I rest my head in my hand, scraping the edge of my desk with a fingernail as I listen to them argue. “It’s moot, anyway. Fleur already said no.”
“Maybe Julio and I can convince her. We’re long overdue for a visit. The four of us haven’t seen each other offscreen in months.”
“I have a better idea,” Julio says, wrapping his arm around Amber and moving her out of the chair so he can sit in front of the camera. He drags her into his lap and talks over her shoulder. “How about you and Fleur pack a bag and fly up to our place for a long weekend? The weather’s great. We can hit the beach, maybe do some camping—”
“We are not camping,” Amber interjects, rolling her eyes. “We have a guest room. You’re more than welcome to stay here with us, Jack. I promise we won’t make you sleep in a tent.”
“Can’t,” I say absently, watching Fleur’s red light leave the coffee shop on the adjacent screen. “Lyon’s set a travel ban for unpaired Seasons. We’re stuck at home until it lifts.”
The call goes quiet. I turn back to see Amber frowning at me. She covers the mic, says something to Julio. He glances at me, nods, and slips out from her chair, disappearing from view. The door to their bedroom clicks shut behind him.
“What happened to your neck?” Amber hasn’t changed at all. Razor-sharp and never one to pull punches. I had forgotten about the healing scab until she pointed it out, and now it itches like it might open again. I give it a light scratch that doesn’t quite satisfy it.
“I was out for a run. Couple of assholes with a switchblade caught me off guard and wanted my watch. That’s all.”
“Obviously you lived through it. So what happened? Instinct took over?”
“More like Fleur took over,” I grumble. “I was doing just fine on my own. I didn’t need anyone’s help.”
She scrutinizes me in the same piercing way she used to right before a fight, feeling out the best way to engage me without getting hit. “Talk to me, Jack. What’s going on?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Bullshit. There are two kinds of people who know you best: those who love you and those who are determined to kill you. And I’ve been both.”
I rub my eyes, torn between lying and spilling my guts to her. “I don’t know. . . . I think maybe I’m homesick.” Amber’s silent for a long moment, as if this isn’t the answer she was expecting. “I don’t know why. I can’t explain it, okay? I just . . . I miss something.”
“Your magic?”
I shove the chair back from the desk, resentful of the monitors and satellites and security cameras I’m forced to depend on to do my job—a job I should be able to perform at Fleur’s side, not hiding behind a screen. “Lyon’s got it,” I tell her. “It’s right there, in a cage on his desk. He told me I can have it back. That it’s mine whenever I want it.”
“Do you want it?”
I shake my head, wishing I hadn’t answered the call, hating the pity in her voice and the softness of her tone. I’d rather she just come out swinging at me the way she used to.
“Yes, I want it!” The confession rushes out of me with the force of a winter wind. I launch out of my chair and pace the room. “I can’t describe what it’s like, Amber. It’s like I’m missing a limb, or—”
“Part of your soul?” she says, finishing for me.
My throat constricts. “Fleur’s my soul.” She’s the only piece of me I can’t live without. At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself. Only, lately, I feel like part of me is dying, and I’m not entirely sure anymore.
“Your smaze is more than just the power Gaia granted you. It lived inside of you. It became part of you. Bits of you still exist inside it—your memories, your spirit. You’re feeling a void for a reason, Jack. Because there is one.”
“Maybe there should be. I’ve seen my smaze. It’s messed up, Amber. It’s twisted and angry and dark as a hailstorm. What if I set that thing loose inside me and it tears us apart?” I sink into my chair and prop my elbows on the desk, bringing my face close to the camera. If anyone should remember what that darkness looks like, it’s Amber. The first thing I did after taking Névé’s magic was threaten Amber’s life. But any grudges she held are long gone. Her full lips are only pursed with worry now.
“Have you talked to Fleur?”
“It came up,” I say, scrubbing my face. “It didn’t go well.”
Amber raises an eyebrow.
“I can’t blame Fleur for being upset. She chose me to be her Handler—her caretaker and her protector. I can’t push that aside and say her choices don’t matter.” I should never have asked her to go back to the Observatory. Should never have even considered it, knowing how she’d feel about it. I rake both hands through my hair, leaving them buried in the tangled, sweaty mess of it. “I don’t know, Amber. We both want the same thing—to keep each other safe—but it feels like we’re doing it all wrong. We can’t seem to find any balance.”
Amber chews on her lip. “Maybe Julio was right. A camping trip might not be the worst idea.”
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. “You lost me.”
“Maybe you and Fleur need to get off the grid for a while. You know, go back to the last place where you did feel balanced.”
I think back to our time on the run, unable to put my finger on the last place where we felt balanced. Every perfect memory of us together during that time was bookended by danger or disaster. There was never a perfect moment. There was never a guarantee we’d survive. There were no safe places. Fleur and I had accepted the possibility of death. We ran headfirst into it, knowing the risks, for the chance to be together. We found our balance in spite of the danger, not because we were both safe from it.
“But the travel ban . . .”
She chokes out a laugh. “When have the rules ever stopped you before?”
I sit up, my mind spinning.
“Amber, you’re a genius!” I bend over my keyboard, tapping out a quick email to Lyon, asking to reschedule our meeting, before leaping to my feet. “I’ll call you later.”
“Wait, Jack, where are you going?” she shouts.
A smile crackles like frost over my face as I grab my shoes and run for the door. “I don’t know yet. We’ll figure it out.”
10
Let the Night Be Dark
FLEUR
The soothing notes of an acoustic guitar fill my studio. The recording is a mix Julio made for me after I told him I missed hearing him play: old folk ballads, modern pop songs, a little classic rock. Amber’s clear soprano harmonizes with Julio’s rich tenor, taking me back to a night we all spent sitting on the dusty floor of a rickety cabin, listening to them sing over mugs of canned stew and the crackle of a fire.
I turn my easel away from the window and pick up my brush, letting Julio’s music carry me someplace else as I paint. By the midpoint of the recording, the scene on the canvas has completely changed. The hillside has darkened to a deep midnight green, and the air is dusted with chimney smoke through frost-covered branches.
I pull back to look at it, surprising myself as I recognize the imprecise and crooked outline of a pond. Our pond. The one near Jack’s grandfather’s cabin, where he took me skating under the stars.
With a pang, I wonder what Jack would think of it. If he would want to hang it in the villa, or if it would make him sad to look at it.
I pick a loose hair from the tip of the brush, struggling to remember my life before Gaia gave me my magic. My earth magic is so much a part of me. The thought of having that ripped away is viscerally painful to imagine. I don’t know who I’d be without it. And even though it terrifies me to think of Jack going back to the Observatory—of entrusting him to someone as powerful and cunning as Daniel Lyon—maybe it’s wrong of me to keep him from that.
My stomach growls. The sky is dark through the window above my garden, night insects singing alongside the quiet notes of Julio’s guitar.
I gather my brushes and
carry them to the sink, turn on the faucet, and work the paint free with soap. A hint of smoke carries on a breeze through the open window, as if conjured from the chimney in the painting itself.
I pause in front of the basin, my hand stilling around the brushes.
I shut off the tap, then the music, bristling as the smell of smoke thickens.
Slowly, I set the brushes on the counter, my thoughts leaping to Lyon’s memo about the handful of rogue Seasons no one has been able to trace. A loud click echoes somewhere in the villa. My head snaps up, eyes darting toward the ceiling as the lights turn off, plunging my studio into darkness.
“Jack?” I call out. I reach out with my magic, into the roots of the trees surrounding the villa. I sense no pain—nothing burning.
Wiping my wet hands on my smock, I creep to the window and draw in a deep breath. The smoke doesn’t taste like magic. I’m certain the smell doesn’t belong to an Autumn. Maybe not even a human. There’s no acrid bite of cigarettes coming from the woods.
I take off my smock and lay it across the stool. As I open the studio door, another click rings through the villa, and the lights in the hall extinguish. I stiffen at another click as the training room goes dark, then the game room beyond it. . . .
My mind reaches for a root.
“Jack?” I step tentatively out of my studio, nearly tripping over something on the floor.
My mouth parts around a fragile gasp.
A tiny white votive flickers in the hall. A lily—one single perfect lily—rests on a folded slip of paper beside it.
I bend down to pick them up. Flower held to my chest, I peek down the hall, but no one’s there. I unfold the note, angling it toward the candlelight.
Run away with me tonight.
No transmitters, no cell phones.
Just you and me, off the grid . . .
A trail of white votives lights a path to the veranda. I creep to the edge and peer over the rail. Jack stands in the darkened courtyard below, stoking a crackling campfire beside a carefully arranged ring of stones. A picnic blanket is spread on the grass, complete with a box of greasy take-out pepperoni pizza that I can smell from up here. A bag of marshmallows and two sweating bottles of beer rest beside it.
Jack’s face glows in the soft orange light, and my heart flutters when he smiles up at me.
Lily in hand, I follow the trail of flickering votives, hurrying barefoot down the winding steps, then through the open patio doors and into the courtyard. More candles dot the yard, weaving through the cool grass around the moonlit swimming pool, marking a path to Jack’s fire.
The night smells like jacaranda blossoms and the flame trees that decorate the garden with bright orange blooms. I lace my fingers in Jack’s. He brushes a loose tendril of hair back from my face.
“Happy anniversary.”
“This is amazing,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“You’re amazing.” He takes the lily and tucks it behind my ear. His thumb strokes my cheek and his mouth curves into a wide grin. “And you’re covered in paint,” he laughs, smearing some away.
My skin flushes as I swipe my face with the back of my hand.
“Am I underdressed for our date? I could go clean up,” I say, pulling out of his arms.
“Don’t you dare.” He tugs me back by the waist until I’m flush against his chest.
Head tipped back, I gaze up at the stars. They’re brighter than usual with the villa dark behind us, and the sight of them takes my breath away. Like the night we spent lying side by side on his open sleeping bag on a mountain in Tennessee. Jack traces lazy circles over my lower back as he gazes up, too, and I wonder if he’s remembering the same night I am.
“Off the grid, huh?” My heart warms at all the effort and thought he’s put into this. We’re stuck here until Lyon lifts the travel ban, but somehow, Jack’s managed to transform our courtyard into someplace magical, an escape from the rest of the world.
“Where would you go if you could go anywhere, Fleur?” His smile is soft and vulnerable, just like it was on the sailboat when we escaped from London.
“Anywhere?”
“Anywhere.” He said the same thing then. Anywhere, he promised me.
My eyes close, my mind wandering back to the canvas in my studio as my paint-stained fingernails trace the contours of his chest.
“Then I’d choose the pond by your grandfather’s cabin.” That one perfect magical night when we were careless and happy. Perfectly balanced. “I want to go back there,” I tell him, aching as I realize how much I mean it.
“The pond.” His smile fades. “Not Amsterdam or Chile? Not Canada?” he asks quietly. “If I could take you anywhere—anywhere in the world—that’s where you’d want to go?”
My hands slide down his chest as Jack draws away from me. As I realize how that must sound. Like I want to go back there to be with the person he was before. “That night . . . it was amazing,” I rush to add, struggling to put into words how that night made me feel. How he made me feel. “And that kiss—”
A log shifts on the fire, tossing up sparks. Jack prods it back into place with a stick. He shakes his head, not angry, I realize. Just . . . thinking. “If we went back to the cabin now, it wouldn’t be the same. I can’t . . .” The fire reflects in his eyes. They shimmer with regrets when he finally looks at me. “The nights would be cold. I can’t keep you warm just by holding your hand. I can’t freeze the pond and take you skating or make it snow or—”
I take the stick from him. When he turns to me, I press a finger to his lips. “I don’t need you to take me skating, Jack.” I trace the edge of his upper lip, then the lower, marveling at their softness and shape as his mouth parts.
“What do you need?” he asks.
“Just this. Just us,” I say in a hushed voice. “You and me.”
He smiles, his breath warm against my finger. “Is that all?”
I cock an eyebrow. “That, and maybe s’mores.”
Jack’s laugh is husky as he leads me to the blanket, pulling me down beside him. Lying sideways against his shoulder, I tear into a slice of pizza and offer him a bite as he loads marshmallows onto a skewer. He roasts the marshmallows slowly, careful not to burn them, his thoughts lost somewhere in the flames as he nurses his beer.
I set my slice of pizza back in the box and close the lid.
Moving behind him, I wrap my arms around his waist, my head resting in the warm dip between his shoulders. His hand closes around mine, secure and strong. He’s wrong if he thinks he can’t keep me safe and warm just by holding me. I press a kiss to one of his scars, my mouth slowly moving down to the next as he leans into me. Something scrapes my knee where it brushes the back of his jeans. I reach down, mouth falling open in surprise at the two small booklets protruding from his back pocket.
Passports. Two of them. I slip them from his pocket and find two travel vouchers tucked inside their covers, the destinations and dates left empty, one made out in each of our names for a generous amount. My breath catches.
Run away with me . . .
Jack wasn’t kidding. His invitation wasn’t a symbolic gesture. It was real.
Where would you go if you could go anywhere, Fleur?
He was serious about taking me off the grid, regardless of Lyon’s wishes.
I fall back on my knees with the passports in my hands, rocked by that same thrill I felt the day I found the maps and the poems he left for me in the Library of Congress two years ago, on this exact same day, when I figured out what Jack had planned.
When I realized what he was willing to risk for us.
“Jack?” His name comes out on a shaky whisper. How could he think for one minute that he’s not enough for me? That he doesn’t save me with every touch. That he doesn’t complete me with every breath. How could he ever mistakenly believe he’s not made entirely of magic?
11
A World Torn Loose
DOUG
Lixue watch
es me from across the dusky room, cupping a flame. Her face and hair are white with plaster dust. She looks at me like she’s seeing a ghost. “Should we go after her?”
Spitting out a last mouthful of blood, I drag a hand through the ash and sweat on my face. My left eye burns from all the dust, and the empty right socket throbs. Gaia’s magic swirls in the orb, casting a pale glow over the room. “No.” My voice comes out raw. “You won’t find her. Not here.” By now, Kai is probably deep in the catacombs, and there aren’t enough of us to split up and track her.
Lixue glances at the staff where it lies across the desk, accepting my answer as if I must have seen the future in it. But it wasn’t Kai’s future I saw that made everything clear to me. It was her past. That conversation she had with Lyon last week had nothing to do with me. Lyon never cared about saving me. Lyon’s only goal was to protect Jack. That was all he wanted from Kai. He convinced her it was the right thing to do—the path to forgiving herself. Every decision Kai’s made has been motivated by guilt, and he manipulated that. Her choices now will be no different.
She feels responsible for all these deaths—the Guards, Gaia, Lyon. . . . I saw it in her eyes—her horror as she watched him die, the way she looked at me. . . . I saw her remorse when he uttered his final words, as if he’d spoken them directly to her: There’s still time to make the right choice.
In that moment, Kai made her choice. She chose Lyon. Which means she chose Jack.
And I’d bet my staff that’s exactly where she’s going.
“What do we do now, Chronos?”
The question shakes me from my thoughts. It takes me a moment to register what Lixue called me.
Chronos.
I straighten, scraping the staff off the desk. The handle is cold and heavy, painful and awkward in my hand. The members of the old Guard hover along the far wall. The air tastes like uncertainty and fear. Their eyes dart back and forth between me and Lixue, as if they’re waiting for some directive to move.
Seasons of Chaos Page 9
