I shot a quick glance over my shoulder to find Byron. The kid was across the dining hall with his back to us. His discussion involved a lot of hand gestures and excited posturing. I didn’t know what Byron was up to, but he wasn’t spying on me.
It was good to see him making friends, though. My first year had been horrible, what with Tycho and Grayson both turning against me, my clan trying to kill me, and—
“Jace,” Clem whispered. “Earth to Jace. Abi asked you a question.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “What did I miss?”
“It is all right, my friend,” he said. “Do you want to hear from me or Clem first?”
My friends both looked like they were about to burst at the seams if they didn’t get their stories out. Abi’s normally placid face was split by a grin so wide I was afraid the top of his head might fall off. Clem practically vibrated as she walked along beside me, light dancing in her eyes. I fished an obolus out of my robes’ pocket and turned it so they could see both sides.
“Call it, Abi,” I said. I flicked my thumb, and the silver coin leaped into the air, tumbling end over end.
“Heads,” Abi announced when it reached the top of its arc and began its descent.
Eric snatched it out of the air the second before it would have landed in my outstretched palm and slapped it down on the back of his wrist.
“Heads,” he said.
“Nice catch.” I said.
“Just wanted it to be fair,” he said with a smirk. “Go ahead, Abi. Give us your good news.”
“Not yet,” I said. “Let’s get somewhere private, first.”
We’d walked halfway back to the dorm tower already, so I picked up the pace and guided them down the long hall to a door I knew all too well. We passed through it and into a quiet wilderness dusted with snow. Fir trees towered on either side of our path, and birds with feathers like brilliant rainbows darted across the sky.
The crisp air felt good on my face. An irrepressible smile pulled the corners of my mouth up to my ears. I led my team off the trail and up into the hills, then along a mountainside to the cave that Rachel had shown me. It seemed like an eternity had passed since that day. Things were so much simpler then. All I’d had to worry about was an assassin...
“Okay,” I said to clear my head of the ghosts of the past. “Let’s hear what you’ve found.”
“So,” Abi began, “there I was, searching through the Book of the Flame for some hint about the key, when I came across a parable my father never told in his services. It was about an old wise man who came to the end of his life, and he gathered all his family around. Grandchildren, sons and daughters, all his wives—”
“Wives,” Eric said with a snort. “How did he have time for one wife, much less a bunch of them, if he was so powerful? You can’t afford to be distracted by that kind of stuff if you want to get to the top of the game.”
Abi gave Eric one of his patient, humbling stares.
“Sorry,” Eric said. “I won’t interrupt again.”
Abi smiled at the prizefighter-in-training to show there were no hard feelings, then jumped back into his story.
“As I was saying, he gathered his whole family around to hear his wisdom one last time.” Abi paused. He had a gift for public speaking, I’d give him that much. “He told them his heart had grown weak, but that one day a sacred artist would come who could rekindle its glory. Until that time, he asked his children and their descendants to watch over his remains.”
“You think he had the Heart of Eternity,” I said.
“I do,” Abi said.
“That’s a nice story,” Eric said, “but it sounds like whatever he had ran out of juice a long time ago. I wonder if it’ll even do us any good to find it.”
“The map had more clues than just four elements.” Abi furrowed his brow as he considered Eric’s question. “Maybe they all work together?”
“That’s a good point,” Clem agreed. “If we assume our four minds opened the map, then the Heart of Eternity may just be a fuel source. Whatever power the kings summon might recharge it. Or something.”
“Here’s a bigger question: do you know where the Heart is?” I asked my friend.
Abi’s dazzling white smile told me the answer to that question. He pulled a reporter’s notebook out of his robes and flipped through its pages until he found what he wanted. I was impressed by the neat wall of text that filled each sheet from margin to margin.
“Some scholars think this parable is tied to the legend of Master Saito,” Abi read from his notes. “I did some more digging about him, and the last reliable mention of him was in a pre-Compact scroll. He took a pilgrimage to visit the site of his first great battle against the demon Hojila.”
“And where is that?” Eric asked.
“It’s in Japan, on Aogashima,” he said. “That’s good and bad news. The island is mostly deserted, except for a small village on the coast. The bad news is there are only two places on the island that are safe for portals. One is in the village, which is managed by monks who refuse to open it except to receive supplies. The other is at the bottom of the caldera.”
Clem’s eyebrows shot up at the last word. “The Heart is in a volcano?”
“Well,” Abi admitted, “technically. It hasn’t erupted for a hundred years. The caldera’s got a forest in it these days. The battle took place in a small cavern on the crater’s eastern wall. I think that’s where Master Saito died.”
“Seems like kind of a stretch between this guy going to the island and dying there,” Eric mused. “And if he knew he was going to die, it doesn’t make any sense
