by Isla Jones
Blake licked her lips and propped her hands on her hips. “You know what?” she said. “I’m getting pretty sick of everyone talking in riddles and half-truths. You”—she jabbed Hunter’s back—“brought me here for the truth, right? But I know more about the both of you and Bethany than I do about myself. I don’t know what makes me special, why anyone wants this stupid diadem, or what the hell I’ve got to do with it! So y’all better start talking, or I’m leaving, then no one gets the stupid diadem.”
Hunter glanced between Theodore and Blake. His fingers wrapped onto the edge of the door before he sighed and stepped to the side. “I don’t know what to tell you, Blake,” he said. “I haven’t told you what you are, because I don’t know.”
Theodore raised his hand and wiggled his fingers. “I do.”
Blake crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her hip to the side. “Well, spit it out.”
“Everything comes with a price,” he crooned. “You see, little waitress, you think you are safe with your hunter. But he wants you for the same reason I do.”
“For the diadem,” said Blake, a frown creasing between her brows. Her gaze lifted to Hunter, but he kept his cold stare fixed on Theo. Hunter didn’t deny it, she noticed.
“I am stronger,” continued Theo. “I have a far greater power than this young boy could ever dream of possessing. I can protect you better than he can.”
“What makes you think I need protection?”
“Only that a rogue witch is after you,” said Theodore with a wicked grin. “And her little puppets. Not to mention the local authorities, I believe.”
Blake narrowed her eyes as him and raised her chin confidently. “How’d you know that? Read it in the town’s newspaper?”
“Do you forget me so easily? I came to you,” he said, “at that white place.”
Blake thinned her lips. She’d thought it had been a dream.
“Fine,” she said. “What are you offering?”
“What you want most,” he said with a soft smile. “To go home. See your precious fathers. Say your valedictions.”
“And after that?”
“We search for the diadem.”
“Together,” she said. “And how is that different to what Hunter can offer?”
“Barba tenus sapientes,” he said with a wave of the hand. “With me you will not be touched, but with your hunter you are in danger. That witch will not lay a finger on you while you are under my guard, and the diadem will fall into the right hands. This boy wants to destroy the diadem. I want to use it.”
“To go home,” she finished. Again, she looked at Hunter, but he didn’t meet her gaze. “Why do you want to destroy it?”
Hunter, staring at the feeder on the porch, stiffened. “It brings nothing but trouble. While that diadem is still around, feeders and witches will be, too. We destroy the diadem, we destroy the magic in town that’s connected to it.”
Blake rested her hand on his tense shoulder. “Hunter,” she pleaded. “I want to stay here with you. But you’re not telling me everything. You won’t even look at me.”
Theodore laughed, a cruel sound that sent a shiver down Blake’s spine. “You don’t pay attention,” he said. “If your friend destroys the diadem, all magic connected to it dies, too.” Theodore leaned forward. “That includes you.”
Blake rubbed the palm of her hand against her creased forehead. Theodore had to be lying. Hunter could be a jackass at times, that much she knew, but a murderer? No, she couldn’t accept it. She shook her head and looked up at Hunter. He still refused to meet her gaze.
“Is that true?” she whispered.
He clenched his jaw and turned to face her. A brisk nod was all he gave her in response.
Blake exhaled a shaky breath. “You want to kill me?”
“It isn’t like that,” he said. “I don’t want to kill you, but—”
“You’re what some might call collateral.” It was Theodore. He paused and feigned contemplation. “Or is it ‘expendable’?”
A crack ripped out. Blake glared at the handprint she’d left on Hunter’s turned cheek. “You,” she seethed, stepping toward him, “are a liar, Hunter Jackson. You told me you didn’t know what I am, but you know I’m connected to this damned diadem. You knew enough.”
“Admit it,” urged Theodore. “You know what she is, and you know she’ll die if that diadem is destroyed. Do you enjoy killing innocent young women?”
“Shut up!” bellowed Hunter, eyes alight with fury. He breathed heavily and looked down at Blake. “I’m sorry, all right? But this is what it is. It’s how it has to be.”
“Will you die?” Blake arched her brow and added, “Will you die if the diadem is destroyed, or just me?”
“Of course, he won’t,” said Theodore. “His lineage has no connection to the diadem. His magic stems from the soil beneath the cabin you stand on.”
Blake nodded once before she barged past Hunter.
“Where are you going?” Hunter combed his fingers through his curls and chased her out onto the porch. “You can’t trust him, Blake.”
“Apparently, I can’t trust you either,” she shouted over her shoulder as she stomped down the steps. Theodore watched from the porch, grinning all the while, as Hunter chased after her.
“Wait up,” said Hunter, snatching her arm to spin her around. Before his eyes could even focus on her furious face, Blake’s hand shot out a second time and belted his cheek.
“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked. “I thought I could trust you! I thought you were helping me! You’re just like him—” Blake pointed accusingly at Theo on the porch. He only smiled. “—You’re just using me to get what you want! And you don’t even care, Hunter! You don’t care that I’ll die!”
Towering over her, Hunter stared down at her fiery eyes. “Who said I don’t care?”
“You did!” she shouted, leaning up on her tip toes to yell in his face. “You did when you decided that my life is … is expendable!”
Theodore stepped down the stairs to the overgrown path and clapped. “Bravo, Hunter,” he applauded. “You should learn from this in future. Lies are always revealed in the end.”
“You!” barked Blake, glowering at Theodore. The feeder blinked and raised his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “Take me home!”
“As you wish,” he replied, inclining his head.
“Blake,” pleaded Hunter. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this. I wanted to wait until the moment was right. But you can’t go with him.” Hunter glanced over his shoulder at the approaching Theodore before he took Blake’s hands in his. “Please, trust me on this. He isn’t something you want to be around. I lied, I know, but he’s worse. He’ll kill you after he’s got the diadem, and your death will have been for nothing.”
“You know what?” Blake yanked her hand out of his hold. “He saved my life. Yeah, for the diadem, but he told me the truth. You didn’t. I won’t die for your cause.” Blake stepped back. “C’mon Theo,” she said, holding Hunter’s forlorn gaze. “Let’s go.”
Theodore suddenly stood beside Blake. She recoiled from him.
“Did I startle you?” he asked with a sweet smile. “My apologies.”
Hunter lunged for her, but his hands clasped onto nothing. Blake and Theodore had vanished, leaving Hunter cursing in the clearing alone.
*
Blake crashed onto the leafy soil. They were in the middle of the swamp, surrounded by small ponds and trees that loomed up from the murky water. Blake rubbed her head as she climbed to her feet. Theodore stood in front of her, observing her with palpable interest. He made no move to help her up.
Her gaze darted around the marsh. “How’d you do that? Did … Did we teleport?”
“Teleport?” Theodore grinned, baring his sharp teeth. “No. I am very fast.”
“Where’s Hunter?”
“Over there, somewhere,” drawled Theo, gesturing to her left. “I imagine he is licking his wounds as we speak.”
Blake snapped her gaze to her left, but only saw more swamp trees stretching up into vibrant green shrubs that dangled from the branches. She couldn’t see the clearing or the cabin from where they were. Blake began to doubt her decision now that she was alone with Theodore.
“That boy has the nose of a wolf,” he said. “He will track us.”
Blake wiped her muddy hands on her pants. “No,” she said. “He won’t. He doesn’t care enough to go to the effort.”
Theodore assessed her. “Do you often feel sorry for yourself?”
Blake kicked a twig at him. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” she said. “I’m feeling betrayed by a friend.”
“I believe you held him to a higher standard than that. But, it is no business of mine. We should take our leave.”
Deciding to ignore his implications, Blake trudged behind him through the watery soil. Her flat sneakers weren’t the best footwear for hiking, so she dodged vines and puddles whenever she could. It took less than a minute for her white sweatpants to be covered in mud up to the knees.
Blake ducked under a low tree branch. “Can’t you do that teleport thing again?”
Theodore walked a few paces ahead. “I didn’t teleport.”
“Ok,” she huffed, jumping over a pond filled with tadpoles. A frog croaked nearby as Blake scurried after him. “Do that fast thing again.”
“You cannot weather it,” he said, not looking back at her. “Too much of that speed will make you sick.”
“How fast can you go?”
“I can honestly say I have never timed myself.”
“Faster than a plane?”
“No. Not faster than a plane.”
“Well,” she began, dodging a tangled bush, “If people can stand the speed of a plane, what makes you think I can’t stand the speed of your running?”
Theodore stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. “If you were on a plane, your journey would be smooth. If we were to travel the rest of our journey my way, you’d be over my shoulder. The turbulence doesn’t compare.” He turned ahead again, and continued to glide through the murky water and shrubs. Blake scampered behind him. “Also,” he added, “even with a smooth flight people can suffer motion sickness.”
Blake slid down a slope. Her arms stretched out for balance as she dug her heels into the soil and skidded to a stop. “You want to know what I think?” she asked breathlessly. The cardio was catching up with her. “I think you’re stalling.”
“And why would I do that?”
Blake grunted as she leapt over a burrow and landed with a squish. “I have a lot of ‘whys’ when it comes to you.”
“I am all ears.”
Blake jogged to catch up with him. “All right.” Her voice raised an octave and soaked itself in importance. “Why do you need me to find the diadem? Can’t you find it on your own?”
“If I could, I would,” he said.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Theodore stretched out his hand to push a heavy branch to the side. Blake climbed through and he released the branch. “I told you that I am from another world,” he explained. “But I did not come here of my own accord.”
“Why did you?”
“Before your time, my kind could shift between worlds, but only ever in spectre form. We would often travel between the planes for … entertainment purposes.” A cruel smirk graced his lips as memories darkened his haunting eyes. He sighed, a blissful sound, and continued, “The gateway had always been open between our worlds, but only a fraction, until a coven wrenched it open and summoned me in my whole form. Body and essence, among others. It has since closed. Thus, I am trapped here, and have been for some time.”
Blake studied the side of his face, observing the shadows of yearning that swarmed in his ocean-blue eyes. “How long have you been here?”
“Centuries.”
“So, why now?” she asked, frowning up at him. “After all this time, why did you come now, looking for the diadem?”
“I am not drawn to the diadem,” he said, stopping in front of a muddy patch. He extended his hand to her. She took it and leaned her weight into him as she leapt over a big bog. “I am drawn to those who summoned me,” he said. “Witches and covens. I sensed the power emerge here. It called to me after so long of dormancy. As I drew nearer your quaint town, I sensed you.”
Blake scoffed and trudged up a steep slope. “Me, me, me,” she grumbled. “What makes me so damn special?”
A yelp escaped her as he snatched her arm and yanked her against his chest. Theodore smiled, a frightening gesture, as he dragged his knuckles down her cheek. Her mind twisted for a moment, and a dream floated through her mind. Before she could grasp onto the memory, the déjà vu had passed.
“You are from my world,” he crooned. His head lowered as he curved over her. “You belong in both worlds and neither. An elemental.”
“A what?” whispered Blake, shrugging away from him. His gaze followed her as his smile, too, retreated.
“An elemental,” he repeated. Tilting his head, he reached out to her and brushed the back of his hand over her jawline. “They are beings of extraordinary magic and power. Of course, you are not a full elemental. But a part of that pure magic lives inside of you.”
“I think I’d know if I was magic,” she said.
“You misunderstand me,” he said, stepping toward her. “You, yourself, are not magical. But a trace of that power lies within you.”
Blake tried not laugh. She thinned her spreading lips and blinked up at him. “And how did a piece of your world get inside of me?”
“I mentioned that I was summoned among others,” he explained, unfazed by her attitude. “Elementals are from my world, too. They came through the gateway, and some were trapped. But elementals are not immortal like I am. They died as the decades passed, and some, I see, blended with the humans. I wouldn’t think mating between humans and elementals was possible if you were not the proof.”
She squinted up at Theodore’s passive eyes. “The diadem was used to open the gateway,” she realised. “That’s what the townsfolk thought when they hunted the coven. All those kids went missing for ages, then just came back one day. They were sacrificed, weren’t they? To open the gateway between our worlds.”
“I am beginning to like you,” he said, a tinge of fondness to his gaze. Theodore zipped up the slope and looked down at her. “It was here that the gateway was stretched,” he said. “It was here that I arrived to feast on the sacrifices. But before I could return home, the witches who summoned us were slaughtered. The gateway sealed. I have since wandered around this world for another way to my homeland. I found no such thing.” His hand reached out into the air and curled his fingers, clasping at a fleeting breeze. “Until,” he whispered, “someone used their powers in this town, and I felt it blossom within me. Hope.”
“That’s why you need me,” she said, climbing over the edge of the slope. She lay still for a moment to catch her breath. “To open the gate.”
“Yes.”
“But,” she grunted, getting to her feet. “If I can open the portal thing, why couldn’t the elementals that came through with you do it?”
A savage grin swept across his handsome features. “Elementals from my world would do no favours for my kind. We are, one could say, foes.”
“Even so,” she said, shrugging. “Surely they’d want to go home, too.”
“Not when it comes at the price of my return.” Theodore smiled and stepped around her, leading the way further into the swamps. Her legs became heavy, and her muscles clenched in dismay, as she trudged after him. “Even in my world,” said Theodore, “I am feared. Hence why I am the only one of my kind to be summoned to this land. Regrettably, my powers are weakened on this plane. Those elementals chose to sacrifice their desire for home to banish me to this world.”
Blake licked her lips and blinked at the back of his head. “If you’re really as bad as you’re tel
ling me, and elementals are your enemies, and I’m part elemental … What does that mean for me?”
“Are you asking if you will survive? Afraid that I will consume your soul and wrench it from your body?”
Blake swallowed. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Perhaps,” he replied. “Once we have the diadem and the gateway is open, I might kill you.” He stopped at the edge of a narrow slope. He held out his hand for her, but Blake only stared at it. He craned his neck and soothed, “You have nothing to fear, little waitress. Not for the moment, at least. I have yet to decide your fate.”
Blake ignored his offered hand and stomped past him. She manoeuvred herself onto her side and climbed down the sloped hill without his help. A grunt pushed between her lips as she landed on the sloppy soil with a splosh. As she brushed her hands together to remove the mud, she turned, and saw that Theodore was already at the bottom of the hill, waiting for her to join him.
The trek had stretched into dusk, and she found herself wondering why they couldn’t just run. Theodore’s run, that is; not hers. They reached the thinning spread of looming trees. Blake dragged and stomped her feet behind Theodore, whom appeared to be enjoying a pleasant walk in a field, not hiking through shrubs, swamps and slopes. He led the way out the border of the trees, and into a familiar space. They’d arrived at the reservoir.
“So,” panted Blake, falling behind. “Why does Bethany want the diadem?”
Theodore stopped and waited patiently for her to catch up. “The witch wants it to steal magic,” he said. “If it falls into her possession, she can enter the world in which she does not belong.”
“Won’t she die?” asked Blake as she neared him. He continued walking, satisfied by her closer proximity. “You said there are other beings in that world. If she gets into it, they’d just kill her, right?”
“Not if my research proves truthful.”
They reached the final hill that led up to the carpark. Blake’s fatigued jelly legs shivered at the sight. But she inhaled all the way to the bottom of her lungs, and fought the burn of her muscles to hike up the rising earth.
“What’s your research telling you?” rasped Blake.
