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

by A. L. Knorr

  Unlike the yard and garden, which were still peaceful, the fire-gym was full of activity. People in construction belts carrying power tools, mostly screw-guns, swarmed all over the gym, dismantling the last of the course. Already the gym looked more like its old self. The floor had been returned to its normal height and all traces of the harbor were gone. The boats had vanished. Only the climbing walls remained to be put away.

  I spotted Guzelköy in a rear corner holding a black box with cables looped over one forearm. He was talking with Davazlar, both of them looking grim and serious.

  Hopping over a pile of two-by-eights and rows of chains, I ducked under an I-beam being carried by four men. Someone reproached me for being there but I ignored them, intent on my targets.

  The game-makers saw me coming and stopped talking.

  “Morning.” I stopped in front of them, looking from one face to the other.

  “Hello, Ms. Cagney,” Guzelköy said, probing my features. “How are you?”

  Davazlar shot him a look that said, why did you ask her that? She’s traumatized, obviously.

  I cleared my throat and opted for polite and direct. “I’m okay. I was hoping I could get Eira’s parents contact information from you. This morning if possible.”

  The game-makers exchanged a look.

  “I thought we agreed to give it some time,” Guzelköy replied, shifting the box from one hand to the other. He rubbed at his forehead. “Wait for the psychologist to give the okay? I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten his name. I’m a little absent minded this morning.”

  I nodded, feeling sorry for him. I wondered if the game-makers had ever had a death during their games before. I wasn’t about to ask them.

  “I wasn’t planning on contacting them right away,” I said, “it’s just, I’ve been away from my family for a long time and I’m feeling pretty homesick. I want to go home as soon as I’m allowed and I’d rather go knowing I have their information. I’ll wait for permission from Dr. Bud before I call.”

  Guzelköy looked hesitant but Davazlar said, “Give it to her, Zafer. She’s not going to make the situation any worse than it already is.”

  I sent Davazlar a grateful look and the corners of his mouth turned up in a sad smile. He looked at the floor.

  “Alright.” Guzelköy sighed. “Babs won’t like it, but I’m past caring what that woman likes or doesn’t like.”

  The way he said ‘that woman’ made me wonder how many pushy conversations the game-makers had found themselves in with the headmaster of Firethorne.

  Guzelköy took my email and said he’d text the information to me as soon as he had the file open. I thanked them and left them to their cleanup.

  Phone in hand, I went by Gage’s room. His door was closed. I listened at the keyhole and heard nothing. My knuckles hovered over the wood, but I pulled away without knocking. I wasn’t sure he’d be ready to talk to me so soon. I wasn’t sure I was ready, either.

  I made myself a coffee in the third-floor students’ lounge, checking my phone every minute. When an email from Guzelköy dropped into my inbox, I opened it and consumed the information like a brushfire consumes dead grass.

  Eira’s family had a home in Kentish Town. It would be a two hour journey from the academy but I counted myself lucky that I wouldn’t have to cross any borders. A big plus on an observation project like the one I’d assigned myself.

  The name of this task would be: See, but do not be seen.

  I went to my room and exchanged my sneakers for boots and my sweater for a light jacket. I grabbed a hat and sunglasses and checked the bus schedule for the next one to Dover’s train station.

  I should be back at the academy in time for dinner. If that wasn’t possible then I’d eat on the train and be back by sundown. These days that was after nine pm. Maybe by the time I returned, Gage would have warmed to the idea of reopening our conversation, though what was left to say, I wasn’t sure.

  I took a shuddery breath as the thought passed through my mind that we’d broken up this morning. It didn’t feel for the best right now. Right now, it made me feel shaky and ill. But maybe it was for the best. I was too close to it to think rationally.

  Setting my private issues aside, I left the academy hopeful that this little expedition would bear fruit.

  The train from Dover pulled up at St. Pancras Station just after eleven. From there it was a five minute walk to the tube and a twenty minute train ride to the Kentish Town stop.

  I stepped onto the Kentish Town platform with my nose in my phone, watching the little blinking blue dot (me) and following the trail the navigation app gave me. It would be an eight minute walk to the Nygaard’s house.

  Tucking my phone into my pocket, I twisted my hair back into a low bun, tucked it under my hat and turned my collar up. I’d chosen a thin, tan-colored double-breasted coat. It was a little too warm for an English summer, but the light wind meant I could get away with it. I slid on a pair of oversized sunglasses and my non-disguise/disguise was complete. Not that the Nygaard’s would know who I was even if they did spot me.

  Kentish Town was a middle-class borough filled with cute antique pubs, flower shops, newsagents, cafés and corner grocery stores. Turning down the Nygaard’s street revealed a long, gently sloping hill lined with three-story town-houses without a millimeter of space between them. The sidewalks were cracked and uneven, the gardens were unkempt but pretty with untamed profusion, and the houses—while some were freshly painted—were a little rundown. Most of the front walkways and steps were crumbling, some of the windows were taped up. The Nygaard’s neighborhood was old but expressed the efforts of its residents to maintain their homes, a battle some of them were losing.

  The Nygaard’s lived at number 72. It was a building that fit perfectly in with all the others. Run down, but cared for. Old and a little decayed. Loved and lived in.

  I parked myself on a bench across the road from their house and sipped the coffee I’d purchased from the Costa outside the tube station.

  In contrast to Canadians (whose habits resemble that of squirrels), the habits of most Brits involved visiting the shops daily for food. Fridges were small and kitchens were cramped, plus fresh fruits and vegetables were best on the day they were purchased.

  My assumption was rewarded just before twelve-thirty—around the time my butt was growing numb from the wooden bench.

  The door of number 72 swung open and a woman with a silvery-blond pixie-cut stepped down onto the stoop. I guessed she was in her early sixties, and with those cheek-bones, she definitely looked the part of Eira’s mom. She carried a handbag and wore a pale cardigan and a wispy scarf with feathers dangling from one end. She leaned into the open door and called, “Popping off to the shops, luvey. Get you anything?”

  A man replied from within the house, too far away to make out his words, but his words weren’t important. That had to be Mr. Nygaard, since Babs had helpfully informed me Eira had no siblings to comfort her grieving parents.

  But that was just the point. Mrs. Nygaard did not look the grieving parent. Neither did her husband sound anything short of sprightly. So Babs had to have lied about calling them.

  Mr. and Mrs. Nygaard exchanged a few more pleasant words. As she closed the door and rearranged her scarf, she began to hum.

  Mrs. Nygaard was halfway down the front walk, gracefully stepping over a lifted bit of pavement (she had none of her daughter’s jerky way of moving) when the front door of 72 opened again. A head emerged. A young head, with bright blond hair and a doll-face with a bruised and scabbed lip.

  “Don’t forget cream for the coffee, Mummy,” said Eira.

  My heart turned a summersault and bounced off my ribcage. I liberated my cell phone from my pocket, opened my camera app with a trembling finger, zoomed in on Eira and took several photographs of my very non-dead opponent.

  Mrs. Nygaard paused with her hand on the front gate. “We have milk, darling.”

  Eira spoke patiently, her demeanor as s
weet as her features. “I don’t like milk anymore. I take it with cream, now. Remember?”

  The Nygaard women spoke simultaneously. “Fat is your friend.”

  I surged to my feet, hardly aware that I’d made the spontaneous decision to throw out my earlier aim not to be seen and heard now that I’d seen Eira in the flesh. I was scared that the door would close and I’d lose my chance.

  Pulling off my beret and sunglasses, I let my twisted hair spill out into the sunshine, knowing it would attract Eira’s attention.

  “Hello, Eira,” I called, pleasantly but with enough confidence to let The Doll know she’d been caught and I wasn’t just going to go away. I stowed all of my amazement and wonder and fury at the impressive trick she’d played behind the expression of someone pleased to have accidentally run into a friend.

  Mrs. Nygaard turned to look at me, missing the look of shock and guilt that washed over her daughter’s face.

  “Hello there, Miss,” she said with a sweet smile. “You’re a friend of Eira’s?”

  I nodded, tossed my coffee cup into the nearby bin and crossed the street, holding my beret and sunglasses in one hand, my phone in the other. “We know each other from school. Don’t we, Eira?”

  Mrs. Nygaard looked at her daughter.

  Eira’s wide blue eyes were on my face. Her gaze dropped down to the phone in my hand, and bounced back up to my face. The pale pink had drained from her cheeks, though she reclaimed enough presence of mind to plaster a look of happy surprise as her mother looked at her.

  The exchange spoke volumes.

  If Eira’s parents even knew about the games, they didn’t know about Eira’s deception. The reason for Babs’ desperation to keep me from contacting Eira’s parents was shockingly apparent. They were clueless. She could hardly allow me to call or visit them, apologizing about their daughter’s death.

  “Invite your friend in for coffee, darling. I’ll be back in two shakes.” With that Mrs. Nygaard stepped out of the walkway and onto the sidewalk, holding their front gate open for me.

  “I’m Saxony.” I held out a hand to Eira’s mother. “Lovely to meet you.”

  She shook my hand with warmth, smiling into my face. “It’s lovely to meet a friend of Eira’s. She never brings anyone to the house. How lucky you happened by.”

  “Thank you.” I stepped through the front gate and Eira and I watched her mother disappear down the street.

  I turned to my opponent, emotions boiling inside me. Fury, amazement, disbelief, but the dominant emotion was relief. Eira was not dead. Babs and Eira were in breach of contract in a huge way. The school had to be returned to Basil. I intended to make sure they admitted what they’d done in front of the games committee.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” I asked. “Or did you want to keep up with the corpse impersonation? See how far you can take it?”

  Eira shushed me and stepped onto the stoop, pulling the door closed behind her. She spoke under her breath. “For my parents’ benefit, you’re a good friend from school. We’ve been away at camp together.”

  I might have laughed if the circumstance hadn’t been so serious.

  “What kind of camp?” I asked, falsely bright.

  She gave an exasperated sigh then turned and entered the house, holding the door open for me. Her look was an odd combination of pleading and warning.

  I started to kick off my sneakers when she said, “Don’t bother.”

  She led me down a narrow hall then through a cluttered kitchen. There was no sign of Mr. Nygaard. She put her hand on the handle of a glass door leading into their back yard.

  “In the garden, Daddy,” Eira yelled, making me jump. “Got a friend from school whose popped by for a bit.”

  “Have you really?” answered her father from an upper floor. He sounded worn and dry, even elderly. “A friend? Blimey. Shall I come down?”

  “No, it’s fine,” she called back hastily.

  “Alright, Plumpy.”

  “Plumpy?” I mouthed.

  She opened the back door and went out into the garden in her bare feet. I followed her to a set of wicker patio furniture near the back fence. The back yard was cluttered. Garden gnomes, stained-glass images of birds hanging from trees, brightly painted ceramic mushrooms, and a profusion of flowers and ivy.

  I didn’t remind her that if she really wanted to convince her parents we were friends, she would offer me coffee.

  “How did you figure it out?” She asked as she settled into a wicker seat and pulled her feet up, a petulant look marring her features.

  “Tomio tipped me off. He told me that you’re half cryohäxa, which led me to do some research. There wasn’t anything I read about cryohäxa that rang alarm bells, it was all consistent with your abilities. Until I stumbled over a short passage suggesting that cryohäxa descended from a commonly-known but long extinct species with unusual gifts. The Valkyrie. Which led to a whole new line of research.”

  Eira didn’t deny it. She chewed her bottom lip, her gaze on the grass.

  “Which of your parents is which?” I folded my hands in my lap.

  She coughed and gave a sigh of defeat. “My dad was a fire mage. His fire went out suddenly in the spring.”

  I stared at her. That was news. “Wow, I— Really?”

  She nodded. “We know it wasn’t isolated now. It happened to a few mages, and on the same night. Sent the mage community into an uproar.”

  “I know,” I murmured, thinking of April, and Jade’s old babysitter, Maggie.

  “Initially, he was devastated. He used to work for a department of the UK government. His placement there and his security clearance hinged on his supernatural status, even if it was mostly a desk job. A few others in his department lost theirs as well. While it was a shock for all of them, they supported one another, and the government arranged for retirement packages and therapy for all of them.”

  I felt a little dazed. This wasn’t the direction I’d expected this conversation to go. I half wondered if it was a lie to distract me, but something in her face said she was telling the truth. “Is he okay?”

  “I’ve never seen him happier.” Eira shook her head and blew out a shaky breath. “He’s in his eighties. Twenty-two years older than my mum. He refused to retire even when we begged him. His work was stressful but he was addicted. I think he was afraid he wouldn’t have a purpose once he retired. But after the initial shock wore off, he started painting and writing. He’s a whole different person now.”

  I’d never heard Eira string so many words together at one time. Seeing her like this, in her own back yard, talking about her dad with such affection, it raised mixed feelings.

  “So your mom is the cryohäxa?”

  Eira nodded. “Quite a force in her day, but unlike my dad, she always wanted to retire early. She lived hard and fast through the late-seventies in to the early-nineties. Burned herself out, no pun intended, and decided she wanted to have a family. She switched jobs. They met at work, then had me in ninety-eight.”

  “Did they also call her The Doll?”

  Eira met my eyes for the first time since sitting down. She shook her head. “She can’t do what I can do.”

  “And shame on you for it,” I breathed, “but you have a chance to set things right, and that’s what you’re going to do.”

  Eira dropped her gaze, picking at the cuticle of her right thumb. I could see moisture gathering in her eyes. “She’s going to kill me.”

  “Who? Babs?”

  She nodded.

  I thought about this. When two people committed a crime, the police often used a strategy that set one against the other to elicit confessions. What Eira had done was reprehensible, but Babs had put her up to it. It was Babs who should take the brunt of the consequences.

  “I have an idea that will exonerate you, at least partially, without putting you under any risk from Babs. Can you trust me enough to follow my lead?”

  She hesitated.

  “
I asked to be polite,” I said, my gaze never leaving hers. “You don’t actually have a choice.”

  She looked away and began chewing at her thumbnail again.

  I opened the audio recording app on my phone and lay it on the table.

  “Eira?”

  She looked at me, still chewing her cuticle.

  “Start talking.” I pressed the record button.

  Thirty

  The Final Signing

  I crouched in the AV booth at the back of Lecture Hall C, trying not to sneeze. Evidently, the cleaning crew had neglected the tiny cubicle at the back of the hall. A layer of dust covered the cables, the floor, the single chair, the small desk and the control board’s switches and dials.

  If a sleuth had been wondering what I was doing here, their first clue would be that one of the knobs on the control panel had no dust. I had used it to lower a big screen down from the ceiling. It now hung in front of the blackboard. Less obvious was the fact that I’d connected my phone to the projector via Bluetooth.

  I sat among the dust-bunnies, breathing quietly with a finger under my nose. When the lecture room door opened and the footsteps of the games committee proclaimed that it was almost showtime, my heart began to pound so loud I worried someone would hear it.

  I could picture them easily.

  Mr. Pendleton wearing some kind of fitted tweed vest. Basil with his beautifully coiffed hair and creaseless sports jacket, even in the face of the loss of his inheritance and everything he’d worked for, he’d look calm and in control, if a little worn at the edges.

  Babs, probably in a painted-on dress, her usual forties hairstyle and patent leather pumps. Mr. Bunting with his rolling gait and twitchy mustache. Guzelköy would be fidgety but dashing, while Davazlar would dominate the room with his silent, menacing good looks. I wasn’t sure if Dr. Price would be here for this or not. I hoped so.

  “Let’s get through this quickly, shall we?” Babs’ Monroe-voice pierced the silence of the room. “I have a hard stop at eleven. I’m swamped with meetings. Everyone wants time with the new headmaster.”