Elemental Thief

by Rachel Morgan

  “… toxic oceans, unclean air, hundreds of species going extinct every day. We humans faced extinction too. Our world would not have lasted forever beneath the burden our species placed upon it. We started wars over resources. We were killing our world while killing off each other.”

  “Remind us just how much the world sucked,” Ridley muttered, “then tell us how wonderful everything’s going to be now.”

  Sure enough, perfectly timed with the climax in the anthem, the SG’s voice rang out: “But now we have hope! We will rise from the ashes of our grief. We will build our surviving cities into shining beacons of hope, and one day, when the magic has settled, we will take back our world.”

  Ridley snorted. This speech was almost ten years old and magic wasn’t any closer to ‘settling.’ She doubted anyone truly believed it ever would. The video went on to show brief clips of all the improvements that had been made to the surviving cities in the years since the Cataclysm, but fortunately, the sound bites from the SG’s speech had ended.

  Ridley leaned against the bus schedule board and turned her thoughts back to Archer and Lawrence. They would never admit what had happened, at least not to her or to the cops. But maybe one of them would talk in private. To a family member or a friend. And if someone—or something—happened to overhear one of those conversations, then perhaps—

  Ridley’s train of thought derailed as she noticed her commscreen vibrating in her pocket. She took it out and realized she’d missed several calls and text messages from Meera, the first from about twenty minutes after she’d stormed out of Meera’s home to confront Archer.

  Meera: Where’d you run off to in such a hurry?

  Meera: Hey, are you at the police station? Are you telling them you didn’t see Shen anywhere in the alley?

  Meera: Man, I really want to hurt the whole Davenport family right now. I guess when you have enough money, you can do whatever the heck you want.

  Meera: Spoke to Mrs. Lin. She said Shen was out last night delivering a meal at the time of the murder. But the murder happened during the fifteen minutes after he did the delivery and before he returned home, so apparently that means he has no alibi :-(

  Meera: Hey, call me when you get a chance, okay? I want to know what’s happening.

  Meera: Okay I’m freaking out now. Shen isn’t a minor, so he’s going to end up with a life sentence for murder. And that’s the BEST case scenario. What if they think he’s been doing something with magic even though he has his amulets? What if he gets the DEATH SENTENCE?!!!!

  Ridley tapped the voice call button and raised her commscreen to her ear. As the dial tone sounded, she turned away from the other people waiting for the bus. Meera answered within seconds. “Ohmygosh thank goodness. Where are you? What’s going on?”

  “I’m—at a bus stop,” Ridley said, deciding mid-sentence not to go into detail about confronting Archer. She could tell Meera later. “But you need to just calm down, okay? Shen’s not going to get the death penalty. No one can prove that he did anything with magic. And I’m sure someone will figure out soon that this new video footage—whatever it shows—is fake. I mean, they have an eye witness who said she saw Archer and the victim and no one else. Surely they have to listen to her as well.”

  Meera let out a shaky breath. “Look, all I know is that rich people can make their problems go away, and Archer Davenport—or his dad, at least—is one of the wealthiest people left on the planet. So if that family has decided they want to frame Shen for this murder, then I don’t see it going any other way.”

  “Meera, breathe,” Ridley told her friend as a bus turned a corner and moved toward the stop. “This is far from over. I’m going to do whatever I can to prove Shen’s innocence.”

  “What do you mean? What can you possibly do that would—”

  “I won’t see you this afternoon, okay? There’s somewhere I need to be.”

  “Ridley—”

  “Chat later, okay? And please stop panicking. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Ridley ended the call before Meera could ask any more questions. Sliding the commscreen back into her pocket, she climbed onto the bus. As she sat and looked out at an advertisement for the TransAt Train on the giant screen across the road, she smiled to herself. He’s untouchable, Archer had said about Lawrence Madson, but that wasn’t true. Perhaps no one else could get to him, but Ridley could. She could walk right into his home, just like she’d walked into the Davenports’ home.

  She faced forward as she began mentally planning her next break-in. A break-in that would be even riskier than breaking into the Davenports’ apartment. A target every sensible fiber of her being told her to stay well away from: the residence of Mayor Madson.

  8

  Jude Madson had been mayor of Lumina City for almost three years. His son Lawrence—a snotty rich kid the same as all the other snotty rich kids—graduated a few years ahead of Ridley at Wallace Academy. He showed up on tabloid covers every now and then, usually striding confidently into one of Lumina City’s glamorous night clubs with some celebrity on his arm, or sitting astride one of his vintage motorcycles. Or, most recently, reclining at ease at the city’s most expensive restaurant after surviving an attempt on his life. Ridley never opened any of the tabloids, so she had no idea what Lawrence actually did with his life these days—aside from fleeing dodgy alleys in unsavory parts of the city. That, she decided, would have made a great tabloid cover if she’d managed to capture it on her commscreen’s camera. But she hadn’t, which was why she needed to do some investigating on her own.

  And so, several hours after confronting Archer—and after sending a message to Dad to tell him she might be late for dinner—Ridley found herself outside the imposing front gate of the Madsons’ home. They lived on one of the largest properties near the edge of the city, alongside the Silvin River. Beyond the trees on the other side of the river, the orchards and farmlands began. And beyond that, of course, was the wall. The mayor had an apartment in the city center as well, but Ridley knew his family didn’t spend much time there. Lawrence had always liked to boast about his large riverside home, the closest thing one could get to a country estate these days.

  Rain pattered onto the road around her, but Ridley couldn’t feel it. She was wrapped in magic made of air, and the effect was that the rain seemed to fall through her. It was a strange concept, but she’d long since stopped trying to make sense of her freakish power. Wasn’t that part of what made it magic? The fact that it didn’t make sense? Wasn’t that why so many people throughout the ages had argued against its use as an energy source?

  She breathed in—savoring the scent of wet earth that was so rare in most parts of the city—and let the breeze carry her up and over the gate. That was the great thing about using air to conceal herself: she could move wherever it moved. On the other side of the gate, the air carried her past the guardhouse and along the driveway toward the stately home. Then up and up and through an open window on the second story. It was actually surprisingly easy. She’d expected the most protected man in the city to have a home that was harder to break into.

  She landed in a bathroom. Fluffy white towels hung over rails, and the jetted bath seemed big enough to fill Ridley’s entire bedroom. She left the bathroom behind and moved into a passageway. Instead of letting herself become visible again, she clung tightly to her magic. The house should be empty—she’d waited until a sleek black car left the property, carrying both the mayor and his son—but she didn’t know if an alarm system would be triggered if she let herself materialize, or if hidden cameras were installed somewhere. The idea of getting caught here seemed even worse than getting caught at the Davenports’ place. This was the mayor’s house, after all. Besides, she’d spent most of the afternoon at home finding out where he lived and planning how to get there, so she wasn’t tired yet from overuse of magic. May as well stay hidden, she thought to herself.

  She moved through the various rooms upstairs until eventually
finding the bedroom that must belong to Lawrence. Framed motorcycle posters decorated the walls, a bookshelf displayed the small trophy he’d won at a public speaking competition, and the open doors to the walk-in closet revealed men’s gym shoes on the floor and a few items of clothing beside them. Now all Ridley had to do was hide one of the two small listening devices currently residing in her back pocket. She’d met Ezra in a cinema just before coming here and swapped them for a pair of stolen earrings she hadn’t yet given him. She reached behind her, but with hands that seemed to be made of air—and a pocket that didn’t seem to exist either—it proved impossible to get hold of one of the listening devices.

  So she finally let go of her magic, quickly pulling her hood up the moment she was visible—just in case someone walked in and saw her before she managed to disappear again. Then she removed one of the two bugs from her pocket. After looking around for the best place to hide it, she chose the back of one of the bedside tables.

  Her magic concealed her as air once more, and she moved on to explore the rest of the house. She needed to choose another spot to hide the second bug. The problem was, in a house this large, private conversations could happen anywhere. She passed through a dining room, then a wide passageway with frameless glass doors that looked out onto the garden. Rain drummed down onto a deck, and beyond that was a swimming pool and neatly mown grass with strange, unidentifiable white sculptures positioned here and there.

  She paused inside a large study, wondering if Lawrence might sit there with his father and confide in him about exactly what had happened in the alley. She had no way of knowing for sure, but it didn’t seem like he had that kind of relationship with his father. Perhaps he would tell his mother instead. In the news clips Ridley sometimes saw, it seemed like he was closer to her. Though perhaps that was only because the two of them generally had to stand back to let the mayor take the limelight.

  Ridley continued through a second door that led out of the study and into the next room, which turned out to be a large lounge. Though she knew she shouldn’t be wasting time, her curiosity got the better of her and she stopped by the fireplace to examine the framed photos on the mantelpiece. They chronicled Lawrence’s perfect life from the time he was a toddler, through his school years, all the way to his Wallace Academy graduation, where he stood with a group of his friends. They all had their arms around each other, smiling and laughing as some of them tossed their caps into the air. Ridley almost moved on before noticing the girl on the far right of the group. Serena Adams. The girl who’d had a promising future as a dancer before earning herself the unfortunate title of The Girl Who Blew Herself Up With Magic On Top Of The Haddison Building. She must have been a friend of Lawrence’s—something he would no doubt deny if anyone asked him now. Ridley was surprised the Madsons hadn’t replaced this photo with a different one. No one wanted to be connected to Serena Adams in any way after it turned out she’d been using magic.

  At the sound of a faint hiss, Ridley froze. She twisted in the air and looked behind her, but there was no one there. She waited, her invisible heart pounding, but there was no noise other than the tick of the clock above the mantelpiece and the steady thrum of rain outside. She breathed in deeply to calm herself and noticed a new scent in the air. Something citrus. An air freshener? Was that the hiss she’d heard? She almost laughed as she imagined herself panicking over nothing more than an automatic air freshener.

  But then … her head began to spin. Nausea hit her at the same time her throat started closing. She gasped and felt herself stumbling, catching hold of the edge of an armchair—with a hand that was very much visible. She tried to push her magic outward, but the dizziness grew worse. When pain rocketed through her skull and the right side of her body, she realized she’d hit the floor. She lay there gasping, struggling to stay conscious, watching the ceiling and the side of the armchair shift in and out of focus, until everything eventually dissolved into darkness.

  Ridley woke suddenly, sucking in a breath and blinking as her heart raced. Nausea and dizziness still plagued her, but her breathing felt almost normal. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, waiting a moment for the room to stop spinning before she looked around at the clock over the mantelpiece. She wasn’t sure of the exact time she’d entered the Madsons’ home, but she calculated she’d been lying on the floor, completely exposed, for at least fifteen minutes.

  “Crap,” she whispered. She tried her magic again, but the attempt filled her with such nausea she had to lean her head against the armchair as she breathed deeply and slowly. She opened her eyes as the nausea lessened, and that was when she noticed the light in the study next door. The floorboards creaked as a wheeled chair moved.

  “Thank you,” Lawrence Madson said. “I’ll inform him when he gets home.”

  Double crap. Ridley scrambled on hands and knees toward the largest couch. What was Lawrence doing home? Hadn’t he left earlier with his father? Or was that someone else she’d seen in the car with the mayor? Not that it mattered right now. Lawrence’s footsteps were moving toward the study door, and Ridley was only halfway behind the couch, and—

  “Sound system, on,” Lawrence said as he entered the lounge.

  Ridley pulled both feet behind the couch and crouched as low as she could, holding her breath. Then she flinched as a speaker beeped somewhere nearby. A moment later, the haunting tones of a woman’s voice accompanied by melancholy piano chords reached her ears. She hoped Lawrence would return to the study, but instead he crossed to Ridley’s side of the room—Triple crap!—and stood at the glass doors, looking out at the garden. If he turned to his left, there was no way he could possibly miss Ridley.

  She held her breath and decided to move instead of trying her magic again. She inched backward on her butt and the heels of her hands, hoping to make it around the other side of the couch before Lawrence turned.

  Then the old-fashioned ding dong of a doorbell rang out through the house.

  Ridley froze.

  Lawrence looked over his shoulder—the shoulder pointed away from Ridley—and turned. He crossed the room without looking in her direction, leaving Ridley wilting with relief. She pushed herself up and peeked over the top of the couch. She couldn’t see through to the entrance hall from her position, but she heard Lawrence open the door. She heard the pause before he said, “Davenport? What a surprise.”

  9

  Lawrence Madson is not my friend. That’s what Archer told Ridley, so why was he here? Could he possibly be trying to do the right thing? Was he here to convince Lawrence to go to the police? Whatever the reason, Ridley couldn’t help smiling at her luck. She might be stuck behind a couch and unable to use her magic without feeling ill, but the one person she needed Lawrence to talk to had just arrived. All the two of them needed to do now was take a seat in the living room, have a chat about last night, and not discover that she was hiding there.

  “I’m glad I caught you at home,” she heard Archer say. “I thought you might be out with your father.”

  “How fortunate for you that I’m not,” Lawrence answered. His tone was civil, but Ridley wouldn’t have described it as warm. It seemed Archer may have been telling the truth about them not being friends. They definitely knew each other though.

  “I was surprised to hear you’d returned home,” Lawrence said as the front door closed. “Enlightening trip?”

  “Indeed. Most illuminating.”

  “I look forward to hearing more about it.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Archer answered, his voice growing louder as the two of them moved closer to the living room. Ridley ducked down again behind the couch, but then Archer added, “Why don’t we speak in your father’s study?” and their footsteps moved past the lounge door.

  Ridley rolled her eyes. She needed them to have their conversation here where the second listening device could pick up everything they said. She removed it from her pocket as Lawrence and Archer headed into the mayor’s study through the othe
r door rather than through the lounge. At least they weren’t too far away. If she could get the bug closer to the door, perhaps it would be able to record everything they said.

  She scooted forward a little and looked around the side of the couch, then pulled her head back immediately. The door connecting the lounge and study stood wide open, and Archer, sitting in a chair on one side of the mayor’s desk, was in full view. Ridley clenched one fist and pressed it against her mouth as she considered her options. She could crawl unseen around the back of the couch, but if she tried to sneak out either side and Archer happened to look this way, he’d definitely see her. She couldn’t get any closer to the study.

  “You must have made some very good friends over there in France.” Lawrence’s voice reached Ridley’s ears above the music as she pulled out her commscreen, switched on the voice recorder app, and placed it on the floor right at the edge of the couch beside the listening device. “So good,” Lawrence continued, “that when one of those friends shows up in Lumina City, I find you huddling together with him in an alley.”

  “I’m not sure I’d use the word ‘huddling,’” Archer said. “And believe me, I was as surprised to find him there as you were.”

  “Is that so? You didn’t, perhaps, arrange to meet him there?”

  “No. I was accompanying my sister to visit her friend nearby.”

  Ridley almost laughed out loud at that. Friend? It may have been true once upon a time, but that was many years ago.

  “I find it most interesting that you were in the area too,” Archer continued. “Perhaps you had arranged to meet him?”