Seasons of Chaos

by Elle Cosimano

  I brace myself for a fight I can’t win. If the Guards plan to haul me upstairs for Termination, I might as well spend the last of my energy giving them a reason to kill me right here. Rising to my feet, I step back from the door as a figure stumbles over the threshold. Kai Sampson wobbles on weak legs to the bunk, and the bolts clank shut behind her. She blinks at me, her dark eyes wide above pronounced cheekbones, the sharp lines of her face etched in a sickly pallor.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  She studies me with an equally wary expression, arms folded around herself to hide the stasis tremors. “They ran out of cells. I guess we’re doubling,” she rasps, her voice still hoarse from disuse. She backs to the edge of the mattress, the fire-retardant plastic creaking as she sits down.

  “If you believe that, you’re a bigger fool than I thought.” There aren’t many voices coming from the other cells. Not nearly enough to fill them.

  Kai’s eyes pierce me through the semidarkness of the lower bunk. No. She’s no fool. Lyon put her here for a reason. “How did your meeting with the professor go?” I ask in a slow drawl.

  “You mean Chronos.”

  I choke out a disgusted laugh. “Swore your fealty so soon? I expected better from the girl who took down Jack Sommers.” I sip from my water bottle.

  Kai pales as she watches me drink. Arms wrapped around her waist, she lurches for the toilet.

  The acrid smell of bile drifts through the cell. Kai sucks in a shuddering breath between heaves, shaking with the effort. I scrub my face and swear quietly into my hand.

  “Guard!” I shout. I rattle the cell door as Kai starts heaving again. The duty guard glares through the bars.

  “What do you want, Lausks?” I know him. He was an Autumn from Vermont. Denver and I knocked him around once when he stepped out of line. Figures that Lyon would restaff the Guard with a bunch of traitorous wussies.

  “We need water in here.”

  “Sorry, Captain,” he says through a smug smile. “I can’t hear you over all the puking in there.”

  My hand flies between the bars in the cell door and clamps around his ear, jerking it toward me until his head slams into the iron frame. A wave of Winter magic crackles through my fingers, cold enough to freeze his skin. “Unless you want to be stuck sweeping up this girl’s ashes, I suggest you bring her some water and vitamins.” I release him with a shove, holding his stare.

  As soon as his back is turned, my hands begin to shake. I hold the wall, fighting back a wave of dizziness and resisting the urge to vomit.

  The holding cell might be an insurmountable obstacle, but security clearly isn’t. All I need to do is conserve my strength. I only need to summon enough power to overtake a single Guard. If I’m smart and don’t waste any more energy, there’s a chance I can get myself out of here after all.

  A thin blanket flies through the slot and lands on the earthen floor, followed by a flimsy excuse for a pillow, a clean jumpsuit, and an extra towel. A tray appears with a second bottle of water and a paper cup of Kai’s supplements. I snatch it from the Guard’s hands.

  The fire-retardant blanket is coarse and thin, but it’s warm. Kai sags against the side of the toilet, and I wrap the blanket around her shoulders. When she doesn’t so much as stir, I unscrew the cap of her water bottle and drop her vitamins inside. They dissolve up from the bottom in a stream of angry, foaming bubbles.

  “Drink this.” I hold the bottle to her lips, ignoring the smell of sweat and sick that clings to her. She takes a few small sips, watching me through slitted eyelids as if she’s not entirely sure she trusts me. She’s quick, this one. Sharp. That must be why Lyon chose to stick her in here with me. Probably to spy on me. Or maybe to sway my decision.

  I wonder what he offered in exchange. A coveted region? A position in his new Guard? Whatever carrot he’s dangling in front of her, it’s a risky play. I’m not the only one in this cell with a choice to make. Everyone has weak spots, bruises that can be prodded. And I know more than a few of Kai’s. “Hell of a failed mission, huh?”

  She frowns, turning away from me as if she might be sick again. “I shot Jack Sommers,” she says, huddling under her blanket. “Three clean shots in the back and one in the leg before he killed me.”

  I scratch my jaw, unable to help the stab of sympathy I feel. She was loyal to the Guard. Faithful to Michael. She did what she was ordered to do, and this is her reward for it.

  “How’d he do it?” I ask, my curiosity piqued.

  “Do what?” Her eyes lift to mine, foggy and confused.

  “How’d he kill you?”

  A humiliated blush warms the pallor of her cheeks. “He broke the shaft of the arrow in his leg and used it to impale me.” The fact that Jack was the one to kill her will only make my job easier. “They were broadhead arrows,” she says, her brows knitted. “Three in the back should have taken him down. I don’t know how he managed to . . .” Her eyes squeeze shut against another wave of stasis tremors.

  She’s right. Jack never should have walked away with those injuries. And yet thanks to Fleur, that’s exactly what he did.

  “You did your job. There wasn’t anything you could have done to stop what happened after that.”

  She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, watching me out of the corner of her eye. “You think it was inevitable?”

  Do I? I wonder as I button myself back into my jumpsuit. Inevitability is dead. Ananke—Gaia’s mother, wife of the late Chronos, and the embodiment of Fate—died a long time ago, killed in cold blood by her own husband. The only piece of her that’s left is the crystal eye in the Staff of Time, the Eye of Inevitability that Daniel Lyon is so damn afraid to look into. But if the wielder of Time—the most powerful magic in the universe—is terrified of what he saw in that crystal, there’s got to be a good reason for that. If he’s worried enough to send Kai down here to spy on me, then maybe Inevitability isn’t dead after all. And maybe that magic is more powerful than Lyon’s willing to admit.

  “Sommers got lucky,” I say, spitting his name. “It wasn’t fate that landed us here. It was him.” Fleur may have been the one to overpower Michael and take the staff. But everything she did, she did for Jack.

  “If you’re right and there was nothing I could have done, then maybe it was inevitable.” Kai takes careful sips of her water. Her skin is bronze and gold under her pallor, hinting at her former life as a Summer before she became a Guard. “What if Jack was meant to live and Daniel Lyon was meant to be Chronos? What if we were the ones in the wrong?”

  “We were following orders.”

  “What if we shouldn’t have?”

  No. I refuse to accept that possibility. Because that would mean that my time as a Guard and all we fought for was a waste. That would mean we actually deserve the punishments we have coming. And I’ve worked too hard and trained too long, spent too many years proving my worthiness to Michael to become a captain of his Guard, to accept that. No, that defeat was just a ripple in our destiny.

  “I said there was nothing you could have done to change the outcome of the battle. But the war isn’t over yet.”

  I grip the edge of the sink, determined not to make the same mistakes I’ve made before. This time, Sommers won’t walk away with his life. Because I’ll make sure he has nothing left to live for.

  4

  Without a Breath of Storm

  JACK

  The air’s thick with the smell of blooms in the park near our villa. Before the battle, I could have identified every one of them just by drawing a breath. Could have scented every grain of pollen that trailed in on Fleur’s skin. But since then, my talents for tracking have been limited to a Handler’s means.

  Fleur’s red dot is settled on the screen on my wrist monitor, safe at her desk in Spanish class for the next forty minutes. I take my first full breath of the morning, my muscles loose as I hit my first mile marker and gradually pick up speed. The nagging ache under the scar in my thigh starts t
o burn with my lengthened strides, and I push through the pain. I was a decent runner before I died the first time—I held my own during gym class at school—but Fleur made me fast. As a Winter, every mile I put between us meant one more day I stayed alive. But over time, every mile meant one more day I existed in the same world with her.

  I may not be a Winter anymore. I can’t conjure a blast of wind or make it sleet. But I’m still faster than Fleur. And maybe it’s foolish to feel this way, but ever since I lost my magic, running is the only thing that makes me feel like I can hold my own beside her.

  By the end of my third lap, my smaze is all but gone from my mind. I pass a flowering jacaranda. The sweet scent reminds me of Fleur, and I drag up my sleeve, veering to dodge some kids chasing ducks across the footpath as I check my wrist monitor.

  Fleur’s GPS signal is gone from the screen. I tap it to zoom out, my feet slowing when I can’t find her anywhere.

  No red light in the school.

  Not in the café. Or on any of the streets leading home.

  Breathing hard, I stand on the edge of the path and dial her cell. When there’s no answer, I try the landline at the villa. Cold sweat rolls over me as I disconnect, calculating the minutes since I last checked my monitor. It must be a glitch with her transmitter. Fleur never misses class; she wouldn’t have left early.

  Swerving off the footpath, I take a shortcut through the brush, back toward Fleur’s school. There’s no clear trail, and I’m forced to slow down as I pick my way through the overgrown jungle around the park. The nearest side street is barely visible through the trees. Eyes glued to my wrist monitor, I search the map for a clearer route.

  Snick.

  I freeze at the all too familiar sound. Slowly, I lift my head until the edge of the switchblade kisses my throat.

  “Dame tu billetera y tu celular.” The voice comes from somewhere in my periphery. A hand shoves me from behind.

  “¡Hazlo ahora, cabrón!” A different voice. There are two of them.

  “I don’t have my wallet on me.” I keep my eyes straight ahead and my hands up where they can see them. Lyon’s warning to avoid the police is still fresh on my mind. The one behind me pats down the pockets of my running shorts, but they’re empty. Not even a house key, and there’s no way they’re getting the security code out of me. “I told you. I don’t have any money.”

  “Tu reloj.” The one beside me jabs me with the blade. It’s dull, but I have no doubt it’ll do the job. I tip my head away from it. No way in hell am I turning my only link to Fleur’s transmitter over to these assholes.

  His friend grabs my wrist and I yank it away. He tries again, and I shove my elbow hard into his ribs. An icy rage takes hold of me, the desire to fight consuming every rational thought as my heel connects with his shin.

  I grab the first guy’s wrist, swinging the knife away from my throat. My fist crashes into his nose and he reels back, cupping it. I whirl around, kicking his friend backward into the brush. For a single bright, shining moment, it’s like my magic is back. Like I’m a Winter again, fighting for my life, immune to the cold. Until a lash of white-hot pain grabs me as the knife drags against my throat.

  FLEUR

  The second-floor classroom is stuffy and hot, and even after drinking half my cappuccino it’s impossible to concentrate. The thick odor of sweat in the room mingles with the heavy perfume of the woman sitting behind me and someone else’s garlic breath from lunch.

  My gaze flicks longingly to the single open window at the far side of the room, where a slight breeze carries in the faint earthiness of the park down the block. My thoughts run to Jack, to the hunch in his shoulders as he stares out the window of the training room between sets each morning, as if he wishes he were someplace else.

  Or someone else.

  He’s been restless lately. There’s a recklessness in the way he’s pushing his body. As if he’s testing boundaries. Testing limits. Running for hours on end sometimes, as if he can outrun this person he’s become. I can almost smell the frustration building inside him. The pent-up anger he directs at himself is a growing misplaced hostility that makes me worry he’ll do something foolish and hurt himself.

  The teacher drones on, conjugating verbs on the blackboard. I scrape my books together and quietly excuse myself from the room. My transmitter’s a hard knot inside my ear and I turn it off, dropping it into my pocket as I descend the steps. Jack’s probably not sitting in front of his computer at home anyway. He was too keyed up when I left the villa. Too restless after our wrestling match. I know exactly where I’ll find him.

  I push through the door of the school, then cross the street and head for the park. Under the clean, fresh scent of the running creek, the air smells rich and floral. I taste the breeze for signs of Jack and catch the tang of his sweat. His human scent is one I’m still growing used to, different from the peppermint, holly berry, and pine that marked him as a Winter. The faint traces of those smells have almost entirely faded since he lost his magic, replaced by cool musk body washes and minty shaving gels. Under them, the natural human warmth of his skin is the scent I cling to. The one I lean into when I crawl under his arm at night and curl into every morning when we wake up.

  Jack’s scent grows stronger as I near the park. I slide off the footpath, checking to make sure no one’s looking before scaling the trunk of an oak tree and climbing to a high branch. I’m struck by a stab of déjà vu as I hide in the leaves, waiting for him. It could be two years ago. Or ten years, or even twenty. Suddenly, it feels as if I’m hunting Jack all over again, the discomfiting familiarity giving way to a nagging guilt as Jack rounds the bend in the path.

  His legs and arms pump hard, the front of his shirt darkened with a deep V of sweat. I lose sight of him as he veers into the grass, his bright white sneakers leaping a fence of stacked stones.

  Where the hell is he going?

  Summoning an adjacent branch, I leap cautiously from tree to tree, chasing his scent until I’m near enough to catch sight of him. He’s not running anymore.

  Sunlight skips off the blade of a knife. Panic flares inside me as a man presses it to Jack’s throat.

  I reach out with my mind into the soft ground, searching for a root. Grabbing hold of the nearest one, I stretch it toward Jack and the men as they argue. Jack jerks his arm away from them, their voices rising. His elbow snaps back, and one of the men goes down with a grunt. My view is obscured by leaves and flowers. They’re all moving, hard to see. Jack throws a punch, then whirls, kicking the one behind him to the ground. The knife’s blade glimmers as it flashes through the branches, and the air suddenly grows redolent of blood. Blood that smells faintly of Winter.

  Jack!

  My root lashes toward them. A strand of ivy uncoils from a branch, snatching the blade from the man’s hands and tossing it away from him. Jack clutches his neck. Red trickles from under his fingers. My feet itch to run to him, but I stay hidden, using the root to jerk Jack’s attackers off their feet. The first man squeals as I drag him backward into the brush. Jack turns and throws a swing, but I’ve already got the second man by the ankles. With a sharp pull of my thoughts, he hits the ground, a shocked breath rushing out of him.

  The men cry out, scrambling to their feet as if the ground’s on fire, all but forgetting whatever it was they wanted from Jack as they sprint away through the trees. Jack touches his neck as he watches them go. I release my hold on the roots and they retreat under the ground before anyone else sees.

  Jack lifts his head, searching the trees for me as I swing off the branch and drop to my feet. I run to him, taking his face in my hands. He holds his body tense, reluctant to turn toward me. The wound isn’t bad under all the blood, just a deep scratch, and my held breath shakes when it finally slips free.

  His eyes are cold as they slide to my ear. “You turned your transmitter off.”

  “Just for a few minutes.”

  “I had no idea where you were.”

  “I
was right here.”

  “Why?” he snaps, drawing the attention of an elderly couple on the path.

  “Because,” I say in a low voice, “I didn’t want you to see I left class. I knew you would worry.”

  “And you didn’t think I’d worry that your signal just disappeared?”

  I grin tightly at the couple, hoping they’ll keep walking the other way. “I didn’t disappear. I was right down the street, Jack. It was only a few minutes, and I was coming to find you anyway.”

  “Because you knew exactly where I was, right?” The sharpness of his tone catches me off guard. “You know exactly how to find me. And all it takes is one sniff, one thought . . . one snap of your magic fingers and the whole jungle is at your disposal to save me. Well, guess what? It’s not the same for me anymore. The minute you slipped off that screen, I was lost!” His voice cracks, and something inside me breaks. “I can’t hunt you anymore. I can’t find you, can’t save you if you’re not wearing it!”

  “I know. And I’m sorry. It was only for a few minutes—”

  “Anything can happen in a few minutes.”

  “It’s only a tracker. A communicator,” I argue. Without a connection to a ley line, the transmitter can’t pull me back to the Observatory. “It’s not like it’s connected to anything.”

  “Maybe it should be!” Jack swipes at the blood on his neck and looks away, guilt and anger warring on his face as I take an uncertain step back from him.

  “What are you saying?”

  He frowns at his bloody fingers. “Maybe we should think about going back.”

  “What do you mean, back? Have you forgotten why we left? We fought and risked our lives for this,” I say, gesturing wildly to the open sky around me. “Woody gave his life for this. For us. You gave up your magic. You gave a piece of your soul, Jack—” My breath catches at the flash of pain in his eyes. I knew he missed it. I knew the absence of his magic must feel like a gaping hole inside him. A hole I’d hoped would heal with time, like his scars. “Is that what this is about? Is that why you want to go back? For your smaze?”