The Chronicles of Ether Drive

   Chapter 10 The fountain is waking up The long, loud buzzing of the tortoise-shaped clock stopped with a sudden click, plunging the room into a deep, heavy silence. It felt as if reality itself had frozen. It took a few minutes before Remi opened her eyes, feeling a bit dizzy, like someone shaken awake from a deep sleep. She was still curled up on Demir’s chest in her white Angora cat body. Once again, the boy hadn’t followed her back into the living world. Something was keeping him trapped on the other side of the Ether Wall. Everyone else in the room looked exhausted, even though they hadn't joined Remi on her magical journey. With quiet, solemn movements, Shehrazad began untying the strings from around everyone's wrists—a reverse ritual to break the spell. One by one, the professor, Anemo, and Samir started stretching to wake up their numb limbs. Remi jumped down to the floor with her usual feline grace and stopped right in front of Samir, the twin who had first brought h...

 Chapter 9: Mehyt In the house of the two boys and their grandmother, the air was always fresh, scented with citrus or delicate flowers. Shehrazad took great care to keep the smell of illness at bay. To her, Demir was simply trapped in a deep sleep, from the dream of which he no longer wanted to return to life. And this was where she, the grandmother, stepped in with all her heart, all her strength, and all her knowledge as an Epigraphist and Paleographer in Egyptology. Her profession, among other things, involved deciphering the ancient writings of the early dynasties and studying the rituals of the ancient Egyptians. Fate had led her to discover something incredible: a network of portals through fountains or water wells all around the world. These portals could only be activated by certain people, and they led into a true labyrinth of time and space. At first, this was hard to believe, especially for a brilliant scientific mind like Shehrazad’s. Paradoxically, however, she hersel...

  Chapter 8: Tricks or Not? The Zamalek apartment had suddenly become the hub of a wild, international communications network that was completely out of control. The air conditioner kept gasping helplessly over the cedarwood table, where phone screens and laptops were blaring with loud rings, all clashing together in a total mess. Anemo, holding his laptop in his arms with his mobile phone in one hand, had finally managed to reconnect the FaceTime call with the House of the Winds. On the screen, Fleur’s face appeared once more, looking a bit messy as usual. Next to her was Eol, who was excitedly tapping away on the mobile phone that Remi had left behind in Ireland. "Anemo! Professor! Can you hear me?" Fleur shouted from the screen, her voice echoing loudly through the Cairo living room. "I’ve checked the remote sensors! Eol says the magic signal from Zamalek has gone completely off the charts! Where is Miss Remi? Have you found her?" At that exact same second, Profe...

 Chapter 7  The Theory Proved True The laptop screen went dark all of a sudden as Anemo ended the call, leaving behind the echo of Fleur's promise. Simoon reached into his linen shirt pocket, his fingers trembling slightly with emotion. He pulled out his phone, a rugged model perfect for archaeological dig sites, and unlocked the screen to open the GPS tracking application. "Let's see where poor Remi ended up," the professor muttered, zooming into the digital map of the Zamalek district. Anemo took a step back, preparing his backpack for a race against time through the streets of Cairo. However, on the phone screen, the map showed neither El-Andaluz Park nor the banks of the Nile. The blue circle, indicating their position inside the apartment, overlapped perfectly, millimeter by millimeter, with the blinking red dot. Simoon blinked rapidly. He shook the phone, thinking the app had frozen. The red dot remained motionless, right in the center of the screen. "It ca...

Chapter 6: The Tower of Babel In the rented flat in Zamalek—the very same flat Simoon Gale always rented whenever he visited, since, obviously, his professional life revolved around anything to do with archaeological sites and Ancient Egypt—the air conditioning was panting away helplessly, blowing towards a table piled high with blank sheets, sketches, and Anemo’s open laptop. On the screen, dozens of tabs from Facebook groups like 'Tourists in Egypt' and 'The Zamalek Community' were already racking up comments on the desperate notice posted by the writer. "Nothing!" came Anemo’s hopeless voice, his typing making a fast, clattering sound. "No one saw a white Angora cat last night on Shagaret El Dorr Street. Plenty of cats have been spotted, but not a single white one." Simoon, who was no longer quite so calm, glanced over his son’s shoulder. "Look at what this bloke is saying... Robin: 'I saw a pack of six or seven cats under the balcony......

Chapter 5: The Ether Wall Remi, sitting on the chest of the boy named Demir, could feel her collar pulsing. The bead, split down the middle in two different colours, was flickering on and off, as if it was about to teleport her somewhere. She swallowed hard, but she truly hoped everything would go well and that she could save the boy. "What do I need to do now?" she asked, her voice sounding groggy, as if she were about to drift off to sleep. The boys’ grandmother brought over a ball of rough hemp string, which smelled strongly of cedar resin and heavy frankincense. With steady, well-practised movements, she wound the thick fibre around Demir’s weak wrist, then around Remi’s white paw, and then around Samir’s wrist. She secured the final knot around her own wrist and left the rest of the ball down on the slightly rusty-looking marble floor. "We only have one hour, we can’t risk any more than that," the woman said. "You, El-Beyda, must hold my boy’s hand and bri...

  Chapter 4: Trustworthy If Anemo Gale had ever been asked what his ideal police station looked like for the ending of one of his novels, he definitely wouldn't have described the building he was standing in right now. The Zamalek station reeked of cheap bleach, dodgy tobacco, and way too sweet black tea. Up on the ceiling, a massive fan with bent blades spun around, making a rhythmic squeaking sound like a tired pendulum ticking away for no reason. Behind a chunky desk made of peeling wood, a massive police captain with a thick black moustache and heavy-rimmed glasses was taking slow, deliberate sips from a tiny glass. He stared at the two Gales with total boredom in his eyes. "So, gentlemen..." the policeman said in heavily accented English, pulling a blank sheet of paper in front of him. "Let’s recap. You claim that last night, from your flat, there disappeared... a cat. A white cat." "Not just any cat, Captain!" Anemo interrupted, shifting his weig...