Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,28
had in years!”
“This one’s kaldereta,” Tala said, “and this is pansit. Mum always makes more than what I can eat because Alex keeps stealing my lunches. Feel free to have some.”
“You are a lifesaver.” Ken was already stuffing beef into his mouth. More polite than the boy, Zoe and Loki took several spoonfuls for themselves. “See anything so far?” Zoe asked Loki.
Loki paused, surveying the cafeteria, then shook their head. “We’re still in the clear.”
“Pardon?” Tala asked.
Loki grinned. “I can see magical residue. Usually. Invierno’s been a challenge. People like their spelltech enough, but the natural counterspells here have been making it difficult for me to spot any of the Snow Queen’s ilk.”
They really are just kids, Tala thought, watching them wolf down her food. Teenagers, like her. Not anyone’s first choice, surely, to be tasked with rescuing the sole surviving king of Avalon. “But aren’t you guys a little too young to be the vanguard?”
“Naw,” said West around a mouthful of pansit, then slurped up a wayward noodle. “We’re seventeen. Old men.”
“Doesn’t stop us from being pretty damn good at what we do,” Ken added. “Not like we can brag, since we’re supposed to be laying low ourselves. ’Sides, the Cheshire swore us to secrecy because half the boys I know would cheerfully murder their own godmothers to be in our places. Can’t blame them. His Highness is the first firekeeper we’ve got in decades since the last one lived during, what, the Wonderland War? What does the firebird look like, anyway? Does it have a name? Does it breathe fire like a dragon? Can it sing? Can its poop turn people into stone? (Don’t look at me like that, Zo. I heard stories.) Mum says some firebirds can turn your room into the inside of a refrigerator in a heartbeat.”
“What’s a re-frigid-ator?” West asked. Tala eyed him, half-convinced he was joking.
“Kinda like an ice cave. Lots of food, but minus the bears. West’s family is what we call naturalists, Miss Warnock. They shun all reasonable modern technology for spelltech. Odd blokes, but nice people. Nothing at all like the Worldenders, who wanna destroy everything so God can give them money, or whatever it is they worship. How are we gonna track the firebird, Zozo? Does it have Vasilisa’s eyes?”
“It’s a firebird, Ken,” Zoe said. “Not a girl.”
“Is it burnish?” West asked.
“I’m afraid to ask. Almost. What’s a ‘burnish’?”
“It’s like when you put your face too close to a big fire, and it blazes up and hits you and peels your skin off and your blood and veins and everything ooze out. It’s made of fire, right?”
Zoe pushed her plate away with a faint shudder. Tala had no idea what was going on at this point.
“Vasilisa of Avalon. Long, dark hair, blue eyes, said to be the most beautiful woman who’d ever lived. They say firebirds are just her soul constantly being reincarnated, so I reckon they’d have, I don’t know, the blue eyes, at least. Ever wonder what people’s souls look like? Would mine be some huge manticore, or a big-arsed griffin, maybe? Firebirds don’t exactly inspire the same kind of fear, though I suppose setting things on fire on command has its own appeal. And what about the Nameless Sword?”
“Huh?” Tala asked, flustered by Ken’s triple abilities to change topics at the drop of a hat, to never run out of breath when he did, and to still keep stuffing his mouth with food all throughout his rapid-fire monologue.
“The Nameless Sword. No one’s ever really found it after the kingdom froze. I thought the firebird’s supposed to know where it is, since the Three Treasures of Avalon are all connected.”
“I would imagine it’s still somewhere in Avalon,” Zoe murmured.
Tala knew that, at least. The Nameless Sword—Excalibur under King Arthur’s rule, the Vorpal Sword when wielded by Alice Liddell, Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi by Yamato Takeru, Tizona from El Cid—the list went on and on. Whoever wielded the sword had the distinct honor of naming it, but the rub was that the sword chose its owner instead of the other way around; man or woman, Avalonian or otherwise.
Unfortunately the last person to have held the sword was also said to have died in Wonderland, at roughly the same time the firebird was lost.
“Well, Zo,” Ken began, “what’s the plan?”
“I’ve familiarized myself with this part of town.” Zoe reached into her bag and drew out a folded piece of paper. “We have two available routes to us: the looking glass or the