Fire Within

by Ella M. Lee

  Nicolas left me alone all day. He didn’t speak more than a few sentences to me, and those were merely to tell me I could help myself to the lunch and dinner that Keisha brought to the door at noon and then at seven.

  I didn’t care. I wasn’t hungry, and I had no desire to move from my now comfortable and safe spot in the corner of the room.

  It was dark out when Nicolas approached me next. He once again knelt at my side and said in a quiet voice, “I want to warn you that I’m going out in the morning. If you manage to get some sleep tonight, I may be gone when you wake up.”

  “What?” I asked, startled. My voice was hoarse from not speaking all day. “Where are you going?”

  I didn’t actually expect a response from him—it seemed to be a fifty-fifty chance whether he’d respond to any given question—but he closed his eyes briefly, and his tone became a shade sadder.

  “Tomorrow morning is Andres’s funeral. My group is assembling for that. As you can imagine, you wouldn’t be welcome there, so you will be remaining behind.”

  I studied him carefully. His jaw was tense. After a moment, his eyes slid to mine, their tawny glow now dim and unhappy.

  I desperately wanted to look away in shame, but that would have been unfair to him. Andres’s death was my fault, and I wouldn’t try to shirk responsibility by hiding. I hadn’t known the man except for the few minutes when we fought each other for our lives, but he had been part of Nicolas’s world, and part of a clan. He deserved my respect and remorse.

  If Nicolas heard my thoughts, he didn’t appear to care. After another few moments, he hauled himself to his feet and started to walk away.

  “Nicolas?” I said hesitantly.

  He stopped in the bedroom doorway, his hand braced on the frame as he looked back at me.

  “I’m… I’m sorry,” I said. “I hope… I hope you and your group can… can find comfort and strength tomorrow.”

  His gaze on me was very hard. I tensed, praying I hadn’t overstepped with those words. I had merely wanted to say something kind to him after he had been so tame and manageable today.

  After a moment, Nicolas took a deep breath. “Thank you,” he said stiffly.

  I looked down at the floor, breathing fast, trying to keep my now-glassy eyes from leaking tears. I didn’t find the courage to look up again until he had shut the bedroom door.

  I pulled the blanket tighter around myself. The distant glimmers of Hong Kong’s lights were now blurred in my sight. My jaw trembled. I was glad that Nicolas was holding a funeral for someone so important to him. Funerals had not helped me get through my parents’ or brother’s deaths, but I knew some people needed that sort of closure. I had opened this wound for him; I would be glad if a funeral could help close it.

  Violet would have liked the view here. She and I had both liked the outdoors, liked hiking, liked spending our time under an open sky. She would have thrived in the heat, beneath the sun, with green mountains towering over her on all sides.

  I wiped my eyes. Quit it, I told myself. What was done was done. When had life ever treated me fairly? This is just one more thing.

  But it wasn’t easy to swallow that my life was now burned to ashes. Was there anyone in this city more miserable than I was right now? I glanced at the closed bedroom door. Maybe Nicolas, although it was hard to tell with him.

  I’m sorry, Violet. I’m sorry, Lars. I’m sorry, Damon. I’m so sorry.

  None of this operation had been my fault or my decision, but I felt terrible regardless, so terrible that I could barely breathe.

  Keep beating, heart. Give me strength. Give me anything at all. Nicolas had a funeral to attend, but I had nothing except memories, now broken and scattered like the ashes that were my former life. I had nothing but recollection and words, and I couldn’t even come up with those.

  I dug, I dug for anything, and another poem came to my mind.

  There’s little joy in life for me,

  And little terror in the grave;

  I’ve lived the parting hour to see

  Of one I would have died to save.

  Calmly to watch the failing breath,

  Wishing each sigh might be the last;

  Longing to see the shade of death

  O’er those beloved features cast.

  The cloud, the stillness that must part

  The darling of my life from me;

  And then to thank God from my heart,

  To thank Him well and fervently;

  Although I knew that we had lost

  The hope and glory of our life;

  And now, benighted, tempest-tossed,

  Must bear alone the weary strife.

  Charlotte Brontë, “On the Death of Anne Brontë.” Charlotte had watched her three siblings die, all at a young age. Anne had been the last, dying of tuberculosis over the course of a spring season. The love between them showed in Charlotte’s words of grief, and though her sister hadn’t been afraid of death, it was a tragedy nonetheless.

  Charlotte had been left alone, and I thought maybe I could relate to that.

  Eventually my jaw stopped trembling, and my tears dried. I thought of my friends again and tried to smile. I owed them love and affection and something beautiful of my own.

  I’m sorry, I thought again, because I knew no other words that meant the same thing. I hadn’t thought any of this would happen, but now I was here, and they weren’t. I would trade if I could, but I couldn’t. Instead, I had to make the best of things.

  I’d never forget them.

  Flame was my roots, even if it wasn’t my future. I hoped my friends could forgive me for not doing more, for not being better. I hoped they could forgive me for how I was choosing to move forward. I would love them forever, and although it seemed unlikely, I hoped there truly was a better place where all of us met when this life ended.

  Chapter 10

  When I woke, it took me several seconds of frantic concentration before I realized that I was in Nicolas’s huge bed, the door shut and the ivory shades pulled against the daylight. Nicolas must have dredged up enough compassion to gather me up off the floor last night and bring me here, and I had miraculously managed to sleep through the night.

  Had he left me alone? That seemed unlikely. Hesitantly, I pulled myself out of bed and crept to the door, opening it a crack.

  Ryan was seated on one of Nicolas’s couches, his legs crossed at the ankle, typing on his laptop. He was dressed impeccably in another perfectly tailored dark suit with a vest underneath. His dark eyes met mine, and he smiled warmly.

  “Fiona, hello,” he said, setting his laptop down. “We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Ryan Zhang.”

  “Hi,” I said weakly, clearing my throat.

  I debated retreating back into the bedroom, but I hesitated a moment too long, and Ryan beckoned. I wasn’t about to piss him off or disappoint Nicolas, who was probably having something like the worst day ever.

  I took a seat across from him, and he poured me tea from Nicolas’s beautiful tea set—a dark, mottled blue pot with matching cups. My hands were trembling when I lifted the cup. I didn’t like unknowns. Although I didn’t understand Nicolas very well, he was less of a mystery than Ryan. All I knew about the handsome magician in front of me was that he worked for Nicolas and seemed incredibly smart and capable. He had displayed a quiet and calm personality at dinner the other night, but I had no way of knowing if that was normal for him or not.

  “How are you?” he asked carefully.

  “Fine,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself. “Thank you.”

  He smiled. “Relax, I won’t bite,” he said, putting a placating hand out. “You have nothing to fear from me. I’m merely babysitting for the morning.”

  I took a sip of tea and tried to figure out something to say. “Why… why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with Nicolas and… and… the others?”

  “This is my way of supporting Nicolas. He needed someone to watch you, and part of my job
is to make his life easier when I can. He has Daniel for the rest.”

  I studied him carefully, wondering why this man reported to Nicolas and followed his orders. Ryan was clearly older and more experienced than Nicolas. In their brief interactions, I’d seen Nicolas treat him more like an equal than anyone else so far.

  I got up from the couch and retrieved a bowl of grapes from the fridge, setting it between us and taking several small bunches for myself. Ryan did the same.

  “Your magic is beautiful,” I said. “Very sophisticated.”

  The layers of his glimmering magic shone in my vision, bound strongly and complexly. Nicolas and Daniel both had shocking amounts of magic swimming around them in rather raw form. Ryan was powerful, too, but his net of magic was more refined, more intricate and woven.

  His attention narrowed on me. “Thank you,” he said graciously. “Are your magic detection skills intact even as a mortal?”

  “Not entirely,” I offered. “I had excellent detection in Flame. It’s a little dim and muddled now, but it’s not gone.”

  “Have you tried using Water magic yet?” he asked, picking grapes one by one from the stem.

  “No,” I said. I hadn’t known that was an option, that Nicolas would deign to gift me magic.

  “You should ask Nicolas,” Ryan said. “I don’t know yet why he’s so interested in keeping you, but I imagine it has something to do with your magical potential.”

  Ha. As though I would have the courage to ask Nicolas for anything. Despite his kindness, he was still stern and impenetrable. I sat back, trying not to feel so nervous and jumpy around Ryan, trying to figure out if I could get some information out of him that might help me here.

  “How long were you in Flame?” Ryan asked after another minute of awkward silence, studying me.

  “Just about five years, with almost a year before that in clan candidacy,” I said. “How long have you been in Water?”

  “Thirty-eight years in October,” he answered.

  My heart raced. That was a long time. Almost a decade longer than I’d even been alive. Certainly people spent that much time in clans. Of course they did. High-level and pinnacle clan members had often been around for decades or longer, but they were rarer to find. You were far more likely to meet someone with only a few years in a clan, and it was equally likely that they would die or burn out far before reaching multiple decades, especially for the dangerous magics like Flame or Meteor or Wild.

  “Why aren’t you a commander? Or even a lieutenant?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to be,” he said, shrugging. “I know the types of people who join clans and seek out power are generally ambitious. I’m not. I have a great amount of magic, and I have the respect of people I care about. I have everything I want in my life, and being a commander wouldn’t improve that. If anything, it would paint a very inconvenient target on my back.” He laughed slightly. “No. This way, I have Nicolas to take care of those issues while I get to work autonomously on his designs and my own.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  “Why did you join Flame?” he asked.

  I hesitated. “I lost my family when I was younger. My mother, father, brother, all gone. I joined Flame to find a new family, and I did. But now that’s gone too.”

  “And now you want to join Water?”

  “The options were death or Nicolas’s plan,” I replied. “He made a compelling argument for why I might want to give him a chance.”

  “Nicolas does that to people,” he said, laughing slightly. “Every person he brings into our group is stunning and unique in their own way, and rarely are their acquisitions straightforward. I assume he’s making a smart and informed decision with you too. I’ve worked with him long enough to trust him. He deserves my trust in exchange for the trust he’s given me.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “He hasn’t told you anything about himself, has he?” Ryan asked. He paused. “I’m the one who brought Nicolas to Water.”

  “Brought him to Water?” I asked, interested to know more about Nicolas’s life.

  Ryan grimaced. “Nicolas’s story is ultimately his to tell, but I can say this: Nicolas is not originally from this clan. He’s from Smoke Clan, and his transition to Water was difficult. I was his advocate, and I gave him a chance here when he had nothing but a pack of Smoke magicians furiously using any means necessary to get him back. His repayment for that help was to make commander so that I could be part of his group. He trusted me on his path to Water, and I trusted him to fulfill his promises to me. I’d like to think we haven’t disappointed each other yet.”

  I studied Ryan with wide eyes. He had just given me a lot of pivotal information about Nicolas.

  Most importantly was that Nicolas was originally from Smoke. That told me a lot about him. Smoke was serious business. They were a huge clan, rather introverted, focused almost entirely on magical research and advancement. Their members were all scientifically minded, brilliant, and often had obscure specialties. That meant Nicolas was likely a scientist of some kind, with a background far different than I would have expected from him, and he was probably incredibly intelligent and driven.

  Secondly, how Nicolas had ended up in Water had not been straightforward. It had maybe even been risky or dangerous. Nicolas’s past was revealing itself to be more and more mysterious.

  “You probably find Nicolas hard to read and even harder to deal with,” Ryan said, “but don’t be so quick to assume he doesn’t understand how you feel.”

  I nodded. Ryan had been in a position to help Nicolas before he came to Water. I figured that made him insanely powerful and an important group member to Nicolas, perhaps even the most important. I wished I knew what he thought of me. I wished I knew how to make him like me.

  “Ryan,” I said quietly, sitting up straight and bowing my head, “I’m sorry about Andres. I’m sorry about the raid. I could make excuses or justifications for it, but I don’t want to. I don’t think any of that matters. I just want to say that I’m truly sorry. I know what it’s like to lose people, and I’m sorry I contributed to that for your group.”

  He studied me for a moment, then nodded gravely. “Thank you for saying that. I imagine you will quickly get tired of handing out apologies for your actions.”

  “I don’t think apologies are enough,” I said, “but I have nothing else to give right now.”

  He tilted his head. The look he offered me was more sympathetic than I deserved. “I’m sure you will find something with which to balance your heart.”

  I didn’t say anything, unnerved and unsure as to why everyone here was being nicer to me than I deserved. Eventually, Ryan opened his laptop and resumed his work. I finished my grapes and curled up on the couch, gazing out the windows, trying not to think too closely or critically about my life.

  Occasionally, Ryan glanced at me, concerned. It was easier than I had thought it would be to see why Nicolas trusted him. I was less nervous now that our silence felt a bit more comfortable, but I was still conscious of the fact that everyone here, in some way, had a part in judging my potential value to the clan. Ryan was just one more person I needed to include in my worthless prayers.

  Please let me charm him, please let me impress him, please let him see something useful and good in me.

  Nicolas returned sooner than I expected. He came through the door only a couple of hours later with Daniel at his heels. Both of them were dressed formally in black suits. Nicolas’s expression was grave and closed, his jaw tight, his shoulders tense and hunched. Daniel looked more severe and older than usual, his usually messy hair combed straight and neat today.

  Ryan went to Nicolas’s bar to retrieve three glasses and an expensive-looking bottle of whiskey. Daniel flopped into a chair with hardly a glance in my direction, but Nicolas’s cold gaze lingered on me.

  Are you okay? I thought at him.

  If he heard my thoughts, he gave zero indication. I frowned. Carefully,
so as not to startle any of them, I got up and went into the bedroom. I hesitated in the doorway, glancing back. Nicolas’s eyes were still following me as he took Ryan’s offered glass.

  I’m sorry for today, I thought at him. I hope you’re okay.

  I watched him close his eyes and throw back the glass, downing it in one swallow, before I continued on. Nicolas had been kind enough to give me as much space as he could; I had no problem doing the same for him.

  I curled up under the duvet, listening to their quiet conversation in Cantonese, trying to figure out what to do next.

  I didn’t have any options. I knew that. All I could do right now was hope that today hadn’t completely changed Nicolas’s mind about me, that I wasn’t about to be executed because he realized he could never forgive me.

  I curled tighter into myself, shivering.

  If by some miracle I still had the opportunity to prove myself to Nicolas, I was going to try harder to connect with him. Ryan had given me a place to start, and I was grateful for that. It was now up to me to find out more, to do what I could to make this work.

  But I was too afraid to move, too afraid to think closely about what might happen next, and definitely too afraid to ask if this was the end of the line for me.

  It was well into the afternoon before Ryan and Daniel left. I was getting good at not moving, at not thinking, at fighting back the urge to talk or whine or just plain scream. Although I was worried about myself and my precarious situation, I had no desire to bother Nicolas or gain any ill will from him.

  I watched him carefully when he briefly came into the bedroom, eyeing his stiff movements as he removed his jacket and dress shirt and tossed them unceremoniously into the laundry basket. Still, I had no idea what sort of mood he was in.

  Sunset came. I watched the light die behind the mountains, trying to muster the courage to get out of bed and go out into the living room. I was still psyching myself up when I heard Nicolas’s voice.