“Zara, we know.” My father’s deep voice cut through my near-hysteria.
“You know what?” asked Finn. “You know the Order is after your daughter? You know that she’s a God? What do you know?” His hand gripped mine again, his body leaning in front of me protectively.
My father’s voice was cutting. “We know everything.”
Someone could have shot me again and I wouldn’t have been more surprised than I was in that very moment, at the arctic air that was my father’s voice. Finn looked between my parents, and drew me over to a stool tucked underneath a built-in desk, and lowered me to it. His body remained positioned between me and them.
“Steve—”
“No. Enough,” Dad said. “We’ve played this charade long enough. Seventeen years we’ve waited and now it’s almost too late.” He turned to peer through the sliding glass back doors into the yard. The dusk light cast long shadows across the peeling paint of the deck.
I couldn’t have heard that right.
My mouth opened and closed, but sound wouldn’t come out. I swiped a clammy palm across the front of my forest green jacket and shivered.
My father turned back around, pinning me with a stare I’d never seen before on his face. But it was a stare I’d seen on the faces of my competitors at the Olympics. A stare so fixated, so determined, that what came next couldn’t be anything except the truth, their perfect truth.
“We aren’t who you think we are.”
As far as truths came, that was pretty foreboding.
I tried to swallow but the spit had dried in my mouth.
“We took you in, fed you, we clothed you, we gave you an education. But we aren’t your parents. We aren’t even married. We are two people following the orders of a dead man.”
And truths didn’t hit much harder than that.
“So who are you, then?” Finn asked, voicing what I was thinking.
I couldn’t look away from my father. Or whatever he was.
Goosebumps raised every last hair on my skin.
“We are two of the last operatives of the Air Temple.”
27
Zara
Finn bent over my father’s sleeve of tattoos, examining the symbol hidden among the swirling patterns. A swirling current of air with an arrow underneath. He brushed his fingers over the much larger brand engraved on his own neck, then turned to me with sad eyes.
“It’s real. So is hers.”
My mother’s Air tattoo was hidden behind her ear, tucked cleverly into her hair.
So obvious.
So glaringly obvious.
And I couldn’t be more oblivious.
I’d shrugged off my jacket and now scrubbed at my own brand. It was growing darker, but still several shades more grey than black. A glass of water had appeared on the counter beside me at some point, and I sipped from it.
“I think you should start from the top.” How I could sound so calm, so put together, when my insides were a gnarled mess of uncertainty and anger, was beyond me. Maybe I was growing used to feeling the extremes.
Mom and Dad—I couldn’t quite bring myself to refer to them by their real names, if those were their real names—exchanged a glance. “Laura, go get her box. I’ll keep it brief.”
She nodded and pushed off the counter. Her heels lay haphazardly on the floor, a spill of blood on its clean surface. Before exiting the room and heading to what I could only assume was upstairs, she stopped in front of me and cupped my cheeks.
“Honey, no matter what, know it wasn’t always a mission for me. I love you. I’ve always loved you, ever since you were dropped in my arms as a tiny thing and stared up at me with those big, beautiful eyes. You deserve to be angry with us for our deceit, but know it came from a good place. For me anyway.” She kissed the tip of my nose and vanished into the hall.
My father—Steve—leaned against the counter and sighed deeply. “We were only supposed to be here for a few months. Zara, we’re partners, Laura and I, nothing more than that. We were paired up as teenagers in school, trained in the temple together, learned how to spy. We were good at it. That’s why we were sent here.” He shrugged in a dismissive kind of way. “Details of our initial orders aren’t important. What is important is that we arrived here the day before the attack on the temples.
“We’d gotten word through inner channels about movement within the Order. A sudden call of secrecy. Blackout meetings, sketchy stuff. No one had quite pieced everything together until it was too late. The Air Temple collapsed first. As I’ve pieced together in the years following the attack, the Order seemed to approach under the guise of a routine inspection. Once they were within the borders, and inside the shields, they attacked. The city burned.”
I knew all this. Sort of. A warped version of it anyway.
The propaganda version the Order apparently wanted everyone to believe.
“The Water Temple fell next. That was quickly confirmed. Earth and Fire…well, they remain mysteries even to this day. Things were chaotic, to say the least, in the days that followed. Many of our friends vanished. Lines of communication, both open and buried, went black. No one knew what was going on, who was responsible, only that our worst nightmare had finally come true.” He smoothed an eyebrow and propped his foot on the rung of the stool.
“I now know the Order was cleaning house. How it came to learn about the immense underground networks established by each of the Elements, I’ll never know. But its methods were effective. Laura and I were only saved by the fact that we’d only visited our church once. And that was late at night through a back door. We’d arrived early on accident. If the Order knew about us, they likely assumed we’d gotten sidetracked along the way. There was no record of us being here.”
“I’d heard of operatives like this, but never encountered one,” Finn said. “I’m sure we used them at the Palace of Oceans, but that was above my pay-grade.”
“I guarantee it,” Dad agreed. He picked up a pen and tapped it on the counter. “Three nights following the attack, we were here, in this very house, plotting our next moves. We were scared, worried, and at our wits end. We couldn’t be sure if moving was the right option, but we didn’t have many of those.”
“And then someone knocked on the door.” Mom reemerged, silent without her signature heels. She now clutched a polished, wooden box the length of an average candlestick, maybe four inches wide and an inch deep.
“Despite every instinct screaming at us to not answer the door, we did. The priest from the temple was there. In his arms, he held a baby wrapped in a light blue blanket. That’s you.” Her brown eyes pinned me to my seat.
Finn walked over to the glass back door, one hand covered his neck across the brand. He paused, then turned back. He asked, “What happened next?”
“He told us who you were and how imperative it was that your identity be kept secret. He told us the world believed you to be dead, that the Order and it’s new Hand believed that to be a truth. He also told us that we were one of the last options available. We were operatives of Air, and you’re clearly the leader of Water, but who could possibly imagine that you would end up hidden by us?”
Ryder sneezed in the front living room and I heard a drawer open and close.
“Those who were protecting you were running out of places to turn,” Mom said. “More and more operatives and priests and priestesses were turning up dead, their churches ransacked. You’d been passed from church to church, person to person, shuttled along an underground railroad, deep into the heart of the United States. He said he was in danger, he said it didn’t matter as long as he knew he’d kept you safe. And we agreed. As a last testament to a dying religion.”
Mom pulled up a stool next to me and pushed the box into my hands. “Aside from the blanket, this is all you had.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said and slid my nails along the seam, but didn’t open it. The symbol of water was painted in gold across the top. In cardinal directions around the symbo
l were more runes drawn in silver I didn’t know.
“We took you in,” my father said. “We promised to keep you safe, we promised to protect your future. He left that night and was killed the next day. Zara.” For the first time I felt a hint of warmth in his voice. “We never told you who you were, because we never wanted to risk your safety. That meant we couldn’t risk you potentially risking your safety by accidentally letting something slip. We gave you the gift of water in the only way we could. We sent you off to that school so you could master something you were meant to own in the only way we ever thought you’d be able to do. We sent you away to protect you.”
“Exactly like the Water Temple did following the attack,” Finn said. He leaned against the wall, one boot braced on top of the other. “That makes sense.”
All these years I’d thought he wanted me out of his hair.
I’d thought my father resented Mom’s decision to tell me I was adopted because that might reveal an emotion I wasn’t ready for. I’d doubted his love on more than one occasion.
But I could see now he was afraid. Afraid for me, afraid for Laura, afraid for himself. Afraid that me knowing even that small piece of my past might set the wrong things into motion. But I didn’t know how to tell him I understood, so I remained quiet.
“I’m only thankful you found your magic, that the Order found you, when you were old enough to handle the hard reality that the world has teeth and it’s not afraid to use them.”
I opened my mouth, almost spoke, then closed it again. I took another small sip of water, then tried again. “So Finn was right? You know everything?”
My dad nodded grimly. “We may not be actively playing the game, but we haven’t lost our connections to it. And we know the Order was listening when you called.”
“I—”
“We’ve got incoming.” I jerked at Ryder’s voice, dropping to my feet. Finn appeared at my side a moment later, head tilted as he listened to something. The incubus darted into the kitchen, amber eyes dark and hooded. “A lot of them. We need to get out. Now.”
“But—”
“There’s no time.” The whirring of helicopter blades beat against the windows even as Ryder grabbed my hand and pulled me to the back door. Night had folded her robes around us. Finn was already pulling back the sliding doors. “If we don’t leave now, we never will.”
“I don’t want to leave you.” I called, tugging hopelessly against Ryder’s grip. “There’s so much I need to know, so much I need to ask.”
Dad’s eyes were somber as he looked back at the front of the house, at the pounding on the door. “We swore to protect you. Let us fulfill that promise.”
“I love you, Zara. Never forget.” Tears streamed down my mother’s face as she pulled the door closed behind us. I pulled the box close as Finn scooped me up and half-ducked, half-sprinted to where Ryder hid in the shadow of the house, along the side yard.
No. Forgetting was something I refused to do.
28
Geoffrey
I knew that helicopter.
I screamed as the sleek, black shadow streaked across the sky. I recognized the artillery sticking from its nose and sides; I could visualize the specially-engineered two-pronged propeller that added increased dexterity and speed, the reinforced steel plating that made it virtually impenetrable, the hidden chambers stored beneath the seats.
I’d drawn the creation up myself.
Only one other person had ever seen it.
“Stop the car,” I yelled. My hand was already yanking on the handle, my body falling out of the vehicle at a sprint even before it fully stopped moving. Not even ten yards later, the house became visible at the top of the hill, and a dozen or so big, black vans soared past me, red and yellow lights flashing on their hoods and roofs.
I knew those lights, too.
And those vans and the shape of the armor framing the bodies of those spilling from their guts.
My body was one with the wind as I pushed myself to move faster, eyes fixated on the whirring shadow circling overhead. Why was it here? How was it here? No one knew where I was going. I’d kept my mission confidential, only the pilot knew of my plans.
If I could just get close enough.
If I could just move fast enough.
I could stop…
A siren blared three sharp blasts.
The helicopter changed course, swerving with single-minded focus as hidden compartment doors sealed in its underbelly swung open. I raised a hand, a useless, pathetic hand, as greenish liquid slipped out, drenching the outside of the house as it passed overhead.
Another blast of the siren…
And the house exploded.
Chunks of brick and siding soared past me, nearly spearing me through as I fell to the ground. Something heavy smacked my shoulder and I rolled, trying to find cover underneath one of the cars parked in the road. Overhead, massive flames licked the sky, fiery shingles drifted to the ground. The leg of a table smashed the asphalt in front of my face, sending rock and debris flying.
My body shook.
This shouldn’t have happened.
I’d never ordered this. I’d never wanted this.
These soldiers should never have been here to begin with.
As the thwack of heavy things hitting roofs and cars and earth subsided, I rolled out from the safety of the vehicle. I was only three houses down from the devastation, now joining several dozen people spilling from homes and cars to stare in horror at their neighbor’s grave misfortune. Flames—flames coming from me, fueled by my rage— licked up my arms, burning the sleeves of my dress shirt and jacket. Smoke and steam spilled from my pores, the smoky flavor of ash coating my tongue.
When I got close enough, I grabbed the nearest soldier by the front of his vest, ripping him right off his feet. He started to yell in protest, but caught sight of my face, of the symbols I knew to be blazing bright as daylight, and the gun he touted fell from his hands with a clatter.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I yelled, spit flying.
“Sir, I don’t—”
“Who gave you the gods-damn orders to be here?” Over his shoulder more soldiers turned to stare at the spectacle. Most started backing up the moment they saw my fiery hands. The inferno that used to be a home roared in my ears as the explosive liquid—another Order specialty—drove the flames to burn ever hotter, ever higher.
“Sir, orders came right from the top.”
Fire melted the armor I clutched in my fist. “Come again?”
“The general, sir,” he yelled. “General Almasi. He hand-picked us all. Top-secret clearance only. We were instructed to destroy the home the God of Water grew up in and everyone living inside. We had it on good authority she’d be here. And sir, we spotted her. She was definitely in that house when it went up.” I wanted to close my eyes but couldn’t.
She couldn’t be dead.
Not after surviving all that—she couldn’t.
In my periphery, a dark cluster of shadows shifted in the alcove cut between two of the suburban-looking houses. Shadows that were too dark to be only shadows. I turned my head a little, keeping it just in sight.
A shape slunk around the edge of the house. Something that looked exactly like the incubus who’d been with Zara at the hotel. I shook the rattled soldier in my hands, if nothing else but to buy him time, to buy me time to see…
The other fey follow at his beckon, a smaller person wrapped in his arms.
Greenish-blue eyes blazed.
I dropped the soldier. He started ripping at his armor, trying to pull the melted Kevlar off. But it was no use. It would have to be cut from his very skin. A few of the soldiers tried to help, but quickly realized what I already knew.
I knew how I looked.
A man on fire, standing with Order soldiers before a flaming house. A man who’d very nearly killed one of his own men in front of dozens of witnesses. A man who kept showing up at the absolute worst moments.
<
br /> I knew what that girl must be thinking of me right now.
The dozen or so remaining members of the unit jumped out of my way as I advanced on the house. I knew she must hate me. I knew she must think I’d orchestrated this whole thing. I knew she’d believe the absolute worst of me. And I didn’t blame her. Not one bit.
But there was one thing I could do, aside from helping her make yet another escape.
If she was here, then that must mean her parents were, too. Or I could only assume anyway.
The helicopter landed on the street and two people, a man and a woman, jumped out. The woman wore a badge pinned on her shoulder in the shape of a snarling tiger. She was in charge of this operation, one of Toren’s regional second in commands. Confusion flickered in her eyes, but she raised a gloved hand in a quick salute, heels snapping together with a click.
“Sir, I wasn’t expecting you here.”
“I’m fully aware of that, captain. I have new orders for you.”
“Anything within my capabilities is yours, sir.”
“Are you aware of the location of my general right now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I need you to take me to him immediately in that helicopter, after I take care of some unexpected business.”
“Sir?”
“Wait here.”
I didn’t say anything more, only turned on my heel and advanced on the house. My arms ignited as I approached, my flames burning hot enough to melt sand into glass.
29
Zara
My shock only lasted another block before I shoved myself out of Finn’s rib-cracking hold. As I regained my footing, I tried to figure out what to do with the box I’d been given. But in our haste to escape the house, we’d forgotten all the stuff we’d lugged inside, so I gripped it tighter and pumped my arms faster.
Ryder was a blur of shadow darting from one corner to the next. When he solidified, he was crouched low to the ground, head swiveling and tilting as he scouted for danger. Finn remained behind me, pushing me faster despite the lack of anything indicating pursuit.
Walk on Water Page 23
