Fire Games: A Young Adult Fantasy (Arcturus Academy Book 3)

by A. L. Knorr

  Tagan and Felix gave a round of hugs and got into the vehicle but Brooke lingered, eyeing the fire-gym’s exterior as she pulled her hood over her hair. Small drops of rain spattered against her jacket.

  “I wish I were a fly on the wall in there,” she murmured.

  Babs and Basil had joined the game-makers in the observation pods to view the footage from the first challenge, which was being guarded more closely than state secrets.

  “Do you know,” Brooke was saying to Harriet and me, “I overheard the Firethorne students talking about her?”

  There was no point in asking which ‘her’ Brooke was referring to. Eira Nygaard had become the star of the show, though none of us knew how she’d done it.

  Brooke drew her eyes from the gym to look at us. “They call her ‘The Doll’.”

  Harriet shook her head and scoffed. “What a silly nickname. Just because she looks like one? No matter what a woman can do, if she’s beautiful, that’s what she’s known for, not her abilities. She deserves a nom-de-plume based on her skills, not her face.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tagan called from inside the car. “You can carry on with that feminist bullshit another time. I’ve got a train to catch.”

  Cecily and I exchanged a look. Tagan had been unpleasant since he’d been knocked out of the games. I liked him most of the time, but truthfully, I was glad he was leaving. His overly competitive attitude sometimes had me on edge. Tomio had elected to stay and support us until the games were over. That was a relief but I was still gutted that he was out.

  Brooke threw her arms around my neck, squeezing hard. Her cucumber shampoo wafted into my nose. When she pulled back she kept a hand on my shoulder, her gaze flicking from me to Cecily, then to Harriet and Peter, the remaining Arcturus competitors. “Good luck, everyone. Make Basil proud.”

  Peter hugged Brooke, waved to Felix and Tagan one last time and then disappeared into the villa. Harriet and Cecily hugged Brooke in a squishy threesome, then followed Peter into the villa as Harriet told Cecily she was dying for a coffee. Tomio and I waited for Brooke to get into the taxi.

  Before she shut the door, her dark doe-eyes caught mine. “When you find out what Eira did to get through the course so fast, will you text me? I won’t sleep properly until I know.”

  I told her I would, shut the cab’s door and stepped back, accidentally stepping on Tomio’s foot.

  “Sorry,” I murmured as we waved goodbye.

  He appeared not to notice, his gaze fixed on the car as it made its way up the steep drive. “I still think she cheated.”

  I took him by the elbow and turned him toward the arch. A wispy, blue-gray sky was gathering thunderheads and growing darker by the second. “Come on, a storm is coming. Look at those clouds.”

  He followed me toward the fire-gym doors, our feet crunching on the gravel. We passed through into the fire-gym’s lobby and headed for the stairs leading up to the arch. A sign taped to the double doors leading into the gym proclaimed it off limits in big bold letters.

  Halfway through the archway, we paused to watch the storm clouds gather over the Channel. We stood there for so long that my hips and back began to ache. I was still a little sore from the course. When I sank onto the carpeted floor into a cross-legged position, Tomio joined me.

  Heavy raindrops spattered the glass, blurring our view of the sky and making the ivy shudder. Being in the arch during rainstorm made my stomach give a wistful twist for Gage. Thinking of Gage made me think about the last overheated make out session we’d had, which made me feel sad.

  “What’s wrong?” Tomio’s eyes were on my face.

  I leaned back, rested on the palms of my hands. I wouldn’t have minded talking about my problem with Gage with someone, but not Tomio.

  “Nothing,” I replied, letting my thoughts go back to Eira. “I don’t think she cheated.”

  His black brows arched. “No?”

  I shook my head. “How could she? Every move we make in there is recorded. Plus Guzelköy and Davazlar are supposedly incorruptible. If Basil trusts them, then I trust them. They’re legally bound to run the games fairly and they are impartial about who wins. Mr. Pendleton, the lawyer, even had them polygraphed to make sure they didn’t have any conflicts of interest.”

  “So I heard.” Tomio leaned back on his hands and mimicked my posture. “I guess we can see how she did it for ourselves, after the games are over.”

  Yeah, I thought sourly. After we’d lost Basil’s property to someone known as The Doll.

  Tomio said, “Don’t let her intimidate you.”

  I snorted, wondering how anyone, Burned or not, wouldn’t be intimidated by Eira’s exceptional time.

  The sound of the fire-gym’s doors slamming open echoed up the stairs, making both Tomio and me jump.

  “This is an outrage!” It was Basil’s voice. I’d never heard him sound so angry.

  Tomio and I shared a wide-eyed look and Tomio lifted a finger to his lips.

  “Calm down, Basil.” That was Babs. Her voice was pitched at a normal level. She sounded cool and confident, a little smug. “No one has broken any rules.”

  “That’s complete and utter hogwash,” Basil sputtered, then barked at someone else. “Tell her.”

  “I’m afraid she’s right, Mr. Chaplin,” Guzelköy replied, but he sounded sorry about the fact that Babs was right. “We set the rules together and we all agreed to abide by them. They’re legally binding, and none of them have been broken.”

  Basil wheezed. “How can you—”

  There was a break of silence during which no one said anything.

  “How can you side with her? You know what she’s done is devilry. The girl is some kind of hybrid.”

  Babs sighed, sounding both petulant and pleased. “How many times do I have to say it? Eira is a fire mage.”

  There was the sound of paper ruffling before Guzelköy, sounding perfectly calm and rational, stated: “Even if she is half something else, the rules don’t explicitly state the competitors have to be fire mages.”

  “What?” Basil’s voice came out under so much pressure I cringed for his vocal chords.

  “It says right here. All competitors must be either graduates of the past school year or registered students at either Arcturus Academy or Firethorne Collegiate to be eligible to compete.”

  There was the sound of paper being snatched, then everything went quiet. Rain splattered against the arch above Tomio and me as we sat there, holding our breath. I felt sick for Basil, sick and confused. A hybrid?

  “This is impossible.” Basil sounded hollow now, defeated. “It’s implicit. These games were entered with the understanding our schools teach exclusively fire mages. It wasn’t necessary to explicitly state that the competitors have to be fire elementals. Guzelköy, back me up! Surely, you can see—”

  “She is a fire mage, Basil,” Babs repeated, still with that infuriating patronizing tone.

  “She may be, yes, at least half of her,” Basil spat, his voice rising. “Where did you dig her up and what did you pay her? I want to see her registration papers and all of her history. Medical records—”

  As Basil continued to kick up a fuss, his voice receded. The lobby doors slammed open and storming footsteps crunched over the gravel beneath the archway.

  Tomio and I rolled onto our stomachs and army-crawled across the floor of the arch to press our noses to the glass. I caught a glimpse of Basil’s jacket through the ivy as he disappeared around the front of the villa. Babs and Guzelköy walked after him, Guzelköy clutching a bunch of damp papers.

  “It doesn’t matter, Headmaster,” Guzelköy’s distant voice drifted through the sound of pouring rain. “She is a registered Firethorne student. She is eligible to compete. I am as upset as you are, but Ms. Chaplin is correct. No rules were broken.”

  “Rules you helped make,” Babs added helpfully as she too vanished around the corner.

  Their voices faded away to nothing, leaving Tomio and
me sprawled on the carpet on our stomachs, absorbing what we’d overheard.

  Tomio rolled onto his back and I flopped over beside him. We stared at the ceiling of the ivy-draped arch, watching as water poured down the glass and raindrops shook the vines. After several minutes had passed, Tomio looked over at me.

  His dark eyes gleamed with indignation. “He thinks she’s some kind of hybrid.”

  I nodded, my mind spinning like a top. Maybe that was how she’d gotten through the course so quickly, she had additional supernatural skills. It could explain it, though if Basil had some idea of what Eira’s other half might be, he hadn’t stated it. To me that indicated that he wasn’t sure, that whatever it was he’d seen Eira do, it wasn’t starkly obvious.

  “Sounds like it doesn’t matter, even if she is,” I said, rubbing at my eyes. I suddenly felt very tired. More than tired, world-weary. It was apparent that Babs had pulled one over on Basil, used a gray area to her advantage, created a loophole for herself. And maybe Basil had been sloppy, but you wouldn’t think it necessary to explicitly state that all the contenders had to be pure fire mages, just being students would mean they had to be.

  “Bullshit it doesn’t matter,” Tomio hissed. “I trust that woman like I’d trust a rabid dog. Something stinks.”

  I agreed. “What can we do about it?”

  Tomio chewed his cheek thoughtfully before his gaze narrowed on me. “You aren’t going to do anything other than focus on the next challenge. I’m going to do a little reconnaissance.”

  He got to his feet and reached down to help me up. My back twanged like a stringed instrument. I was moving at half my usual speed, without any desire to move faster.

  “Come on. Let’s get lunch then go to the CTH for a workout,” Tomio said, already at the other end of the walkway.

  I put a hand on my backside for a little stretch. Something popped unpleasantly in my tailbone.

  Tomio brightened at the thought of putting me through my paces. “We need you sharp and firing on all pistons. You need to lean into this business.”

  I groaned but followed, grumbling under my breath that I didn’t want to lean into anything, I wanted to lie down on my bed.

  Five days later I still felt like a stringed instrument, but a finely tuned one. While the game-makers worked on the next challenge, Tomio had put me through daily paces. Each team was given access to the CTH for five hours every day to train, but with an hour between the training times. It seemed like a lot of effort was being made to keep the teams from running into one another. We saw the Firethorne team in the cafeteria during meals, but even there, they were given a table on the opposite side of the room to ours. And we had to alternate which group got served first.

  “Who do you think is behind the strict rules to keep us apart?” Harriet murmured one lunch hour over a ham and pea soup that was straight out delicious. Either Lars’ cooking had improved, or we’d become accustomed to it. Maybe a bit of both.

  “Babs, obviously,” Tomio said, tearing his bun in two and dipping into his bowl. “Do you think Christy or Basil would care so much?”

  “I don’t know, maybe it’s the game-makers,” Peter suggested, his cheek bulging. He looked into his bowl. “This stuff is growing on me.”

  Cecily put her spoon down. “It could just as easily be Basil. He warned us against making friends. Or it could even be the lawyer. What did you say his name was, Saxony?”

  “Mr. Pendleton,” I said, blowing on a steaming spoonful more from habit than from any desire to cool my food. It wasn’t like hot soup could burn me. “But it’s not him. He didn’t make the rules, he just facilitated the meeting and drew up the contracts. I don’t think he cares about the details as much as everyone following the rules. I think Tomio is right.”

  He nodded. “It has to be Babs. She doesn’t want us to mingle with her students.” Tomio leaned into the table, eyeballing our faces one by one, his tone full of implied meaning. “She’s afraid of what we’ll discover.”

  “We all know what you’re trying to discover,” Peter’s brows waggled lewdly. “Got rejected again, didn’t you lover boy?”

  The whole team knew by now that Tomio had taken it upon himself to dig for intel on Eira, since Basil and Christy wouldn’t tell us anything. They were bound by the agreements they’d signed. The whole team also knew that Tomio had gotten exactly nowhere.

  “My interests are purely professional. I promise. She’ll crack. Just you wait. No one can resist these charms.” Tomio gestured to his flat abs and rounded pectorals.

  The table laughed.

  I looked over at the Firethorne foursome, stooped over their food and talking quietly. Eira was on the end, not appearing to engage in conversation with her teammates. She sipped small spoonsful of soup and took small bites of buttered bread, chewing slowly and thoroughly before swallowing. I took advantage of her lack of awareness to study her profile. The button-nose, generous lips, rounded cheekbones and gently sloping jaw. Her hair reflected the cafeteria’s lights, gleaming like it was sprayed with lacquer. She really was fun to look at.

  She paused mid-chew, then turned her head, as though she’d felt my inspection. The blue of her irises was vivid enough to make out even across the big cafeteria.

  I gave her a small but genuine smile.

  She dropped her gaze into her soup.

  Mr. Bunting appeared in the cafeteria door. He headed toward the kitchen but didn’t get a tray. Instead he pulled a chair over to where the hardwood met the linoleum and, wheezing, got up to stand on top of it.

  “Attention, please,” he said, hiking up his pants and puffing from lifting his bulk onto the chair.

  Everyone stopped talking.

  “Tomorrow morning, be in Lecture Hall A for eight a.m. The game-makers will address you about the next challenge before breakfast. That will be all.”

  When no one looked away, Mr. Bunting made a ‘go on’ motion with his hand. A moment passed and he flushed red when he realized that we were more interested in watching him get down from the chair than we were in returning to our soup.

  He put a hand on the chair’s back and lowered a foot toward the floor, teetering a little before finding the floor. Puffing, he dragged the chair back to its place and scurried out of the cafeteria mumbling under his breath.

  Everyone in the cafeteria laughed when he disappeared but I knew Mr. Bunting could hear it and almost felt sorry for him. I glanced over at the Firethorne kids. For a moment they looked so young, so carefree. Just a bunch of classmates giggling over the embarrassing antics of an authority figure.

  Eira glanced up and we exchanged a look while everyone was still laughing. We shared a proper smile this time, though hers was partially covered by her fingers, like she felt guilty for laughing. She dropped her gaze to her lunch and the moment was over.

  I went back to my soup, wondering if I might have a better chance of getting her to talk than Tomio had.

  Eighteen

  Rude Redhead

  Just before eight the following morning, the teams filed into Lecture Hall A. Like a group of trained seals, Arcturus went for the right side of the room, and Firethorne sat on the left. I followed Harriet along the bench seat of the front row, Cecily followed me. Peter and Tomio brought up the rear.

  “The group is so much smaller with half of each team gone,” Harriet said as we settled on the wooden bench.

  “Yeah.” I stole glances at the remaining Firethorne competitors. Leaning toward Harriet, I kept my voice low. “Remind me who is who? I know Liu and Eira, but I can’t remember the other two.”

  “The tall guy is Kristoff Skau,” she answered under her breath. “I suspect he’s Burned. And the other one is Serenamen Hall. I overheard her talking, she has a strong Jamaican accent.”

  I studied Kristoff as the game-makers entered the hall and headed for the dais. He was tall and lean, slender as a shaft of wheat. Somehow, even with hardly any bodyfat, he still managed to have a babyface. Maybe it was the
flat-top haircut.

  Serenamen reminded me of a mouse. Cute, and a little on the fidgety side, with bright black eyes that missed nothing. Her hair was a springy nest well on its way to afro-hood. Serenamen had finished the first challenge at just over three hours. Decent but not a threat, although just because someone did well in Traps, Tools and Time didn’t mean they wouldn’t dominate in a different challenge.

  “What makes you think Kristoff is Burned?” I asked Harriet. Kristoff had finished under three hours but he’d still been bested by nine other competitors. “I’d be more worried about Liu.”

  “Oh she’s definitely Burned.” Harriet spoke with respect. “I just have a suspicion about Kristoff. It’s his voice. A little froggy, you know.”

  “Good morning.” Guzelköy addressed the group as Davazlar took up his usual position, leaning on the desk.

  There was a murmur of good mornings from the students.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Basil and Christy sliding into the seats behind us. Mr. Bunting was already here, seated on the far side of his competitors. There was no sight of Babs. It was remarkable how the woman found so many other places to be at critical moments in these games.

  “I trust you’re well rested and ready to tackle our next challenge. This won’t take long, as not a lot of prep is necessary for this game.” Guzelköy rubbed his long, tapered fingers together with barely concealed glee. “Our first competitor will begin at eleven o’clock today—to be determined by random draw before you are dismissed. For this challenge, we have utilized Headmaster Chaplin’s wonderful VR technology. This challenge is structured as a quest game and is titled Save the Music.”