Herakles wobbled after he got back to solid ground. He was the last one to come through, so the portal’s mist turned gray behind him. He discreetly leaned into Raphael, who stifled a grin. Riza seemed equally amused. Amelia, Taeral, and Varga, on the other hand, were still sulking after our brief and unexpected encounter with Aya.
“What happened?” Draven asked us.
“The Hermessi didn’t know it was one of their own until we asked,” Varga explained. “Vesta reached out to them, and they initially said they had no idea, only that they, too, had felt the fire fae die.”
“A couple of minutes later, Vesta was possessed by Aya,” Taeral added, prompting Serena to groan and roll her eyes.
“Sheesh, they said they wouldn’t do that again.”
“She apologized,” Taeral replied dryly. “Anyway, Aya did some quick digging, and she said it was a fire Hermessi from another world.”
He went on to relay the entire conversation we’d had with Strava’s water Hermessi, along with his suspicion that she hadn’t told us everything she knew, anyway. As expected, both Serena and Draven agreed with us—we’d reached our first serious stump in this investigation.
“I’ve never heard of Cerix,” Draven said. “But the Druids traveled extensively. We could look it up in the Archives.”
Herakles grunted, genuinely frustrated. “Okay, okay, nerdy research stuff aside, we’ve got a bigger problem. There’s a fire Hermessi out there that’s most likely turning fae into fanatics, then blowing them up—which, by the way, said fae didn’t seem to have on their to-do list. How the hell are we going to stop a natural element?!”
“He’s asking the right question,” Raphael agreed.
Draven thought about it for a moment, then took a deep breath. After a long exhalation, he laid out the facts. “The symbols that the fire fae carved into their skin are meant to protect them. We’d have to figure out whether they’re meant to protect them from those of us opposing their intentions, or from the fire Hermessi who’s possessing them. If it’s the former, then we can consider these fire fae to be outright fanatics. If it’s the latter, well, we can’t do anything about it. Now, we know it’s one specific Hermessi doing this—we don’t know which one, yet, but Aya suggested we look into Cerix for information. She couldn’t tell us more, and we’ll just have to deal with it ourselves, unfortunately.”
“Let’s not bother with the fire fae for now,” Serena suggested. “I’ll speak to Sherus and Nuriya for that. We can’t help them unless we stop this rogue Hermessi.”
“Fair enough,” Taeral replied. “What next, then? The Druid Archives? We look for Cerix?”
“It sounds reasonable,” I said. “We need all the intel we could possibly get on these entities, and if Aya says we’ll find it there, then… cool, we’re going there.”
Draven nodded, then escorted us into the special library where he’d had all the Druid Archives stored. The hall itself was humongous, made entirely out of beige marble. Tall, crimson velvet drapes hung from the glass windows, and candles flickered in shades of amber from the wrought-iron chandeliers. This place was a treasure trove of interstellar cultures, and it made me feel sad to think that we’d almost lost all this. To Azazel…
I didn’t carry the sins of my father, but it still caused my stomach to twist into a pretzel whenever I thought about him and everything he’d done. I had a feeling he’d always find a way to haunt me, even though we’d never met.
We spent the better part of the afternoon searching through thousands of scrolls and ancient manuscripts, flipping through yellowed pages and clay tablets. The Druids had discovered and visited dozens of foreign galaxies—a total of 1,500 new worlds. They kept records of every trip they made. They had coordinates and geographical characteristics carefully catalogued into travel journals. They wrote about the different species they met, complete with physical descriptions and cultural traditions. Anything we wanted to know about what lay beyond Eritopia was here, nestled in these shelves, hidden between pages and carved into clay.
Serena eventually left us, since it was feeding time for Isabelle. Draven stayed behind and helped us dig deeper into the archives. They’d all been translated from ancient languages, so we had accompanying documents for every parchment, notebook, and tablet we looked through, to help guide our search.
I wound up sitting next to Varga at one of the many reading tables in the middle of the library. The stained-glass windows filtered the sunlight, so we could feel its warmth as it slowly descended into the west. It would be evening soon, and we’d yet to find anything about Cerix.
Herakles, Raphael, Riza, and Amelia were lost between the shelves, occasionally coming out with a register or a journal to browse through. They wound up returning them, every time, visibly displeased in the absence of a much-needed discovery.
Taeral was quiet, flipping the pages of a leather-bound travel record. He no longer seemed angry or distraught. If anything, he was at peace, patiently reading the ancient Druids’ entries as he searched for a mention of Cerix. Draven came back from between a distant row of bookcases, his arms loaded with more records.
“Anything useful in there?” I asked Varga, looking at the journal in front of him.
He glanced at me, and, for a brief moment, I felt my heart stop. Those eyes could steal hearts with terrifying ease, and I had to find a way to stop myself from falling into such a trap. I tended to come across as a pretentious and unapproachable princess… yet, with Varga, I was constantly tempted to look into ways of making myself seem the very opposite.
“Just a Druid’s account of a world named Plixia,” he replied. “Where people are ten to fifteen feet tall and talk in clicking sounds.”
“Exotic,” I murmured.
Silence fell awkwardly between us. I dug into another parchment, but I could feel Varga’s eyes still fixed on me. It made my skin burn, as if the sun itself was paying attention.
“You?” he asked, his voice lower.
I offered a shrug, somewhat fearful of looking him in the eyes. This was my first mission out in the field. I had to stay focused and succeed in everything I set out to do. I couldn’t let a gorgeous chunk of Nevertide prime beef distract me, especially since this particular specimen came with a set of sharp brains and charm for days.
“Nothing so far, I’m afraid.”
“This is taking too long!” Herakles growled from the neighboring table. “I’m skipping meals for this!”
It made Varga chuckle. “We’ll grab you something to go from the kitchen once we’re done, I promise!”
“Holy smokes,” Amelia blurted, then shot to her feet. Her chair flew backward and landed about twenty yards away with a woody thud. “Sorry…” she added, her eyes wide.
I had a feeling she often forgot about how strong she was.
“Got something?” I asked, eager to divert attention from her awkward pause. To my surprise, I was quite protective of her, in my own way. I’d yet to figure out why, exactly, but I figured it had something to do with both of us being brand new at this GASP field mission thing. Newbies tended to stick together, didn’t they?
She nodded vehemently. “Yes. And no,” she replied, pouting.
Raphael leaned back in his chair, his blue-and-green eyes fixed on her. “Care to explain?”
“I’ve found Cerix. I have the coordinates right here,” she said, pressing her index finger against one of the registry’s brownish pages. “But we don’t have anything from it to use in an interplanetary spell to get there. And none of our technology will help. Cerix is thousands of light-years away. It’s real. It exists.”
“They traveled to Cerix, didn’t they?” Taeral asked.
Even Draven seemed befuddled. “They did, since it’s registered here, with the same name used by the Hermessi. They were in contact with the Cerixians.”
“I wasn’t specific, my apologies,” Amelia replied. “I know all our limitations. Normal magic and our technology can’t take us there. Not even Stravian magi-tech can do it. But swamp witch magic can. The interplanetary travel spell would work—just like the ancient Druids before us. I can guarantee that the light bubble will work, without us getting disintegrated or lost in space in the process.”
