Clem couldn’t stop grinning.
“I know where Lake Baikal is,” she said. “I spent a day there with my hosts just to get away from it all. It’s really quite lovely.”
“So where is it?” I asked.
“Siberia,” she said. “It was much nicer in the summertime than it will be now.”
“Oh, no,” Abi groaned. “I hate the cold.”
Eric nudged the bigger man with his elbow.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll keep you warm.”
While tromping around Siberia wasn’t at the top of my list of fun things to do, the timing couldn’t have been better. There were almost no students left in the School. Even Byron had gone home to his parents in Kentucky. My friends and I had the run of the place, and we used that to our advantage. After wolfing down a meal following our discovery, we regrouped in the library to search for more information about this Thorn of Heaven.
That turned out to be less of a problem than I’d expected. The House of Endless Night was the translated name of a rift canyon near Lake Baikal. The Inuit people had once settled in that area, though it had long since belonged to Russia. Not that we were in any danger of attracting attention that far north. Tourists sometimes went to the small village on the lake’s south shore, but certainly not in the heart of winter. I doubted we’d see a single soul, much less anyone who could trouble us. I still wasn’t sure how to find the key once we got there, but we were off to a good start.
“When do we leave?” Clem asked.
I didn’t want to delay the trip even a few minutes. If it had just been me, I’d already be on my way. But my friends deserved to see their families before we jumped into the last stages of the quest. We’d also need cold-weather gear for a trip to Siberia, and I had no intention of shipping that straight to the School. We didn’t need a heretic spy catching onto where we were headed.
“Soon,” I said. “But, first, all of you should head home to spend a few days with your families. I’ll send oboli with each of you. Burn it all on parkas, boots, and anything you think we’ll need for this trip. We’ll head to Siberia as soon as you get back.”
After I’d seen my friends off on their mini-vacations, I went back to the library to dig for information on the four winds to find the path. I’d already done some research on the subject during the year, but it hadn’t led me anywhere. The four winds were mentioned so often in myths and legends from around the world that it was difficult to figure out which of the hundreds of tall tales held any elements of the truth.
Even with my serpents to help me ferret out books that might have anything to do with the winds, the process was slow, tedious, and incredibly frustrating.
“Find anything good over there?” I asked Hahen and Niddhogg.
“Yes,” Niddhogg said.
“No,” Hahen corrected. “The dragon is fascinated with celebrity interviews instead of scholarly research.”
“Not everything important is a thousand years old,” the little dragon grumbled.
“Bring me what you’ve got,” I said. “I need a break from ancient Greek wind gods.”
Niddhogg’s stubby wings flapped furiously to carry him from the end of the long table we’d commandeered for our searches. He landed in front of me and slapped a glossy magazine into my hand.
“I dog-eared the page for you,” Niddhogg said proudly. “Check out that profile.”
I skimmed the fluff piece, rolling my eyes at the writer’s breathless description of the subject, Tariq Khan. The Q&A portion of the article was filled with softball questions about some charity and the importance of reading to the next generation. Boring, boring, bo—
The last question was about art acquisition and how proud Tariq was about his latest get. A trio of Empyrean Wind Keys. An inset picture next to the question showed me three keys on a black mat.
Breathless with excitement, I pulled the chain from around my neck and dropped the compass key I’d received during the Empyrean Gauntlet. It was almost a perfect match for the others in the picture. I couldn’t believe I’d missed something so obvious. I’d just been reading about the Greek gods of the winds, each named after one of the cardinal directions, and I’d had a compass key hanging around my neck.
“Hahen,” I called out. “Come look at this.”
The rat spirit took his time crossing the table, then peered carefully at the picture, at my key, and then back to the picture. “This is a terrible picture,” he said at last, “but those do look like matches to your key.”
“Which teams sold their keys?” I wondered. “Not that it matters. I need these.”
“Why?” Niddhogg asked. “If you already have one, what’s the point in snatching three more?”
“First,” I said, “I don’t want anyone else getting their hands on them. Especially the heretics. Second, the map talks about four winds. This can’t be a coincidence.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Hahen asked. “This man will have security around the keys. If he catches you, none of this will matter.”
Hahen was right. My scheme was dangerous, maybe even foolishly so. But I didn’t see any other way to finish this. And there was no way this was mere happenstance. These keys had been given to the teams competing in the Empyrean Gauntlet. The Flame had, somehow, put these pieces in play. It had wanted whoever was charged with this quest to find them. As I drew closer to the end of this strange journey, it seemed like the Empyrean Flame was guiding my steps. The prophecy, the Heart, the keys, were all pieces on an ancient gameboard. This was supposed to happen. It had to be the right path to
