They Who from the Heavens Came (The Wisdom, #1)

Aidan watched as the armour went right through the place where Itzy had stood. It stumbled forward in bewilderment, and the sword crashed to the floor. Black lines wibbled in the air, like cracks in a wall.

Aidan shook his head and the lines went away, just as Itzy had. ‘Where’d she go?’

‘I hid her,’ Seth told him.

Aidan’s gaze flew to Seth. He wanted to ask just what the hell that meant, but there wasn’t time. The bewitched armour had recovered and was coming for them, now.

The Descendants stood, just staring at it, unable to believe what was happening. Then the adrenaline surged through their bodies and they dodged sideways, parting from each other and leaping toward the walls. The long samurai sword came down against one of the exhibit cases, sending an explosion of glass in every direction. Melody shrieked and – Aidan noted – instinctively shielded her brother with her body. Aidan ducked to avoid catching anything in his eyes. Seth put up his hands, prepared to perform his magic again.

There was a shattering sound from the next room. Aidan followed its source. Through the wide doorway, he saw the glass in the display cases burst. As if moved by a gust of indoor wind, it flew at the Descendants like violent confetti. They threw themselves at the floor, to protect their bodies. When the glass had finished falling, they dared to lift their heads once more.

Now that the glass was gone, objects that had never before tasted modern air flew gleefully from their places and spun together into funnels, before cycloning their way into the Egypt room. There were dancing bones and energetic necklaces and clay dolls wearing expressions of fury.

They smashed themselves into walls in suicidal ecstasy. Shards of hardened terracotta burst like firecrackers, showering down upon the remaining trio. A chaos of noise filled their ears. A piece of pottery grazed Oz’s arm. Fighting off the pain, Oz flattened himself on the ground, next to Seth.

On the other side of the room came a pounding sound. Itzy had somehow brought an entire stone army of headless Greeks to life. They hopped viciously against the ground, while Samurai swords made their appearance and rained down on them, smashing the stonework.

Aidan stood apart from his companions, one piece after another of animated ceramic threatening to take out his eyes, and swords threatening to take off his limbs. All the while, the metal armour still clunked about the room, slamming its own sword blindly against the glass that surrounded them.

As Aidan stepped back against the wall, he marvelled at what Itzy had done. It seemed she had a certain knack for letting her stories run away from her.

A high keening noise filled the room. Melody’s fear had got the better of her and she was unconsciously flooding them with her music. In a perfect world, it would have been enough to undo their attackers. But all it did was make them more unstable, more volatile.

‘Mel, stop!’ Aidan commanded – and she did, a frightened look on her face.

Across the room, Seth’s hands furiously worked the air. A hard translucent box enveloped him, Oz, Melody and Verdi, protecting them from the chaos. A heartbeat later, a matching box materialised around Aidan. It was quick thinking, but only a temporary measure. Someone had to stop those things.

He slowly closed his eyes. Despite the box, it was hard to focus on anything amidst the pandemonium. Aidan could feel the splitting within his mind, and he knew from experience that the worst thing was to fight against it. If he was going to divide, so be it. Perhaps he could use that.

He allowed one part of his brain to panic. It was the more human side, he supposed, while the alien side lifted right out of his body, a separate entity observing all that surrounded him. He reached for that entity, grabbed it with his mental arms and pulled it toward him. He melted into it, became one with it. Soon, he could no longer feel his own body.

When he opened his eyes, the box was no longer there. The people were gone, the objects had vanished – even the ceiling and walls had disappeared. In their place were billions upon billions of atoms, hovering and vibrating magnetically together but never quite touching. His grey eyes were microscopes, allowing him to see into the spaces that lay between the molecules.

Not for the first time, it hit him that there was no such thing as emptiness. Even the air was filled with particles. It was so busy. So what was it that that made him a different creature from Seth, for instance? Their consciousness was all. But even that, Aidan thought, was perhaps more connected than they might believe.

It was in those moments – when Aidan really used his power – that he found himself faced with the interchangeable nature of all things in the universe. It reminded him of the ‘magic’ painting books he had as a child, where there were pictures made up of dots, like impressionist art. All he had to do was add water, and somehow the dots smeared together into colour.

That was the key to how Aidan’s power worked. When he saw that his physical form was no different from anything else around him, he found he was part of that matter. He could touch its essence, join with it, take control and act on its behalf – and he could change it.

I am it, and it is me, he thought as he stepped away from Seth’s wall and turned his attention on the glittering grey of the living armour. He stared at it with deadly intent. A clay pot flew over his head, but he didn’t feel the breeze of it going by. A shard of glass grazed his leg, but it didn’t hurt. He was enveloped in a bubble of protection, through the sheer strength of his mind. His golden complexion glowed with his power, lighting him up like a full moon.

The metal melted under his unblinking glare. It liquefied and dripped to the floor in a pool of silver, grateful to be put out of its misery.

The sword drizzled down beside what was left of the armour, like a desperate lover throwing himself at the side of the lifeless object of his desire. He shut his eyes again and allowed the coolness of his mind to surge forward.

Next, Aidan turned his fearsome glare on the possessed pottery. But before he could touch it, a surge of energy threw him back into his body. He staggered backward and caught himself on the wall. The room spun.

Something pulled at him, like gravity. It was so strong, he felt sick. Helpless, he looked up – and froze. For at the centre of the room was the black pulse of his dreams. It throbbed like his own heart. In each beat, he thought he heard his name.

He blinked, and his vision cleared. The pulse was gone, and Itzy stood in its place. She looked different somehow – determined in a way Aidan hadn’t seen in her before. Her eyes were closed, lost in some world that was all her own.

She didn’t move – didn’t even make a sound – and the pottery crumbled quickly into dust.

In shame, the angry stone dolls prostrated themselves at her feet, while the glass transformed into water and fell over them like rain.

A great inexplicable wind flew from Itzy. It swept through the room, blowing the dust into the corridor next door. The Greek statues shot out of the room, as if pulled back on reels.

Then Itzy opened her eyes and smiled. She was haloed in black electricity.

The sudden stillness in the room was deafening, like the pounding in one’s ears after spending an hour at a rock concert. The boxes vanished and the others stared at Itzy. They looked afraid.

Aidan slumped against the wall in exhaustion. Itzy flew across the room to him, suddenly looking like an ordinary girl again. But Aidan knew it was an illusion.

When she reached him, he couldn’t help himself; he put his hands to Itzy’s face, touching it all over, checking she was real. The second their skin connected, a sense of peace fell over him, like night settling over an endless field.

The truth was Aidan hadn’t been afraid of the museum coming to life, or the sword flying at them. But he was afraid of whatever Itzy was doing to him, without her even being aware of it.

‘Are you alright?’ she asked.

Despite his nerves, he laughed. ‘How can ye ask me that? Are you alright?’

Itzy smiled shyly and brushed her hair behind her ear. ‘I am now.’

Aidan swallowed. All he wanted was to kiss her. It didn’t matter that they had an audience, or that he got the distinct impression that at least two of them wouldn’t want to see that kind of museum display. He had to have her.

The only other time he’d ever felt that sort of compulsion had been the night he’d stolen his father’s car. The night the voice had spoken to him, telling him all he sought lay south.

London, it had finally told him.

And here she was – everything he’d been searching for, whether he’d realised it or not. He wondered if maybe the Wisdom was love.

Their attention was drawn by the sound of the room pulling itself together again. It was Seth’s turn to be in the spotlight. He waved his hands as if conducting an orchestra, sweeping along the lines that branched across the ceiling, and now the walls. The cracks glued themselves back together before vanishing altogether. When the building was finally healed, it sighed as if alive and thankful for Seth’s magical salve. The glass cases were reinstated and, after a while, the exhibit looked more or less like it had before they arrived.

Then Seth turned to Oz and said, ‘You’re living up to your name today, mate. You look like death.’

Oz rolled his eyes. ‘Osiris wasn’t Death. He was the king of the afterlife. There’s a difference.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Seth placed his hands on his friend’s cheeks. His eyes closed and the air grew still. When Seth finally stepped away from Oz, any cuts or bruises had vanished.

‘Thanks,’ Oz said in his typically understated way.

Seth turned to Melody and Verdi and smoothed away their marks. When he’d finished, Verdi said, ‘Just one problem. How do we replace all those priceless artefacts?’

‘Well,’ said Seth, ‘I can replicate them to the best of my memory, but they won’t exactly be the same.’

Itzy cleared her throat. ‘I could maybe –’

‘No!’ the others cried at once, before grinning at each other.

‘I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,’ Seth said to her. ‘You did save us, in the end. But you really need to get control over that imagination of yours. First teddy bears, and now samurai suits and flying pottery. It’s like Mary Poppins gone horribly wrong, in your head.’

He turned to Aidan. ‘Cheers, by the way, for stepping in, there.’ He angled his head in the direction of the silver puddle, which he now ‘erased’ with a swipe of his hand.

Aidan shrugged, embarrassed.

Itzy put her hands on her hips. ‘Seth, you have got to stop sending me to that weird doorway vestibule place. First of all, I can handle myself, yeah? Secondly –’

‘I’m not trying to send you to any mysterious vestibule,’ Seth bit out. ‘I’ve made dozens of those boxes and gone in them myself. I have never seen what you’re describing.’

Itzy leaned on her back leg and gave him a challenging stare. ‘Are you saying I’m lying?’

Seth opened his mouth to answer –

but he was stopped by the sound of an ageless voice.

‘Children!’ it said with disgust. ‘I was woken by children!’

They all turned in the direction of the voice –

in the direction of the mummy, which had somehow shucked off its cast and sat up.