41. Advanced Paleomagnetism
Maxwell Brenton, PhD was not prepared for Ciarán’s eyes. He pedaled back in his desk chair, stopping only when he crashed into the filing cabinet behind him. His reading glasses slid from his head to fall to the floor, and his knuckles turned white where he gripped his armrests.
Ciarán smirked and pushed his sunglasses back up his nose, then made a show of procuring a glowing, orange scythe in his hand.
“You did something to me.” My father was looking at me now.
His face was full of panic and rage, but his chin, nose, and the color of his hair where it hadn’t yet started to gray—it was all mine.
I hated how much I looked like him. “The nightmares and the blackouts—it’s all been you. I don’t know how, but it has to be.”
“The nightmares?” I looked to Ciarán, and his brows furrowed over his sunglasses.
“Is it drugs?” Maxwell threw out a haphazard guess. “You’ve been drugging me, haven’t you? Because of what I said after the lecture—”
“I can’t have drugged you because I haven’t even been in this plane of existence since your lecture at Von Leer.
” I cut him off before the memory of the cruel words he’d spoken could needle me too much.
“And that’s part of the issue. An evil Magician is trying to break free from his world into this one, and my grandmother and mother are the only ones standing in his way at the moment, so I need you to give me and my friends a ride to my Gams’s house in Keel Watch Harbor so we can help them. ”
The fear on Maxwell’s face gave way to disdain and confusion.
“You’re insane,” he said simply. “What the hell does any of that even mean?”
“It means I hope you have a van that seats five extra people and a cat because you’re going for a drive.”
“First,” he sneered, quickly regathering his wits, “Keel Watch is over twelve hundred miles away. Second, if I’m to drive you anywhere, it’s going to be the hospital because you’re talking absolute nonsense.”
“Nonsense?” I grinned and stepped closer, trapping him in his chair. “You don’t think anything I’m saying is real?”
I leaned down, placing my hands over his on the armrests. He tried to pull away, but I had his wrists pinned.
“If you think what you’re saying is real, then you are sicker than I thought,” he said.
“Do the nightmares not feel real?” I whispered.
His sneer faltered, and his eyes widened. “You have been drugging me!”
“They’re quick, right? Waking up, suddenly lucid in a world that feels so real that you’re sure you’re awake, and then you die.
” I remembered the way his eyes had widened in sudden lucidity just as I killed his Nightmare in Skalterra, and I was sure he was remembering it too.
“And the dying part feels real too. The blade in your gut. Put there by me.”
Maxwell’s twitching lips confirmed my suspicions, and his brown eyes wavered back and forth as he tried to choose which of my eyes to focus on. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.
“And the blackouts?” he finally hissed.
“I don’t know about the blackouts. That’s a question for your doctor.” I straightened up. “But you know what? It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. You’re going to drive me to Keel Watch Harbor anyway.”
“And why would I ever agree to that? The moment I get the chance, I’m calling the police—”
“You think the police can stop me? You think they hold any power over me?” I let the smallest amount of Skal swell, and my eyes warmed.
Maxwell was washed in blue as my glowing retina guard fell in place, turning my irises bright and my sclera black.
The Sentinel mountains, an entire world away, pressed back, but it was worth the look on Maxwell’s face to use this small amount of magick.
“There is no power in this world that can hold me. You will drive me to Keel Watch Harbor because it is the only way you will ever be rid of me. And also, because Ciarán will break your fingers if you refuse.”
I shifted to the side so my father had a better look at Ciarán where he continued to lurk in the corner.
Maxwell gulped a second time.
“If you take too long to decide, Ciarán will break your fingers anyway,” I warned.
Ciarán stepped forward, and Maxwell put his hands up in surrender.
“Fine! I’ll go! I’ll go! Where are your other friends?”
“I’ll take you to them. But first, where’s the nearest mall?”
I had no qualms about running up Maxwell Brenton’s credit card. It wasn’t as if I was choosing expensive clothes for us. Still, even simple t-shirts, jeans, and fresh socks for five people added up quick.
Then there was the bag of sandwich bagels I ordered from the food court. They were overpriced, but still cheaper than most of the other options.
All things considered, Maxwell should’ve been thanking me for taking it easy on him and his bank account.
“I would like to break his fingers anyway,” Ciarán said in my mind as we drove back towards the beach. He’d changed into his new jeans and t-shirt, but had pulled the old Von Leer hoodie back on anyway.
“Give it time. I’m sure he’ll give us a reason,” I assured him.
Ciarán’s thoughts hadn’t stopped buzzing since we’d left Maxwell’s office in a white research van. The bright lights, shops, and noises all fought for his attention, but he took it in stride, aided no doubt by his one day of Keldori memories.
My own thoughts felt flat. Too much had happened in the last day for me to feel or think anything anymore, but if we could get north, back to Keel Watch Harbor, Mom, the Rift, and Gams—
Then I could let myself feel again.
Maxwell parked in a lot atop a bluff that overlooked the beach and ocean. Ciarán climbed out of the back to retrieve the others from their hiding spot, but I stayed with my father.
“If he tries anything—” Ciarán warned in my head as he took the stairs down to the beach.
“You’ll break his fingers. I get it.”
“Not exactly, but he will wish I had.”
I settled back into the front seat. Maxwell kept his seatbelt on and his hands gripping the wheel. He stared straight ahead, and I was fairly certain he was trying to pretend I didn’t exist.
To be fair, he did have a lot of practice on that front.
“How long will the drive be?” I asked. The van, typically used for carting students and research equipment into the field, was definitely large enough to fit all of us, and probably Una too.
“About twenty hours if we don’t stop. Add in breaks and traffic, and it’ll be closer to twenty-four,” Maxwell said. “And then I have to drive back, mind you. I’m going to have to leave my work to my assistants.”
Twenty-four hours to Mom. I’d have to take a turn at the wheel if we wanted to drive straight through, but that would be fine.
Taking too long wasn’t an option. The mountains pulled at me, but so did the need to use the Skal building up in my system. If I held it in too long, I’d end up with ulcers again. If I let any go, the volcanos, already so dangerously close to their bursting point, might finally blow.
And every breath I took of Keldori’s air filled me with more Skal.
“How was the rest of your lecture tour?” I hated Maxwell Brenton, but I couldn’t stand the silence. It made the Skal in my blood harder to ignore.
“I will drive you to your mother, but I draw the line at small talk,” he said.
“We are not friends. I am not your father. You will refer to me as Doctor Brenton, or nothing at all, and you better hope your fantasy world is real, because once this is over, I’m going to personally see to it that you are blacklisted from every geophysics institution in the country.
If you even are interested in geophysics, that is. ”
“I am,” I said blithely. His threats would’ve gotten under my skin a few weeks ago, but I was finding it difficult to let anything under my skin at all after Ergoth’s roots had wormed their way there. “I care more about saving my mother and grandmother though, so fine. Blacklist me. I don’t care.”
“Your mother will have to pay me back for the gas money to get there,” he snapped. “And the clothes and food and—”
“My friend died this morning,” I said, staring out the windshield at the ocean. “He sacrificed himself to save the people he loved and to save the world, and I watched him do it. But sure, Dr. Brenton. I’ll make sure my mom pays you back. She makes more than you do anyways.”
Maxwell fell silent.
“Your friend died?” he finally said.
“He did. Killed his sister too, but she was terrible.”
“Well that is a shame,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, Wren.”
I scowled at him. “I don’t want your pity.”
“Fair enough.”
We ate our bagels in silence, but I preferred the bagels in Keel Watch Harbor that Ciarán’s aunt and uncle used to make.
I’d just managed to choke down my last bite when Maxwell startled, bracing his hand against the driver’s side window and rising in his seat, looking around wildly.
“When did we get here?” he demanded, then looked at the half-eaten bagel in his hand. “You are drugging me! The blackouts! What did you put in this?”
“Why would I drug the person driving me up the coast?” I looked him up and down. “You don’t remember parking here?”
He glanced in the backseat. “Where’d your spooky friend go?”
“To get my other spooky friends. Are you on drugs?”
He shook his head and tried to relax in his seat. “I already told you. I get blackouts. They started when the nightmares did.”
Ciarán forced my attention away from Maxwell’s strange episode as he appeared at the top of the parking lot stairs.
Fana carried Jonquil behind him in her new shirt and jeans.
The ocean water had frizzed her hair magnificently, and her eyes were rimmed red.
Iseult, back down to one leg, leaned on Orla for support.
Her Skal-leg would’ve drawn too much attention.
Otherwise she blended right in with her new clothes, tanned skin, and white hair that could be mistaken for a bleached blonde.
“Where’s Una?” I opened the passenger door.