He watched, waiting for the cat to surface. Instead, the water began to bubble and churn as if a violent chemical reaction were taking place.
Milo stared, paralyzed by a sudden sting of fear. What would Ascher do if he found out Milo had killed the house cat? And what about the other orphans? They would think he was a murderer, a horrible animal killer. And then there was this poor creature, dying right in front of him.
“I’m sorry.” Milo stood at the edge of the pool, bent over in case he had to reach out an arm to help. “I didn’t mean to.”
A hand—a distinctly human one—reached out of the pool, gripped Milo’s wrist, and pulled.
“Whoa!” he said, slamming face first into the water.
When he surfaced, he heard laughter. A girl’s laughter.
“Serves you right!”
Milo sputtered, choking. He coughed and looked around.
A girl with black hair floated before him. Strands of her hair were dark orange, like unrefined gold, and it gave her a strange, fiery look. Her eyes were orange as well, the color of Halloween pumpkins. They stood out sharply against the pale skin of her heart-shaped face.
“Wha—what’s—h-help!” He struggled to stay afloat. “The cat, it’s drowning!”
The girl frowned at him, bobbing up and down as she tread water.
“I am the cat, stupid.”
“Oh,” he said, kicking his legs to stay afloat, finally in control of himself. “You’re a Feral, then.”
She frowned at him a second time. Milo got the feeling she didn’t like him very much. He looked down at her body, curious to see if she had a tail like a normal Feral—but then he noticed something that hit him like a slap in the face.
She wasn’t wearing any clothes.
“Um—are you naked?”
“Oh, crap!” The girl’s eyes widened and her cheeks turned pink. “The spell didn’t work!”
“What spell?”
“Get out!” She splashed at him and the water stung his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. “Get out, get out, get out!”
Milo scrambled out of the pool. He looked back at the girl just once. She had gotten out and was standing by one of the pillars, wrapping herself in a huge towel. But the towel didn’t hide the black cat’s tail swinging down around her legs. She was a Feral, all right.
Her voice filled the room.
“I said leave, pervert!”
He picked up his clothes, dressed hastily, and ran soaking wet through the door and down the hallways until he reached the dining area, where Ascher was helping Coral put the finishing touches on the dining room table. The smell of hot food was thick in the air. A paper banner hung on the wall that said, WELCOME MILO AND EMMA BANKS!
“Hi,” Ascher said, looking at Milo and then at the puddle of water forming at his feet.
When he saw the small cuts on Milo’s wrist, he frowned.
“I see you’ve met Calista.”
CHAPTER 25
L ily, acting as though they had been playmates all their lives, took Emma by the hand and pulled her out of the bedroom and into the darker end of the hallway, where it was cold and creepy. There were no windows here. Emma studied one of the lanterns hanging on the wall and saw a shimmering blue flame that radiated cold instead of heat. There was an odd, chemical smell in the air, and it seemed to be coming from beyond the plain wooden door in front of them.
“I don’t know about this,” Emma said, taking a step back.
“It’s okay,” Lily said. “It’s just Barrel. He’s a chemist. The only way I can summon golems is by drinking a special elixir he makes. But that’s because luminether crystals are too expensive, otherwise I would use one of those. I wish I had a luminether crystal, or better yet—a crystal-tipped staff.”
“Luminether?” Emma said. “Crystals?”
Lily knocked on the door. “Hey Barrel, open up!” She turned to Emma. “You’ll like Barrel. He’s a little strange, but he’s a good boy. His real name is Baraltimus, but we call him Barrel because that’s what he uses to make some of his potions. He’s from Astros, unlike you and me. Oh, and his room is a little dark. He doesn’t like the light very much. It hurts his eyes.”
“Okay,” Emma said, nodding along with each word. “Gotcha.”
The door opened, and at first, Emma saw nothing but dark shapes squatting in the room. Then a blue flame sparked in front of her and hung in the air as if dangling from a string. She leaped back with a cry of alarm, the tip of her nose burning.
“It’s all right,” a voice said. “I won’t hurt you.”
The voice was light and soft, almost girlish, but Emma could tell it belonged to a boy. The flame backed into the room and illuminated a hooded figure standing a few feet in front of her. He was a thin, white-haired ghost of a boy with pinkish eyes and skin as white as cream.
“That wasn’t nice,” Emma said. “You could’ve burned my eyebrows off.”
The boy smiled, a devilish grin but pleasant all the same. There was something small and birdlike about him, and Emma felt a stab of pity.
“Come in, please,” he said, stepping back into the darkness of the room.
He snapped his fingers and four more shimmering blue flames appeared in different parts of the room. They created a spooky, astral glow that just barely illuminated tables and barrels and a small bed in the corner. On the tables were glass beakers and networks of tubes connecting vats full of liquids both dark and light. The chemical smell crept up Emma’s nose, making her wince. Barrel watched her from inside his hood.
Lily skipped into the room as if she’d been there a thousand times.
“Do you have any Manaris Brew? I want to show Emma what I’ve been practicing.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Barrel said, waving a thin white finger in front of Lily’s face. “No unsupervised summoning. You know that. You could get in big trouble, Breezy.”
Lily slapped his finger away. “Oh, look who’s talking. I know what kinds of rules you’ve been breaking. I can smell the beer right now.”
“Beer?” His eyes widened, and then he scowled. “You skinny little woodpecker. Go bang your head against a tree. Maybe you’ll stir up some wits while you’re at it.”
“Woodpecker? Just wait ’til Rocky gets bigger. Then you’ll be as quick with words as you are with fists, which is to say, not very quick at all.”
Emma watched Lily and Barrel exchange good-natured insults, already feeling more at home.
“All right, Breezy. Calm down.” Barrel made a fist with one hand and started cracking his knuckles with the other.
“Ew,” Emma said. Barrel looked at her. “I—I mean, you should stop that. It’ll give you arthritis.”
“An urban myth.” Barrel shook the tension out of his hand. “But I appreciate you looking out for me. You’re very pretty. What’s your name?”
Lily broke in. “Oops, sorry! Barrel, this is our new sister, Emma Banks. She’s the daughter of…”
“I know, I know. Daughter of Maximus, son of Sargos, and Zandra, daughter of Aliara. We’ve all heard the news, even those of us who choose to be shut-ins. Well, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
He held out a hand and Emma took it, almost recoiling when she felt his skin.
“Thank you,” Barrel said.
“For what?”
“For not showing how uncomfortable you are. Usually when people feel how cold and clammy my skin is, they have to look away to hide their disgust. But you looked me in the eyes the entire time.”
“That’s because I’m curious,” Emma said. “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”
Barrel laughed. His hood trembled, and she saw once more the strange color of his irises, purple in the bluish light.
“You’re very kind, Emma Banks. You must be an Acolyte.”
“I am,” Emma said. “Like my mother.”
“One moment.” Barrel snapped his fingers and gave Lily, who was across the room, a sour look. “Stop playing with those tube
s, Breezy. You’ll blow us all sky high.”
Lily had been running the tip of one finger along a tube extended over two tables. She hid her hands behind her back and smiled sweetly.
“That’s better,” he said.
Barrel walked past Emma, his robe brushing her arm as he passed. He opened a box on a nearby table and rummaged through it.
“So you’re an Acolyte without wings, eh? That’s understandable. You’re still young. What are you, fifteen, sixteen years old?”
“I’m fourteen. My birthday was a month ago.”
“I’m almost sixteen!” Lily interjected from across the room.
“I see,” Barrel said, ignoring Lily and focusing on Emma. “You’ll mature in a couple of years. Then you’ll have yourself a pretty, white pair of wings. Won’t that be nice?”
“I can’t wait,” Emma said, looking up at the ceiling with a wistful smile.
Barrel pulled a small tube half-filled with green liquid out of the box. Lily’s eyes sprang wide with delight. She skipped over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“Yes, okay, very good,” he said, frowning. Then he looked at Emma and bowed. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Emma. I hope to see you again under similar conditions in the near future.”
“Likewise,” Emma said, curtseying in spite of herself. Barrel was so formal, it seemed the only proper way to excuse herself.
Back in the hallway, Emma and Lily looked at each other, giggled, and ran quietly to their bedroom.
“I could get in so much trouble for this,” Lily said once the door was shut.
Emma was breathing fast. “Are you sure you want to?”
“Yes! You have to meet Rocky. He’s just a baby at the moment, but as I become more and more adept at manipulating luminether, he’ll get bigger. Someday he might even be as big as a house. I’ll be able to shrink him as I see fit, of course.”
“Rocky,” Emma said. “Is he like a dog? Or a gorilla, or something like that?”
Lily smiled, flashing perfect, white teeth. Whenever she smiled, her eyes crinkled, giving her the most jovial of expressions. She really was beautiful, and it made Emma feel frumpy and awkward, especially since Lily was almost two years older. Back in New Jersey, she would already have her driver’s license.
“Rocky’s a golem. Basically, he’s a beast made out of rock, but he’s not just an average rock golem, ohhh no. He’s an elemental golem, which means that he can light himself on fire and create ice shields around himself—not at the same time, of course.”
“Whoa,” Emma said, sounding like her brother. “Can I meet him?”
“Sure. But keep in mind he can’t light himself on fire right now because I haven’t learned that ability yet. Same with the ice shields. I might need a few years to…”
“It’s okay,” Emma’s face was flushed. She was practically shouting. “I want to meet Rocky.”
Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m ready.”
She brought up the tube Barrel had given her and uncorked it. The liquid inside was a vile green sludge that filled the room with a bitter, leafy smell. Lily kept her eyes shut and drank it down.
Then she sent the tube rolling across the carpet, empty.
All Emma could do was stand there gaping, unable to take her eyes off her strange new friend. Lily’s eyes were still closed. The lids had begun to stir as if she were now immersed in a vivid dream.
When she opened them, both of her eyeballs were completely black, like lumps of coal.
Emma drew back with a sharp gasp.
“Stand aside, Emma,” Lily said, her voice more resonant than before. She sounded as if she’d been possessed by a powerful spirit.
Emma backed up against the closet door and watched Lily step into the center of the room, where she lifted both arms and looked up.
“Gods of old and spirits of new, essence of all good and true—come forth and help me subdue, this golem of orange and blue!”
A ball of energy the size of a basketball appeared between her hands, painting shadows across her body. Its light washed over her skin, coloring it a fiery orange, then bright blue, and then back to orange. The colors switched, back and forth, faster and faster until Lily’s face and body were blinking orange and blue so fast that the colors seemed to merge.
Then she shouted—“Golem, protect me!”—and slammed the ball into the floor, where it shattered into thousands of particles of light, half of them orange, the other half blue. The particles shot outward, washed up against Emma, hot and cold against her skin, then swept inward with a high-pitched hum. They collected in the center of the room where, bit by bit, they stacked themselves into a man-shaped creature about a foot tall.
The light faded, leaving a small but muscular golem who looked as though he’d been put together from tightly packed orange and blue stones. The golem had big fists and huge feet—big and huge for his height; he was very small at the moment—and a thumb-shaped head with two depressions where eyes would have been on a man. The golem’s head appeared to split in half as it opened its mouth.
“Rar, rar, rar!”
It beat its chest, looking up at Lily. She bent down to pet it. By then, she had come out of her trance and her eyes had gone back to normal.
“Lily?” Emma said.
“Shhh…Come here. Meet Rocky. He’s my baby.”
The golem watched Emma approach. He didn’t have much of a face, but the stones making up his head gave him something resembling a human facial expression. Right now, he looked annoyed—possibly angry at having been summoned.
“You can pet him,” Lily said. “The orange stones feel hot and the blue ones feel frozen. It’s a really interesting feeling.”
Emma took a deep breath and reached out to touch the golem. The creature watched with something like apprehension on its rock-face. Emma decided to use her index finger to pat the creature’s head.
THUMP.
“Ouch!” Emma drew back her hand. The golem had punched the knuckle of her thumb.
“Rar-ar-ar-ar!” The golem was now smacking its knee and tipping its head back and forth.
“Sorry,” Lily said. “He’s got a strange sense of humor.”
“Is he laughing?” Emma rubbed her hand and frowned.
They lay on the floor and played with the golem for the next five minutes. Lily encouraged Emma to keep petting Rocky (“He’ll warm up to you, I promise.”), though the first few times she reached out to him, he continued to punch her hand. After a while, the punches became softer until Emma was able to stroke the creature’s head for as long as she liked.
“He’s kind of cute,” Emma said, gazing down at him.
The golem was now sitting on the floor with his stubby orange-and-blue legs stretched out before him. Each one was as thick as a human wrist, his feet like fists.
Below them, Coral announced that it was dinnertime.
“Let’s go,” Lily said. She bent over, smiling at the golem, and then made a swirling motion with her right hand.
Rocky let out a sigh of relaxation as a glowing, sparkling mist wrapped itself around his stubby body and pulled him apart stone by stone. It happened in three blinks of an eye, and then he was gone.
CHAPTER 26
Despite a pounding rainstorm outside, dinner that night was a magnificent feast.
The tables were full of orphans ranging from small children to lanky teenagers. Milo sat next to Emma, and together they waited for their table to be called, mouths watering.
“Emma and Milo,” Coral said, looking at them from the front of the room. “You’ve had a long trip, so your table can go first.”
They practically ran to the buffet table. The middle section had been loaded with roasted meats, exotic-looking vegetables grilled with a sweet-smelling spice, yellow potato-like balls that smelled like pancakes, wildly colorful salads with little bowls of sparkling dressings, and other delicacies that Milo didn’t recognize. A platter was uncovered, and he saw with deligh
t that it was a pyramid of stacked hamburgers. There were also wedges of white, yellow, and orange cheese, and baskets full of warm rolls flecked with seeds.
Too hungry to smile or talk, the twins filled their plates and juice cups and went back to their table. The only sound besides the jovial chattering of children was the pattering of rain against the steeple-shaped windows high above them. Thunder gave its low, admonitory roar, but even that wasn’t enough to spoil the mood.
Milo went back up to the buffet table, as he had forgotten to grab a roll. He found himself next to a pretty girl with beaded bracelets and hair the color of tree bark. She gave him a quick smile.
“You’re Emma’s brother, Milo,” she said. “I’m Lily Breezewater. Emma’s roommate.”
The girl was a couple of years older than Milo; probably sixteen or seventeen. She was also a few inches taller, which for some reason made him feel unworthy to be in her presence. And she was beautiful! The more he looked at her shapely face and those pretty green eyes, the more difficult it became to hold his tray steady.
She watched him, waiting for a response. Milo dropped his gaze and examined the food on his tray.
“Okay,” Lily said. “Guess I’ll talk to you later.”
His face warmed with embarrassment.
“Later,” he said.
He kept to himself at the table, talking only to Emma and a tall, skinny Asian boy sitting next to him who kept asking Milo to pass the salt and the pepper and the hot sauce, and then the milk jug. There seemed to be no limit to the boy’s stomach, and he went up to the buffet table at least four times. His name was Gun-woo Kim, but he went by “Gunner.” He was a Humankin from North Korea, and he hung around another Humankin named Owen Aimsley, who was small and scrappy with eyes as quick as darts. Owen had also been born in the human realm—Canada, specifically.
Owen was, according to Gunner, the bravest Humankin in all of Taradyn. He had supposedly killed a tickbear all by himself one day while hunting in the forest. Gunner explained that a tickbear was a giant furry beast resembling the bears Milo was used to from back home, except that tickbears, like turtles, had protective shells.
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