Fortnight Field Academy

Chapter 43

Nix's P.O.V.

"Damn millennials," Mason groaned.

Normally, I would get offended and argue, but now I agreed with him. Somehow, my phone, while being off for two hours, managed to die, and since I dropped all my luggage in the chase, I had no way to charge it. Mason had dropped his phone entirely. Everyone's number was saved in our phones and of course our generation doesn't memorize numbers anymore so we had no way to contact anybody. Like Mason said, damn millennials.

"Don't you remember anything?" he pressed. "Even with a few numbers we can try to guess the rest."

"No I don't remember any numbers because I never looked at them! If I wanted to call Drew, I'd just click 'call Drew!'"

"Okay, okay, let's just calm down and try to find a charger."

Stuck in a phone booth at an airport, I didn't see how that was possible. We couldn't just ask someone to borrow theirs for a moment because everyone in this stupid state was rude as hell. They'd run away before we could get out a lousy "may I."

"There's a bunch of stores in this place. One of them has to have a charger."

"You're right. Then you can distract the guy behind the counter and I'll steal it." Gee, I really was starting to think like Drew. I didn't know if that was a good or bad thing.

"Or," Mason said with a sparkle in his eye, "we can just pay for it." Then, he pulled out the most magnificent object I'd ever seen: his wallet. I knew trusting him with the money was a good idea.

It took no more than forty-five minutes to buy a charger, find a nearby hotel room, and square things up with Drew and Maggie. I was more worried about Maggie since Drew was in a protected town, but at least she had Jake with his visions. They informed me of their one-day plan and we decided to extend it to all of us and make it three. That meant that in exactly three days, no matter of the circumstance, we would all return to Fortnight Field with or without the supplies. This would hopefully give us enough time to gather everything, get back safely, and perform the ritual before the full moon, which was now only five days away.

We also wanted to get back sooner to check on Daria. Drew said she sounded weird on the phone, and neither of us heard anything since. We didn't have any information on Mrs. Ciever either. At this point, we could only hope that no news was good news.

I kept reminding myself that the new headmaster wouldn't do anything to jeopardize his position. The mysterious loss of two teachers within the first week of his leadership would cause suspicion.

"I've been thinking," Mason said. "We can't go to Daria's alchemist; it's too risky. The ogres will be expecting us to go there next."

"So what? Do you want to get him to meet us?"

"Even if we could, there's no guarantee that he won't be followed or that the message won't get intercepted. All we can do now is find another alchemist.:

"How?" Three days ago I didn't even know they existed, how was I supposed to know where to find one?

"Easy," he grinned. "The internet."

I take back what I thought about millennials. We're pretty damn cool. By the end of that night, we had filtered out the quacks, wannabes, crazies, and criminals and found someone who seemed to check out. Her website was entirely in Latin (which was a pain to translate as a second-year student), except the word "other," which ironically enough was English for Alii. When we called, she asked if we had Changed yet. I figured that was a good sign. And finally, when we asked if she could make azoth, she said it was no problem as long as we provided the mercury.

She agreed to meet us in Sacramento in two days. It was a risk, but wasn't lately?

"So tomorrow we have to find that mercury," I confirmed.

"Yep. And if worse comes to worse, we could always use the internet again."

I laughed, playfully punching him in the shoulder. It seemed that through all this mess, Mason knew how to keep me laughing. Maybe we were both going crazy and falling in hysterics.

Or maybe I was going crazy and falling in love.