“No, Archer didn’t give away a thing,” Dad said as he walked into her bedroom. “He didn’t have to. I’m not stupid, Ridley.” He reached up toward the space on top of her wardrobe. After pulling down a backpack, he turned to face her. “Of course I didn’t believe you. I knew you’d go looking for them. But I figured Archer would look out for you. That’s why he came back here on Monday, right? He knew as well as I did that you wouldn’t let it go.” Dad held the backpack out to Ridley, and she reached silently for it, her mouth half open. “Not that he did a very good job,” Dad added. “I was hoping he’d keep you away from this kind of mess.”
“Wait, so … you knew all of this?” Ridley asked. “And you let me believe I was being masterfully secretive?”
“Yes. It wouldn’t have done any good if I’d confronted you. You would have gone after them anyway, and you might have done it without Archer’s help.” Dad sighed and added, “I know I’m no better than you. I’ve kept so many secrets. I fear I’ve taught you the same thing.”
Ridley nodded mutely, her hands tightening around the backpack. Secrets had been part of her life for as long as she could remember, since the moment flames had erupted across her hand and her parents had told her she had magic inside her. Secrets had kept her safe. Secrets were key to survival. Both her parents had taught her that. But this was Dad. Why had she been keeping secrets from him? “We … we should probably make more of an effort at being completely open with each other,” she said quietly.
Dad nodded. “We should. Once we’re somewhere safe. Right now, we need to pack whatever we can carry and get out of here.”
“Yes. Wait, Dad,” she added as he turned to leave. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know you wanted to stay here and live a normal life, and now I’ve messed everything up. But I had to protect her—the elemental I was speaking to tonight. She accidentally let her magic become visible, and the policeman saw her, and he was going for his gun, and I couldn’t just stand by and wait to see if he shot her—” She cut herself off, telling herself to stop with all the excuses. “I’m just really sorry.”
Dad moved forward and wrapped both Ridley and the backpack she was clutching in a tight embrace. “Sounds like it would have happened anyway. If the police have a description of you, they would have found you soon enough. It had nothing to do with you tracking down other elementals. Even though I would have preferred you hadn’t done that.” He stepped back. “Now we both need to pack.”
“Yes. Got it.”
Ridley tugged the laces at the back of her dress, loosening them as quickly as she could. When she was finally out of the dress, she changed into jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Less than ten minutes later, she’d finished stuffing as many items as she could into her backpack, making sure there was space for the framed picture of her with Mom and Dad that had stood on her desk for years.
She dumped the backpack on the couch in the living room and was about to check the kitchen cupboards for small snack items when a loud pounding on the door downstairs made her jump. Dad rushed into the living room. “We’re too late,” Ridley whispered, her wildly thudding heart causing the ache behind her eyes to throb.
“Bring your bag,” Dad replied. “Mine’s packed. We can go out my window. You can use magic to—”
“It’s me!” came a muffled shout from downstairs.
Ridley and Dad both paused, staring at each other with questioning gazes. “Archer?” Dad asked.
“I think so,” Ridley said.
“Wait here. I’ll check.” Dad moved so quietly down the stairs that Ridley barely heard his footsteps. She stood frozen, barely breathing, listening as the bolt slid across. Quiet voices exchanged a few words, and then someone ran up the stairs. “Thank goodness,” Archer said, appearing at the top still dressed in his suit. He crossed the room and swept Ridley into a hug. “I figured you’d be fine, but I was still worried.” Ridley barely had time to be surprised by the hug before he let go, stepped back, and looked around for Dad. “You need to leave,” he said the moment Dad reached the top of the stairs. “I don’t know how long it’ll take them to figure out who Ridley is, but they will.”
“I know,” Dad said. “We’re ready to go. Just let me grab my bag.”
“Wait. Your amulets. You need to get rid of them.”
“They can track our AIs?” Ridley asked. “Surely that’s—”
“Illegal? Yes. But that doesn’t stop it from happening. It may take a few hours, but they’ll soon have every scanner drone in the city searching for your amulets.” Archer looked at Dad. “Yours too, I’m guessing. They’ll assume you’re helping her.”
“So we should remove them,” Ridley said. “But if we remove them, then any scanner drone flying over us will detect us anyway for not having AIs.”
“Still better not to have them,” Dad said, prodding at the skin just behind his ear where his AI1 was still embedded. His AI2 was fused to the inside of his wedding ring—which meant, Ridley realized with a lurch of her heart, that he’d have to get rid of the ring. “We can leave them somewhere else. Any drones that detect our AIs will send an alert, and half the city’s cops will end up there. It’ll buy us a little time, at least.”
“But the scanners detect body heat as well, don’t they?” Ridley asked. “Or something like that. They’ll know the amulets aren’t attached to any people.”
“We’ll leave them inside a busy building. The scanners won’t be able to tell the difference.”
“And what about our commscreens?” she asked.
“They’re fine if they’re off,” Archer said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’ve tested it myself.”
“Okay, let me get my bag,” Dad said as Ridley removed both her commscreen and commpad from the backpack. “One of you will need to cut my AI1 out once we’re a good distance away from here.” He turned and hurried back toward his bedroom. Ridley switched off her devices and returned them to the backpack. After zipping it closed, she lifted it onto one shoulder and turned to Archer. “What happened after I left? Do you know if lots of people saw my magic?”
“I’m not sure. I was down in the ballroom when I saw you on the balcony with Callie. But I couldn’t see much through the railing. It was your dress that I recognized. I was halfway up the stairs when those two cops came in. By the time they confronted you, I was close enough to see what happened, but I don’t know what people saw from down in the ballroom. Probably not much.”
“Hopefully not,” Dad said, returning with a bag over one shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Right behind you,” Ridley said, rushing into the kitchen. She opened a cupboard and held her backpack in front of it. After unzipping the top, she swept the small collection of energy bars straight into the backpack. She pushed the contents down, forced the zipper closed, and ran out.
“Just getting a few things from my desk,” Dad called as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He hurried into the store.
“Archer, did those police officers see you?” Ridley asked, following him quickly down the stairs. “I don’t want you getting in trouble because they think you’re connected in some way to me or Callie.”
“They may have noticed me,” Archer said, “but I was still near the top of the stairs, so I wasn’t close enough to appear involved. They ran right past me as they were chasing after you. My mom came up then and wanted to know why two policemen had just rushed out of her party. I told her I had no idea. Then she asked about you, so I told her you were in the bathroom. I hung around a bit, pretending I was waiting for you, and then slipped out when my mom wasn’t looking.”
“Okay, that’s good.” Ridley jumped down the final two stairs and crossed the back room to peer out of the window beside the door. As far as she could tell, the alley was empty. “I don’t think they knew who I was,” she said, looking back at Archer. “That cop called me ‘miss.’ He didn’t use my name.”
“Yeah, I saw him talking to Harry
on my way out.”
“Harry?”
“The guy with the commpad who checks everyone’s names against the guest list when they come in.” Archer’s hand moved to the knot of his tie, pulling it back and forth a few times to loosen it. “But your name was never on the list because I never told my mother and Lilah I was bringing you.”
“So that cop will now be giving a description of me to your mom, or showing her my face on some Aura Tower surveillance footage from earlier tonight, and she’ll be more than happy to give him my name.”
“And she knows Kayne’s Antiques,” Archer added, “so she’ll be able to send the cops straight here. Which she may have already done.”
“Right, let’s go,” Dad said, returning from the store while zipping up his bag. Ridley barely had a moment to stare into the darkness of Kayne’s Antiques and mentally say goodbye. It was so strange to think of leaving the store and the apartment above it forever. She’d hated it so much when she and Dad first moved here after the Cataclysm, but now it was her home. Unshed tears ached behind her eyes as she realized this was probably the last time she would see it.
“Come on, Riddles,” Dad said, holding the door open. “We don’t have time for goodbyes.” Once the three of them were outside, he turned to lock it. Ridley shifted the backpack so she could get it onto both shoulders, then tugged downward on the straps to tighten them. The open end of the alley was still empty, the only movement coming from a chip packet as it skidded across the street on the breeze. Ridley glanced toward the other end, and her breath caught at the sight of two blue pinpricks of light glowing in the darkness.
“Oh.” She exhaled as she realized what she was seeing. “It’s just that cat. I thought you took it away,” she said to Dad.
“I did. I left her near the wall on Monday evening when I was out. Kinda hoped she’d find her own way back out to the wastelands.”
“I think she might be attracted to your magic,” Archer said. “That’s why she keeps coming back.”
“Seriously? Is that a thing?”
“I think so. We had quite a few magic-mutated animals living with us on La Tournette. They always seemed to attach themselves to a certain elemental, following him or her around all the time. People guessed it was something about the animal’s magic responding to a certain person’s magic, but no one really knew.”
“We need to move,” Dad said, walking forward. “Without the cat.”
“I assume you’ll be going to the bunker?” Archer asked as he and Ridley fell into step beside Dad. Ridley threw a final glance over her shoulder at the cat, feeling a little bad to leave her behind, especially now that she knew the animal might feel some kind of connection to her. She faced forward, pressing her fingers to her temples and rubbing in small circular motions as she tried to relieve the ache pounding dully through her head.
“No,” Dad said to Archer. “First we’re hiding our arxium implants somewhere, and then we’ll find another busy building filled with lots of people for us to hide out for the night. Any scanner drone flying overhead hopefully won’t be able to detect that we don’t have AIs.”
“Why not the bunker?” Ridley asked. “Surely it’s safer down there?”
“It’s definitely safer down there,” Archer said.
Dad shook his head. He stopped as they reached the end of the alley and looked both ways down the main street. “I don’t want to get involved with them. You know how I feel about magical communities. It’s safer to stay on our own.”
“But we are going to leave the city, correct?” Ridley asked. “The police or the Shadow Society—or both—will eventually find us if we stay here, especially if we’re not down in the bunker.”
“Let’s just get somewhere safe,” Dad said, turning left. “Then we can discuss this.”
“I wish we had time to say goodbye to the Lins,” Ridley said, hurrying to keep up with Dad.
“I know, but we can get a message to them later. For now—”
“Wait.” Archer stopped, reaching out to grab both Ridley and Dad. From somewhere nearby, the vroom of a high-speed vehicle grew rapidly louder.
“Back to the alley!” Dad said, launching past Ridley and tugging her with him.
No sirens? some distracted part of Ridley’s mind wondered as they raced back. Probably because they didn’t want to warn her of their approach. Within the shadows of the alley, the three of them slowed to a halt. “Quickly, before they see us,” Dad said to Ridley.
“What?” Alarm sent her heart racing faster and her head pounding even worse.
“There’s no other way out of here. We can’t outrun them on the street, and this alley is a dead end.”
Of course her magic was the only way out. She just hadn’t stopped to think about it as they’d raced back this way. “What’s wrong?” Archer asked.
“Nothing. I just—I used a lot earlier. My head—but it’s fine.”
“I’m sorry,” Dad said. “I didn’t realize you still got those headaches. Um …” He glanced around at the buildings on either side of them. “I can try to—”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Ridley said. “I can do it.”
“Ridley,” Archer said, looking back as car headlights illuminated the street. “We have to hurry.”
“I know, I know!” She wrapped one arm around Dad while reaching for Archer with the other. She tugged him against her side as her skin began to glow and the pounding of her head intensified. And then the cat—that silly, magic-mutated cat—leaped at them. Dad caught it in his arms, probably by instinct rather than any conscious intention. “Ridley, now!” he shouted as a car squealed to a halt at the mouth of the alley.
Air, she thought, and her magic responded instantly.
13
It wasn’t long before Ridley’s head felt like someone was trying to split it open with a chisel and hammer, but she managed to get the three of them into the next district and onto the flat roof of an apartment building. “Sorry, I can’t … I can’t go … any further.” She bent over, pressing her palms against her knees and breathing through the nausea.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Dad asked, resting his hand on her shoulder.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She waved him away. “You need to get rid of … your other amulet.”
“Maybe you should sit down,” Archer suggested.
“Yeah, okay.” She sank into a sitting position and pulled her backpack off. Then, deciding that being completely horizontal would be even better, she shifted forward and lay down, using the backpack as a pillow. “It won’t last long if I don’t use magic,” she told him. “Maybe just … I don’t know. A few hours.” Her gaze rose to the clouds hanging above the city, where lighting—or magic; she always found it hard to tell the difference from down here—zigzagged across the night sky. She squeezed her eyes shut against the bright light, flinching as pain seared through her eyeballs.
Sounds swirled around her: sirens in the distance, Dad speaking quietly to Archer, a bag unzipping. Dad said something about a blade and his arxium implant, and Ridley was relieved that Archer was helping him remove it. She didn’t particularly want to slice open her father’s skin to get his AI1 out. She also didn’t want to think about how he would no longer be protected once it was gone. Ridley’s own magic guarded her body from any harmful conjurations someone might want to use on her, but everyone else had an AI1 for that. Without it, Dad would be at risk. Not a huge risk, seeing as most people couldn’t pull magic anymore, but Ridley would feel better once he got himself a simple old-fashioned arxium charm to wear around his neck or on his wrist. She wondered where one got such things these days. Many decades had passed since anyone had needed to wear them.
“Ridley?” a quiet voice asked.
She opened her eyes and blinked a few times, unaware of how much time had passed.
“I’m sorry, I think you fell asleep,” Dad said as he crouched beside her. The cat sat next to him, watching Ridley with unblinking blue eyes.
>
“Did I? I can’t remember.” She sat upright and added, “My head feels a little bit better.”
“I did a conjuration,” Dad said. “Just a simple one we used to use for headaches all the time. I didn’t know if it would help if what you have is more of a migraine.”
“Well the pain’s definitely not as bad, and I don’t feel so sick.”
“That’s good.”
She bent to the side and tried to look behind his ear. “Did Archer get your AI1 out?”
“Yes, all done.” Dad turned his head so she could see the small adhesive bandage stuck to his skin. “Took a little bit of coaching,” he added with a chuckle, “but he managed to do it without passing out.”
“Hey, I think we need to get inside the building,” Archer said. Ridley twisted around and saw him looking over the wall running along the edge of the roof. “I see some scanner drones coming this way. They might have been programmed by now to search for your AIs.”
“Then we should get rid of them before we go inside,” Ridley said, reaching behind her neck to unclasp the silver chain she’d been wearing since she was five years old. “Maybe we can throw them over to the next building.”
“Yes, I can probably throw them that far,” Archer replied.
“I’ll use a conjuration,” Dad said as Ridley rolled up the bottom of her jeans and removed the ankle chain with her backup amulets. “That’ll easily get them over.” He looked down at his wedding ring, and Ridley watched him pause before removing it. Then he stuck his hand into his pocket and retrieved another tiny piece of arxium. His recently removed AI1, Ridley realized. She climbed to her feet and stood in front of him, but his attention remained focused on the ring sitting on his palm.
“Mom would understand,” she said quietly. “She wouldn’t be mad at you. She’d want you to do whatever you have to do in order to stay—”
Elemental Power Page 15
