by Ashia Monet
A thin staircase beckons from the back of the room. Blythe’s sneakers slap against the metal as she heads up into an identical space of escape-pod-jets, still half in the walls with their other half unseen.
This space looks familiar. Blythe glimpsed it on Whiteclaw’s security feed.
This is where her family is.
“Mom? Dad?” Her voice echoes off the walls. “Lily? Lena?” No one replies.
A tablet stands atop a podium. Blythe taps the screen until it sparks to life, requesting an access code. Useless.
She peeks through the window of the nearest jet. Empty. She looks at the next one; just as empty. She peeks through the third. A woman sits inside.
“Mom!” Blythe screams. She yells so loud her throat starts to ache. Her fists bang against he glass. “It’s Blythe! I came—”
But the slumped, unconscious person is not Blythe’s mother. And they do not react.
The lack of light makes it difficult to be sure, but Blythe soon makes out an orange sundress. Blythe has seen this woman’s strong jawline and dark hair before.
It is Sofia Torres. Antonio’s mother.
A sudden cold spreads through Blythe’s core. She races to the next jet.
A boy, a man, and a dog are inside, all of them still and unconscious. Storm’s older brother, Mikey. Her father. Her dog. All of them still and unconscious. Blythe bangs against the window. They do not stir.
“No, no, no,” Blythe chants.
The next jet. A woman with strawberry blonde hair and a dark-haired man with a pinched face, their legs extended, heads lolled back. Daniel’s parents. The Quintons.
The next jet. A Chinese couple Blythe does not recognize, but she can see Cordelia’s perfect posture in their backs. Behind them sits a young woman whose makeup and classy fashion are identical to Cordelia’s. The Deleons.
Blythe’s trembling hands fly to her mouth. It feels like time has frozen, like all the world is closing in.
Daniel’s phone calls that went unanswered. Cordelia’s mother not contacting her about the money she spent. Storm’s brother and her father not being home in the dead of night. Hoffman Manor being so painfully empty.
The Trident Republic did not take only Blythe’s family. It has never been just Blythe’s family. It’s all of the Guardians. Blythe was just lucky enough to be there when her family was taken. She wasn’t the only one this happened to—she was the only one who knew.
Cordelia, Blythe thinks, hoping she is heard. Get up here. Tell everyone they need to be here.
She runs to the next jet. The Hoffmans will be there, she knows it. They must’ve been betrayed by the Trident Republic, the people they dared to trust.
But it isn’t Jay’s family. It’s hers.
Her mother and her father are slouched in the front, Lily and Lena hidden in back. Lena’s hair is still loose, from back in the café when Blythe tried to redo her ponytail. All four of them are as still as the others, but their chests rise and fall with even breaths. They’re alive, they’re just unconscious.
Blythe lets out a low breath. She’ll get them out. But not just her family. She’ll get them all out. Once Cordelia gets here, she can hack into the touch screen on the podium, and from there—
“Congratulations,” comes a voice. “You actually managed to see the setup.”
Blythe is not surprised to find Whiteclaw when she turns around.
His shirt is dirty and covered with dried blood, just like his face. His eyes are hard and in his fist is a Bloodsword. Jay’s Bloodsword.
He tosses it at Blythe’s feet.
Blythe’s breath chokes in her throat. He must’ve wrestled that from Jay. There is no way anything has happened to Joshua Hoffman. Storm said it herself—he was fine.
But if Jay couldn’t hold his own…then the others…
She has mistaken the silence of the transport tower to be something normal. But she cannot hear the sounds of magic or fighting or movement. And Cordelia hasn’t responded.
Whiteclaw spits a wad of blood from his red-stained mouth. “Truth be told,” he says. “I’m done playing games.”
Blythe stares Rue Whiteclaw down. Her heartbeat rises, a thumping, determined song in her ears. This man has endangered not only herself and her family, but each and every one of Guardians—and everyone they love.
Blythe is not tied to a wall this time. She is not cowering in a café either, powerless and confused and scared to death of this arrogant, callous man. Blythe grips her hockey stick. It thrums with the power of Ether pulsing through it, and through her.
This time, Blythe is ready.
Twenty-Seven
Whiteclaw’s fingers dance across the podium’s illuminated screen. His voice rises, scratchy and grating, in his throat. “You weren’t actually supposed to make it here. But it hardly matters. Walden’s on his way.”
Blythe steadies her breathing. Walden Oliver is not here. Not yet. She still has a chance.
Whiteclaw laughs at her. His blood-soaked grin glistens with hubris. “You didn’t like what you found up here, huh?” He drawls. “We had to keep it a surprise. Couldn’t have all of you trying to chop our heads off. We’re not dumb, we know what we can’t handle. We needed all of you here—we didn’t need all of you pissed.”
Blythe does not respond.
“Do you think it’s a coincidence we spread a rumor about Electric City being dangerous?” Whiteclaw continues. “So you wouldn’t try to get here alone? You may be the Guardian of the most powerful Element, but you’re only one of seven. And why settle for one?”
Whiteclaw draws back from the podium. A pleasant voice echoes through the speakers. “Emergency escape activating. Level one jets evacuating for pre-planned trajectory in T-120 seconds.”
Emergency escape. Pre-planned trajectory. Whiteclaw has activated an evacuation for the Guardians’ families—straight out of Electric City.
Blythe charges at him. The wind pushes against her shoulders, shoving at her legs—but she refuses to budge. She side-steps out of the gale and her whole body twists with the force of her hockey stick sweeping through the air.
Whiteclaw ducks, a jagged, slow movement. He is exhausted. And injured.
Good.
Blythe slams the stick into the floor. A crater explodes into the concrete, sending cracks beneath her sneakers and jostling the jets against the walls.
But Whiteclaw shoots into the air, untouched, hovering just out of her reach. His eyes are cold and empty, even against the blinding light shimmering from his bronze cuffs. “I suggest you stop swingin’ at me,” he growls. “I might have to fight back—”
“Shut up,” Blythe growls. “Shut up!”
She swings upward, stretching her shoulder muscles until they burn. The stick collides with his calf.
Whiteclaw goes flying. His body rolls across a jet, collapsing to the floor.
He’ll get up.
And he does, gritting his teeth. And in his eyes, finally, is the anger that rages through Blythe —the anger that has burned within her since the night she saw his face in her café.
“Damn kids,” he growls. “These motherfucking kids.”
Air chokes out of Blythe’s body. All of the oxygen has been sapped from the air. Blythe stumbles, grasping at her neck. But she does not drop her hockey stick. She will not drop it.
“Walden said to keep you busy,” Whiteclaw scoffs. He speaks over the sound of her raspy, desperate gasps. “Shoulda known nothing he says is ever that fucking easy. The most annoying thing is that you’re too valuable to kill. Ain’t that ridiculous? The seven of you get to destroy this entire tower and none of us can do more than rough you up, when innocent civilians in this very city died for so, so much less. But I guess,” he huffs. “That’s just the privilege of the Black Veins.”
Blythe’s mind is swimming. Straining.
The dark, warm depths of unconsciousness beckon to her.
“Security system deactivated,” announces the voice.
>
Caspian.
The Guardians are still down there. Still fighting. Still alive.
“It takes a total of eight seconds for someone to pass out. I’d say you have about four more,” Whiteclaw continues. “Wanna give up now?”
Blythe’s fingers claw desperately at her throat. The Guardians are out there protecting her. Making sure that she can finish what they came for. To give up would be to let them down.
Oxygen isolates her, each molecule deserting her atmosphere…as Whiteclaw’s cuffs glow brighter with each passing moment.
Whiteclaw’s weakness has been staring Blythe in the face since the night he walked into the Full Cup. Magical items can take all forms, even something as odd as a hockey stick. And Whiteclaw uses magical weapons, just like Blythe does. His just happen to be glittering on his wrists.
Blythe’s hands won’t stop shaking. She can’t even feel the handle of her hockey stick against her palm as she aims it toward Whiteclaw’s wrist.
The laser fires—flying too far left, past him, into the wall. But it catches him off guard.
His loss of concentration is enough for Blythe to take in a gulp of air, filling her burning lungs. She aims for his cuffs but he dodges before the stick even fires.
“Smart,” he says. Blythe curses. He’s not going to let her just shoot them off.
She rises, swaying but desperate, and runs for him. The hockey stick winds easily behind her, like second nature.
She’s barely swung forward before Whiteclaw grabs it with both hands. Blythe pulls back. The stick doesn’t move. He has her pinned.
Whiteclaw forces her backward, gripping the stick in his fists until her back slams against the freezing stone wall.
“T-50 seconds,” the voice echoes.
His presence is hot and suffocating. He reeks of iron and blood. “If you were smart, you’d be breaking your family out,” he spits. “Instead, you’re trying to stop me, so you can…do what? Save all of them? By the time the countdown is over, you’ll lose everyone. Your family included.”
She should not answer him. He doesn’t deserve to know her thoughts. But words come growled between her teeth anyway. “I’m not abandoning the people they love.”
Blythe tries to slip to the left. Whiteclaw shoves her back harder. He is an unyielding force, like a metal crusher, and she cannot move.
But with Whiteclaw’s fingers gone white around her hockey stick, he’s placed his bronze cuffs right at her neck.
Maybe pushing away is the opposite of what she needs to do.
“You care more about a group of kids you just met than your own family?” Whiteclaw goads.
Blythe tightens her grip against the wood. She summons all of her will. Her energy. Her power. She remembers the warmth of her magic, how it felt when it visited her in the Erasers’ lab. How it coursed through her, thrumming and chilling and strong.
She thinks of the Guardians. Cordelia and Daniel and Antonio and Storm and Caspian and Jay. How badly she wants to—needs to—make them proud. How she refuses to let them down.
Stars and constellations swirl along Blythe’s arms. Galaxies open beneath the bronze of her skin, birthing piercing white light from her pores. Magic surges down her arms, pooling in her hands, humming and buzzing and growing, growing, growing.
Whiteclaw’s eyes fly wide. Blythe has always been the girl without magic, the powerless Guardian. But pure Ether, the strongest of the seven Elements, is radiating from her skin.
“Those kids are my family too,” Blythe says.
Energy explodes from her hands. It is like the force of the hockey stick amplified by a thousand, turning the world stark, blinding white. It is heat, it is electricity, it is the raw power of magic itself let loose.
The sound of Whiteclaw’s raw scream comes first. Blythe cannot see through the white light—it has swallowed the world—but she can feel the force of his hands disappear.
Blythe catches her breath as the world eases back into view. The broken remains of Whiteclaw’s cuffs lie scattered on the ground, burnt to blackened crisps.
And then there is Whiteclaw.
Wind twists around him like his own magic has turned on him. His mouth gapes open, hands at this throat as his wide eyes lose their focus.
“Oh my God,” Blythe whispers. Daniel told her about this, how dangerous Learned Magic can become when it is broken mid-use. And now the air has gone from Whiteclaw. Just like he took the air from her.
“Seven seconds until you pass out, right?” Blythe asks.
He stumbles to his knees, shoulders trembling. Blythe almost expects him to rise, to break free and rush at her in rage.
His body pitches forward and collapses. He is still. But Blythe waits, because he could get up again like a forgotten enemy in a video game.
“T-30 seconds,” says the voice.
Nevermind. Blythe doesn’t have time to wait. He’s down now, that’s all that matters.
Blythe rushes to the podium. All of the numbers look like Greek. Shouldn’t there just be a huge, red stop button?
Footsteps rush up the stairs. A chorus of voices echo her name. And there is Cordelia, Jay behind her and Antonio behind him, Storm carrying Daniel at the very back. Caspian melts into view at her side, always at her side. Their eyes are wide and their bodies are scuffed and cut and tired.
Blythe has never been happier to see them.
“I got your message,” Cordelia says. “It just took us a second to get up here.”
“Fucker stole my sword,” Jay says, rushing over to snatch his Bloodsword up from the floor. “You good, Blythe?”
But the weight of their gazes makes it hard to speak. To explain. “The jets,” Blythe says. “The jets, they…they have everyone.”
“Girl, what?” Storm cocks her head to the side. “You sure you good?”
Jay peers into one of the windows. “Holy shit. Blythe, your parents are white?”
“Those aren’t my parents, they’re Daniel’s,” Blythe blurts. The words come out sharp and hard. “The Trident Republic took all of our families.”
“T-20 seconds,” says the voice.
Blythe watches the Guardians rush to the windows, all speaking at once. Antonio checks every window until he sees his mother, but Daniel is hyperventilating, trying desperately to keep his injured knee off of the ground. Storm’s face has turned to unreadable stone, even as Antonio starts screaming Spanish words Blythe cannot understand. Cordelia moves slowly, arms crossed tight, and Caspian watches all of them, resigned to sympathetic silence.
They are all coming to the same realization: the Trident Republic has used them and taken their loved ones as hostages.
“T-15 seconds,” says the voice.
Blythe is about to make it all so, so much worse. “That voice is counting down to an evacuation that’ll send every jet on this floor off to God-knows-where.”
A new level of horror blooms across their faces.
“Cordelia, there’s a computer here,” Blythe points to the podium. “Can you—”
Cordelia runs over.
“T-10 seconds,” says the voice.
Her hands shake as she types. It feels like she spends an eternity staring at that screen.
“I don’t have time,” she says. “I don’t know how to open all of them at once, I can—I can only open one. I-I don’t have time.”
“T-5 seconds,” says the voice.
The screen shines hard against Cordelia’s face. Tears well in her eyes. “This was never about me,” she whispers, and presses a button.
A single door slips open. Inside, resting in the shadowy darkness, is Blythe’s family.
“Emergency evacuation initiated,” says the voice.
All at once, the jets burst into the night. It’s almost beautiful, the way their flight patterns synchronize as they sail into the darkness.
There is nothing beautiful about the Guardians’ expressions as they watch their families disappear: the clench of Storm’s jaw, the t
ears streaking Cordelia’s face, the despair that has extinguished every hint of light in Antonio’s eyes.
Only one jet remains.
“Initiating full Transport Tower lockdown,” says the voice. “In T-60 seconds.”
Caspian stares upward. “…What is that?”
Daniel takes in a long, shaky breath. “I-I-It sounds like we won’t be able to leave,” he answers.
“We can take the jets downstairs,” Storm says. “If we’re quick enough we might be able to tail the ones that just left.”
Those words have everyone darting for the staircase, moving at the speed of light without a second look back.
“Blythe!” Calls a voice, stopping her at the very top stair.
Lily.
The twins run for her, curls bouncing and hands outstretched. She catches them in her arms, crushes them against her. They are warm and safe and alive. “I missed you,” she whispers into their skin. She wants to be the strong big sister they know she is, but sobs are already escaping her.
“You’re crying on us,” Lena whines.
Blythe laughs, a choked, hoarse sound. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I love you guys, okay? I need you to know that. I love you so, so much.”
She watches her parents approach through the blurry haze of her tears. Her fathers’ constantly worried brow, her mother’s strong gaze. She has ached to see their faces again. And here they are.
Her throat is thick, almost too tight to speak. “Mom, Dad, I…”
Jamal kisses her forehead without a word. She can feel his tears drop onto her cheeks.
Her mother grabs her tight when she stands. “Blythe, how did you get here, baby?!” she asks. “Where…where are we?”
“We’re in Electric City,” Blythe explains. “And we’re inside a transport tower that’s about to go on full lockdown if we don’t get out as quickly as possible.
“Where’s the exit?!” Jamal asks.
“Back this way, follow me,” Blythe says.
“Good girl,” Jamal nods. “Lily, Lena, c’mon with me!”
It is the first time Blythe has seen her family in weeks and an alarm is going off while Whiteclaw lies collapsed on the floor—a sight that Jamal directs the twins away from—but none of it matters. She has her family back. She is whole again.
