Free Century #4: Dragon of Seas by Pierdomenico Baccalario

words, unable to breathe.
    “I believe that by studying the stars, the Chaldeans discovered man. The same laws apply to men and stars. This is the meaning of the signs of the zodiac. I believe their scholars—the Magi, as we call them—discovered something they kept secret, protected by this succession of masters. A secret, yes. A secret that we gradually forgot, failure by failure. But the failures of those who camebefore you won’t prevent you from discovering it. I’m convinced the students can surpass their teachers.”
    There’s a knock on the door. Frightened, the professor spins around in his seat. Then he looks back into the camera and whispers, “May Nature be with you, children. And may it protect you always!”
    Alfred Van Der Berger gets up from the couch and switches off the camera.
    Mistral and Cecile stare at the blank screen.
    “We’ve got to show this to the others,” Mistral says.
    Cecile nods.
    “In Shanghai,” the girl adds, holding up the passports.

W HEN E LETTRA OPENS HER EYES, SHE ’ S SITTING IN THE FRONT SEAT of her father’s minibus. Outside the window are the lanes of the Grande Raccordo Anulare, Rome’s ring-shaped highway. She blinks, surprised.
    “Hi,” Fernando Melodia says from behind the wheel.
    “What’s going on? Where am I?”
    “We’re going to the airport,” her father replies, perfectly calm.
    “The airport?”
    “You have to leave for Shanghai, don’t you remember?”
    “But …” Elettra looks around, bewildered. “I’m supposed to leave tomorrow.”
    “It’s already tomorrow.”
    Then, slowly, the girl remembers the elevator, the light in the well, the room in the basement, her aunt Irene showing up.
    “I can’t believe it, Dad!” she exclaims. “I was at home. And Aunt Irene was there, too. We were—there’s a room with a phone, below the well! The elevator goes straight down there!”
    “Oh, sure,” Fernando says. “We’ve got a couple Martians up in the attic, too!”
    “Dad, I’m not kidding! Aunt Irene is … one of them!”
    “One of who?”
    “She’s one of the four … Sages … the masters … the Magi! The ones who got us tied up in all this.”
    Fernando skillfully passes a Japanese car. “Could be,” he admits, returning to his own lane.
    Elettra stares at him, stunned. “You know about it, too,” she guesses. “You’ve always known.”
    “Known what?”
    “Stop playing dumb!”
    “Oh, great. Your mother always used to tell me that, too.”
    Elettra crosses her arms, furious. “You guys can’t keep treating me like a little girl.”
    “Well then, try to calm down. Otherwise you’ll make the minivan’s engine boil over.”
    “You know about that, too?”
    “What? That you let off fire and flames whenever you get mad?”
    “That I
really
do it. Literally.”
    Fernando drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “It’s hard not to notice.”
    “And you’ve never said anything about it? You can’t pretend nothing’s happening, Dad. Aunt Irene claims she’s over a hundred years old, do you realize?”
    “I hope I make it that long.”
    “That’s not the point. The point is that down in that roomunder the well, there are photos of all of us. Of me, Mistral, Harvey, Sheng … and another boy, too. A boy I’d never heard of before, but maybe … Of course!” Elettra shouts, pounding her fist on the dashboard.
    “Hey, are you trying to set off the air bag?”
    “And then I was fast asleep,” Elettra remembers, struck by the memory. “Just like that, I was fast asleep.”
    “Yes, you were fast asleep until a minute ago. And it might’ve been better if you’d kept on sleeping all the way to the airport.”
    “Last night, Aunt Irene called you, you went down to get me, you loaded me into the minibus and now you’re sending me away to Shanghai so I won’t find out anything else about that room. Which I bet you’ve cleaned out already.”
    “You’re sounding a bit paranoid,