Elemental Power

by Rachel Morgan

  “Um, thanks.” Malachi unfolded the paper, and Ridley watched in silence as his eyes scanned the words.

  “Go into the wastelands?” he muttered before looking up. “That’s suicide.”

  “Apparently it isn’t,” Ridley said. “But you don’t actually need to do that. That’s the reason I wanted to talk to you as well as give you the letter. Not everything in there is true anymore. That information they’re talking about that was stolen? It never reached the Shadow Society. We destroyed it. So, I mean, you can go looking for the elementals out there if you want to, but you don’t have to leave the city. We’re in the same amount of danger we’ve always been in, living here.”

  “I see. Um … okay.” He looked at the letter again as he ran one hand over his buzz cut. “This is all just … a lot to take in.”

  “I know. I’ve had a little bit of time to process things, but it was a shock at first.” She crossed her arms, flinching as pain radiated across her shoulders and back.

  “Hey, uh, I’m sorry I hit you,” Malachi said, probably noticing her expression. “I wasn’t really thinking, and when you pulled my arm, I just automatically fought back.”

  “Sure, yeah, I understand. I’ll be fine. It’s just a few bruises.”

  “Dude, I think you have rage issues,” Archer mumbled from the couch.

  Malachi’s eyes narrowed as they focused on Archer again. “I have my reasons.”

  “What exactly happened with your family?” Ridley asked. “I mean, unless you don’t want to talk about it. I’m just trying to understand where the, uh, rage comes from.”

  Malachi moved away from the door, looking briefly at the letter again. Then he folded it and placed it on the kitchen counter. “So, uh … my mom and sister were outside the city during the Cataclysm, so they didn’t make it. And my dad … he just couldn’t get over the pain of losing them. Then he got fired—and not just fired, but falsely accused of fraud. He went to Alastair Davenport himself and tried to explain his side of things, and the bastard called security in and had him dragged away in front of all his colleagues and friends. He was facing a trial and possibly time in prison, plus there was the shame of it all, and the pain of losing half his family, and he just … couldn’t take it.”

  Archer leaned forward on the couch and stared at the floor. “I’m really sorry,” Ridley said. “I lost my mom in the Cataclysm, but at least I still have my dad.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Archer said quietly.

  “Yeah, anyway. I realize that logically it had nothing to do with you,” Malachi said to Archer, “but grief doesn’t leave much room for logic. I’ve hated your family ever since.”

  “Understandable,” Archer answered. “I kind of hate them myself sometimes.” Ridley frowned at him. Surely he didn’t mean that, did he? He met her eyes—or tried to, at least, but she guessed he couldn’t see much through the one that was almost closed. “Not Lilah,” he added. “But my parents. My dad. I totally get where Malachi’s coming from.”

  Malachi leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms. “I guess I didn’t really expect that. I’m actually starting to feel bad about hitting you so hard.”

  “Well,” Archer said. He pulled his jacket sleeve further down over his hand and used it to dab at parts of his face. “We can pretend you hit my dad instead.”

  Ridley was about to say it was time to leave—the more time that passed, the worse Archer’s face looked—but Malachi spoke first. “So what else do you know? About people like us?”

  “Uh …” Her gaze shifted to Archer again.

  “It’s fine, you can talk.” He gestured to his face and added, “This looks worse than it is.”

  “Um, okay.” Ridley sat on the arm of the couch and told Malachi, as quickly as she could, everything her father, Mrs. Lin and Grandpa had explained to her. Malachi interjected here and there, and she answered as best she could, but when she was done, she stood and said, “I know you’ve probably got more questions, but that’s all I know, and we really need to go now. Archer’s in a bad way. I need to get him fixed up.”

  “Oh, well why don’t you just heal him here?” Malachi pushed away from the kitchen counter and moved closer. “I’d love to see the conjurations.”

  “Um … I don’t actually remember all of them,” Ridley admitted. She needed to get home and pull the conjuration book out from the back of her wardrobe. She didn’t want to tell Malachi that part though. He’d probably ask to see the book, and then she’d have to come back here, which was not part of her plan. “My dad knows some of them,” she said instead, which, now that she thought about it, might actually be true. “So I’d rather take Archer to him.”

  “Oh, okay.” Malachi’s face fell, but he nodded as Archer stood. “I understand. Can I get your number? We should obviously stay in contact.”

  Ridley’s eyes flicked toward Archer as she remembered her father’s warning. “Uh … I’m not sure. I think that might be a little dangerous.”

  “Why? It’s not like we’re going to use magic in public. It’s just … you’re the only person I know who’s like me. It would be great to hang out. And what if something changes? What if someone does find out who we are and we need to leave the city? If I discover something, then I’ll need to tell you.”

  Ridley scooped her hair away from her neck and pulled it over her shoulder, twisting it as she tried to figure out how to be both polite and safe. From the corner of her eye, she saw Archer shaking his head. She lowered her hands to her sides and said, “I’ll think about it.”

  “You’ll think about it?” Malachi repeated. “And if you decide you don’t want to stay in contact, then that’s it? I don’t ever see you again because I have no way of finding you? Seems a little unfair that you know all about me, but I barely know anything about you.”

  “Okay fine. You can have my number. But I’m not telling you where I live.”

  Malachi laughed. “You can keep your home a secret if it makes you feel safer. We can hang out somewhere else.”

  “Ridley …” Archer said, a warning tone to his voice.

  “It’s fine,” she told him as she raised her hands. Electric blue wisps were already rising away from her skin. She did a simple conjuration—one of the simplest there was; just three quick hand movements—then wrote her number in the air with her forefinger. Her magic followed her finger, leaving glowing blue numbers hanging in the air between her and Malachi. “Know that one?” she asked, lowering her hand.

  “Obviously,” he said with a smirk. “I was almost in high school when the Cataclysm happened. I knew all the basic conjurations by then.”

  Ridley shrugged. “I probably don’t have much to teach you then.”

  “Well, perhaps I can teach you a thing or two.”

  With a groan, Archer directed Ridley toward the door. “Time to go.”

  8

  As quietly as possible, Ridley unlocked the door that led from the alley into the back rooms of Kayne’s Antiques. “I probably should have asked this earlier,” Archer said, “but that part about you taking me to your dad wasn’t true, was it?” He was speaking oddly now, almost in a ventriloquist sort of way. Probably trying to keep his swollen jaw from moving too much, Ridley realized.

  “No,” she answered as she eased the door shut and turned the key. Her jacket was damp from the pattering rain they’d hurried through. She pushed her hood back and pulled the jacket off, then hung it on the back of the door. “But I do need to check my conjuration book for some of the movements,” she added. “The one I memorized the other day when I came to find you in the hospital was for broken bones. I need to look up the ones for bruising, swelling and surface cuts.” She nodded past the stairs and added, “You can go through to the store and I’ll bring the book down here. Dad should be asleep now, and I don’t want us to wake him. If he sees you, he’ll want to know what happened to your face.”

  “Wait.” Archer caught hold of her arm as she placed one foot on the l
owest step. “Are you sure your dad will be asleep? Wouldn’t he have stayed up to make sure you got home safely?”

  “He would have—if he’d been aware that I left.”

  “You snuck out?”

  “Yes. I said goodnight, shut my bedroom door, and climbed out my window.”

  “You have magic that can make you appear as invisible as air,” he said in his strange, almost slurred manner, “but you chose to climb out your window instead?”

  Ridley sighed, turned away, and headed up the stairs. “Wait for me in the store.” Once upstairs, she paused near Dad’s bedroom door and listened for his quiet snoring to confirm he was asleep. Then she quietly pushed aside the shoes and old school files on the floor of her wardrobe until she located the scarf-wrapped conjuration book.

  Downstairs, she found Archer examining the items arranged on an ornately carved mahogany table. His jacket, which was probably just as damp as hers, hung over the back of the desk chair. Perhaps it was the shadows cast by the few lamps he’d turned on, but his face looked even worse now. Ridley stopped beside the desk at the back of the store, hugging the book to her chest. “Remember how you insisted you accompany me so you could make sure I was safe?”

  Archer looked up. “Yes.”

  “I’m pretty sure tonight’s meeting with Malachi would have gone a whole lot smoother if you hadn’t been with me.”

  “A horrible coincidence.” Archer said. “It probably won’t happen again. Everything would have been fine if he hadn’t held an extremely personal grudge against me.”

  “True. Let’s hope there aren’t any other elementals holding extremely personal grudges against you.” She walked around the front of Dad’s desk, moved a few items out of the way, and pushed herself up to sit on the edge. “Get over here. You need some serious conjuration help. I don’t know how you can talk at all right now.”

  “My whole head is basically one giant mass of throbbing pain,” he said as he came toward her. “That doesn’t really change whether I speak or not.”

  Ridley shook her head as she opened the book on her lap.

  “What was that head shake?” Archer asked. “Disapproval?”

  “Indeed it was.” She turned a few pages, looking for the conjurations that had to do with healing.

  “How can you disapprove of this? It’s not like I punched my own face.”

  “No, but you’re at least partly responsible for the state you’re in, considering you didn’t fight back until after Malachi knocked me into a wall. Which, by the way,” she added as she looked up, “you could have done without telling him he was dead if he touched me again.”

  Archer made a sound that was probably supposed to be a chuckle. “You think that made things worse?”

  “Definitely. I mean, it was sweet and everything, so thanks for that, but you really didn’t need to get your pretty face smashed up even worse just for me.”

  “My pretty face?”

  “Sorry. Handsome face? Does that make you feel more manly?”

  “More like warm and fuzzy.” He moved closer, placed one hand on either side of her on the desk, and attempted a goofy smile. “Ridley Kayne thinks I’m handsome.”

  Her heart did some kind of irregular beat thing, which was probably just her body signaling its annoyance at having someone right up in her personal space. She lifted one knee and slowly pushed Archer away with her foot. “You’re such an idiot.”

  “A handsome idiot.”

  “Not right now, you’re not. Your face is such a mess I don’t even recognize you.” She returned her gaze to the book and carried on flipping pages. “Let’s work on fixing that so you can be a handsome idiot again.”

  “Look, I’m sorry if it upset you,” he said quietly. “I know you can take care of yourself and don’t need anyone getting all protective, saying things like ‘Touch her again and you’re dead.’” She looked up and found him focusing somewhere on the surface of Dad’s desk to her left. “It’s just … if there’s one thing that’s been hammered into my brain this past year, it’s that people like you are vitally important to our world, and I should do whatever I can to make sure you survive.”

  Ridley bit her lip and shifted a little, hanging onto the book to make sure it didn’t slip off her lap. Thinking of herself as special made her uncomfortable. “But … why are we any more important than people who aren’t born with magic pulsing through their bodies? Surely all people are important?”

  “Yes, but there are far less of your kind than there are of my kind. If the society knew the location of all the elemental communities around the world, they could easily wipe them out. Elementals would be close to extinct. And there’s something so utterly wrong about that. The things you can do … the way people like you used to live so in sync with nature instead of always taking … That’s the way the rest of us should live. We can learn so much from you, and that’s never going to happen if there are none of you left.”

  There was a passion in his voice Ridley had never heard before. But beneath it, there was something else she couldn’t quite identify. Envy? Before she could stop herself, she asked, “Do you wish you were like me?” Then, realizing what an intensely personal question that was, she shook her head. “Sorry, forget I asked that. It’s totally none of my business. Here I am wasting time on personal questions, and you’re still very much in pain.” She hastily flipped through the pages of the old book. “I really should have marked this section a few days ago when I first looked up these conjurations. I should have known I would—Ah, here they are.” She smoothed her hands over the pages, flattening the spine a little to keep the book open.

  “Is the whole book full of medical conjurations?” Archer asked.

  “No. The common theme is the movement type. The book starts off explaining this one simple hand movement, and then expands into all the conjurations that use that particular movement. The further you get into the book, the more complex the conjurations become.”

  “I see. Looks like that page you’re on is past halfway.”

  “Yeah, apparently there’s no such thing as a simple healing conjuration. Okay, just give me a few minutes …” She peered closer at the step-by-step pictures for the conjuration that was supposed to heal bruises. The following page had one for relieving swelling, and the next one was for minor cuts. All similar conjurations, but with a few key differences. She’d looked at them numerous times before but hadn’t made a point of memorizing them until now. She reminded herself of the movements, her fingers trailing through the air above the book as she practiced them. “Okay, come closer,” she said eventually.

  Archer took a step forward but left a few inches of space between them this time, which Ridley was grateful for. She raised her hands. Magic pulsed beneath her skin, showing up as glowing blue lines where her veins were close to the surface, or, on other parts of her skin, as patches of pulsing blue. Her earlier conversation with Archer came to mind, and she wondered just how weird she would look if she let go properly and her entire body glowed blue. But that wasn’t necessary for ordinary conjurations, so she pushed the thought from her mind. “Okay, so remember I have to do each conjuration at least three times, and there are three different conjurations.”

  Archer nodded. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She quickly gathered up the wisps of her magic by scooping at the air. Then, with the magic concentrated between her palms, she began the movements. Her palms touched, then curved away from each other, then came back around as her fingers danced in wave-like patterns. Without ceasing the motions, she managed to glance down at the book every few moments, just to be sure she was following the correct order. After sweeping her hands toward each other for the final time, she pushed the wisps of magic toward Archer’s battered skin.

  “Please stop looking at me,” she said as she positioned her hands to begin the second iteration.

  “Um … you’re right in front of my face,” he said. “Where would you like me to look?”

/>   “Close your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “It just makes me feel weird that you’re watching me while I’m trying to do this.”

  “Okay, sorry.” His eyes closed. “It’s just … I think you look cool with magic under your skin.”

  “Mm hmm.” Ridley didn’t want to argue when she was trying to concentrate. She performed the conjuration a second time, watched the resulting magic drift over Archer’s face, then began a third time. “Okay,” she said when she was done. “Next one.” Returning her gaze to the book, she scanned the pictures for a quick reminder of the movements in the next conjuration.

  “So I can’t open my eyes yet?” Archer asked.

  “Nope, sorry. We’re only a third of the way through this.”

  “Can I talk?”

  “You can,” she said as she raised her hands again, “but don’t expect me to reply while I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “So—”

  “And do not make a comment about women and multitasking.”

  Archer pressed his puffy, blood-smeared lips together. “I’ll be quiet,” he whispered.

  And, true to his word, he didn’t say a thing throughout the second and third conjurations.

  “Okay, I’m done,” Ridley finally said. She snapped the book shut and placed it on the desk beside her.

  “Thanks.” Archer opened his eyes and raised one hand to prod carefully at his cheekbone.

  “Feel any better?” Ridley asked.

  “Um, I think so.” He moved his jaw from side to side. “That doesn’t feel so sore anymore.”

  “Your eye that was half closed is looking a little more open.”

  “Great. Is there a bathroom down here? I’ll wipe all the blood off, and then you’ll be able to see better if everything’s healed.”