The phoenix whisperer, p.7
The Phoenix Whisperer, page 7
“You said it was only a few days ago. And you still came here.” He shook his head, though he looked amazed.
She snorted. “Yeah, well, I thought about not coming, but it’s a big opportunity. I had to.”
His smile was tight. Sympathetic. “I understand. Can I ask what happened?”
“He was murdered.”
White-hot anger laced its way through Ana, and her hands curled into fists. Since arriving at Galfour’s Point, she’d done a decent job at staying focused on whatever task was in front of her. She couldn’t always stop her thoughts from wandering, though. Or the emotions from surfacing.
There was grief. Confusion. Fury.
She wanted to make Eleph pay for what he’d done, and the worst part was that she knew that chance would probably never come. He was long gone.
“He was defending me from a loan shark who said my father owed him money,” she elaborated. “They didn’t catch the bottom feeder...yet.”
“That’s insane. I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged. “I wish I could do something about it.” She touched her locket. “He drew me a pair of tiny wings right before he died. They’re in here.”
“What was his name?”
“Cien.”
Though it hurt to say his name, it also felt freeing. It made it feel like he wasn’t completely gone.
“He believed in me,” she found herself saying, without giving the words much thought. “He thought I would pass the exams.”
Pepin nodded. “Then let’s not let him down. I know you can do it.”
With that, he cracked open the book.
Pen in hand, Ana took notes and did her best to keep up. She knew some about history, but Pepin clearly loved it and was full of all sorts of facts.
First up was the rise of dark magic a little over five hundred years ago. Up until this period, magic had been fairly widespread, not only through Terrair but on the other continents as well. There hadn’t been much of a divide between light and dark.
Until some mages began focusing more on the riskier side of magic, gathering power and ancient, nearly-lost spells in order to gain an upper hand in the world. There was a great war, and the dark mages were defeated.
Immediately after this, the current government shifted its focus. In Terrair, The Council was born, a new and improved governing body that focused on keeping dark magic at bay.
One of the primary ways The Council did this was through training dragon riders who were knowledgeable in not only white magic but almost every other applicable skill as well. Galfour’s Point, the only dragon-riding school in existence, was created. The dragon riders, along with their dragons, took a bite out of dark magic whenever it arose.
“What about the other continents?” Ana asked. “They don’t have dragon riders?”
“They’ve never struggled with dark magic like Terrair has. Well...except North Winsome. Apparently, that’s a lawless land…or so I’ve heard. Anyway, the dragon riders mostly function as a precaution these days. Fancy security who are trained in magic just in case.”
“But dark magic still exists.”
She was sure. She’d seen it with her own eyes.
But if she were to tell anyone, would they even believe her?
“Here and then,” Pepin agreed. “There have been reports of organized criminal gangs using it, though how they learned the spells is anyone’s guess. The Council destroyed all the old dark magic scrolls.”
“Maybe it was passed down by word of mouth.”
“Maybe.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully and turned a page in the current book. “Ooh! Here’s something truly interesting. Did you know that during the five-hundred-year history of Galfour’s Point, on three separate occasions students have bonded with magical creatures that weren’t dragons?”
“I don’t understand.” She arched her back, not used to sitting still for this long. “These creatures were given to them instead of dragons?”
“No. In the first case, only a few years after the school started, a student arrived already bonded with a unicorn.”
“A unicorn!”
A few students sitting at a nearby table gave her chastising looks. Ana bit into her lip, remembering she’d heard you were supposed to be quiet in libraries.
“I know,” Pepin said. “Amazing, right? God, what I wouldn’t give to see a unicorn.”
“Do you think they really went extinct?”
His grin was lopsided. “I like to think anything is possible.”
“What else?” She jutted her chin at the book. “There were other instances, you said.”
He didn’t have to read the book to answer. “About a hundred years after that, a boy bonded with a griffin, and then there was the phoenix and a girl. Pretty recently, that one. Like about thirty years ago.”
“A phoenix?”
“Yep.” Pepin flipped through some pages, found what he was looking for, and pushed the book over to Ana.
There, sketched in black and white, was a bird with giant wings. Its eyes gleamed a shiny black and its claws were flexed, either ready to grab prey or attack an opponent.
As a regular bird, it would have been impressive, but the tail made it even more so.
“Is that fire?” she asked, pointing to the tail.
“Yeah. But they’re not on fire like that all the time.” He chuckled. “If they even still exist. When that bonding here happened, phoenixes were endangered. One hasn’t been spotted in about twenty years. For all we know, they could be extinct.”
“But what about the girl and her phoenix? The ones who were here...what did you say? Thirty years ago?”
“I’m not sure what happened to them. I’ve never been able to find any information.”
“Hm.” She thought about that. “Headmaster Whitlock might know. He’s been here for twenty years.”
“Right. Which means his job had to have overlapped with someone’s who was here when the phoenix was.”
Ana looked at the picture again. A thrill went through her. The phoenix was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen.
“How do we find out more about a subject?” she asked. “Like, if we wanted to read more about phoenixes? Are the books marked?”
She was entirely aware that she was exposing herself as never having been in a library before, but she didn’t care. The desire to learn was trumping everything right then.
“There’s the information desk,” he said, pointing over her shoulder.
“Great. Be right back.”
“What about arithmetic?” Pepin asked. “We only have twenty minutes before we have to go to Spells and Incantations.”
“I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder, which garnered her another glare from the other table of students.
The information desk was against a wall, dark and shiny, and with someone sitting behind it. As Ana approached, she realized that someone was Brax.
“Oh...hi.”
He looked up from the book he was reading. “Hello.”
“This is where you work? As a teacher’s assistant.”
“Only a couple times a week.” He closed the book and set it aside. “The assistants cover hours here during the librarian’s offtime. Can I help you with something?”
“Yes. I’d like to find books on…”
She hesitated. She’d been about to say “phoenixes,” but that didn’t seem like the most productive use of her time.
“Criminal organizations,” she finished instead.
Brax’s dark eyebrows rose. “Criminal organizations?”
“Yes.” There was a bit of a pause. Had she done something against the rules by asking that?
“What sort of criminal organizations?” he asked.
She blinked at that. Was there more than one kind?
Brax’s lips pressed together. “I’m sorry, I don’t even know why I asked. I already know we don’t have any books on that topic.”
Ana’s shoulders dropped. “Oh. Well, thank you.”
She’d been hoping to cram in some reading that might help her with one day finding Eleph. She hadn’t forgotten about him. She never would. Not until the day she died or she made him pay for what he’d done.
But it looked like this library was a dead end.
She started to turn away, but Brax spoke again.
“Actually, I do know why I asked what sort of criminal organizations you’re interested in. Really, I should have said what I was thinking.”
“Which was what?”
His lips curved upward. “Why are you so interested in crime? Are you looking for a backup to dragon riding?”
She wished she could laugh at the joke, but she wasn’t in any kind of mood to do so. And she wasn’t about to come out and reveal what had happened to Cien. Sharing the condensed story with Pepin was already enough.
“Thanks again.” Offering him a smile, she turned and went back to Pepin.
“You didn’t get any help?” he asked when she returned to the table empty-handed.
“You were right. I need to focus on cramming for exams. What were you saying is next? Arithmetic?”
“Yeah. We have a little time to get started on that.”
He moved a couple of books off his stack and selected the arithmetic one. The history book with the picture of the phoenix in it drew Ana’s gaze.
How strange that magic had once been so widespread, and now most people alive had never even seen it. Even a magical creature, like the phoenix, that had been around a few decades ago, could now possibly be defunct.
“Ana?” Pepin asked.
“Hm?”
He waved a hand in front of her face. “I’ve been talking to you about equations for two minutes. Have you heard me at all?”
She bit her bottom lip. Oops. She’d spaced out again. It could be a habit of hers sometimes.
“Sorry. What were you saying?”
Time to get her head in the game. She needed to focus on priorities, and right now, passing the exams was number one.
Chapter 11
It was another long day of classes, but even though everything was new, Ana still found it hard to concentrate. She kept thinking about Eleph. About Cien. About unicorns and griffins and phoenixes.
And, here and there, the trail behind the school.
By supper time, she’d managed to burn herself in Potions and incorrectly introduce herself as Aershire in The History of Magic.
But at least the day hadn’t been a complete waste. She’d learned a lot, and she would learn even more the next day. During supper, she and Pepin sat together and went over more arithmetic.
Ana didn’t even care that Dove seemed to constantly be making a joke about her since they'd arrived at Galfour's Point. She had much more important things on her mind.
“See you on the lawn at 6 AM?” Pepin had to cover a yawn as they left the mess hall.
“See you there. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
They parted where the staircase split, Ana going down the hall toward the girl’s dormitories. The sound of female students chatting drifted down the hall from up ahead and Ana’s footsteps echoed on the marble floor.
Rubbing her eyes, she stifled a yawn. Pepin wasn’t the only person the day had done a number on. Tomorrow would be another early day, and she only hoped that no one in the dormitory would try to talk to her.
As she rounded a corner, she noticed a door to her right ajar. Which was odd. Every door she’d passed in the castle, up until this point, had been firmly closed. The mess hall was the only room with the doors permanently propped open.
As Ana passed closer to the door, it suddenly opened and someone stepped out. Her breath catching in her throat, Ana jumped back.
“Hey,” Brax said in a whisper.
“What the heck are you doing?” she spat back.
Did he like spooking people, or was she the unlucky person he made a habit of doing this to?
Brax looked up and down the hallway. A bulb flickered in a sconce, and the voices Ana had heard a moment ago were barely audible now.
“Come here.” He jerked his head at the room he’d come out of. “I have something for you.”
“What…”
But he’d already grabbed her arm and dragged her into the room. She could have resisted, but curiosity was stronger than anything else in her.
The room they were in was dark, but she could make out stacked chairs and a couch covered with a sheet. It looked to be a spot for storing furniture.
“Here.” From behind his back, Brax produced a thin book, which he pushed into her hand.
“What’s this?”
There was a moment of silence. Surely, he’d heard her. It was also a simple enough question.
“Brax?”
“It’s what you were looking for earlier,” he said. “I found it on a back shelf in the library.”
Ana let that sink in. A book about organized crime in Terrair?
But he didn’t mean he’d “found it.” What he meant, she was sure, was that the book was...what? Restricted? Off limits to students?
Otherwise, why would he have pulled her into a dark room and handed it over in utter secrecy?
“Thank you.” She smoothed her hand over the front of the book. Its cover was soft, while all the books in Galfour's Point’s library were hardbacks.
Thin, too. Not as thin as a leaflet, but she could probably read the whole thing in a couple of hours.
“I’ll get it back to you tomorrow,” she said.
Sure, she’d been tired a minute before, but this had perked her right up. She already couldn’t wait to get in bed and start reading. If she was lucky, there’d be enough moonlight coming in through the window next to her bed.
She started to turn to the door, but Brax stopped her with a touch to her shoulder.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
Ana froze. No, everything wasn’t all right. But it wasn’t as if she’d tell him about it. He was a stranger; she’d already shared with one person in Galfour’s Point, and she wasn’t planning on making a habit of that.
“Yes,” she lied.
“Okay. But...if you need help...you can come to me.”
“What kind of help?”
As much as she needed to keep him at arm’s length, she was also genuinely curious about what he thought she might need.
“Anything. It’s not every day that a student asks to learn about local crime units. Especially when it’s the week of entrance exams and there are a dozen other things to obsess over.”
“Local?”
“Be careful,” he warned. “See you tomorrow.”
With that, he slipped from the room.
Ana waited a few moments, listening for the sound of anyone approaching. She didn’t want to have to explain why she was in the out-of-the-way room, and she certainly didn’t want anyone to see her with the book.
Pushing the door open a crack, she looked up and down the empty hall before darting from the room. As she walked, she tucked the thin book into the back of her pants’ waistband and then covered it with her shirt.
In the dormitory, she grabbed one of the books off the shelf in the sitting room and settled into an armchair in the corner. Since it was still an hour until lights out, some of the girls were milling around the sitting room, talking and studying.
Hunkering down, Ana hid the book Brax had given her within the larger one from the bookshelf. She didn’t want to garner any attention whatsoever.
The book was a newer one, published only about six months ago. Statistics on Terrair Crime, it was called.
Hungrily, Ana flipped through the pages. If the rumor she’d heard at Cien’s funeral had any truth to it, then Eleph was connected to The Knowing, possibly the most widespread crime gang in Terrair.
Most of the pages contained numbers on robberies and assaults in particular areas, but the back pages got into further details. Like the names of people connected to The Knowing.
Ana read that part over twice, hoping to find a name that she’d recognize, but to no avail. She was getting closer and closer to the end of the book and so far it hadn’t told her anything she didn’t already know.
Until…
Concentrated areas The Knowing is either verified to operate in or has connections to include but are not limited to: Delmare, Aershire, Hampton Hill, and the mountain region spanning from Fern Vale to Rocheport.
Ana froze. Aershire she already suspected, sure. But Rocheport!
That was the town Galfour’s Point was in. The town she sat on the very edge of right this moment!
Excitement filling her, she finished the rest of the segment. According to the book, The Knowing’s elite members were suspected to reside in the mountain region she was in. Which made sense. If Ana had money and a certain amount of power, she certainly wouldn’t choose to live in the plains.
As far as who these elite members of The Knowing were, there were no names. Ana finished the book right as ten o’clock rolled around, feeling worked up and unsatisfied.
So she was closer to The Knowing than she could have ever suspected. But did that mean anything? It wasn’t as if she could waltz into town and ask for directions to the members' houses. Surely, The Council knew everything she’d discovered in this little book and more, and they’d yet to dismantle the crime group.
Her heart sinking, she prepared for bed and climbed under the covers. Staring at the wall, she listened to the sounds of the other girls saying their goodnights.
Soon, there was nothing but the sounds of light breathing and an owl outside somewhere. Ana’s mind raced.
Was she headed down a rabbit hole, doomed to never come out on the other side? Would Cien even want her doing this?
Ana stared at the wall, waiting for answers that never came.
Chapter 12
By four in the morning, Ana had given up trying to sleep. Throwing off the covers, she snuck out of the dormitory for the second time.
At this point, she was getting dangerously close to making a habit of such behavior. She knew she ought to be more careful, that she ought to stay in bed and follow the rules and focus on studying and forget all about her personal vendetta.
