Firespell

All those normal girls.

Suddenly, the theme from Flash Gordon began to echo from Scout’s bag. Putting down her forkful of chips and chili, she half turned to pull the messenger bag from the back of her chair, then reached for her phone.

I arched an eyebrow at the choice of songs, as lyrics about saving the universe rumbled through our part of the cafeteria.

“I love Queen,” Scout covered, her voice a little louder than the phone, the explanation for the folks around us. The song apparently signaling a text message, she slid open the keyboard and began tapping.

“Flash Gordon?” I whispered, when the girls had returned to their lunches. “A little obvious, isn’t it?”

Pink rose on her cheeks. “I’m allowed,” she said, still thumbing keys. She frowned, her lips pursed at the corner. “Weird,” she finally said.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Scout said. “We’re supposed to meet tonight at five o’clock—we’re doing some kind of administrative meeting—but they want me to come down now. Something’s gone down with one of our targets. A kid from one of the publics. That means I need to . . . run an errand.” She winged up her eyebrows so I’d understand her not-so-tricky secret code.

Around us, girls began to put up their trays in preparation for afternoon classes. Scout had never been interrupted during classes, as far as I was aware. “Right now?”

“Yeah.” There was more frowning as she closed the phone and slipped it back into her bag. She turned around again, hands in her lap, shoulders slumped forward, face pinched as she stared down at the table.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked her.

She started to speak, then shook her head as if she’d changed her mind, then tried again. “It’s just weird,” she said, lifting her gaze to mine. “It’s way early for them to page me. They never page me during school hours. It’s part of the whole, ‘You need an education to be the best’ ”—she looked around, then lowered her voice—“ ‘Adept you can be.’ ”

I frowned. “That is weird.”

“Well, regardless, I need to go back to the room.” She pushed back her chair, pulled off her bag, and settled it diagonally over her shoulder, the skull and crossbones grinning back at me. “Are you going to be okay?”

I nodded. “I’ll be fine. Go.”

She frowned, but stuffed her phone and books into her bag, stood up, and slung it over her shoulder. Then she was off, plaid skirt bobbing as she hustled through the cafeteria.

She didn’t come back during fourth period. Or fifth. Or sixth. Not that I blamed her—European history wasn’t my favorite subject, either—but I was beginning to get worried.

When I got back to the suite, I dumped my bag on the couch and headed for her door.

The door was cracked partially open.

“Scout?” I called out. I rapped knuckles against the wood, but got no answer. Maybe she was in the shower, or maybe she’d run an errand and didn’t want to bother with the lock. But given her collections and the stash of magic books, she wasn’t the kind to leave the door unlocked, much less open.

I put a hand on the door and pushed it open the rest of the way.

My breath left me.

The room was in shambles.

Drawers had been upended, the bed stripped, her collections tossed on the floor.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered. I stepped inside, carefully stepping around piles of clothes and books. Had this been waiting for her when she’d come back to the room?

Or had they been waiting?

“What happened in here?”

I glanced back and found Lesley in the doorway, her cheeks even paler than usual. She was actually in uniform today. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just got here.”

She stepped into the room, and beside me. “This has something to do with where she goes at night, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

My gaze fell upon the bed, the sheets and comforter in disarray. And peeking from one edge, was the black strap of Scout’s messenger bag.

I picked over detritus, then reached out an arm and pulled the bag from the tangle of blankets, the white skull on the front grinning evilly back at me.

My stomach fell. Scout wouldn’t have gone anywhere without that bag. She carried it everywhere, even on missions, the strap across her shoulder every time she left the room. That the room was a disaster area, her bag was still here, and she was gone, did not bode well.

“Oh, Scout,” I whispered, fear blossoming at the thought of my best friend in trouble.

The overhead light flickered.

I stood up again, decided now was as good a time as any to learn control, and closed my eyes. I breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth, and after a few moments of that, felt my chest loosen, as though the fear—the magic—was loosing its grip.

“Ms. Parker. Ms. Barnaby.”

Jumping at the sound of my name, I opened my eyes and looked behind me. Foley stood in the doorway, one hand on the door, her wide-eyed gaze on Scout’s room. She wore a suit of bone-colored fabric and a string of oversized pearls around her neck.

“What happened here?”

“I found it like this,” I told her, working to keep some of my newfound animosity toward Foley—who knew more about my parents than I did—at bay.

“She left at the end of lunch—said she had to come back to the room for something.” I skipped the part about why she’d come back, but added, in case it was important, “She was worried, but I’m not sure what about. The door was open when I got here a few minutes ago.” I looked back at the tattered remains of Scout’s collection. “It looked like this.”

“And where is Ms. Green now?” Foley finally glanced at me.

I shook my head. “I haven’t seen her since lunch.”

Foley frowned and surveyed the room, arms crossed, fingers of her left hand tapping her right bicep. “Call the security office. Do a room-to-room search,” she said. I thought she was talking to me, at least until she glanced behind us. A youngish man—maybe twenty-five, twenty-six—stood in the doorway. He was tall, thin, sharp- nosed, and wore a crisp button-down shirt and blue bow tie. I guessed he was an executive assistant type.

“If you don’t find her,” Foley continued, “contact me immediately. And Christopher, we need to be sensitive to her parents’ being, shall we say, particular about the involvement of outsiders. I believe they’re in Monaco at present. That means we contact them before we contact the police department, should it come to that. Understood?”

He nodded, then walked back toward the hallway door. Foley returned her gaze to the remains of Scout’s room, then fixed her stare on Lesley. “Ms. Barnaby, could you excuse us, please?”

Lesley looked at me, eyebrows raised as if making sure I’d be okay alone with Foley. When I nodded, she said, “Sure,” then left the room. A second later, her bedroom door opened and closed.

When we were alone, Foley crossed her arms over her chest and gazed at me. “Has Ms. Green been involved in anything unusual of late?”

I wanted to ask her if secret meetings of magically enhanced teenagers constituted “unusual,” but given the circumstances, I held back on the sarcasm.

“Not that I’m aware of,” I finally said, which was mostly the truth. I think what Foley would consider “unusual” was probably pretty average for Scout.

Then Foley blew that notion out of the water.

“I’m aware,” she said, “of Ms. Green’s aptitude as, let’s say, a Junior Varsity athlete.”

I stared at her in complete silence . . . and utter shock.

“You know?” I finally squeaked out.

“I am the headmistress of this school, Ms. Parker. I am aware of most everything that occurs within my jurisdiction.”

The ire I’d been suppressing bubbled back to the surface. “So you know what goes on, and you let it happen? You let Scout run around in the middle of the night, put herself in danger, and you ignore it?”

Foleys’s gaze was flat and emotionless. She walked back to Scout’s door, closed it, then turned to me again, hands clasped in front of her—all business. “You presume that I let these things happen without an understanding of their severity, or of the risk that Ms. Green faces?” She’d spoken it like a question, but I assumed it was rhetorical.

“I will assume, Ms. Parker, that you are concerned about the well-being of your friend. I will assume that you are speaking from that concern, and that you have not actually considered the consequences of speaking to me in that tone.”

My cheeks bloomed with heat.

“Moreover,” she continued, moving to one of Scout’s bookshelves and righting a toppled paper house, “regardless of what you think of my motivations or my compassion, rest assured that I understand all too well what Ms. Green and her colleagues are facing, and likely better than you do, your incident in the basement notwithstanding.”

The house straightened, she turned and looked at me again. “Do we understand each other?”

I couldn’t hold it back any longer, couldn’t keep the words from bubbling out. “Where are my parents?”

Her eyes widened. “Your parents?”

I couldn’t help it, potential danger or not. “I got . . . some information. I want to know where my parents are.”

I expected more vitriol, more words to remind me of my position: Me—student; Her—authority figure. But instead, there was compassion in her eyes.

“Your parents are in Munich, Ms. Parker, just as they informed you. Now, however, is not the time to be distracted by the nature of their work. And more important, you should put some faith in the possibility that your parents informed you of the things they believed you should know. The things they believed it was safest for you to know. Do you understand?”

I decided that whatever they were involved in was unlikely to change in the next few hours; I could push Foley for information later. Scout’s situation, on the other hand, needed to be dealt with now, so I nodded.

“Very well.” And just like that, she was back to headmistress. “I cannot forgo calling Ms. Green’s parents forever, nor can I forgo contacting the Chicago Police Department if she is, in reality, missing. But the CPD is not aware of her unique talents. Those unique talents—and the talents of her friends—provide her with certain resources. If the state of her room indicates that she is in the hands of those who would bring harm to people across the city, then those friends are the best to seek her out and bring her back.” She raised her eyebrows, as if willing me to understand the rest of what she was getting at.

“I can tell them,” I said. “Scout said they’re meeting at five o’clock.”

Foley smiled, and there seemed to be appreciation in her eyes. “Very good,” she said.

“The only problem is,” I said, “I don’t know exactly where they are. I’ve only been to the, um, meeting room once, and I don’t think I could find it again. And even if I did,” I added, before she could interrupt, “they don’t think I’m one of them.” That might change once they discovered my fledgling power, but I doubt Scout had had time to update them. “So even if I can get there, they may not listen to me.”

“Ms. Parker, while I understand the nature of their work, I, like most Chicagoans, am not privy to the finer details of their existence. I am aware, however, that there are markers—coded markers—that guide the way to the enclave. Just follow the tags. And once you arrive, make them listen.” She turned around and disappeared into the common room. A second later, I heard the door to the hallway open and close again.

It was three forty-five, which gave me time to get to the enclave, except for one big problem.

“Just follow the tags?” I quietly repeated. I had no clue what that was supposed to mean.

But, incomprehensible instructions or not, I apparently had a mission to perform . . . and I needed supplies.

I grabbed Scout’s messenger bag—proof that she was missing—then left the room and shut the door behind me. When I was back in my room, I grabbed the flashlight I’d borrowed from Scout, dumped the books out of her messenger bag and stuffed the flashlight inside. In a moment of Boy Scout-worthy brilliance, I grabbed some yellow chalk from my stash of art supplies and stuffed it, and my cell phone, into her bag, as well.

Hands on my hips, I glanced around my room. I wasn’t entirely sure what else to take with me, and I didn’t really have a lot of friend-rescuing supplies to choose from.

“First aid kit,” said a voice in the doorway.

I glanced back, found Lesley there, already having ditched the uniform for a pleated cotton skirt and tiny T-shirt. In her hands was a pile of supplies.

“First aid kit,” she repeated, moving toward me and laying the pile on my bed. “Water. Granola bars. Flashlight. Swiss Army knife.” She must have seen the quizzical expression on my face, as her own softened. “I said I wanted to help,” she said, then returned her gaze to the bed. “I’m helping.”

The room was quiet for a minute as I took it all in.

“Thank you, Lesley. I appreciate it. Scout appreciates it.”

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled absently, then moved toward the door. “Just make sure you tell her I helped.”

“As soon as I can,” I murmured, just hoping I’d have the opportunity to talk to Scout again. I stuffed the supplies into the bag, and had just closed the skull-and-crossbones flap when visitor number two darkened my doorway.