by Rae Else
El brooded on Medea’s words. She felt the anger bubbling up in her. What Medea said was the truth, but she resented her for saying it … resented her for bringing her here. El would never be able to unsee what she had. Her grandma’s complete apathy over her sister’s death, the jubilance for the power she’d inherited. El had to admit that she’d never really known her grandma.
‘You knew an aspect of your grandmother,’ Medea said. ‘You will find that love and hate are closely bound. You can still love the woman who raised you while hating her past actions.’
El gaped. Had Medea read her mind?
‘I can read snippets,’ Medea explained.
El raised her brow. She wondered what else Medea could do. ‘Couldn’t you show me the future, to help me make my decision?’
Medea smiled. ‘No. Showing you the future wouldn’t help. It rarely brings about the desired results. As I said to Helena earlier, some things are better left unsaid.’
El sighed. It turned out that witches were very like graeae. Secretive.
‘I can assure you, however, that if you take up the full power and wield it wisely, it will not cost you your freedom but help you to claim it. Take it up and only use it when you have most need of it and you will not fall under the yoke of the Carrases or the Order. In addition to this, you may save millions of lives in the process.’
Great. Now the witch was giving her a vague prophecy.
Medea smiled fully. Yet a preoccupied look soon came over her. ‘As I told you, my power is fading. In fact, I shall need a decision soon so I can restore you to the present.’
Alarmed, El wondered how she’d ever be ready for this. ‘I’ve never wanted this—’
‘People who wield power well never ask for it, El.’
She nodded, thinking she understood. Look at the way Yia Yia hungered for power. She only ever used it to her advantage, not for the sake of others.
‘But what if I can’t bring myself to use it?’ El asked.
‘Would you have used it on Louisa, the night your grandma died?’
El knew that she would have. She’d tried. Now after coming back here, to the past, she knew it would have been a mistake. Knowing what she knew now, she wouldn’t be able to kill Louisa.
‘Your hesitance is why I want to give it to you El,’ Medea said.
El frowned. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to use it.’
‘Precisely.’
The cryptic comment infuriated El again but as she met the witch’s eyes, there was something peaceful about their caramel hue. Like the subdued light behind church windows, they seemed reverent. El felt bewildered by Medea’s advice but comforted by the faith she seemed to have in her.
‘Will you stay around?’ El asked.
‘I can’t. Once completed, the transference means that you’re on your own. The full power is the only thing that has brought me back. With its transferral, I shall be disincarnated once more. All being well though, we shall see each other again.’
El gulped. At least the witch was being honest. She looked at Medea’s hands. ‘Will it hurt again?’
Medea nodded. ‘But don’t let go, understand?’
El’s heart hammered its warning through her body as she reached out for Medea’s hand. Suddenly, there was that all-consuming light again, originating from their palms as they touched. El screamed as the flesh of her palm burned, just as it had on the boat. But she held fast. She felt Medea clenching her hand so hard that she thought her bones would break.
As the light dissipated, the scorching sensation petered out and El opened her eyes. Her right hand still stung and felt bruised, but once again there were no scars. There was just enough light in the sky to make out where she was: the mouth of the cavern on the beach. Forked shards of rock jutted out of the ground in a ring around her like coral displaced onto land. She could make out white streaks in the sand stretching out in all directions like the roots of an ancient tree.
El picked her way through the splinters and over the veins of white sand which crunched beneath her boots. Her hand throbbed and felt like pinpricks over her palm. She pulled up the sleeve of her hoody, examining her hand in the dim light. Taking out her camping lighter, which proved tricky to ignite with her left hand, she finally succeeded in lighting it and pushed the flame into a ball, surveying the devastation around her.
She looked up at the dark sky. She couldn’t be sure if it was twilight or nearing dawn. She felt like she’d lived through days in that strange place with Medea: in the past. How long had she been away? She started to shiver and pulled the sleeves of her hoody down over her hands. She was disoriented and suddenly exhausted. Unsteady. She tried to focus on the orb of fire that she’d manipulated but it became blurry. It fizzled out. She collapsed onto the ground, not caring about the crack of rock beneath her. She’d rest for a minute. Every muscle in her body seemed to ache, her arms were heavy as if she hadn’t slept in days.
Something dappled her eyelids. She opened her eyes. Someone was coming from the southern end of the shore. Two electric torches: El noticed the bobbing light as they ran closer. Then the light was upon her.
She shielded her eyes. ‘You trying to blind me?’
‘It’s her.’ Talus’ voice.
Her eyelids were ludicrously heavy again and she sensed Talus kneel down in front of her. His hands fell on her shoulders.
‘Are you alright?’
‘Uh-huh,’ she murmured. ‘But you’re such a liar. You said time travel was bliss. The past sucks as much as the future.’ She swayed and Talus soon picked her up.
There was a murmur next to her. ‘Is she hurt?’ Yia Yia.
Soon everything was washed away as El sank into oblivion.
- Chapter Twenty-Six -
The Calm Before the Storm
El awoke with a start. She gasped and covered her mouth. A warm glow dappled the pale walls. The memory of white-hot energy coursing through her melded with the dream she’d just left. Pallid eyes haunted her. For an awful moment, she’d been the one to pull the life and power from Maria. Calm settled as she remembered what had happened: watching her grandma, talking to Medea and … receiving the full power.
Deep, rhythmic breathing came from an armchair tucked by the window. Yia Yia was ensconced in a silk robe, dozing.
El examined her right hand, turning it over and comparing it with the other one. It felt normal. No burning. No tingling. There wasn’t any sign of the transference. Her eyes roved the room. The white walls, the dim light outside. Was it night or day? She wondered how long she’d been away for.
Her throat was parched and her stomach uncomfortably empty. She slid out of bed, grabbing the robe from the hook in the bathroom and tiptoed out the door.
In the kitchen, she downed a glass of water. Then another. She was on her third when Claus appeared in his pyjamas.
‘Can I get you something, Miss Carras?’
El frowned, momentarily forgetting that Yia Yia had rechristened her. She was going to refuse his offer but then realised how famished she was.
‘Whatever veggie food you’ve got, please.’
‘Right away. Shall I serve it in the living room?’
El nodded, thanked him and retreated from his domain.
As she switched on the lamp, her eyes hit upon a collection of white stones on the coffee table: the protrusions that had been all around her when she’d woken up in the sand. She sat down on the couch and picked one up, turning it over.
The floorboards creaked in the hallway as Yia Yia hastened in. Her face relaxed when she saw El.
She took a seat on the other couch. ‘I thought the witch had taken you again.’
El shook her head. ‘Medea’s gone. Her power was all used up in the transference.’
‘You mean … she gave it to you?’
El nodded, not looking up from the bone-like rock in her hand, afraid of the inevitable eager gleam in Yia Yia’s eyes. Medea had assured her that taking up this power would som
ehow lead to getting her independence.
She stilled her thoughts and examined the rock. ‘What are they? When I woke up they were all around me.’
‘Fulgurite,’ Talus said from the doorway. He was in pyjama trousers and a T-shirt, sporting one hell of a bed head, his long locks chaotic and his hands wispy.
El stared at him blankly as he sat down beside her.
‘It’s what happens when lightning strikes sand,’ Yia Yia explained. ‘Temperatures have to reach startling degrees to form it.’
El pictured the bright light that had engulfed her when she’d travelled through time, and the excruciating heat along her palm during the transference.
‘You can speak openly,’ Yia Yia said, leaning forwards as she stared at El. ‘Talus knows everything.’
El blinked, lightened by this fact. She had hated not being able to confide in anyone about all the things Yia Yia had dumped on her. If she couldn’t talk to Luke or Alex, she realised with surprise that her graeae guru would have been her next choice.
‘I think it must have been caused by the transferral,’ El said, looking at Talus. ‘That burning that I got when I touched Medea happened when she gave me the full power, but this time it was much more intense.’
Yia Yia was scrutinising her, probably not expecting her to be so forthcoming.
Claus brought in a plate. The aroma of pastry was heavenly.
‘Spanakopita,’ Claus said, passing it to El.
She started to devour the small filo pastries filled with feta cheese and spinach. Talus ordered some coffee from the dryad.
‘You know caffeine is bad for your Chi?’ El said with a smirk.
He replied with a stupendous yawn.
‘Talus said that you mentioned something about time travel?’ Yia Yia said.
El shot Talus a look but he was rubbing his eyes. Did he have to pass on everything to Yia Yia? She had hoped that she wouldn’t need to recount what she’d witnessed with her grandma and Maria. Trust her to blurt out that she’d been time travelling.
She took a deep breath. ‘Medea took me to the past to see what happened between my grandma … and Maria.’
Talus suddenly looked more awake, his grey eyes holding her interestedly.
Yia Yia was silent for a moment. She looked worried. ‘And you chose to receive the full power?’
El smiled darkly. Yia Yia’s tone reminded her of her own incredulity as she’d sat on the shore talking with Medea.
‘Medea said that I’d need it. That it won’t help just me but the wider world. She didn’t say what would happen, just that I’d know when to use it. When the time is right.’
Talus chipped in, ‘Yia Yia mentioned there was bad blood between Medea and the empousa, Helen?’
El nodded. ‘Medea definitely wasn’t pleased to see her niece. She said that she was fighting alongside arete in the Trojan War: fighting to capture Helen and another empousa, Seth.’
Talus looked thoughtful.
‘What family doesn’t have problems?’ Yia Yia said.
‘Yeah,’ El replied, ‘but not every family destroys life-sized, marble statues like they’re toys—’
‘But the witch didn’t tell you anything else about their warfare?’ Talus interjected.
El shook her head.
‘And she didn’t say more about what she wanted you to do with the full power?’ Talus asked.
El thought about what the witch had said. She wasn’t going to mention the whole freedom from Yia Yia aspect of the prophecy.
‘She said that I didn’t have to take it up.’ El paused and repeated what she’d already said. ‘Other than that, she said that if I did and used it only when I had most need of it, I could save millions of lives.’
‘You made the right choice,’ Yia Yia said quickly. ‘The needs of the many should always outweigh one’s personal desires.’
Anger simmered in El. The only needs Yia Yia meant were those of the Carrases and, most importantly, hers. It wouldn’t do to start highlighting their differences though. Medea hadn’t seemed overly sympathetic to Yia Yia’s agenda. Instead of replying, El stuffed another pastry in her mouth.
Claus returned with a coffee for Talus, who seemed to perk up after a few sips.
‘Your full power isn’t detectable to me,’ he said, eying her curiously.
‘It was the same with El’s grandmother and my sister, Iris, when they possessed it – only visible to graeae after its first use,’ Yia Yia said. ‘Did Medea say anything else about Janos?’
El shook her head, remembering how Yia Yia had latched onto Medea’s information.
‘You think Janos was up to no good?’ El asked.
Yia Yia smiled. ‘When you reach my age, my dear, you don’t take anything for granted.’
‘It is strange that he was at the Waseem Villa,’ Talus said, sipping his coffee. ‘He would have needed help to get onto the island; he would have needed to be incorporated into its veiling by someone with Waseem blood.’
‘Couldn’t we ask him?’ El said. ‘See how he reacts to us knowing that he was there?’
‘No,’ Yia Yia said. ‘If he is up to something, it would be unwise to give him any indication that we suspect.’
El thought of what Janos had said about the summit, about so many agendas converging, making the future unclear. He’d said that they were at a crossroads in arete history, that it would be a momentous occasion.
‘What do you think Janos is hoping to get from the Council?’ El asked.
‘Clemency,’ Yia Yia said, ‘for his eyes to be restored or, failing that, the right to live out the remaining month of his life.’
‘Month?’ El exclaimed.
‘It’s been a week now without his eyes,’ Talus said. ‘In that time, he’s aged about a decade. When a graeae can’t phase, time settles upon them at a much faster rate. If the Council doesn’t pardon him he won’t live past another month.’
El stared ahead of her, taking in his words.
‘I will be voting to allow Janos to live out his remaining time here,’ Yia Yia said. ‘He has restored you to us, El, and if the Waseem are deposed successfully, he has done the Order a great service. Yet I cannot vote to pardon him fully. Given how powerful you will be and that a connection still exists between you, he is too much of a risk.’
It felt weird to be speculating on Janos’ motives again. El wondered about the agendas belonging to the other families.
‘What about the Waseem head of line?’ El asked. ‘What do you think will happen when you present the photos to the Council?’
‘Samir Waseem,’ Yia Yia answered, ‘will be taken into the Order’s custody to await sentencing by the Triad, and their empousa, Rosa, will have to be secured.’
‘Surely Waseem graeae must have seen what you’re planning at the summit?’ El asked.
‘I’m sure they have,’ Talus said. ‘Yet right now, the timeline shows that Samir still intends to sit in on the Council. I even foresee him giving little resistance.’
‘But that doesn’t make sense, does it?’ El asked.
‘As I’ve told you when you hold one intention in mind and stay calm, your actions in the future are harder to detect. Samir is well versed in control. Yet I have no doubt that there will be more to the Waseem than meets the eye.’
‘So you think they’ll put up a fight?’
‘Yes,’ Yia Yia answered. ‘Samir will have something up his sleeve.’
‘How many of us will go to the summit?’ El asked.
‘Each head of line is allowed to take a contingent of arete with them: one of each element,’ Yia Yia said. ‘Theon will be coming with us. Yes, he is restored to his former self,’ she added, anticipating that El would ask. But El’s gaze had gone to Talus as she’d noticed once again that his translucent hands had become entirely solid … at the mention of Theon’s name.
El frowned as they faded again but was distracted from her suspicion as Yia Yia continued.
‘Andreas, Luk
e’s father, will meet us in Athens and be my water representative. Laius will come too, and I would have you, El, as my fire representative.’
El raised her eyebrows in surprise but, with Yia Yia clearly watching her for some response, she hesitantly said, ‘Okay.’
Yia Yia nodded. ‘The Waseem are likely to bring backup, concealing them with graeae blood to slip into the Council unnoticed. So we will need reinforcements on standby in the Athens Olympia. Merely a precaution: the Waseem would have to bring quite a force to overcome the two hundred Order members protecting the Council.’
El nodded. Two hundred guards were surely a force to be reckoned with.
‘Nevertheless,’ Yia Yia continued, ‘I expect Samir will attack when the Triad is at its most vulnerable. Once they’ve imbibed empousa blood to enter the veiling on the Acropolis, they will not be able to phase out until the blood has dissipated from their system – which could take up to twenty-four hours.’
‘And of course,’ Talus chipped in, ‘there are other factions which would wish to disrupt the summit and convergence.’
El thought of the Opposition. Janos had used them to get evidence of corruption within the Order, but their motives went much further than that. Dan had refused to give her any inkling of their plans for the summit, beyond deposing the Waseem. It was unclear if he even knew what they were or was blindly following Janos’ orders.
She grew agitated. How could she say that she’d help bring about a new Triad? Wasn’t that exactly what she had wanted to prevent? Weren’t they meant to be changing the Order? Luke had warned her that if they really meant to change the system, he didn’t believe it could be done from within. And she’d said that she agreed, that they’d find their own way.
‘I am not fool enough to think that you would use your power on my account,’ Yia Yia said. ‘Talus has indicated that he can read you well enough to know that you would use your power to protect him though. That’s all I care about – that he becomes one of the new Triad. If you will help us bring that about, then I would have you present for the entirety of the Council meeting, as well as being Talus’ personal guard prior to the ceremony.’
