I will not let him use me. I will not let him hurt Jack, or Chill, or anyone else.
If Doug wants to experience the power of Gaia’s magic, if he wants to know what kind of destruction it’s capable of, then I will find Gaia’s magic, and I will show him myself.
38
But Not a Ghost
JACK
My eyes fly open. I reach across the bed for Fleur, but my arm hits the back of a couch. My leg flings over the side as I struggle to sit up and remember where I am.
A thin band of light seeps through the gap under the door of my dorm room. Shadows move on the other side of it. There’s a metallic shake as someone tests the knob.
I ease off the couch. A key scrapes into the lock.
A muffled voice. “Doug wants two Guards posted in here around the clock until we have a lead on Sommers. Jora got held up in the Control Room. I told her I’d cover until she shows up.”
“Why doesn’t he just check the eye in his staff and see where Sampson and Sommers went?”
“If he could do that, we’d have found them already. They’re not like us anymore.” The keys clatter against the floor. “Would you open the damn door, already? You have one job, for Chronos’s sake, March.”
I slip silently into the bunk room, grateful that Lyon never got around to upgrading the locks in the wings to key cards. Kai’s a dark lump against the pale sheets of my bed. I kneel beside it and press a palm over her mouth. The whites of her eyes flash wide. Her hands clamp around my wrist, and her breath stills as I stifle her gasp. I hold a finger to my lips as the door rattles and the Guards argue outside.
“Keep your voice down,” the first Guard says.
“No point sneaking around,” the other answers. “Sommers would have to be an idiot to hide in his own room.”
I slide my hand from Kai’s mouth, touching my ear where a transmitter would be. She nods.
The bedsprings creak softly, her movements catlike in the dark as she searches for her bow. She pats the surface of the bed, then reaches deep into the gap between the mattress and the wall. Her hands come up empty. She turns to me, drawing a panicked breath. She must have left it in the front room.
I reach for my knives, but my holster’s out there, too, lying on the arm of the sofa with my jacket.
The door swings open a few inches. A flashlight cuts across the floor, making a slow pass over the furniture as a first Guard enters the room. A second Guard follows.
“March, look at this,” the first says, lifting my jacket off the couch. “This wasn’t here earlier.”
I slip behind them and toe the door closed, cutting off the light from the hall.
The Guard shouts, and her flashlight beam sweeps toward me.
Kai rushes in from the bunk room, smashing my skateboard into the back of March’s head with a deafening crack. She grabs his transmitter as he drops. I’ve got the other Guard in a choke hold from behind. I mute her transmitter before pitching it to Kai.
The Guard’s elbow slams into my ribs. She swings the butt of her flashlight into my knee, pivoting out of my arms and shining the beam in my eyes.
A Kai-size shape emerges behind her, my skateboard poised to strike.
“No!” I shout to Kai, dodging the Guard’s next blow and using her momentum to slip between them. “We need her alive.”
The Guard drops her flashlight. She whirls on me, throwing punches with both hands. My stitches pull with every block, and I miss a few in the dark. Her fist connects with the side of my head. I swing and miss twice before nailing one solid hit to her face. Cartilage snaps.
“Oh, you’re going to pay for that,” she says. The air grows thick with the smell of blood. Magic crackles in the room as a flame lights in her hand.
Lixue.
I duck, tackling her around the waist. Her breath rushes out of her as she crashes to the floor. I straddle her, pinning her hands flat.
Kai grabs the flashlight. She shines it over my shoulder.
Lixue glares up at me, her eyes watery and her upper lip glistening red.
“Where’s Fleur?” I demand.
“Why should I help you?” she growls. “You and your girlfriend were content to take a nice, long vacation in Mexico while my team was stuck in a cell, waiting to die.”
“Lyon would never have killed you.”
“He was going to strip our magic. You know as well as anyone, that’s the same damn thing! As far as I’m concerned, Doug saved my life. To hell with yours.” She spits blood at my face.
I tighten my grip. “Where is she? Where’d Doug take her?”
Lixue’s snow-white eyes roll back in her head, and her breath thickens like fog. Frost crackles over her face, and for the first time I understand why Amber used to get so freaked out by my Winter magic. Her skin burns my hands, blistering cold. I grip her tighter through the layer of ice.
A low groan starts in the bathroom walls. Tile cracks and a pipe bursts, shooting a plume of water into the bunk room. The stream spirals through the air toward Kai. She drops the flashlight as the water attacks her, forcing itself into her nostrils and between her lips.
“Call it off!” I shout at Lixue. Water rushes over the floor of my bunk room, splashing across the threshold toward me.
Blood stains Lixue’s smile. “Or you’ll what?”
Kai gags, water slithering in and out of her nose and mouth. Her knees give out.
“Tell me where he’s holding Fleur!”
Lixue laughs. “The one place you wish you could, Jack.”
“Where!”
She twists, throwing me off-balance. Twin sparks ignite her palms, and I roll away from the heat. Lixue rolls with me, reaching for my face as the water soaks my clothes. I clamp down on her wrist, shaking with the effort of holding her back, her skin suddenly hot enough to sear me. I shut my eyes, turning away as her fire licks my cheek.
Across the room, Kai gags and sputters.
This is it. We’re both going to die.
A wave of cold suddenly envelops my arm. I blink open my eyes, unable to believe what I’m seeing. A smaze clings to my forearm like a sleeve, insulating me in a pocket of cold mist. Lixue’s fire hisses, rearing back at it. A triumphant cry erupts from me as the smaze binds itself to my burned skin.
I want to roar in Lixue’s face. I want to tear this whole place apart. My smaze. It’s here. It came for me.
Breathe deeply . . . remember the lion that you are.
I part my lips and draw a breath. I open my mouth, my lungs, my soul to it. The cold fills me, carrying with it a strange pain. It sinks in its teeth, spreading through my chest as flashes of memories gust through me like a hailstorm—some of them familiar, but not all of them mine.
My hand reaches for Lixue’s throat like it’s possessed. Her eyes go wide with panic as I choke her. She clutches my wrist, her long nails digging into the skin. I breathe, fighting to let go, as conflicting needs seem to wrestle for control of my body. I want to kill her. I want to end her life for what she’s doing to Kai. But I want . . . no, I need her alive if I’m going to find Fleur.
Lixue’s lips turn blue and lifeless. My own hand fights me as I forcefully shove her away from me.
I shake off the last tendrils of my smaze as Lixue collapses, and I’m relieved when the color starts to return to her cheeks.
Kai pushes herself up on all fours, a river of water erupting from her mouth. The flashlight drips as I swing the beam around the room.
My smaze is gone.
I sit back on my heels, my shirt drenched in melting frost and a dull ache throbbing inside me. I felt it the second the magic left my body, like a barbed hook had been yanked from my heart.
Water sprays from the broken pipe, and I stagger to the main shutoff valve in the bathroom to turn it off. A puddle sloshes under me as I sink to the floor, listening to Kai cough in the next room.
My smaze is here. It knows me. It came to me and protected me. But instead of working with me, it felt like
we were fighting for control.
Kai sags against the doorframe to the bunk room. She holds out my holster and knives. “Was that your smaze?” she rasps.
I didn’t think she’d seen it. I’d assumed the water had blinded her. “I think so.”
“Why didn’t you take it?” she asks. “All you’ve talked about is finding your smaze. Why’d you let it go?”
I get up and throw open my closet door, digging around for dry clothes. “I don’t know. It felt wrong.” I jam sweatshirts and jeans into my backpack, along with the last of the bottled waters and some jerky from Chill’s drawer.
“Wrong? It’s yours, how can it feel wrong? It came for you, Jack. It knew you were in danger and it came to you. It practically jumped up your—”
I throw my pack on the bed. “It just felt wrong, okay? I don’t know why I didn’t take it. I can’t explain it. My smaze is broken! It’s damaged goods, and apparently there’s no coming back from that!”
Her brow furrows. “What do you mean, broken?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, pushing back memories I’d rather forget. “It doesn’t feel like my magic anymore. It doesn’t listen to me. It feels . . . angry.” I think about what Kai said on the plane, about stolen magic being cursed. Is this my curse? A pissed-off smaze that refuses to forgive me?
“A little rage might be exactly what we need right now.”
I shake my head. “Even Lyon said it was dangerous. That I could hurt someone. I can’t control it.”
“And you’ll never control it if you keep pushing it away. Like it or not, that smaze is part of you. And if you want your magic back, then at some point, you’re going to have to face whatever it is inside it that’s bothering you.”
“I know. And I will.” I rub my eyes, weary and empty. Lyon and Gaia were supposed to be here, to help me piece myself back together. To help me figure out who I am now. But they’re gone. And Fleur’s missing. And the truth is, I’m not sure I can face what’s hiding in that dark fog alone. “My smaze won’t go far. I’ll try again.” I still feel it, hovering over me like a cold shadow.
“You blame me, don’t you?” At my puzzled look, she says, “For what happened with your smaze.”
“No,” I mutter. I blame myself, but I can’t tell her that. Not now. I’ve already stared into that abyss once tonight. I can’t stand the thought of taking Névé’s sister in there with me.
“Then when are you going to start trusting me?” Kai’s question catches me off guard. “No more kabob cracks,” she says. “No more jokes about keeping my arrows where you can see them. I didn’t bring you all this way to screw you over. And I don’t plan to start now.”
I try to wrap my mind around how I feel about that. The fact that we both did something terrible to each other, knowingly or not, doesn’t cancel out the damage we’ve done.
I grab my jacket off the arm of the couch and pull the map from the inside pocket, holding it out to her. She reaches for it with dripping sleeves, then pauses.
“Maybe you should keep it,” she says, gesturing to her wet pockets. She slings on her bow as March and Lixue begin to stir. “We’d better get out of here before they come to.”
I tuck the map back in my jacket, along with the two transmitters we took from the Guards. Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I glance back one last time, thinking about what Kai said, about how I won’t be able to control my magic until I’m able to face it without pushing it away. I look for signs of my smaze in this place that I used to share with Chill—before we ran, before Fleur, before all the choices that led us to where we are now—and wonder if it will ever feel the same again.
39
Not Cease to Glow
DOUG
Gaia’s magic stirs awake as I enter my office, the glowing sparks edging away from me as I sit behind my desk. The air inside the orb hums with static, the magic throwing tiny bolts of electricity at the glass as it watches me shuffle through the box of Fleur’s ornaments.
I set down the silver angel and lean closer to the enclosure, resisting the urge to smash it when the light recoils from me.
Gaia’s magic didn’t act this way when Fleur came to the Control Room. The sparks had calmed when she’d walked in, dimming to a soft glow, the magic reaching toward Fleur like the nose of a curious pet, eager to sniff her. Not at all like it looks at me now.
You aren’t human enough to wield that kind of magic.
I shove myself back in my chair, glaring at the orb as the magic settles. Human. Fleur had hurled that word at me as if it had power. As if being human was something to aspire to. As if any Handler or broom pusher in this place could reach inside that orb and take Gaia’s magic. But not me.
The thought of swallowing that bees’ nest again makes me shudder. But there’s no other way around what has to be done. I squeeze my eye shut, remembering the way Fleur’s face had pinched with pain when she’d slid her magic into the broken plant. I’d felt something—not so much a pain as a deep discomfort—when I’d healed the branch in my suite. It hadn’t been unbearable. Nothing like the fire spreading through my chest now. Fleur had said the first step to fixing something was being willing to acknowledge the pain. To suffer through it.
I massage my chest as I watch the magic swim in the glass. If I succeed, I’ll have the power to fix everything Lyon broke—to restore the systems of balance Michael put in place. Jack is here. Fleur is my prisoner. As soon as I do this, I can eliminate them both. So what the hell is stopping me?
I lean toward the desk. The magic leans away.
This will not end in any way you can possibly imagine, Douglas. It takes two eyes to see clearly. . . . You are now, and will always be, alone.
I rest my head in my hands. I should be searching for the eye.
A knock at the door pulls me from my thoughts. I push aside the angel ornament and call out, “Come in.” Lixue cracks open the door and peeks around it. The smell of shame wafts in with her, and I grit my teeth. “I thought you were setting up a surveillance team in Sommers’s room.”
“I was, Chronos. I mean . . . I did.” She steps inside my office. Her nose is swollen and her eyes are blackened. A ring of dark bruises circles her throat. “March and I . . . we were ambushed,” she says hoarsely. “By the time we got to Sommers’s room, he and Kai were already inside.”
I rest my knuckles on the surface of the desk and lean toward her. “Jack Sommers is injured. Kai Sampson’s been stripped of all four of her elements. There’s not a drop of magic left between them. Are you telling me two of my most senior Guards had their asses handed to them by a couple of powerless humans?”
“Not exactly, sir.” She clears her throat. “There was a smaze with them.”
I search her eyes for signs that she’s lying. But the memories of her fight with Jack are chaotic, the images of his dorm room too dark to see clearly. “Tell me.”
“It . . . it came out of nowhere. It . . . seemed to bind itself to Jack. It appeared to be . . .”
“Spit it out, Commander!”
“It appeared to be letting Sommers use its magic.”
My thoughts run back to the memory Lyon showed me of the moments leading up to Michael’s death. There had been a smaze in an orb, like the one Gaia always kept as a pet on her desk—Daniel Lyon’s smaze. Is it possible that this same smaze is the one helping Sommers?
No . . . no, I saw what happened to that smaze in Lyon’s visions. Gaia had given that smaze to Jack’s Handler when she made him a Winter. But what happened to Jack’s?
I can still save him. That’s what Lyon had said to Gaia. In the memory I’d seen in his eyes before I killed him, there had been another smaze. Another orb. It had been sitting on a desk. But not this desk.
I capture Lixue’s chin with my hand, sifting clumsily through her memories until I stumble on the one I’m looking for—the day she searched Lyon’s old office. The cramped room is destroyed, as if it had been damaged by the quake. The orb isn’t there
. Papers, books, and glass are strewn everywhere.
Glass . . . The orb.
Damn Lyon to hell. He broke it.
I slam my fist against the desk. “Did Sommers claim the smaze? Is he a Winter again?”
Lixue blinks, flustered. “I . . . I don’t think so.”
“I would think that answer would be obvious.”
“By the time March and I came to, they were already gone. But I didn’t catch a scent in the room.” She fidgets, one hand discreetly moving to her ear.
“Where’s your transmitter?”
She lowers her hand, her pause longer than the question warrants. “It was damaged during the fight. I’ve asked the Control Room to find me a new one.”
I sink back into my chair. If Sommers’s smaze was so eager to help him, why didn’t he claim it? Why not arm himself to the teeth with magic and come after me?
“Sir?” Lixue’s voice is a distant nagging tug on the end of my patience. “There’s something else. It’s about the stasis chambers in the catacombs.” The air around her seems to quiver. “Someone’s destroyed them.”
“How many?” I bark.
Lixue shrugs. “At least a dozen.”
That’s twelve free Seasons my Guards won’t be able to recover. If I can’t get the Seasons under control, there will be no chance of restoring what we’ve lost.
“Sommers and his friends,” I growl. “How did they get past the Guards?”
“The Guards were all dispatched to find the Spring.” She shrinks back from me. “The two stationed outside your apartment went to check on her—like you said—every hour.” She swallows, clearly afraid to say the rest. “They found an open vent behind a cabinet. She’s gone, sir.”
“No,” I say through my teeth, jerking on my gloves. “Sommers is here, along with everyone she cares about. She won’t leave this place without them.”
“I have the Control Room searching the engineering diagrams for a map of the ventilation—”
“Don’t bother. I’ll find her.” I grab the scythe on my way to the door.
Seasons of Chaos Page 23
