The Fire Chronicle Read Online Free PDF Page A

of fizzy lemonade.
    “It’ll be okay,” Michael said. “It’s Kate, remember?”
    Emma didn’t respond. Her face was tense with worry. But she reached out and took hold of Michael’s hand.
    The children sat there for nearly an hour, their lemonadebubbling softly before them. Groups of men and women drifted into the café. The men were lean and hard-faced and wore ancient dark suits, white shirts, and old black hats; they looked like men who’d been outside their entire lives. The women were dark-haired and dark-eyed and had hands worn thick by work. The tiny woman in the apron bullied them all. Pushing them into chairs. Bringing them food and wine they hadn’t ordered. And Michael could see that the men and women loved it; the more the tiny woman bullied, the more laughter and conversation filled the restaurant.
    The place was a good place, Michael thought. A refuge. And he understood why the wizard had sent them here.
    Emma leapt to her feet, and Michael turned to see Dr. Pym stepping through the curtain of beads at the door.
    Michael felt his heart twist upon itself. The wizard was alone.
    Dr. Pym lowered himself into a chair.
    “Well, you’ll be relieved to know that the
morum cadi
have quit the orphanage, and neither your Miss Crumley nor the other children were harmed.”
    “And?” Emma cried. “Where’s Kate? You said you’d find her!”
    Conversation around them stopped; the old men and women looked over.
    The wizard sighed. “I did not find her. I am sorry.”
    Michael gripped the wooden leg of the table and took several slow, deep breaths.
    “So maybe you didn’t look hard enough!” Emma’s voice was now the only sound in the restaurant. “Maybe she’s not at the orphanage! You gotta keep looking! We’ll go with you! Come on!”
    She began to pull the wizard out of his chair.
    “Emma.” The old man’s voice was quiet and calm. “Katherine has not returned to the present. Not to Baltimore or anywhere else—”
    “You don’t know that—”
    “Yes, I do. Now please sit down. You’re attracting attention.”
    Emma grudgingly released his arm and threw herself into her chair. The talk at the other tables resumed. The tiny woman buzzed over, set a glass of red wine before the wizard, and darted away.
    “We must look at the situation logically.” Dr. Pym kept his voice low. “Let us say that Katherine did indeed use the Atlas to travel into the past and dispose of that foul creature. Why did she not return immediately? Perhaps something or someone prevented her—”
    Emma struck the table with her fist. “So we’ve gotta help her! That’s what I’m saying! We’ve gotta do something!”
    “She’s right,” Michael said. “We need to come up with a plan! We—”
    “But the point you must both understand”—the wizard leaned forward—“is that if your sister is trapped in the past, then there is absolutely nothing that you or I or anyone else can do about it. She is beyond our reach. That is a fact, and you must accept it.”
    Michael and Emma opened their mouths to argue, but nothing came out. The hard finality of the wizard’s statement, the cold, precise way it was delivered, had robbed them of speech.
    “However,” and with this Dr. Pym reassumed his normal, grandfatherly air, “I do not think that is what happened. Yoursister is one of the most remarkable individuals I have ever met—which, considering how long I have been alive, is saying quite a bit. No matter the obstacles, if there is a way for her to return to you, she will find it.”
    “So …” Emma’s eyes were welling with tears, and she’d clasped her hands to keep them from shaking. “… Why didn’t she?”
    The wizard smiled. “My dear, who’s to say she hasn’t?”
    “You! You just said—”
    “Aha!” Michael exclaimed.
    Both Dr. Pym and Emma looked at him.
    “You know what I’m going to say?” the wizard asked.
    “Well … not exactly,” Michael admitted. “But it just felt