Billow (23 page)

"A child of both land and water, an ondine would carry this sound. Transforming the vibration to a ripple and then to a wave that bore everything the Aquidae fear."

Webbed hands came together and a small flash of light glowed. When it faded, the closed bud of a tiny purple iris lay in her palms.

The flower bloomed into a delicate blossom of satiny purple and yellow.

I stared and struggled to understand. To hear the sound.

"Ondines have become so assimilated with humans you have forgotten the essence of our magic." Disapproval sharpened her voice. "You hear, but you do not listen."

Like the slow rewind of a film, the entire process went backward. The iris closed, its petals folding in until it reverted to the bud.

And then it opened again, the petals unfurling wider, the flower growing bigger.

"The sound of a flower is nature's utmost gift. All life begins with a vibration. The faintest quivering resonance of what may be and the promise that stems from it."

The iris bloomed again and again, each time growing in size as if it strained to reach for something more.

It finally stopped once it completely filled Jourdain's palms.

But no matter how much I tried, I couldn't hear it. Couldn't understand what she wanted me to find.

Frustration built and I instinctively tried to hold it back. I needed to focus. Figure out what she was saying.

Magic dug in, energy mercilessly piercing through every barrier I erected.

The pain was too much. I had to let go.

I slowly released tensed muscles.

Jordain's alien eyes noticed all.

"You fear the darkness."

I swallowed hard and focused on my breathing.

"But I do not understand. Look around you,
sondaleur
. We are elementals, beings of light. Yet we reside at the bottom of the waters, in the shade of darkness. There is nothing to fear."

But the Shadow, the Aquidae…

"Original Magic gave birth to me as the water guardian of light. It gave birth to the selkies, the warriors who roam both land and sea." She floated toward me and the shimmering heightened. "Original Magic also gave birth to the Shadow. He was to be the dark that balanced my light."

What did she mean? That the Shadow didn't start out evil?

Why did he create the Aquidae? Why did the war begin?

"Because things change." There was a mournful note to her answer. "An imbalance caused the natural darkness to grow into an unnatural monstrosity, a river of black. A void that wishes to destroy all we are."

Tentacles tightened. "For a flower to bloom, it not only requires water. It needs earth, enriched with the rotting decay of life that ended before it. It requires both the warmth of sunlight and the cool of darkness. Life and death. Light and dark."

She lifted her hands. The colors of the flower gleamed, its beauty and infinite perfection reaching toward me.

Demanding something I didn't know how to do.

"You are the balance of light and dark,
sondaleur
. You will end this war."

Jourdain's words sent chills through me.

And my mind finally uttered the question I couldn't say aloud.

What if I can't do it?

Light shifted. A glimmering iris reflected in the depths of glossy black eyes.

"You must."

Magic pulsed, reaching into corners and depths I didn't want her to see.

EIGHTEEN

The endless blackness came.

But this time, I didn't fight. I let the darkness in.

It relentlessly devoured me until I couldn't tell the difference between us.

Until we were one and the same and I knew I'd never breathe again.

The balance shifted.

Weight pressed in from all sides, but it was less suffocating.

Energy thinned.

Now!

I ripped at the nothingness. Clawed at the weakness I sensed.

My mouth opened in a scream. Insides tore apart.

A small dime-sized hole appeared and light seeped through.

Something terrible was there. Something I needed to see…

I shoved.

Darkness rippled, revealing a thin, narrow sparkle that caught in the sunlight. It was laid against smooth, pale skin…

I slammed on to the floor, pain rocketing through the left side of my body. Sheets tangled around my ankles. Arms and legs curled into a fetal position.

With deep, shaky breaths, I willed the headache and nausea to subside.

Something dripped over my lip. I touched it and bright red smeared across my fingers. A nosebleed.

My pulse gradually slowed and I shivered, remembering the choking energy that swallowed me.

After my meeting with Jourdain, I decided to wait before fighting through the dream in the hopes it'd make a difference.

It worked.

It wasn't a nightmare.

My gut twisted. For the first time, I saw something and a horrible sense of danger had accompanied it.

The glimpse I caught was too brief to understand. But something about that sparkle was familiar and my brain scrambled to contextualize it.

I obsessed over it all morning. The gnawing sense of menace increased with each minute.

What did I see?

Ms. Roux gave a mind-numbing lesson on elemental law and constitution in fourth period. Half-listening, I doodled in my notebook.

Smooth, pale skin was characteristic of all ondines. It could be anyone. That sparkle could be some kind of jewelry. A necklace? An anklet? A bracelet?

I mentally reviewed every ondine I knew and what I'd noticed about their attire.

Why did it feel so familiar?

"As a strong Teleport, Governor Irisavie was chosen, though she was only eighteen and still a student," Ms. Roux's nasal voice droned on. "She became the first ondine in two hundred years to become Governor based on Magic's criteria…"

Pencil dropped. Heart leapt.

She's been Governor for forty years.

Image after image added up to a horrifying conclusion.

Holiday party. Kitchen. Pulling cookies out of the oven. Sleeve lifting to reveal a diamond bracelet.

I jumped out of my seat and raced to the door.

"Kendra!"

"Ms. Irisavie —"

But I was already out of the classroom and running across campus.

Faster. Faster.

It was the day of the field trip. They were outside of Haverleau.

Vulnerable.

Pure fear and adrenaline rocked through me. My legs pumped and I tore through the Quad to the Training Center.

Halfway there, I spotted Tristan, Ewan, and Garreth outside the building.

Tristan lifted his head and immediately ran to meet me, the other two right behind him.

"What is it?" His body tensed.

My breathing was so labored it was hard to get the words out. "Dream…Marcella…"

The gardinels were already in motion. I struggled to keep up as they headed for the parking lot.

Tristan began issuing orders. "Who's assigned to them?"

"Lyle, Drogo, Romilly, and Bran." Garreth's voice was tight. Lyle was his younger brother. "Besides Marquisa Irisavie, there are twelve children. Five demillirs and seven ondines."

"Ewan —"

"Already done, Your Highness." Ewan's cell was at his ear. "No answer."

"The field trip was for Lyondale Park," Garreth said. "Reception can get spotty, especially in the northern section."

"Keep trying to reach them."

The five hundred acre park was in the northeastern corner of the city.

They could be anywhere.

We arrived at a school SUV and Tristan frowned as if realizing I was there for the first time. "Kendra —"

I opened the door and climbed in. "I can help find them."

He knew there was no time to waste arguing. The rest of them piled in and we shot out of Haverleau.

"What did you see?"

There wasn't much to share. My voice shook a little as I explained.

I'd had the same dream for months. Over and over again.

Why did it take so long to break through?

"Any sense of time frame?" I heard the tension behind Tristan's question.

Fear intensified, the sharp blade cutting into my stomach. "No color indication."

Just that horrible, all-consuming blackness. Fingers dug into my thighs.

Fierce lines of concentration chiseled into his face. "Who knew about the excursion?"

After what happened with Miriam, we were all on guard for any sense of betrayal from within. Besides the ordinance preventing anyone from covering up an Origin scar, I frequently kept my Virtue engaged. There was no way an Aquidae could be in Haverleau without our knowledge.

The problem was that so many people knew about the field trip. This was an Academy-sanctioned outing entailing the participation of school gardinels. The students' parents gave approval for the children to be out.

Anyone could've mentioned something to someone.

But the vision showed me Marcella. Her involvement changed things. Anything that happened to the Irisavie family or those near me couldn't be coincidence.

We'd already learned that the hard way.

I snapped open my cell and texted. Impatient, I waited as a minute passed. Two minutes.

The phone rang.

"Hey." Aubrey's voice came on the line. "What's going on? You tore out of there —"

"Do you have your laptop?"

"Yeah. Pretended I had to go to the school clinic." Her voice lowered. "I'm hiding in the janitor's closet."

"Can you access the school server?"

Tristan glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

"Of course. Do you need something?"

"Check if info on Marcella's field trip is on there. And who's recently viewed it."

"Hang on."

I held tight to the whirling tornado of panic and fear.

Not now. Don't lose it now
.

Faint sounds of typing came through the phone. Tristan drove at breakneck speed. We neared the outskirts of Lyondale and he took the highway north.

"Got it," Aubrey said. "All the info is here. Names of kids, accompanying gardinels, time and location…" She stopped. "That can't be right."

"What?" I demanded.

"Someone hacked into the Academy server two nights ago and accessed it. But not from Haverleau. From a computer in Seattle. Wait…" More clicking on the keyboard. "No, from Nebraska. Wait."

A few more clicking sounds and she swore. "There's a long trail, pinging off servers all over the country. I can't pinpoint the exact origin. Whoever it was knew what they were doing."

"Find where it originated from."

"On it."

I hung up. My fingers clenched so tight around the phone, it was a miracle it didn't break.

"It has to be a nix," Garreth muttered. Their selkie hearing caught every word. "They're the only ones who could do something like that."

Not quite. Aubrey was an ondine and she'd pulled off far bigger stunts.

But I understood what he meant. And there was only one person I could think of.

"Gilroy," I spat. That bastard sold our information to the Aquidae.

"Or Ian," Ewan added quietly. "Or his nix friends."

"What?"

"Think about it, Kendra." His soothing tone infuriated me. "He's had access in Haverleau to the Tech Department —"

"Shut up," I snarled. "He has nothing to do with this."

A strained silence descended. The tension worsened as Garreth's continual attempts to reach the gardinels on the phone failed.

The car pulled into the lot at the park's main entrance. I was out the door before it came to a complete stop, extending my Virtue as far as I could without touching the gardinels.

No matter how much magic I wanted to use, I needed their help.

"We can't see her aura." Tristan came up beside me.

Because the ondines in the class were kids, their latent magic hadn't kicked in yet. Only Marcella's was visible.

"I'll find them."

My magic swept out in concentric circles from west to east and back again. Each time, I reached further.

Nothing. Not even a human. The winter chill kept the park empty during this time of year.

Come on.

And then I felt it.

One, two…oh God,
twelve
empty voids moving among a group of elementals.

I yanked out my dagger and ran.

Distantly, I heard someone call my name. But my mind focused only on those darting vacuums.

A rush of cold air swept against my back. The gardinels silently followed me.

Even with my Virtue tightly constrained, scattered elemental emotions flickered through.

Terror. Hysteria. Pain.

The sensations blurred together and my fear disappeared, replaced by the blackest fury.

I'm going to rip your hearts out.

I struggled to hold it back and contain the energy threatening to explode.

I wasn't alone this time. There were others with me.

An image of dark eyes penetrated the cloud of need.

I believe you.

Fingers tightened. Tristan.

I repeated his name over and over in my head to hold back the tide.

He was here. I couldn't hurt him. Wouldn't hurt him.

Teeth gnashed and I resisted the craving to pull in more magic.

Control it.

Feet barely touched the hardened ground. Winter's silence pressed in.

Elemental essences began to disappear from my Virtue. Like a computer game where bubbles blinked off the screen one at a time.

No, no, no
.

Almost there.

The Aquidae would spot my aura soon.

I accelerated, bursting through a row of trees.

My Virtue twitched.