Into the Fire (The Mieshka Files, Book One) (9 page)

Jo led her into a café parked on the corner of an intersecting alley. Soon, Mieshka found herself staring out from a lace-curtained window, her shoulder pressed to the glass. Jo sat across from her. A pot of green tea sat between them, with promises of cake to come.

“You’ve been quieter than I expected,” Jo said.

Rather than pester Jo for answers, Mieshka had been figuring out the mechanics behind the place for herself. She stared at the writing on the café’s window.

“There’s a lot more Chinese writing than in Uptown.” She’d been noticing it for a while.

Jo also glanced at the window.

“There’s a lot more Chinese down here. Higher density, anyway. Bit of a racial thing.”

“Racial thing?”

Jo’s chair creaked as she tipped it back.

“The Chinese were the first to be refused housing. Other minorities followed. It makes sense that there’s a large group down here.”

“Why were they refused?”

Jo didn’t answer. Mieshka tried not to move under her stare.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I wouldn’t bring it up down here, though. Bit of a sore topic. Ah,” she said, her eyes lifting up to look behind Mieshka. “I was wondering if he’d show.”

Mieshka looked behind her. The man by the doorway was about as tall as Mieshka, dressed in black, and had a wide-brimmed hat that put shadows onto his face. He looked Chinese.

Mieshka hoped he hadn’t heard their conversation.

“Long time no see, Joanne.”

Joanne?
Mieshka hid a smile. As the man drew closer, that smile faded. The back of her hand tingled. Mieshka tensed like she’d seen a gun.

“Not long enough.” Jo’s voice had teeth.

“You wound me.”

“As I recall, we were both wounded last time.”

“An accurate recollection.”

Mieshka felt she was missing part of the conversation. She didn’t have time to dwell on it: her attention was pulled to the edge of her senses, where she’d felt the fire before.

“Is that a transfer sigil?”

Mieshka blinked. He’d come closer while she’d looked away. He stared at the mark.

“It is.” Jo’s voice was vaguely triumphant. “And you can tell your boss that, too.”

“She’s new, isn’t she? What is your name?”

Mieshka didn’t want to tell him. The energy through the mark felt taut, like the spring of a trap. She forced herself to stay calm.

“I don’t believe you’ve told me yours, yet.”

His expression was unreadable. After a moment, he held out his hand.

“Roger.”

“Mieshka.”

When they shook, it felt like a weight dropped into place.

“A pleasure to meet you,” he said. “Mind the tea.”

She looked back at her cup. The liquid spilled above the brim, floating in the air.

She let go of his hand. It fell back with a soft
plop
.

“Are you the Water Mage?”

Jo snorted into her drink.

Roger looked amused. “No. I’m her apprentice. I assume you are Aiden’s?”

Was he the water elemental Chris had talked about? Her jaw tensed. She found herself nodding. He seemed friendly enough now, but it was clear he and Jo had a history.

“That explains the rumours, then.”

Rumours? There were rumours about her?

“Word spreads awfully quick down here,” Jo commented dryly.

“It does.”

Mieshka tried not to look worried.

“I expect we will be seeing more of each other, Mieshka.” With a tip of his hat, he left. He waved through the window as he passed.

Jo and Mieshka watched the transfer mark. They did not speak until the glow had gone.

“So you’ve decided? You’ll be his apprentice?”

“Maybe. What did you mean by ‘wound’?”

Jo took a sip of her tea. “He likes to pick fights.”

Perhaps he wasn’t as amiable as he seemed. Mieshka rethought his last words to her. She decided that she didn’t particularly want to see more of him.

A moment later, the cake came.

CHAPTER 6

“Two calls in one day? To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Aiden sat in front of the screen and shoved the chair forward. Its wheels crackled over the concrete. The engine’s screen flickered orange in front of him, displaying the Water Mage’s name, a graph of her voice, and nothing else. Sophia had not deigned to share a video link, which suited him just fine. They were both tired. Likely, she’d spent the day staring at the same graph he had, albeit in a different colour.

The engine screens matched the elemental property of the power crystal. Sophia’s screen was blue, the Earth Mage’s green. Down in Terremain, Roderick had a violet-blue screen feeding off his electric element.

Colour-coded elements. Back home, they’d learned all the colours in grade school. It was only in university that they had learned how to change them.

Back home. He still called it home.

“You have an apprentice,” she said.

He’d expected this. During Jo’s earlier soirée with Mieshka, Jo had made a point of running into Sophia’s right-hand man.

“I do. Not elemental, though. Had to stick a transfer on her.” No need to admit Mieshka hadn’t actually agreed to apprenticeship yet. Not to Sophia, at least.

“I heard. She used Roger’s water.”

He smiled at the thought. Yep, Jo hadn’t kept things quiet. “I found her first. Hands off.”

Sophia didn’t laugh. Somehow, he didn’t think she’d called to talk about Mieshka. Aiden tilted his chair back. The light bothered him, and his eyes were itchy. He hadn’t slept much lately. She had to be feeling similar. The shield was a headache for them both.

“Why did you call?” Apprentices were exciting, but not priority. He listened to his voice echo. It made the darkness seem sentient. Behind the screen, his engine hummed. Power thrummed inside his chest. He felt the crystal as he felt the sun during daylight. A dragon lived inside this one. If he recalled correctly, Sophia’s had a different sort of dragon.

“I can’t pick up the crystal’s location. It’s being blocked.”

Due to their nature, the crystals were linked. They should have been able to track the missing earth crystal through that link, yet they both had failed. Blocking was an obvious conclusion. Why bring it up now?

She was avoiding the heart of this little chat. He waited, listening to the sounds of falling water on her side. Unlike him, she’d furnished her engine room. She slept in it, too.

When she reverted to their home language, he knew it was serious. “I don’t think Michael left. I think he was taken—”

“—there was no sign of struggle.”

His interruption was met with a brief silence.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said in a small voice.

Aiden’s turn to be quiet. A draft blew across his arm. He had not considered that possibility very thoroughly. Michael was the oldest of them; arguably the strongest, with more than a few old-world tricks. His house had been pristine when they’d visited. Only a half-full cup of cold coffee had been out of place. The man had lived Underground—It wasn’t like he didn’t have access to his element. Not like Sophia, who kept a fountain in her room and water piped within the walls.

“What do you think, then?”

“I’m thinking that we’re next. Us and our crystals.”

Well, yes, that had always been the fear. Even more than losing the shield, the Mages could not lose their crystals. They were too valuable. Aiden had his own contingency plan, which involved piling into his ship and flying off. A plan made complicated without an Earth Mage to open the hangar to the sky.

“If his magic couldn’t beat it, how can we fight it?” she said.

He almost laughed, but the thought of Michael’s abduction was sobering. Sophia had half the Underground working for her; a small army to protect her. Aiden was the most at-risk.

Her raw voice put him on edge. She never showed weakness. Ever.

“You’ll be fine, Soph.”

“I’m afraid.” This was way too much emotion for the Sophia he knew.

“Sleep in the bathtub.”

The joke worked. She laughed. “Where will you sleep, the furnace? Goodnight, Aiden.”

And with that, he was left staring at the shield’s graph again. The chair squeaked as he slumped down. Around him, the room subsided into the quiet click and whir of the engine. The darkness felt watchful. He should probably replace that light bulb.

He sat there awhile longer, eyes closed, rocking the chair with his foot. The tracking quandary returned to his mind. Engines were made of Maanai, a material which could work magic—if treated properly. They were limited by their programming and composition. Another Maanai device could block the signal.

What if he didn’t need a Maanai engine to track?

He brought up Mieshka’s data, skimming until he found the portion he was looking for. Hers was a unique type of magic. His ship had proven how adept she was at absorbing crystals. Maybe they could track through her.

He rubbed his eyes and swung around to face the dark. A rectangle of retinal burn danced in the air. After a minute, he got up.

Tomorrow. He’d try that tomorrow.

He locked the door behind him and made the pilgrimage back upstairs.

Sophia sat upright in her chair, staring at the dead connection on the blue screen. The engine hummed behind it, its glassy black surface reflecting the room as in a tarnished mirror. Copper gleamed on parts of it, marking the hybridization of the old world and the new.

A bathtub-sized fountain tinkled beside her. Two koi fish lounged within it, occasionally breaking the surface with their mouths. Their names were Teddy and Drake.

Water piped through the walls, too, ready for her to command. Aiden might rely on concrete and steel, but she couldn’t summon water like he could fire.

She’d also filled a bathtub on the other side of the room. She hadn’t told him that.

Perhaps this worry dug too deep, but she was known for her paranoia. Rubbing the base of her ponytail, she mulled over the conversation. He hadn’t seemed worried. Maybe he was happy to find an apprentice. Something had gone right for him, at least.

If only the girl could be useful.

Whatever. That was his problem, not hers. Her apprentice was already trained. And very capable.

The lock clicked on her door. She tensed, listening. The trickle of the fountain ceased as the water floated up to her call. She froze it into spikes.

Slowly, she turned around.

There was no one there.

Was she just hearing things?

She threw it anyway, spreading several spikes at chest-height across the wall.

They vanished halfway across the room,

There was no steam, no water. No snap of ice breaking. They simply vanished.

Adrenaline drove her out of the chair. This is what she had been afraid of. Something she could not fight. Something unknown.

She swallowed a lump of panic.

A box flew out of nowhere, clattering across the floor toward her. Its indestructible black sides matched the Maanai of her engine. A single character glowed blue on each side. She recognized it.

“Fuck,” she said. Pipes punched through drywall with a crack. Metal wrenched as water burst from broken joints. It sprayed everywhere. Except for the half of the room her ice spikes had vanished into. Whatever fell there met the same fate.

The black box pulsed. Ice water soaked her shirt. Hair plastered her face. She stared at her room’s apparent Bermuda Triangle.

The next time she used her element, the black box consumed her.

Everything went black. She couldn’t feel anymore. There was no time. No space.

She didn’t exist.

Water beaded on the box. The glowing glyph pulsed once, and changed into a different character.

A man stepped out of nowhere, unconcerned by the drizzle. He picked up the box and turned to survey the room. Water streamed down the broken walls. The floor was a lake. Torn pipes whined as they fountained into the air. Their wrenched metal was almost a piece of modern art. He wiped his hand on his jeans. The wet box almost slipped through his grip.

Water was harder to cover up than earth. Too much movement for a long-term illusion.

After a moment, he grinned. Why hide it?