been the last time I saw her and had been polished to a mirror sheen.

“We know,” she said. “We won’t tell her unless you want us to.”

“Thanks. That means a lot to me,” I said. “All right, guys and girls, brace yourselves.”

I opened the door and my friends filed past me into the room. Clem and Eric plopped down on the bed, and Abi leaned against the closet door. I took a seat at my desk, then brushed my fingers across the bottom of its drawer until I found the edge of a tape strip. I peeled it away, and the envelope dropped into my other hand.

“This,” I announced and produced the envelope with a flourish, “is a map to help us finish the quest the Flame gave me.”

“Oh, what’s it say?” Clem asked excitedly, her infectious enthusiasm at odds with the crisp, cool appearance she’d adopted while in Kiev.

I’d be a liar if I said that didn’t relieve me. I’d liked Clem just the way she’d always been. It had me more than a little unsure of how to act when she’d returned from her post looking like an Eastern European fashionista.

“I don’t actually know,” I said. “It’s still sealed.”

The envelope shuddered free of my grasp and rose into the air on a spiral of jinsei sparks. The scrivenings that had sealed it unfurled into ribbons of silver light. A tinkling chime rang through my room as a single page unfolded to reveal a crisp sheet of thick, creamy paper. A spark of light burst to life and traced the outline of words and shapes in a furious blur. And then, as quickly as the whole light show had begun, it was over.

“That was impressive,” Eric said. “Let’s see it.”

The piece of paper held a scorched map of Asia with several countries clearly labeled across its face. A black pinprick marked a spot just inside Mongolia’s border with China. Silver letters encircled the hole and spelled out the words “Umbral Forge.” Another line of silver text ran around the perimeter of the page: “Four elements to fuel the fire, four kings to summon the spark, four winds to find the path, four minds to open the way.”

None of that made any sense to me. After all the time I’d spent researching the Empyrean Flame and Grand Design in Garfield Tanoki’s library, I’d never heard of the Umbral Forge. The four minds to open clue, if that’s what it was, seemed obvious enough. The envelope had remained stubbornly closed until I’d been reunited with my friends. The rest of those items were utterly meaningless to me. I shrugged and handed the page to Eric.

“Weird,” he said. “You think that’s where we’re supposed to go?”

Clem peered over Eric’s shoulder and pointed at the charred dot. She furrowed her brow, then leaned back against the wall and crossed her legs.

“That mark is in the Gobi Desert,” she said.

“That can’t be right.” Abi pushed off the closet door and squeezed in between Eric and Clem on my bed, which creaked under my friends’ combined weight. “I don’t know how we’d even get there...oh.”

The way Abi said those words raised the hackles on the back of my neck. We all looked at our friend. His eyes were fixed on something near the page’s edge.

“What is it?” Clem asked, sparks of curiosity dancing in her eyes.

“Those are portal coordinates,” Abi said. “Though the sextuplets are odd, and I’m not sure about this weird notation.”

The rest of us exchanged confused glances. I didn’t see anything that looked like coordinates on that page.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “The only thing on that page is a cryptic list, map stuff, and the name of the place we’re going.”

“It’s right here,” Abi said, confused by our confusion. “You guys can’t see this?”

He turned the sheet toward me, his finger pointed at a blank spot next to the pinhole.

“Yeah, that’s a no for me,” I said.

Just once, I wished things could be easy.

The Bargain

WE SPENT A COUPLE OF hours kicking around ideas about how to proceed on our quest but couldn’t agree on what to do next.

Eric wanted to hop a portal and head straight to the coordinates on the map. Abi countered that he needed time to figure out a way to use the portals without attracting attention. Clem thought we should research the Umbral Forge, whatever that was, before we even considered leaving.

Unfortunately, I agreed with all of them and none of them. It was frustrating to wait and do nothing now that we had our destination spelled out for us. But my experience from the past few years warned me that going off half-cocked would end in a world of hurt. Plus, we didn’t want to land Abi in trouble with the PDF. He’d worked his way back into their good graces after he’d broken the law to portal me to Kyoto, but he could lose all that in a heartbeat if they caught him playing fast and loose with the security rules again.

“We won’t solve this tonight,” I said with a sigh. “Clem, I’ll dig in the main library for more info on this Umbral Forge and these other clues. Use the carrels in the study hall to do the same. Eric, look into what kind of gear we’ll need for tramping around the Gobi Desert. I want to believe those coordinates will drop us right on top of our target, but I want to be ready if they don’t. And, Abi—”

“I know,” he said. “I’ll figure out how to get us permission to use the portals.”

“Awesome,” I said with a grin. “Now, I have to throw you all out so I can go talk to a lady about a problem.”

“What kind of problem?” Eric asked as he stood up from the bed and helped Clem back onto her feet. “Do I need to punch someone?”

“Maybe.” I chuckled. “But not tonight. It’s probably nothing, but I’d rather be safe than

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