Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) by Freda Warrington Read Free Book Online

world made him despair. No use resisting, though. The idea also held a strange thrill. “Sorry, Juliana, but I have to go.”
    Now she was exasperated. “And how far d’you think you’ll get with no money, no identification? You’ll need documents. Not being of criminal inclination, I don’t know how one goes about creating a false identity, but it can’t be that hard. You’ll need more clothes. Money. Look, I’ll lend you a credit card until we can get one in your name. And I’ll pay the balance each month, at least until you’re established.”
    Mist had learned what a credit card was when she’d used one to pay for their food. He shook his head. “I can’t take money from you!”
    She waved a hand. “Oh, pay me back when you can. Listen to me: You’ll get nowhere without cards and cash.”
    He groaned, knowing she was right. “Thank you. I wish I didn’t need such help, but I’m grateful. And I will pay you back.”
    “Damn right you will. So it’s settled. We need to get your paperwork sorted out, finances, a cell phone—”
    “A phone?”
    “Yes, so I can make contact in order to forward stuff to you, wherever you happen to be. You want to find Rufus, so I’m oiling the wheels. Hop on a train, and you can be in London in a few hours. After that, you’re on your own.”
    “I’m so grateful, Juliana.” An awkward silence fell for a moment. Then he looked up at her and said, “I feel foolish. The truth is, I don’t really know where or how to start searching.”
    “Well, there’s always the Internet,” Juliana said wryly.
    “The what?”
    “Come on, Mist. Even I have a creaky old computer. As Adam, you must have noticed. The side room with a collection of yellowing plastic boxes?”
    “No. That I don’t remember.” He smiled. “Still, I am a fast learner.”
    “I’m sure you are.” She reached into her bag and placed a shiny oblong device on the table. “Start learning.”
    “What’s this?”
    “This is me, entering the twenty-first century. It’s one of those tablet computer gadgets. You touch the screen and it tells you what you want to know. Magic.”
    Mist stared at her in disbelief. Then a smile pulled at his mouth. Perhaps there would be sparks of wonder in the journey after all.
    “Honestly, it’s easy, even for someone of my great age. Look.”
    She powered up the device, and had to show him only once how to use the search engine. Mist was entranced by the small, glowing screen that could call up any part of the world, any piece of information, at the touch of a few keys.
    Hardly knowing how to start, he typed in his brother’s name; Rufus Dionys Ephenaestus. The result came at once.
    Your search did not match any documents.
    Entering his most recent assumed name, Rufus Hart, yielded 774,000 results.
    Mist sat back in his chair and laughed, causing people at the next table to look at him. Ignoring them, he tapped on some of the links, but found none that bore any relevance to his brother.
    “He wouldn’t use that name again, would he?” Juliana put in. She’d shifted her chair around to look over his shoulder.
    “Not Hart. But he nearly always used Rufus, as if he was winking at the world, saying, ‘I’m pretending to be someone else, but we all know who I really am.’”
    “I noticed that about him. He was proud of being infamous, didn’t even try to disguise himself. The way he brazened it out before the Spiral Court was quite breathtaking. You should have seen it! Oh … you did.”
    “Well, Adam was there, and I have all his memories.”
    “Of course. Try being more specific. Aelyr, or Aetherial?”
    He tried. Links to foreign language sites appeared for “Aelyr,” while “Aetherial” had over 30,000 results. Apparently it was too generic a word to be of much help. All it meant—according to an online dictionary he consulted—was “of the aether,” “pertaining to the higher regions beyond the Earth ,” and “from the Greek verb, to