Fire Within

by Ella M. Lee

  “Let me check,” she said, typing into her laptop. “Hmm… yes. Want me to grab it?”

  “That would be great,” Daniel said, flashing her a dazzling smile.

  He stacked up the three books and then leaned against the counter, watching her make her way through the shelves.

  Daniel was handsome, and I wondered if he was a bit of a playboy. He certainly had the charm required for that lifestyle, but he seemed inordinately focused on work. With a commander like Nicolas, I wondered if he had time for anything except his tasks and operations, but he was certainly the kind of guy who would catch a girl’s attention.

  “Thanks, Ari,” Daniel said when she returned with his book.

  “You know you’re at the top of my priority list,” she said, smiling. “Let us know if you need anything else.”

  Daniel picked up the stack and walked to one of the long, empty library tables. He pulled out a chair and half sat, perched on his knees. I leaned against the chair next to his.

  The tables all had pads of paper and baskets of pens. He ripped off a sheet and started flipping through the books and neatly printing page numbers down on paper. I let my gaze wander away from him, around the library, and through the glass to the café beyond.

  I quickly looked away when I recognized Derek. In a clan house that clearly had hundreds of magicians, why did I always run into the same person?

  I didn’t dare open my mouth to warn Daniel as Derek make his way toward us out of the corner of my eye. I tensed as Derek opened the door to the library and paused when he saw us. Daniel’s eyes flicked to me.

  “I thought Nicolas didn’t share?” Derek said, coming to stand by our table, his voice sending needles of anxiety through me. “Yet here she is with you.”

  I had no idea what his relationship to Daniel was, or whether he considered Daniel weak enough to pick on. Daniel, I noticed, didn’t seem tense or annoyed. He was merely focused on his current task.

  “Leave,” Daniel said.

  My breath caught in my throat. I was shocked to hear his rude tone. He hadn’t even glanced at Derek—he was still writing down page numbers.

  Derek didn’t appreciate the rebuke. His magic flared out around him, and my hands gripped the chair harder.

  “What, you want a fight? Here?” Daniel asked, pointedly not looking at him. “You want Arturo to personally throw you out of Hong Kong? I heard that you aren’t welcome in Vancouver anymore. Be careful, or you’ll end up off the council too.”

  Derek bristled. “Bold little thing, with your protector back in the city.”

  Daniel smiled but still didn’t take his eyes from his work. “Like I need Nico. Don’t be jealous that a lieutenant is more powerful than you.”

  I was frozen, horrified at the thought of what might happen next. Even Nicolas hadn’t needled Derek like this, but Daniel seemed carefree and relaxed. He didn’t even posture his magic the way Derek did—it lay poised but calm and collected around him.

  I thought Derek would be angry at the jab, but he merely smiled coldly. He obviously considered Daniel beneath him. “I’m sure you’ll come to regret those words.”

  Derek eyed me, his head cocked to the side. Daniel was between us, so I wasn’t worried he would reach out and touch me, but his gaze was unnerving.

  “Downgraded so soon to a lieutenant’s pet,” he said to me. “Such a shame.”

  He made to step around Daniel toward me, but fast as lightning, Daniel stood. He planted himself in Derek’s path, his arms crossed. His pen and papers scattered to the ground. Derek took a startled step back.

  “Don’t address her,” Daniel said, his tone deadly. “Find someone else to bother. We’re busy.”

  Derek laughed. “Right. Busy. Of course.”

  He placed a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. The gesture might have looked friendly if Derek’s smirk hadn’t been so condescending and smug. Daniel slid out of his grasp, backing up so that he was nearly touching me. I was afraid to move, afraid to draw attention from either of them.

  Derek laughed again and turned away, shaking his head. Daniel and I both followed him with our eyes as he walked to the elevators in the main atrium.

  I unfroze first, taking a slight step away from Daniel. I bent to retrieve his dropped pen and the scattered pages of his work. I held them out to him.

  When our eyes met, he instantly relaxed and took a breath. “Thanks,” he said, collecting his things from my shaking hands. He looked like he was about to say more but stopped himself.

  I looked away. I wanted to thank him in return, but I didn’t say a word. There were still rules to follow, after all.

  The rest of the morning was boring in comparison to our impromptu run-in with Derek.

  Daniel finished his notes and took them and the books to someone on the thirty-fifth floor, which seemed to house more personal apartments for Nicolas’s group members. He firmly instructed me to wait in the hall while he made this delivery, and I was happy to oblige, not eager to meet anyone else.

  After that, we returned to his apartment, where he immediately hopped on a call with someone. The entire conversation was in Cantonese. I curled up at one end of his couch, feeling exhausted. It was still impossible to sleep, but it was nice to lie down for a while.

  I was supremely bored after about twenty minutes and desperate for a distraction. Without one, my mind ran circles around all the open questions in my life. What was going to happen to me? How could I improve my situation? And why the hell was I so eye-catching to Derek?

  I glanced at Daniel. Cantonese was a pretty harsh language, but he sounded fairly amiable on the phone. He was sitting cross-legged, leaning back, his hair laying flat on the back of the couch. He looked incredibly young and a whole lot less deadly than he had when staring down Derek earlier.

  Tentatively, I got up off the couch. His eyes went to me, but he didn’t move or speak. I walked to the windows, looking out. Daniel had a different view than Nicolas did, although it was still beautiful—all green and mountainous and misty.

  After a moment, I walked to one of his large bookshelves. It was mostly filled with manga volumes in Japanese. My own knowledge of Japanese was limited to “hello” and “thank you,” but it seemed a lot like Daniel must be fluent to read these books. One of the series he had was Bleach, which I had watched with an ex-boyfriend many years ago. I picked up one of the volumes and flipped through it.

  Daniel’s phone call had ended, but he was still watching me. “Do you read Japanese?” he asked.

  “No, sorry,” I said. “But I’ve seen the Bleach anime, so this isn’t lost on me.”

  My eyes met his, and he smiled. “One of my favorites,” he said.

  Bingo. Something else we could connect on.

  “I have a cat just like Yoruichi,” I said, naming a character who could turn into a cat. “She’s also black and smug. I hope my roommate takes care of her. Her other two owners aren’t coming back.”

  “You, and…?” Daniel asked, still studying me.

  “My best friend. She was killed in Vienna.” By Nicolas, but I didn’t say that. My jaw trembled.

  “Violet Davies,” Daniel said, and her name from his lips sent a jolt through me.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “I told you, I read the report. Nicolas always includes the names of casualties, and I always remember them,” he said. He hesitated. “I’m sorry about your friend and your other groupmates.”

  I looked at him, trying to decide if he was being genuine. His serious expression hadn’t changed, and it truly seemed like he was sympathetic.

  I swallowed. “Thanks.”

  “So you live in Toronto, and you have a cat, and roommates,” he said.

  “Lived in Toronto and had a cat,” I corrected. “That’s not my life anymore. I don’t have a life anymore. You may want to put off getting to know me for now. I might not make it through the week.”

  Daniel sighed and beckoned me over to him with a sma
ll hand gesture. I hesitated.

  “Come here,” he said, patting the couch next to him.

  I placed the volume back on the shelf and sat, leaving a decent amount of space between us.

  “Listen,” he said, “I don’t know Nicolas’s exact plans, but I’ve never seen him kill someone that he’s kept for so long, or that he’s bothered to leave with me. Unless you make a really dumb move, I think you’re probably okay.”

  “What do you think of that?” I asked.

  “I told you before, it’s not really my business. Nico has decided not to tell me his plans yet, so I’m waiting just like you are.” His tone held the barest hint of frustration.

  “And if Nicolas wants me to join your group? What would you say?” I asked.

  His expression was thoughtful. His eyes flicked to the ceiling. He brought his hands together, pressing his fingertips against one another in another gesture reminiscent of Nicolas. After a few moments, his gaze fell back on me.

  “I don’t know you, Fi,” he said. “I’d like to, before making that call.”

  I hadn’t realized I had stopped breathing until he said those words. Not acceptance, but an opportunity. I could work with that.

  “Thank you for keeping Derek away from me earlier,” I said.

  Daniel had been polite to me all day. It seemed only fair to return the gesture.

  He frowned. “It would be great if Nico could kill off Derek’s interest in you. I don’t like it.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” I said. “Nicolas explained their past together. I see why Nicolas won’t leave unprotected.”

  Daniel looked down. “Yeah, unfortunate. But Derek would be insane to go up against Nico here. Nico practically owns this clan house.”

  “Is Derek afraid of him?” I asked.

  “Hell if I know,” Daniel said, shrugging. “I’ve been too busy for years to keep track of his relationship with every other commander. I have my own tasks.”

  “You owe me a story,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “How I got here, right.”

  He stood and went into the kitchen to retrieve his tea set, filling it once again with water and rinsing out our cups. He poured tea for us.

  “It’s not a complicated story, really,” he said. “My parents died when I was seven. Car crash. My brother was eleven. We got shuffled around to some relatives here and there, but nothing really worked out. When he was fifteen, he quit school and got a job, and we were on our own. It was… better than where we’d been until then, with my piece-of-trash cousin. But it wasn’t great. We didn’t always have a good place to live, or any place at all. Didn’t always have food.”

  I watched him, frowning. Daniel made more sense to me now, hearing this part of his past. I felt a pang of sadness for this kid who had lost his parents so young and probably felt very alone in life.

  “When I was fourteen,” he continued, “I dropped out of school to help my brother. He was cooking in a diner, and I did the same. Not a lot of money from that, but we could usually manage to eat and pay the rent. I started running errands for a friend, a guy named Andy. Simple tasks. Take a package here, track a person and report on them. I thought it was probably mafia stuff. I didn’t want to get involved, but the pay was better than anything else, and I couldn’t resist.

  “I did this for about a year before I ended up in a conflict. Turns out it wasn’t mafia stuff; it was clan stuff. I had been doing Smoke’s dirty work, and I got taken by Water in the middle of some sort of clash. I had stupidly gotten my brother involved that day too. He was killed in the conflict.”

  I winced, feeling terrible for him. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know it’s not the same, but my mother died when I was eighteen, and my father and brother were murdered when I was twenty-two, so I get it. Feels like the earth stops spinning, like nothing can ever be right again.”

  I thought he would brush off my words, but instead he nodded in understanding.

  “Yeah. Felt a lot like that when my brother died. I landed here, up for auction. Nicolas bought me. At the time, I didn’t give a fuck about anything. I didn’t care, I wouldn’t speak, I barely kept myself breathing. I was mad at the world about my brother’s death, about my shitty life.

  “Nicolas was kinder to me than I deserved. I didn’t know it at first, but he had spent a lot of money on me because he had seen my future, that I had potential. So he took care of me and fed me, treated me like his student. I studied magic for two months before he clanned me. Three months after that, his lieutenant left for another group, and he promoted me and Andres together.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s intense. Were you ready for it?”

  “Nah, but Nicolas wanted me to try anyway. He’s like my god—he asks, and I obey,” Daniel said. “Which is why when he drags some Flame captive here and tells me to guard her for the day, I listen.”

  “I don’t speak Cantonese, but it sounded a lot like you were arguing with him this morning,” I said, raising my brow at him.

  He smiled. “Maybe a little.”

  He filled our empty teacups, seeming more relaxed than before. I, too, had relaxed in the past few minutes. Hearing Daniel’s story—that he was human with all the struggles of human life—made me more comfortable with him.

  I could see why Nicolas had called us alike, and I hoped that was a point in my favor with Daniel.

  “You like economics?” I asked, my eyes wandering to his shelves of books.

  “I have a bachelor’s degree in economics and math,” he said.

  “I thought you dropped out of school?” I said, confused.

  “Do I sound like a fourteen-year-old dropout to you?” he asked indignantly. “Nicolas hired me tutors in every subject. I got my grade school certificate on my sixteenth birthday and then attended the University of Hong Kong. You just missed my graduation a month ago.”

  “College while being a lieutenant in Water? And you graduated early? And you speak three languages? Are you actually a genius?”

  “Probably,” he said, shrugging.

  “And very humble about it,” I added sarcastically.

  “I speak four languages, you know,” he said.

  His deadpan delivery made me laugh. To my surprise, he joined me.

  His face was quite expressive when he let go of some of his intensity. When he smiled, he looked as young as he actually was. My heart eased to see that he could laugh with me.

  I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear my dizziness. I desperately needed sleep. Being scared all the time was exhausting. Trying to make all these people like me was exhausting. Moving forward despite maybe not having a future was exhausting.

  “Sorry I ruined your day,” I said.

  Daniel shrugged. “Sorry we ruined your life?”

  I closed my eyes, tightness gripping my chest and throat again. I wrapped my arms around myself, trembling.

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t joke about that. I have a dark sense of humor.”

  “It’s fine, I get it,” I said. “I’m the same way. Sometimes humor is the only thing that keeps a complete meltdown away. I felt like that right after my mother died.”

  Daniel nodded. He was clearly remembering his own grief in life. “I couldn’t let myself fall apart. Before Water, falling apart would mean not eating or not having a place to sleep. And once Nicolas bought me? I felt too deeply indebted to him and tried my hardest to repay that.”

  “I feel that same debt,” I said. “I was one hundred percent sure I was screwed when I woke up in that cell downstairs. Now I’m not so certain.”

  “I think things are going okay for you,” he said. “Nicolas most likely would have said something if things were not working out.”

  I shrugged. I had no idea what was going on, and Nicolas had only offered me the barest details of what he had seen of my future. I hated being in the dark, but there was nothing I could do about that right now.

  I hadn’t felt powerless in years. Having magic
tended to make people feel invincible. It had never occurred to me what would happen when that magic was ripped from me.

  Nicolas had seen something in me even without my Flame magic. Although I lacked confidence in his assessment, I knew it was the only thing keeping me alive right now.

  “Well, I think I passed every other test so far,” I said. “Let’s see about today’s test.”

  Daniel tilted his head at me, sitting up straight.

  “You think today is a test for you?” he asked.

  “Yeah, of course,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said. “I thought it was a test for me.”

  I blinked. It hadn’t occurred to me that Nicolas would be testing how his lieutenant would act in this situation. I knew Nicolas trusted Daniel, but I could see that he may still be training his young protégé.

  “It’s probably a test for both of us. Maybe we can just agree to give each other a good grade? You help me, I help you?” I asked, smiling.

  He laughed. “I like the way you think,” he said, amused.

  We were silent for a couple of minutes, side by side, lost in thought. Eventually, he reached out and touched my arm gently. I met his eyes—they were dark and sparkling and curious.

  “Fi,” he said, “I would like to get to know you.”

  The knot in my chest uncoiled, leaving nothing to tie me together. I brought my hands up to my face and cried, my shoulders shaking with quiet sobs, not caring about anything except those hopeful words.

  Chapter 17

  “Oh, Fi,” Daniel said, his voice soft.

  I could tell by his wide-eyed look that I had startled him. He placed a hesitant arm around my shoulders. I didn’t have any energy left with which to react. When I didn’t pull away, he tightened his grip slightly.

  “You are okay,” he said. “You can get through this. Take some deep breaths.”

  I did as he asked, barely able to fill my lungs with air, shaking. He ran his fingers up and down my shoulders. I tried not to tense in his grip, tried to appreciate that he was being kind and comforting in his own way.

  My group in Flame was made up of all close-knit, affectionate people. I had liked that about them, liked that we could hug and cuddle and open up our fears and pain to one another. Clan life was intense, so being able to give and receive comfort was important. Most groups within clans were close that way.