“How’d they lose control of their own magic?” Eighellie demanded. “Fools should not be playing around with artifacts they don’t understand. I bet they’re on the list.” She said all this from the ground, where she looked like she was ready to dive back into the dirt and not look back.
“Oh no,” said a voice that barely recognized as Averett’s. Now even she sounded panicked, and that panicked me even more. I knew immediately what she was reacting to. Before I could turn my head to look, I sensed a giant wave of power coming from the main part of campus, the direction from which the bulk of the students had attacked. It was as tall as Astra itself and sparked like lightning.
Paralyzed by fear, I just stared at it.
One heartbeat passed, then a second – no time at all when your heart is racing – and yet it felt like an eternity. Most of the attackers, at least the ones who were still conscious, had seen the wave too. They all started to run.
The only problem was that there was nowhere to go.
“Do something!” Eighellie screamed. All thought of fighting the magic or the attackers had left her head and it had filled up with fear.
But I didn’t know what to do.
And because I didn’t, Astra was going to be destroyed.
Just as suddenly as the vast circle of magic had appeared, something else happened. I felt a strange power course through me. It definitely wasn’t mine, but it was somehow familiar. It felt elemental – but other.
In my short time as a paranormal I had experienced lots of different magic, and I thought I had experienced everything there was to being an elemental, from the ghosts who came back to help us fight darkness to Charlotte’s power, which was quite different from mine. But this was different. This was purer and less well-defined within the confines of earth, air, fire, and water. Somehow this was everything.
Chapter Twenty-One
Vast surges of power were ripping through me, neither fire nor water nor air nor earth but something else, something far more ancient. My body tried to shiver, but it was wrapped tightly by waves of magic that kept me from moving.
Instinctively, I knew what was moving through me and I knew to be afraid.
This power was the essence of everything an elemental was and had ever been. Something unaccountable was happening to me that was totally unlike my recent misadventures with fire. This time, I didn’t even think about fire or expect its appearance, the essence was far too strong for one element. It stripped me raw and dropped me to my knees, I felt my ring shatter and melt on my finger as more and more and yet more raw power coursed through me.
Without meaning to, I looked inside myself, saw the center of the power, and started to walk toward it. My mind told me that I was looking at the essence of magic, but another part of me I didn’t believe me. In the state I was in, all I could think of was jumping in with both feet, floating around in the magic, and staying there forever.
I made my way to the middle of the spinning wave, not conscious of anything else around me. I wasn’t at Astra and I wasn’t somewhere else. All I knew was the power in front of me. I was nearly to the center, to the pools of liquid magic flowing before my eyes, when I saw something curl into the swirl near me. At first I didn’t turn my head, because I didn’t want to be distracted. There was no choice involved in what I was doing or in where I was going. All this power running through me: it couldn’t stop. It had shattered my ring and I didn’t want it to stop.
But inexorably the darkness that had entered the flow curled nearer, and finally I had no choice but to look at the Premier of All Darkness. The only thing that registered was that the darkness was a match for essence, where a second ago I would have said essence was matchless. Darkness might not be more, but it was as much. Lisabelle Verlans, ruler of the Nocturns, was making her way toward me. Her face was unreadable.
The screaming had died down, and I was in a strange, ringing silence.
I opened my mouth to greet Lisabelle, and magic poured through me and out of me. My sister’s friend’s face scrunched up, as if all the drama irritated her. Her darkness was melting in with all the powers that engulfed us, and Lisabelle had so much black around her that she no longer seemed entirely solid.
I tried again to speak and this time it worked. “You have a lot of power.”
“So do you,” she said with more bemusement than irritation. “I see now.”
“I have a lot of power,” I said. There was no question there, either of what it was or of where it came from. It felt like it had always been a part of me.
“I don’t want to go back,” I said. “I know that’s what you’re doing here, but I don’t want to go back. I want to stay here. You’ve had a long time to get used to all your magic. Mine’s new to me.”
The darkness premier nodded. “Of course. It’s like you’re in a candy store and can have whatever you want forever. Who would want to leave that?”
“You’re going to make me go?” I whispered. Power flowed over my arms and face, coming closer and brushing away again, over and over.
“You don’t belong here,” said Lisabelle. “Your magic will always be here when you look for it, but your being here all the time to babysit it would only irritate it. Like how Sip treats me. That’s what makes the magic such an honor to visit when you get the chance, the fact that it is self-sufficient in the meantime.”
“That’s surprisingly philosophical, Lisabelle,” I said, desperately trying to buy time.
“I just wanted to be a part of all this theory you’re doing,” said Lisabelle with an evil grin.
“What is this place? Can I come back?” I asked.
“Sure, you can,” said Lisabelle. “I rather think you’re the only one who can come here.”
“But you’re here. Is it because you’re special? That’s usually your excuse for being ridiculously powerful,” I added.
“This is the elemental essence, this is your very own fifth element,” said Lisabelle. “That’s what this is. Charlotte’s going to be pissed.”
I waded forward through the power and took Lisabelle’s outstretched hand. Darkness power curled around me and pulled me away from the essence. Soon the darkness outweighed elemental, and my own powers respected Lisabelle’s, which was good, because I could have all the essence in the world and still lose to an angry darkness premier.
“You’re still more powerful,” I said to Lisabelle in awe.
“Well, of course,” she said. “Just because something cool happened to you and we don’t know exactly what it is and you’re suddenly all magical does not mean that you’re more powerful than I am. That’s not a thing.”
“Okay, Lisabelle,” I said. “Let’s go back.”
I had thought the journey would take a long time, but one second I was looking at Lisabelle surrounded by swirling darkness and floating ether, and the next I was looking at Lisabelle surrounded by swirling darkness punctuated by cold rain. Some things never change.
A light rain was spilling from the sky, sending down tiny cold gray sparks. I shivered as I looked up and the droplets splashed over my face.
Lisabelle’s eyes burned. She didn’t look at me.
All around us there were paranormals, and they were all staring. They couldn’t seem to decide if it was more interesting and less dangerous to stare at me or at Lisabelle. The darkness premier stared coldly back at them.
“It’s the darkness premier, what’s she doing here?” I could feel the fear in the air mixing with the rain. A small part of me enjoyed it. I liked that they were afraid of Lisabelle, and maybe even a little afraid of me.
“Who cares what she’s doing here! We know what she’s doing here. That kid just did magic not one of us has ever imagined,” cried someone else.
Suddenly, the saying “darkness calls to darkness” flashed through my mind, and my body jolted in reaction to the memory. Lisabelle saw the movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to look me square in the face. “What?” she demanded.
“That wasn’t darkness, was it?” I whispered to her. I wasn’t scared. The fact that I had moved closer to her shoulder just meant that I was cold. Having hundreds of angry eyes on me wasn’t at all scary. Nope.
“You? Darkness? Um, no,” she said.
“It’s just that you arrived so quickly,” I explained. If I had been using darkness magic she would have sensed it, because she always knows. But my thought train was interrupted by Lisabelle’s voice speaking to the milling crowd.
“He may have used power no one has ever seen or known before,” she said, her voice carrying to the far edges of the gathered circle, “but you attacked a fellow student on university grounds. Not only did you attack a fellow student, you attacked Astra, the elemental, the savior of the paranormals.”
Lisabelle was shaking with anger when she started, but by the time she had finished she was simply her ordinary, contained self. Meanwhile, as I came back to ordinary reality I realized that Eighellie was nearby, staring at Lisabelle. Surprise and fear lit Eighellie’s face, and she looked rooted to the spot. No way would she try to ask Lisabelle questions now.
The mass of students dissipated quickly after Lisabelle’s lecture, but I didn’t really see any of that, because mostly what I saw was Charlotte running toward us. She wasn’t even wearing a coat.
“RICKY!” she screamed, and I felt guilty at having caused the panic in her voice. She wrapped her arms around me and held on tight.
“Muhummu,” I said.
“Huh?” she said, pulling back just a little.
“I said I couldn’t breath,” I told her. “I should have added that I could speak if you’d let me breathe.”
“Shut up and let’s get you inside,” she huffed.
“Oh, that’s why you were choking me,” I said.
“Why’s she upset?” I whispered, my eyes directing the question to Lisabelle, who was now busy surveying the damage. “I wasn’t in danger and I didn’t need her help.”
My sister looked stricken, but I couldn’t figure out what she was so upset about. She turned to me with haunted eyes. “They were testing her,” she said. “They wanted to know if she would come if we were threatened, and now they have their answer. It was a test, one round in a long battle, and Lisabelle lost. She knows that. And she’s afraid for what it means for the future.”
I swallowed hard. As I turned to walk back into Astra, leaving Lisabelle and Charlotte alone, I saw something glint in the grass, a sort of wisp of silver. Curious, I went to investigate, kneeling down to get a closer look. The silver wisp was clear. And it belonged to a fallen angel.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It wasn’t long before Charlotte followed me into Astra. When she saw that I was shaking all over, she sent Keegan and Eighellie away. Keegan had a gash on his head from the cool and awesome fight he’d been in, which he couldn’t wait to tell me about in the morning. Eighellie’s face was still paper white. Since my room had apparently been somewhat trashed, Charlotte set up a cot for me in the kitchen, right in front of the fire. She thought the ground floor and Martha’s favorite room were safer than the rest of the house at the moment. She also managed to make me a cup of tea before Keller arrived and insisted that she leave with him. He had brought her coat with him.
As for me, I wished she hadn’t sent my friends away and then left herself. Sleep was not going to come easily.
The fallout from that night was instantaneous and extensive.
Fallgrabber claimed to have seen the whole thing and was furious.
I had nothing to do with it.
Keegan and Eighellie snuck over to Astra at the crack of dawn, but not long after that we received a terse message from Dobrov ordering all students to remain in their dorms for twenty-four hours while the massive rule-breaking was investigated and the appropriate parties severely punished. Keegan and Eighellie weren’t going to leave Astra, but Charlotte arrived and ordered them to return to Airlee. She didn’t stay long, because she had to attend an urgent meeting of the entire faculty. But she explained that enough rules and been broken in the last twenty-four hours, and that Keegan and Eighellie didn’t need to stay stubbornly at Astra and break more direct commands from those in authority in the process.
That was all well and good, but it left me alone. Again.
My mind was filled with questions, and there was no one to answer them. What the hell was the essence? I had never heard of it, not even in the most obscure paranormal literature I had come across. Maybe Lisabelle was telling Dobrov and Charlotte about it right now, but she should have been telling me. I also wondered if Sip had arrived and what Lough would think of all of this. Sip probably hadn’t come, because she wouldn’t want to draw any more attention to what had happened than necessary. But if I was right in that guess, my next bet would have been that it was killing her.
While I waited, alone, I paced around the Astra ballroom. Sometimes I glanced at the room’s elegant tapestries or its silver-edged mirrors, but mostly my eyes saw places and events far away. The rain that had started while I was engulfed in the power the night before was still cascading in thick sheets, creating great spatter paintings of gray and white on the massive windows. It felt odd to be in the ballroom; I rarely went there, because it never felt like that space held anything of value for me; somehow, it would always be Charlotte’s. But today my frantic energy was going in all directions. I needed lots of space, and the ballroom was perfect.
My body felt like jittery rubber, my limbs were tired, and my muscles didn’t want to support me. But I also felt as if my mind was pelting around inside my skull, and I couldn’t get it to stop. My ring was gone; in its place there was nothing but a piece of molten metal. I was still no closer to discovering any information about the objects on the Counter Wheel. But at least I now understood what was wrong with my fire magic. It was offended to discover a new game in town, a game called essence.
Keller had performed a pretty serious healing on me so that I’d be functional this morning, but now that I was trying to stand upright for an extended period of time, I wasn’t sure he had done me any favors.
When Keller had seen what was happening, he’d come running toward me with fear etched on every line of his face. He thought I was in pain, but I was far beyond pain at that point. The magic had ripped me to shreds and put me back together, and now I felt different. The return from the shattering left me not exactly the same as I had been; I felt like there were cracks in my body where the gray light of this dreary day showed through.
Keller had taken my hand and I had turned to him with unseeing eyes. His touch felt distant, as if it was pressing on magic instead of skin.
Now, alone in the Astra ballroom, I spent the entire day waiting for news. Since no news came for hours, I had a lot of time to speculate. The students, I thought, must have been playing some sort of prank, trying to get Dobrov fired and/or Public closed, but given the advanced magic they had used, it didn’t feel like a joke.
“Fallgrabber must be having a field day,” I muttered, coming into the fire sitting room after I got tired of the ballroom. I had gone in search of Sigil in the library, but he hadn’t been there.
The door was locked, and I was too afraid to ask my magic to open it. Instead, I had gone to the fire room and picked a book at random off the shelves. It turned out to be about bricklaying, so when Charlotte walked in I was basically trying to fall asleep while I imagined lifting gargantuan bricks with my air magic and slamming them downward in frustration.
Guilt had started to overwhelm me. They had been trying desperately all semester to keep Paranormal Public open, and I had gone and walked into the middle of an unknown, unfathomable wave of power. I couldn’t believe I had been so selfish or so foolish. I had probably ruined everything.
What would happen to the beloved school now?
Thankfully, Charlotte only took half the day to come and visit me. If she had taken the other half I might have thrown fire through the walls of Astra. Or I woul
d have, that is, if my power still worked at all, something I wasn’t at all sure about. It was there, but distant, and I somehow felt simultaneously hopped up, as if I’d had a lot of coffee, and dull and listless. By the time my sister came to find me in the fire sitting room in Astra, I had finally exhausted myself in worrying and wandering and had settled down in exhaustion.
I didn’t look up when Charlotte walked in, I just kept staring at the fire. As the day had worn on, my thoughts had grown darker, and now I was in a fine state of gloom.
“They’re all blaming Lisabelle. They all want to kill her,” I whispered, sure I had guessed right about what must be going on outside my refuge in Astra.
Charlotte nodded. “Yeah, that’s how it was when I was here too.” I looked up at her in surprise and she laughed. “Some things never change. You didn’t think she was actually beloved, did you?”
I felt a little stupid then. Of course I didn’t think that.
“If it wasn’t Lisabelle running Charles, who was it?” I asked. After I had arrived at Duckleworth, Charles had showed up there as an old friend of Dacer’s. The vampire Duke didn’t appear to think much of his jolly green-eyed friend’s arrival, but after Camilla’s trial it was clear that Charles had come to Duckleworth as a calculated move. He attacked us outright at Camilla’s trial, ruining his and Dacer’s old friendship.
“That’s what everyone would like to know, especially Luc.”
The vampire Duke had seemed especially furious about the attack, but then again it was one thing to feel fear and another to express it. The Duke was very expressive, sometimes with glitter, and if not that, then it was likely to be feathers. He did not like to see his loved ones harmed.
“What about Dobrov? What does he have to say?” I asked.
Charlotte shifted uncomfortably.
“Dobrov?” I repeated.
Elemental Havoc (Paranormal Public Book 11) Page 16
