Into the Fire (The Mieshka Files, Book One) (27 page)

“Any luck?”

He looked up at her voice. She edged into the light, feeling heat sink through her clothes. It reminded her of the Phoenix.

“Not really,” he said. Slowly, he stood up. He swayed, steadying himself on parts of the machine. “The soldiers did a number on it. It works, but it’s not complete.”

He seemed to be just as tired as her dad. There weren’t many that could do his job.

“The shield’s stable, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“That’s good.”

Another long silence. Aiden studied her.

“But you’re wondering about something else,” he said, finally.

She nodded. The work-light struck a sharp shadow over his face as he stepped away from the engine.

“Dad told me what happened,” she said.

He pulled a pen from his pocket.

“I can’t scan you anymore—not without compromising the shield. But we can try the transfer again.”

She held out her hand. The IV’s bruise ached as he drew the mark. Ink cooled on her skin.

Nothing. No glow. No life. She felt only ash. Ash and cold smoke.

She tried not to show her disappointment.

Aiden slipped the cap back on the pen.

“Don’t think too much about it. It can probably be fixed—”

“It burned up, didn’t it?” She’d seen the news coverage. The Phoenix had lit the sky on fire. It had left her.

She swallowed back a lump in her throat.

“Yeah. And something’s blocking the transfer sign. I can’t scan—”

“—without killing the shield.”

Aiden gave her a grim look. He was quiet for a minute.

“Jo’s been meaning to teach you how to shoot.”

She didn’t want to learn to shoot. She wanted to hide.

She knew just the spot.

In the dark, the memorial was silent. Mieshka held her phone ahead of her, its light providing a thin solution for the dark. Without her backpack, she felt exposed. Her footsteps echoed. Except for her, nothing moved. Even the fountain was still.

Bullets peppered the monsters. She examined them, swiping her thumb over her phone’s touchscreen as it dimmed. The air smelled of smoke.

Memories flashed back. Jo said she hadn’t killed anyone, but Mieshka had caused a lot of pain. They would remember her. Her lip curled as she touched a carved phoenix. With what she’d done, the monsters were her peers.

Briefly, anyway. There was no fire left in her. Nothing but ash.

She pushed the memories away, shivering in her jacket. Lyarne’s winter pushed through the tunnels. There was no warmth left in this place.

Her phone’s screen timed out. The hall went black.

The stone dug into her side. There was no warmth in her, either. The ash in her soul was cold. She’d guttered out like a candle in its own wax.

She slid down the wall and slumped at its base. In here, she hid. Her dad had taken to fretting whenever she came home. Sometimes, his hands shook when he hugged her. It was too much for him.

She thought of her element. It had filled her. She hadn’t known she’d been so empty before. The Phoenix had promised an eternity of warmth.

She was not warm. Hugging her knees, she put the phone back in her pocket. She couldn’t even transfer anymore. What did that mean? What the hell did that mean?

Her phone chirped in her pocket. Its echo jumped out of the dark. She pulled it back out and slid a thumb over its screen.

Chris.

Want to meet?

The text glowed in the dark, bright against the black backdrop of her phone. She hadn’t seen him since the fire. Both he and Robin had left a card in the hospital. Robin had stormed Cyprios, too. Mieshka had trouble picturing it.

She thought of the Underground. It frightened her a little, but its people had taken up arms to defend the shield.

She texted back.

Yes.

And remembered all those stairs. It would take her forever to get back up.

Keep reading for a short-story adventure with Mieshka and another Elemental!

Cat and Meese

He took her while she slept, and with her lips he spoke a promise to her shadow. Her eyes moved under their lids, deep in the REM of slumber. With a smile, he listened through her ears to the shadow’s answer. He knew the shadow. They were kin. And this deal between devils would benefit them both.

“Got something for you.”

Mieshka was dripping. The rain hadn’t quite made it through her jacket, but her pants were soaked. At Aiden’s voice, she paused in the doorway. Behind the desk that dominated the far corner of the room, he looked up from his computer screen.

“There’s someone you should find. Underground. She can give you some answers.”

Underground. Definitely not where she liked to go.

“She got the answers to my finals?” To accentuate the point, she slid off her backpack and dropped it to the floor. The textbooks inside made a satisfying thunk.

The mage ignored her. “She’s an elemental.”

Mieshka paused. As the mage’s ex-apprentice, she knew an ‘elemental’ was, and it had little to do with chemistry. The Fire Mage’s magic was called elemental because he could manipulate fire. Of course, he could do much more than that. From what she gathered, there was a distinct level difference between an elemental and a mage.

“Answers to what?”

“To whether or not the potential in you is really gone or not.”

Potential for magic, he meant. She took a moment to digest that, meeting his gaze across the room. She’d had a ‘potential’ before she’d used it up two weeks ago. Having it was like winning the lottery. Or, in her special case, being given the chance to win. The logistics of it were a bit beyond her, but she had the capability to become a Mage. Somehow.

“You said it was gone.” Her voice didn’t sound as confident as before.

“No, I said it had burned up.”

The computer whirred quietly in the pause between them.

“And the difference is?”

“You’re familiar with the legend of the Phoenix?”

‘Rise from the ashes’ was a very appropriate analogy for a fire mage to use.

“And if I still have it?” Her shoes squelched as she crossed the floor. Since she’d ‘burned up’, the mage had been too busy dealing with other things to address what her status was now. He still kept her around, but she wasn’t sure why—she was fairly useless when it came to the business he did, and otherwise tied up with finishing eleventh grade.