Hidden Heirs and Fallen Crowns (Complete)

Chapter 35

Day three: Jasmine woke me up early in the morning, and I instinctively felt guilty when I remembered the secret I was hiding from her. It was funny how there was always something I had to hide from at least one of them.

"What are we doing today?" I asked her as we sat down for breakfast.

She pushed some of cutlery away to make space for some rolled up pieces of paper. She took one and unrolled it across the table. I twisted my neck, trying to see it from her angle.

"Here's a map of Jays Town," she started, indicating a large area in the centre of the map. Clumps of houses stood in neat rows either side of the town. To the right was the hospital, and a bit lower down the map an area of noticeably larger and more spaced out houses were drawn. Jasmine's house was marked with a red cross, just like a treasure map. Across the rest of the map was Raven's Stone Square, right in the middle, with a cobwebbed area of alleys behind it. My eyes quickly moved on to the left, where the park was, and beyond it, to Jays Woods. I looked to the right again, trying to spot my house. I knew it stood somewhere north-east in the town, but I had never really looked for my house specifically on a map.

I scanned the area, and immediately recognised the canal, a snaking blue thread on the edge of the map. My school was also marked, and by carefully following the main road from there I spotted my road, and then counted the small squares until I got to number 12.

My eyes lingered on it for a while, flashes of my previous life appearing in my mind.

Jasmine must have followed my line of vision, as she shifted uncomfortably.

"So here's us," she continued, tapping a house on the map. Immediately a perfect, faded red circle about five centimetres across appeared around the space she had touched. It stayed lit up for a moment, and faded back out.

I leaned in. "Hey, what's that?"

"It's the ... house?"

"No, I mean, it's paper. How come it lights up when you touch it?"

"Oh, that." She grinned. "Aw, it's so cute how behind humans are. This is very advanced nanotechnology. The actual paper can be used as a computer - I can write on it and everything. Like I told you the other time, Seraynians are very careful about the environment, and this uses next to no fossil fuels or anything to produce. Handy, right?" I nodded numbly. "Anyway, we were talking about Jays Town. Here's us, to the very south. Beyond us, nothing. And right here, look, are the woods. These are the two places they're most likely to land. Any other place would be too obvious, or unnecessarily far from us." Her finger swept across the areas she mentioned as she talked, bathing them in a glowing, half transparent red.

I watched in fascination, barely registering what she said.

"But," Jasmine said, not noticing my dropped jaw, "we won't know for certain where they'll land until at least the fifth day. Zed, how far can you hear?" she suddenly asked, turning to him.

"Pretty far, when I try hard," he said.

"How far exactly?" she pressed.

"Seventh degree Hearing is a good fifty kilometres in all directions," he said.

She nodded in approval. "Good. They'll be entering the stratosphere when you'll pick them up. That gives us just about enough time to find out what direction they're going in and get there."

"So, let me get this straight," I said. "Zed's gonna hear a little hum in the air, tell us what patch of grass they're going to land on, and we get there without being seen. And then there's the all the rest."

She shrugged. "It was your idea."

"Can't we get there after they land?" I suggested. "It sounds a little more," I searched vaguely for the right word, "realistic."