Hero Rising. Shane Hegarty

      Finn held on to a blackened, blasted tree root, one foot dangling over a sheer drop that a quick and frightening glance told him went down far enough that there were dark angry waves where the floor should be.

      The sea. On both sides. He was on some sort of narrow cliff jutting perilously out over the waves.

      And he had come within a Manticore’s whisker of falling straight off, had thrown a hand out just quick enough to save himself. For now.

      He wrapped his arms around this lone root and prayed it would not break. He never wanted to let go.

      Above him was dark cloud. Below him was darker sea. And behind him on the cliff, he realised, was a pair of boots bigger than his head. Three claws were sticking through one of them. The Cyclops.

      “Don’t be trying to fly out of here,” said the deep-voiced Legend, offering a hand.

      Finn’s grip slipped a little on the slimy root. He grunted with the effort of holding on, but he wouldn’t be able to for much longer. He felt dead either way.

      Then a more familiar voice intruded.

      “Accept that helping hand,” it said.

      Finn saw four paws on the ledge now. Beside them, the lime-green arrowhead of a snake dropped into his eyeline.

      “We need your help,” said Hiss, “and you won’t be much use if you’re dead.”

      

      “The number you have dialled is either unavailable or—”

      Emmie didn’t wait to let the message finish but ended the call, put the phone back in her pocket and continued her search for Finn. She’d tried contacting him several times in the couple of hours since the gateway appeared. There had been no answer yet.

      She had also walked a good part of the town, head up, watching out for him, ignoring the usual glares of the fearful townspeople and the curiosity of the assistants infesting Darkmouth.

      She had not found Finn, nor any sign of him. Nothing about this felt right. She broke into a run, rounded a badly bent signpost, ducked around a postbox with a dent punched in it, jumped across a puddle of rainwater and almost knocked Lucien over as they collided at a turn in the street.

      “Take it easy there, young lady,” he said, stepping back and searching for something on the ground. He found his pen, picked it up, began to weave it through his fingers in a practised fashion. “I got this pen the day I graduated as an assistant. Writes with squid ink. Don’t want to lose it.”

      She went to pass him.

      “Where’s your friend?” he asked, causing her to stop.

      Emmie loathed Lucien but there was the fact of his superior rank and she had to recognise that or it might make things far worse for her and her dad. And things were bad enough as they were.

      Lucien sensed something amiss about her. “Is everything all right?” he said, pen tumbling through those long fingers. Across. Back again. “You seem in a great hurry.”

      “I just want to get home,” she said, not wanting to look at him but hardly able to avoid seeing the swish of the pen. “In case it rains again.”

      “Yes, the rain,” said Lucien, looking up, sniffing the air almost theatrically. “It wasn’t in the forecast. Strange.”

      Even with her back to an open street, Emmie felt backed into a corner.

      “So, no Finn? What’s he up to?”

      “Even if I knew I wouldn’t tell you,” she said, finally looking him in the eyes. She immediately regretted it – feeling like she’d given him a small victory.

      “I wouldn’t expect you to tell me,” said Lucien, smiling. Or, at least, using a smile to cover over whatever was really going on in his mind. “It’s all part of the job to keep secrets, Emmie. Important to remain silent under questioning. To trust no one.”

      “What job?” she replied, trying to be as rude as possible without giving away the nervous anger she really felt. “You took all this from us when you came in here and accused everyone of being a traitor.”

      “I accused no one of anything,” said Lucien.

      Emmie paah-ed at that idea.

      “You might dismiss that, and you’d be wrong, but I don’t blame you. Maybe you’re a little young to appreciate the nuances of an investigation. I simply looked at the evidence and came to objective conclusions. Anyone else would have done the same. Once I saw the highly unusual events happening here, precautions were needed. After all, here we were in Darkmouth, with a boy and his family who had a habit of going to the Infested Side, fraternising with Legends, and bringing back trouble.”

      “Finn was a hero,” insisted Emmie. “I saw it. I went to the Infested Side too.”

      “So did Estravon, and like him you surely have to admit you don’t know what was really going on with Finn at all times.” He let that idea sink in before continuing. “I worry you’re getting dragged into whatever he’s up to.”

      “Nobody’s dragging me into anything,” she said.

      Lucien was still doing that thing with the pen. Through the fingers, across and back again. It was really beginning to bother Emmie. He noticed it. Stopped. Slipped it into his suit’s breast pocket.

      “You’ve proven yourself an exceptional apprentice Legend Hunter,” he said to her. “Honestly, really exceptional. Steve, your father, must be very proud.”

      Emmie shuffled, uncomfortable, and feeling alone now she was reminded that her dad was stuck so far away in Liechtenstein.

      “You should have been next in line for Completion after Finn,” said Lucien. “You should be first in line now.”

      “I need to go home,” she said, and tried again to move past Lucien.

      He stayed where he was, simply loitering on the spot, looking skyward once again, examining the town around them as if he just hadn’t noticed her desire to get going.

      “You could be the next Legend Hunter, the first in many years,” Lucien said, his eyes still on the surroundings. “I’m pretty sure that once the investigation is complete, you and your father will be free to get on with your lives, to claim your place among the Legend Hunters.”

      Emmie squeezed past him, forced him to step aside to let her past, then turned to him, feeling her nails digging into her clenched palms. “I know you’re trying to turn me against Finn,” she told him, voice trembling with anger. “It won’t work.”

      Lucien remained eerily unflappable. Somehow, he had another pen in his hand, was turning it too through his fingers. “You only have to ask yourself one simple question, Emmie,” he said. “Do you really know what Finn is up to?”

      He thrust the pen into his breast pocket, turned and walked away.

      

      Cornelius was scratching. Hiss was complaining. It was exactly how Finn remembered the Orthrus, this strange hybrid of dog-body and snake-tail.

      He had met them over thirty years ago. Or only a year ago. It depended on your