by Maria Amor
Dylan nearly ran into one of the hallway monitors—an off-duty professor named Asher Neely—as he got closer to the dorm buildings. Neely was fire-aligned, one of the professors that taught a niche subject within the alignment. “How is Ms. Beval?” Dylan gave himself a shake, parsing the question.
“Yeah—her grandmother is here, along with…” Dylan hesitated. “She found a strong air-aligned Guardian to help her.”
“Ewan Crofts?” Dylan nodded. “None better. What’s the prognosis?” Dylan shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think they’ve come up with one yet.”
“Shame, her being incapacitated like that,” Neely said. “You’re headed back to the dorms?”
“They sent me away,” Dylan told the professor. “There wasn’t anything else I could do for her.”
“It’s amazing you’ve done as well as you have so far,” Neely said, and Dylan started to walk towards the dorm hall; he was aware that if he didn’t get there in time, he would be in trouble, even if he’d stopped to speak to a professor. Neely fell in step next to him.
“I’ve worked hard to be a good protector,” Dylan told the older man.
“I’m sure you have,” Neely said. “But you’re still a minor. For Ruth to have expected you to be able to do everything her granddaughter would need...it was a bit foolish.”
“Well, Julia will come fully into her abilities in about a week,” Dylan pointed out.
“She will,” Neely agreed. “But that doesn’t mean she’ll have control of those abilities. I’ve heard some rumors that she might be an unstable Guardian for a while.”
“She’s been working as hard as a person can possibly work to become stable in her elemental alignment,” Dylan said, wondering why a professor like Neely would gossip with a student.
“The council is likely to want her to pair off as quickly as possible,” Neely said, giving Dylan a pointed look. “And of course, you’re quite close with her—with her family, as well—these days.”
“There’s nothing between us,” Dylan said quickly. “Nothing romantic, at least, I mean. It’s just that we’ve been friends off and on for a long time, and her grandmother trusts me.”
“If Ruth trusts you…” Neely shook his head. “That’s quite an endorsement, you know. It doesn’t exactly disprove the idea that you’re close to destined to be with her.”
“I’m not,” Dylan insisted. “She has been meeting people—playing the field, I guess—I don’t know. She’s interested in finding someone she can come to an agreement with.”
“More people would likely believe that she’s truly available if it weren’t for the fact that you’re with her every minute possible—consider that,” Neely said. “Of course, that’s got obvious reasons that you mentioned.”
“I need to go in, before they lock the doors,” Dylan said, gesturing to the door separating the corridor from the dorm hall.
“Of course—don’t let me get you into trouble,” Neely said. Dylan looked at the man for a long moment; he was one of the younger professors, maybe thirty, with the typical traits of a fire-aligned Guardian: reddish hair, blue eyes, a wiry build. Dylan turned away from the professor and opened the door to the dorm hall, shaking his head to himself.
“I wouldn’t trade places with her for the world,” Dylan murmured to himself, finding his way to the elevator that would take him to the water-aligned students’ level. Even beyond the sudden severity of her power spasms, Julia had been rebelling for months against her current status as a political pawn, as someone who was being turned into a “power player” against her own will; she didn’t want to participate in the council, she didn’t want to have anything to do with the complicated, self-involved machinations of the Guardians who worked with and for the council.
He knew that neither of them could avoid involvement in the supernatural world; that would have to be their fate no matter where they ended up in the world otherwise. They were Guardians, born with a link to the element they were aligned to, born with the supernatural abilities that made them go-betweens for the different elementally-aligned creatures in the world.
There was no way that they couldn’t—in some respect, in some capacity—be involved in the supernatural. Dylan had tried it; but he’d had to deal with other members of the supernatural community even as a musician, even though he’d only had to in a limited capacity. If there was ever a rogue creature in the area, who had overstayed their welcome, he—or Julia—as Guardians, would have to handle it.
Even if they were both able to avoid having to work for the council directly, they would be involved, in some way. Dylan understood that. But it was just as obvious to him that Julia wanted the least amount of involvement with the council as she could possibly muster; and he didn’t think that it would be possible for her.
As powerful as she was, as politically involved—at least in council and supernatural affairs—as her family had been for generations, she wouldn’t be able to avoid at least weighing in on major issues affecting all Guardians. She was already being pulled in on issues and she hadn’t even gained her full abilities.
For the first time since Dylan had come back into Julia’s life, he was legitimately afraid of what the transition would do to her. No one ever dies from the transition, do they? It didn’t seem likely—but then, it hadn’t seemed likely that Julia’s transition would be so incredibly intense as to make her bed-bound. How long would she be in the infirmary? Would she even make it to her birthday—or would they have to delay it?
Dylan slept restlessly and woke up early the next day, not able to quite shake the feeling that he was still somehow dreaming, in spite of the fact that he hadn’t remembered a dream before he got out of bed in the first place. He changed out of the pajamas he could barely remember putting on, into his uniform, and went straight back to the infirmary. No one was up and about just yet; Dylan didn’t think the dining hall would even be open for another twenty minutes. It would give him enough time to check on Julia, and see what Ruth and Ewan had to say about her prognosis.
He stepped into her room to find the two rulers still seated on either side of her; someone had brought them food, and tea, to judge by the trays on the floor. Ruth was singing lowly, one hand stroking Julia’s arm, cool blue-green energy flowing like a stream from Ruth into the girl. Ewan looked up from his own work—Dylan had no idea what it was—when Dylan came into the room.
“She’s doing better,” Ewan said. “But she’s going to have to stay bed-bound for the rest of the week until her birthday.” Dylan started, but then remembered that some air-aligned Guardians had the ability to read thoughts. It was an unpredictable talent, and one that even the adepts couldn’t control very well; Dylan thought that it made sense that the Rex Sylphae would possess it.
“Why does she have to stay bed-bound?”
“The spasms are going to keep coming,” Ruth murmured, barely interrupting her soft singing. “We can’t make them actually stop, we can just mitigate them.” Dylan nodded, accepting that. He frowned at the sight of Julia, normally so full of life: she was pale, glowing from the inside out with a yellow-tinged light, as if someone had put the sun itself inside her skin. The flow of energy from Ruth didn’t seem to be helping that—but the fact that she wasn’t shaking told him that some combination of Ewan’s efforts, Ruth’s energy, and whatever else they’d cobbled together as a treatment was doing something.
“We have to make sure that she rests as much as possible,” Ewan explained, as Ruth deepened her singing in the liquid, soft-toned language of the water-aligned Guardians. “She’s going to have more spasms, and they’re going to be intense. She’s already been cleared from the rest of the week’s classes.”
“Why not take her to Ruth’s?” Dylan looked at the two women; Julia seemed to be both awake and far away all at the same time, her eyes closed but her face moving as if she were reacting to something.
“The trip would open her up to worse symptoms,�
�� Ewan explained. “It’s easiest to take care of her here.”
“You can’t do this the entire week straight, can you?” Ewan smiled slightly.
“There are some air-aligned students who will take over for me, some fae who know the kind of magic that’s needed. Ruth will take a break once we get Julia stable again, and she and I have come up with a potion that should help.” Dylan accepted that with difficulty, but he knew he didn’t have much choice. “She should at least be able to attend her party; really the issue is that the energy surges weaken her physical body.”
Dylan nodded again as if he understood what the air-aligned Guardian meant. He didn’t want to leave the room, but he knew that he would have to; Julia had been excused from classes, but he hadn’t. And there was the fact, too, that he wasn’t exactly useful in the situation—he was just someone there, who was worried about Julia.
He sat in the room for a few moments longer, taking in the sight of his friend. Never before in all the time that he’d known her had Julia looked so helpless, so weak—almost too weak for the energy that was claiming her, that was changing her into the powerful Guardian that she would become. Dylan had done his best, but he had been right to wonder—everyone who had brought it up had been right to wonder—if he, as a teenager, was the right choice for someone to guard and protect her and help her through the transition.
Ruth finally finished up her ministrations, and turned her attention onto Dylan. “Stop feeling guilty,” Ruth said, scowling at him.
“I—” he almost started to say that he wasn’t feeling guilty; but he knew that the Regina Undinae would be able to read his emotional state better than almost anyone else in the world. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because, a lot was expected of you—more than is fair, strictly speaking,” Ruth said. “I put a lot of pressure on you, and you performed beyond what I could have ever reasonably expected.” The older woman smiled. “Of course, I’ve been informed more than once that my expectations are rarely reasonable.”
She stood and gestured for Dylan to follow her out of the room. “Is she really going to be okay? And in time for her birthday?”
“The spasms will likely reach their peak the night before,” Ruth told him. “Ewan and I will come back for that, and to take her back to Manhattan to have her birthday—you, of course, are welcome to come with us.” Dylan smiled wryly.
“Thanks for that,” he said. “So, after she reaches her full ability as a Guardian, am I done?”
“Sadly, for you, no,” Ruth said, flashing a very—very—brief smile before her face returned to its usual passive mask. “I will have to prevail on you to stay with her for a while longer. She’s going to need to find a mate—and before you say anything: no, I’m not going to proposition you. But between when she comes into her full abilities and when she actually chooses a mate, she’ll be vulnerable.”
“Why the rush?” Dylan frowned, knowing how Julia felt about that subject.
“Not a rush, precisely,” Ruth said, “it’s just a matter of the fact that she will be more stable, more able to use her abilities, if she finds someone who can ground her, who can bolster her energies. I’d expected for her transition to be difficult—but not this difficult. I didn’t think she would be incapacitated by the spasms.”
“Were you? I mean—when you went through the transition,” Dylan said.
“Only at the very end,” Ruth admitted. “Not this far out. But then, the water-aligned energy is very different. This energy that’s coursing through Julia, it’s fickle. It’s invasive in a way our energy isn’t. It’s of a totally different character than what I went through.” There was regret in the older woman’s voice and Dylan thought she actually felt guilty as well.
“And I think the schooling situation was different then, wasn’t it?” Dylan glanced around the corridor, not able to quite believe that they were on their own, even at the early hour. “Julia’s been under a lot of stress.”
“That definitely plays a role,” Ruth agreed. “She’s under strain, and some of that is my fault. But she’ll be in good keeping from now until her birthday.” Ruth turned and Dylan tried not to cringe under the full power of her otherworldly gaze. “You will continue to help her, won’t you Dylan?”
“Of course,” Dylan replied.
“It would be a relief to me,” Ruth said. “I know the two of you don’t have anything romantic between you, but your friendship is vitally important—and it will be really important to her as she continues to understand the extent of her abilities, her power. She needs people she can trust around her.”
“I’ll stay as long as she needs me,” Dylan told the older woman. Ruth smiled again and then turned away.
“Would you have breakfast with me, Dylan? I apparently have a meal waiting for me somewhere around here.” Dylan nodded and followed the old Guardian through the infirmary, wondering at everything that had happened in less than one day.
CHAPTER NINE
Julia checked the clock on the wall—her phone was plugged in, out of her reach in the little infirmary room she’d been in for days—for what felt like the hundredth time, only to find out that only two minutes had passed since she’d last checked the time. She and Dylan were supposed to go back to Manhattan the next day, and she had expected him to come by her temporary room fifteen minutes before, the way he had every day since she’d come to the infirmary. He should be here by now, she thought irritably, shifting her position on the bed. Dylan was never late—even before she’d landed herself in the infirmary, he’d never been late for any of their meetings.
The restless energy flowing through her fueled a jolt of anxiety. What if Dylan had gotten hurt? What if someone had attacked him, hoping to weaken her defenses? So far no one had—to the best of her knowledge—done more than try to ingratiate themselves to her, or tried to do more to her than convince her to go out with them. But what if that had changed?
Or what if Guthrie had decided without telling her that Dylan couldn’t see her anymore? Ruth and the current Rex Sylphae, Ewan, had left days before, but Julia expected to see both of them soon; they’d told her that they would come spend the night at the school the evening before her departure back to Manhattan, to prepare for her big party. She would be turning seventeen the next day; her birthday fell on Friday, and her party was on Saturday—presumably enough time for her to recover from whatever power surge would accompany her body taking on its full powers before she had to be social.
Ruth had reassured her that if she wasn’t in top form, she wouldn’t have to be at the party for very long; she could make an appearance in her gown and then go home to rest. She had to be there—everything had been reserved, paid for, put in place for weeks—but she didn’t have to be there for the entire party. Maybe even if I’m capable of staying for the whole party, I’ll claim I’m too weak and leave early, Julia thought absently, even as she checked the time yet again.
Dylan was twenty minutes late. If he walks into the room in the next ten minutes I’m going to get out of this bed and kill him unless he has a damn good excuse for being late. Julia wanted nothing more than to get back to her own bed, in her own room, and eat some of the cookies she knew her mother had made for her, and maybe a big bowl of pho or tom yum soup. She wanted to listen to music and talk to Dylan and forget the big step she was about to take into the broader world of Guardian politics.
She’d had a chance to talk to Ewan Crofts, the man who Julia knew everyone thought she would eventually replace, while her grandmother had been eating a quick dinner with Dylan, days before. “Did you want to be the Rex Sylphae?” The older man had shrugged.
“It sort of happened without me noticing,” Ewan had said. “I was just living my life, and then the opening came about…” he’d shrugged again. “And somehow I was the only one qualified enough.”
“I don’t suppose you could tell me how to avoid your fate, could you?” Ewan had laughed at her then.
“Julia, you are potenti
ally more powerful than I am—or potentially you will be,” he had said. “I could no more tell you how to prevent being pushed into ruling the element than I could tell you how to avoid falling if you’d stepped out of a window.”
“That’s easy though,” Julia had protested. “You just call on the air-aligned energy and have it lift you.”
“Smartass,” Ewan had said. “But you know what I mean. You’re powerful: that’s going to make people want to push you into a position of authority. The fact that you’re resisting the council on things now is even more reason for people to want you to be in charge of things.”
“If I hate authority, why would they want me to be the authority? That makes no sense,” Julia had pointed out.
“Who would you rather have in charge of the school: someone who loved to throw their weight around? Or someone who hated the idea of being in charge and tried hard to make people come up with their own rules?”
“Somewhere in between,” Julia had said. “Someone who’s in charge should at least take charge when they need to—but they shouldn’t want to just throw their weight around all the time.”
“And that’s why people will want you to take my place when the time comes,” Ewan had told her. “You’ve shown that you’re willing to take over when things aren’t going the way that they should—but you’ve also shown everyone that you don’t believe in the prestige and the trappings of the rank.” Julia had rolled her eyes.
“Can’t I just refuse to ever even consider it?” Ewan had given her a long look with his hazel-toned eyes.
“You can, technically,” he said. “But if they decide you’re the best candidate, they can essentially make you do it.”
“How?” Julia had frowned, resenting the council for the interference to come.
