by Kristen Pham
“Hard to believe you couldn’t swim until a few months ago. You’re a natural.”
“Gideon!” she said with glee, seeing her mentor standing at the edge of the pool, projecting from the Globe.
“Cyrus lent me your charm. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. Is everything okay?”
“With Cyrus, yes. He told us what happened, and he’s working on finding out who came after you. But something else has happened.”
“Valerie, is this guy bothering you?” Thai asked, stepping out the back door of the hotel.
“This is Gideon, my mentor on the Globe and second in command at the Guild of the Knights of Light. He’s the one who’s training me to perfect my fighting skills—with and without magic.” She swam to the edge of the pool and rested her arms on the ledge.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m glad to meet you.”
“Likewise. I’ve heard good things about you.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of magic do you have?”
“I have chosen not to develop my magic. But I am skilled at fighting, like Valerie. Without her gifts, of course.”
“He’s much better than I’ll ever be,” she said. “But, Gideon, you said something happened.”
Gideon’s relaxed smile disappeared, and she could see him draw himself up to his full height, which was over six feet. “It’s Jet. He’s missing, and we are afraid that the Fractus have taken him.”
“Jet and Chrome are the wolves who protected me after I’d been attacked by Sanguina,” she explained to Thai. “They have the ability to follow magic trails.”
“They’re brothers?” Thai asked.
“Mates for life,” Gideon replied. “Their connection intensifies their powers, and until recently, they have never failed to trace magic anywhere it has been used, even after several days have passed.”
“So can’t Chrome follow the trail of magic to discover what happened to Jet?” she asked.
“He can sense nothing. It’s similar to how they couldn’t sense the transparent men who attacked you in Messina. That’s why we think the Fractus are involved.”
“How can I help?”
“Chrome has specifically asked if you will join the search party. He’s not sure who we’re going to have to fight, and he wants you with us. He’s seen you in action and thinks you’re the best. And right now, he wants the best on his team.”
Valerie’s desire to stay on Earth with Thai warred with what she knew was right. Everything was just beginning between them, and the thought of leaving seemed wrong—like she was torn in two. But there wasn’t really a choice.
“Of course I’ll be on the team,” she said. “Please tell Chrome how sorry I am that this has happened.”
“I will. It will be good to have you back, Valerie.” Gideon’s tall form vanished, leaving her alone with Thai.
“You want to help me out of here?” Valerie asked, reaching up for Thai’s hand.
“Sure,” he said, but when he held out his hand, she pulled him into the deep end. He surfaced, spluttering. “You’re going to pay for that!”
He dunked her, and she retaliated, splashing him back. He chased her down to the shallow end of the pool, where she let him catch her.
“I know I have to, but I don’t want to go. I want to stay with you,” she confessed.
“I couldn’t watch you here, getting weaker every day. It would kill me. But I do wish I could go with you. Half of me is going to be ripped away.”
“You have no idea how much I wanted to hear you say that.”
She was back in his arms, his lips against hers. The warmth from the first time tingled through her, but hotter. But suddenly his kiss changed, became harder, and the light inside her went out. She pulled away quickly.
“Tan?”
He threw back his head and laughed. “How’d you know it was me?”
“Why did you do that?” she asked, her hands involuntarily balling into fists.
“Wow, sorry. But surely you can see the humor in this.”
Rage built in her. She wanted to smack the smirk of his face. What stopped her was knowing that Thai would suffer from any damage she did to Tan. She got out of the pool and squeezed the water out of her long hair. Her clothes were drenched. The night was ruined, just like her shirt.
Chapter 6
Valerie awoke as dawn rose over the mountains. In spite of the chilly night, she had decided to sleep on a lawn chair rather than face her brother’s concern. He was sure to sense that something was wrong, and she couldn’t handle any questions. But she couldn’t put it off any longer, so she crept back to her room and into her bed without waking Henry or his dad. Was Thai back in the driver’s seat, or was Tan was still running the show?
“Val, you awake?” Cyrus whispered, appearing next to her on her bed. His golden hair was messy and his clothes were rumpled.
“Did you find out anything about the woman who attacked Zaki?”
He shook his head. “I’m not here about that. Something horrible has happened. It’s Kanti.”
Henry sat up in bed. “What is it?”
“We don’t know,” Cyrus said miserably. “We were going through picture after picture of Conjurors who had a history of working with the Fractus, and we both fell asleep. When I woke up, she was surrounded by this mist of sticky threads, like she was inside a cocoon.”
“Is she—alive?” Henry whispered.
“Yes, her heart is beating. But we don’t know what to do—we can’t cut through the threads with any tool on the Globe. Her parents came and took her back to their castle in Elsinore. They’re going to bring in the best doctors to check on her.”
“I can’t believe this,” Valerie said.
“It has to be the Fractus,” Henry said, and he set his jaw. Instead of falling apart, as she expected, his eyes turned steely. “I’m going to find whoever did this to her and make them reverse it.”
She nodded. Any shred of doubt she had about leaving was gone.
“Please tell us if you hear anything more,” she said to Cyrus, who nodded.
“I’ll see what I can find out and will let you both know.”
A knock on the door woke up Joe, and Cyrus disappeared. Zaki and Chisisi were waiting for them, so Valerie and Henry quickly showered and changed.
In the hotel’s restaurant, they discussed their plans over breakfast. Thai was nowhere to be seen. It troubled her that she hadn’t been able to talk to him again after Tan had taken over—to make sure he was okay.
“It’s a long hike. We will need to travel quickly all day to make it there by nightfall,” Zaki said.
“When the sun sets and rises, the bonds holding the magic on Earth are the weakest, so we must depart immediately to make it on time,” Chisisi explained.
“And spending the night in the wilderness is not as romantic as it seems. Especially for a modern man like myself who values a flushing toilet,” Zaki added.
“It goes without saying that I’m coming with you,” Joe said to Henry, and Valerie could see the quiet strength behind his tired eyes.
“What about Thai?” Valerie asked nervously. “We can’t leave without him.”
“We don’t have to,” Chisisi said, nodding toward the window.
Thai walked out of the woods and toward the hotel. He held his hand to his temples, and in that gesture she guessed how weary he was. Regaining control must have been a struggle.
After checking out of the hotel, the group headed into the woods. Zaki walked confidently, without once checking a compass. At first, she couldn’t understand how he could be so certain about the way, but then she sensed it. Power hummed around her, and the pull of magic drawing drew her northeast.
Henry and his dad hung a little behind, murmuring to each other. She gave them some time to talk alone, and caught up to Thai, who was walking with Chisisi.
“Rough night?” she asked.
“What do you think?” he snapped, and sped u
p to walk beside Zaki.
“Your young man aches to accompany you,” Chisisi said. “It will be doubly painful for him to watch you go this second time. I remember his grief when you left last time.”
“But we were just friends then.”
He raised his eyebrows, but said no more. Around noon, the group stopped for lunch, which Zaki and Chisisi pulled out of their hiking packs. Valerie forced herself to eat her sandwich, but her stomach was churning.
She figured that she was probably anxious about Kanti, or Jet, or Thai, but none of those reasons seemed right. It was as if there was an itch she couldn’t scratch, but she tried to shrug it off. Maybe it was a result of her exhaustion. The hike would be difficult even if she was well, but as weak as she was now, her feet had begun feeling like they were filled with lead miles ago.
“You doing okay?” Thai asked as they packed up the remains of their lunch and resumed their walk.
“A little tired, but I’ll be fine soon.”
“I’m sorry about before. It was hard to have Tan take over last night. If he wasn’t a part of me, I would have hit him.”
She smiled. “I was tempted to do that myself. But I didn’t think you’d appreciate the black eye the next day.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him. Before Venu, he was always so happy, like a little kid. Now, there’s this darkness, and it scares me. Because if he’s capable of all this rage and hate, then maybe I am, too, you know?”
“No, Thai. I know you both, and as much as I care about Tan, at some point, you turned into very different people.”
He grabbed her hand. She squeezed it, and the thrill of the contact gave her a jolt of energy.
“I can’t believe that I won’t be able to touch you after today,” he said, his intense gaze making her feel like they were the only two people on the planet. “At least until I’m on the Globe by your side.”
Cyrus cleared his throat, and Thai dropped her hand. She turned around and saw him staring at them.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“How’s Kanti?” Henry interrupted.
Cyrus gave himself a little shake. “She’s better, I guess. The doctors say that she’s breathing and her heart rate is normal. They’re bringing healers from around the Globe to see what they can do to help her.”
“I have to see her,” Henry said, and he started to walk faster.
Ahead, Zaki and Chisisi had stopped. When the group caught up to them, Valerie saw that they had reached a deep crack in the earth. Chisisi explained, “We’ll need to rappel down the cliff wall of this ravine. Our hike is going to be much more difficult from here on out.”
Quickly and efficiently, Zaki uncoiled a long rope and anchored it on a nearby tree. He set up the harness and demonstrated to everyone how to rappel. Valerie’s hands started to sweat.
Her brother squeezed her arm. “It’ll be fun. This is a minor adventure compared to the Devil’s Pool, right? And I’ll be waiting for you at the bottom.”
She nodded, and then watched first Joe, then Henry, quickly rappel down the wall and out of sight. Thai gave her a hug. “Your turn. I’ll be watching from the top, too.”
Zaki hooked her into the harness, and she began to descend as he had shown her. At first, she only let herself move slowly, but as she gained confidence, she let herself fall faster, enjoying the wind rushing past her face.
Thai, Chisisi, and Zaki joined them at the bottom of the ravine. It was shadowed in the narrow crevice, and a river ran through the middle. It was tame where they were now, but she could see down a ways that the water was white with little waves.
“We’re not going to have to swim in this river, are we?” she asked apprehensively.
“No, we’ll use climbing gear where we must so that we don’t fall in the water. These rapids would be dangerous for even the strongest swimmer,” Zaki said, more serious now than she’d seen him before.
The group was much quieter as they walked through the ravine. It was cool and damp, and the familiar squeezing sensation that gripped her whenever she was in a tight space returned. It reminded her of walking through the tunnel that led to the launch chamber inside the Great Pyramid, and of the foster home where she had been locked in a cabinet under the sink whenever she was bad. She shuddered at the memory.
Thai reached for her hand again, and the tension in her muscles relaxed a little. After all, she wasn’t alone down here. Some of the people she trusted most in the universe were by her side.
A mile or so later, the river widened, leaving only a narrow patch of land on one side of the ravine. Zaki put a harness on and grabbed a rope.
“I will test the route and set an anchor rope up there,” he said, pointing to a ledge a hundred meters down and a good ways up the wall of the ravine.
They waited, watching silently as Zaki made his way up. At one point, he nearly slipped, and she let out a quiet breath of relief as he regained his footing.
“This is a tough climb,” Henry said. “But Zaki knows what he’s doing.” But he was absently chewing his thumbnail again.
The rest of Zaki’s climb went smoothly, and he made it to the ledge and set up the anchor.
“You’re shaking,” Thai said quietly to her.
“I thought he might slip. I’m just relieved.”
“I will go next and mark where you should place your hands and feet,” Chisisi said.
Chisisi used chalk to mark his hand and footholds, and she was relieved that she wouldn’t have to grope for the best spot like Zaki had.
“It will be much less dangerous for the rest of us now that the rope is in place and the best handholds are marked,” Joe assured her. “Henry and I will go ahead of you to test the route.”
She watched closely as they went across, noticing the spots that seemed slippery or hard to hold. Father and son made it across safely, and she let out a breath that she didn’t know she’d been holding.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Thai whispered in her ear, sending a pleasant shiver down her neck.
Carefully, Valerie began her climb. She tested each spot before she put her weight on it, as she had seen the others do, forcing herself to ignore her trembling muscles. It was frustrating to be so weak.
She was more than halfway there when her foot slipped and she fell toward the water. Abruptly the rope went taut and pulled her back against the wall of the ravine. She crashed into it, hitting the side of her face. The spray from the rushing water hit her shins. Adrenaline shot through her body, and she was grateful for it. It gave her the burst of energy she badly needed to make it back up.
She scrabbled against the slippery rock wall, grasping for handholds. She heard voices calling down to her, but she couldn’t make out the words over the crash of the water against the rocks. Chisisi’s chalk marks were several meters above her, useless down where she was. At last, she found a good hold for first her right hand, then her left. Carefully, she pulled her way up, forcing herself to breathe slowly. She imagined that this was one of Gideon’s exercises for her, to test her courage and strength without using her magic.
She focused on finding the next handhold, to the exclusion of everything else. After a few tense minutes, she reached the first of Chisisi’s chalk marks. Slowly, she inched up to the ledge, and when she was close enough, Chisisi pulled her up the rest of the way.
As her adrenaline subsided, her old exhaustion pulled at her consciousness. But she forced herself to stay alert as Thai made the climb. He was quick, and soon, he was by her side.
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” he said, wiping some blood off of her face from the small cuts on her forehead and cheek.
“Don’t be such a drama queen,” she teased him.
“Please tell me we’re close,” Henry said, putting a protective hand on her back. She couldn’t help the exhaustion that seemed to be coming off of her in waves.
“We are. The most difficult part is past,” Chisisi assured them.
�
��How do you figure?” she asked. The ledge they were standing on seemed disconnected from everything—a long climb up or down, depending on where they were going.
A strange beating sound echoed faintly down the ravine, and a familiar tingle made the hair on her arms stand on end—danger.
“We’re being followed,” she said.
Zaki and Chisisi glanced down the ravine, but no one was visible yet.
“The door to the chamber is here,” Zaki said, running his hand over the bumpy rock wall. “But you won’t be able to travel from here for another hour, at sunset.”
“So we’ll be standing here exposed until then?” Thai asked.
“Not exactly,” Zaki said. “Henry, Valerie, press your hands here.” He pointed to an indentation in the wall, and they did as they were told.
A crack in the rock flashed blue, and they could see the outline of a door. Together they pushed, and the rock slid back to reveal a dark cave. She shuddered, dreading the walk through the close darkness.
“Now this is a little more worthy of the kind of adventure taken by such brave souls as ourselves,” Zaki said, making Valerie smile in spite of herself.
Zaki and Chisisi led the way, and they could dimly see in the dark cave from the light coming in at the opening. On the walls were elaborate patterns that reminded her of waves. It gave the cave the sensation of movement, as if they were sliding toward the darkness at the end of the tunnel.
Zaki stopped at a rough doorway. Beyond it, the light from the entrance didn’t penetrate. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket along with a bottle of fluid. He poured the fluid into a groove in the wall, and then lit it.
Fire raced along the wall and then curved back, illuminating a circular room inside a ring of flames. When the ring was complete, the hum of power that had resonated at a low frequency inside her mind suddenly increased. The effect made her pleasantly lightheaded. The fire reflected off of a pool of water at the bottom, which had steam rising from it.
“What is this place?” she whispered, as if speaking too loud would shatter the incredible beauty of the spot.
