of the cabins, and what he thought they might find. But he seemed content to stick to his lesson plans where he had the students grouped the same as the day before, combing through old books. The book her group had been assigned today didn’t have any markings that represented the Elements or anything else about it that signaled magic had ever been used to alter it.