by L. J. Hatton
“They’re looking for you.”
“Nye was looking for me. The rest of them are licking their wounds. We’re under a tree. What are the chances that someone from the Commission will wander through these woods at the exact moment I step outside?”
“About the same chance as you being possible,” Jermay said, more serious. “If you have a flare out in the open, someone could see it.”
“Fine—compromise. I won’t go out, but I’m opening the door before I suffocate. If I don’t, I’m liable to literally blow the roof off of this place, and that would be a lot easier to see from a distance than one girl in a random stretch of trees.”
“I don’t know, Penn . . .”
“I’m going.” I was already getting up to leave.
An alarm sounded.
My room was suddenly awash in lights and noise.
“Wha—” Jermay started to ask, but I shrugged. Unless Anise had wired me with motion sensors in my sleep, the alert had nothing to do with us.
We hurried into the hall. Anise ran past us toward the main room and the entrance we’d used to access the Hollow when we first arrived.
“Did either of you touch the outer door?” she asked.
“Why?”
“Did you touch the door?” she shouted.
I’d never seen Anise lose her temper or composure. She was the one who kept the rest of us grounded. Whatever this was, it wasn’t good.
“We didn’t touch anything,” Jermay said as Birch and Winnie joined us from the back. Klok stomped up the stairs from my father’s workroom. The trapdoor slammed open against the hall rug.
“Check the sensors,” Anise ordered him. “Code Blackout. Turn everything off in case they’re skimming for energy signatures.”
With entire cities going dark at night out of fear that the Medusae or another otherworldly race might see us, the Commission had developed ways to scan for illegal tech in areas where it was forbidden. All of my father’s work was cutting edge, specifically because it was made for the Commission to buy freedom for our family. Their equipment could pick it up, easy.
Klok nodded and disappeared back into the floor. Two seconds later, the room dimmed to a candlelit glow.
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“The alert on the outer door. Someone’s coming in.”
I reached for Jermay’s arm at the same time he reached for mine. We twined them together with our pinkies interlocked for luck. Maybe some of the old Penn was still in there, after all.
A tiny invisible mass latched onto my other side so hard that I almost toppled over.
“Birdie!” Anise shouted. “I need to see you, baby.”
“I think I’ve got her,” I said.
Birdie slipped her hand into mine, slowly bleeding into view without a sound. Her eyes were wide and staring, her whole body shaking. She was barefoot and in a pair of red-checkered pajamas she’d rummaged from one of my sisters’ closets.
“Into the basement with Klok,” Anise ordered her.
Birdie sprinted for the trapdoor, disappearing again as she went.
Someone pounded on the outer door.
The tunnel lights went out completely, robbing us of our view, and I backed up with Jermay, farther into the main room. There was only the one exit. We ran into Winnie and Birch so that the four of us formed a line. Standing together had given us an advantage before. Hopefully, there was still safety in numbers.
“What if it’s someone from The Show?” Jermay asked. “It could be . . . couldn’t it?”
The look Anise gave him over her shoulder wasn’t promising.
“Whoever it is, I’ll tell them to leave and forget how they got here,” Winnie offered. She was The Show’s siren in more than appearance, and if she told someone to do something, they did it.
“I doubt they’re alone,” Anise said. “They’re not going to give you the chance to speak to each one of them. All of you get into the workroom.”
“But—”
She wouldn’t let me argue.
“Do it, Penn!” she commanded. “If I don’t know the person on the other side of that door, I’m collapsing the tunnel, and then I’m bringing the rest of this place down behind me. You’ll have to make them a new way out.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
That was how I lost my sisters the first time. They guarded our escape from the train, and in return, they were taken by the Commission.
Anise growled, but she didn’t waste time arguing with me.
“Winnie, Birch, grab whatever’s worth taking downstairs and tell Klok to be ready to run. We can’t wait for perfection anymore.”
“Got it,” Winnie said.
She and Birch descended the workroom stairs as the seal on the main door broke with a creak. A new light appeared at the mouth of the tunnel. Something moving. As it came closer, it behaved strangely like a living thing, but it was definitely on fire. It ran the last several yards on padded feet.
“Samson!” I cried, relieved. There was no mistaking my sister Evie’s flame-dog once he was close enough to have a shape. I’d seen her summon him nightly for The Show for as long as I could remember. “Evie’s made it! She escaped!”
“Penn, wait!” Jermay pulled on my arm, though I could see Evie in the tunnel now. “Look at him.”
I turned my attention back to Samson. The usually playful pup stood with his legs braced, twisting his neck against an unseen leash, being forced to go where he didn’t want to be led.
“Evie?” Anise called. She kept her hands down, but I could feel her power rooting itself into the ground beneath our feet. She was preparing for an attack. Provoked, she could have a rampaging Kodiak between us and the door in a heartbeat. “If that’s you, say something.”
“This is wrong,” Jermay said, shaking his head. “We should—”
He lost his voice as Evie stepped into the main room with a hound’s collar around her throat and manacles on her wrists and ankles.
She’d lost the glow that had always made her seem to shine.
“Run!” she said.
Then the ball of flame in her hand leapt from her fingers.
CHAPTER 2
The sky was falling, but this time, it wasn’t my fault.
Anise threw a hand up, creating a shield of bedrock to intercept Evie’s fireball, and half the room was ripped apart by the force of impact. The shield shattered; both of them went flying in opposite directions. I didn’t know who to help.
In the tunnel another shape appeared, this one tall and bald, in the shadows, turning him into a ghoulish Nosferatu—the man that Winnie’s brother, Greyor, had named as Warden Files. He was the one who’d collared Evie to make her into his personal flamethrower.
He had not picked a good time to show up in my house.
“It would appear we’ve missed Roma,” he said. “But I’ll settle for the consolation prize. Finders keepers works for me. It was good enough for Nye.”
Warden Nye had quietly tried to collect me and my family before the rest of the Commission even knew we existed as assets they could exploit. When his associates figured out what he’d done, they were furious. Nye was forced to make a deal, so he’d relinquished Evie and my other sisters, believing me to be the bigger prize.
I remembered what Greyor had told me about this man and how cruel he was, and I remembered how Files had kept Evie locked in a refrigerated cell at the Center because the cold would be misery for a pyrokinetic. My arms and legs were still thrumming with the aftershocks of my nightmare-induced power surge, my temper was still frayed, and the image of Birdie terrified was still fresh in my mind. Worst of all, Files had hurt the people I cared about.
The monsters were more than happy to come back out to play.
“I’ve got this,” I said and stepped away from Jermay.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Fighting fire with fire.”
When someone like me surrenders to the to
uch in our blood, our eyes turn black as a warning. I’d seen it happen when Winnie used her voice in full force to kill Warden Arcineaux. This time, I felt the darkness rise from inside me. I let it come.
I held my arms out and up like wings, pictured them dripping with burning feathers, and welcomed the heat in my chest. Being Nye’s prisoner had revealed connections between my abilities and my sisters’ that I never knew existed. I was a firebird rising from the ashes. No, more powerful. I was Celestine ready to take flight. I slammed my hands together in front of me, and off the current flew a fiery raptor, feet out to catch its prey, beak open to devour.
“Get him,” I said. My golem flew straight for Warden Files.
Fear of fire was primal, even and especially to a man who thought he was strong enough to control it. Files ran for the door, but my phoenix got there first and blocked his exit. He backed down the entry tunnel toward the main room, and me.
I pictured my sister Vesper, who could dance on air and starlight, and create a chill wind sharp enough to cut through bread or steel. My father had said her abilities were temperamental and uncontrollable, that there was no use in trying to steer a gale. But wind was nothing but air plus energy, and energy always had direction. I imagined my long, dark hair was Vesper’s performance wig, and I made it fly.
Warden Files sailed off his feet and along the tunnel to the door, bouncing off the floor and walls to land in a heap outside with his men and one very angry flaming bird that was the worst of my temper brought to life. The door slammed shut, held in place by Vesper’s memory.
“Well, that’s new. Remind me never to make you angry,” Jermay said, stunned.
“Nah, I like it when you make me angry,” I told him, and then I ran for Evie.
The first hints of fatigue crept in like spider cracks in a brittle window. Creating a golem took a lot of concentration and energy, but I refused to succumb. Not yet. If I could get my hands on Evie’s collar, I could break it, like I did with Anise’s. One touch was all it would take. I skidded onto the floor beside my captive sister and put my hands on either side of her neck.
“Run,” she said weakly.
“We’ll both run,” I told her. As soon as I got that thing off her, we’d both fly.
Nothing happened. The collar didn’t crackle beneath my fingers like Anise’s had. It didn’t pop open. It didn’t work.
“Open!” I told it. “My father made you. You know my voice. I command you to open!”
That was all it had taken to get Anise’s collar off. I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong, but I couldn’t picture the circuits or feel the energy flowing through this one. Everything was jumbled and garbled. Nothing made sense.
“It’s okay,” Evie told me. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
She kept repeating those words with tears streaming down her face, her voice caught in a loop caused by a rare moment free of commands.
“It’s okay,” she said again, and pushed my hands away.
“No! Anise! Help me get her up! We can take you with us. We can—”
“Hound!” Warden Files shouted from the tunnel.
My ability to command Evie’s collar wasn’t the only touch that had failed me. The wind was gone; my phoenix had evaporated, allowing the warden to reenter the Hollow.
Files was singed and wounded and too angry to issue real orders, but still Evie shot to her feet with a faltering jerk, heaved off the floor against her will. She shoved me as hard as she could before he had a chance to tell her to do something else. Samson appeared in the gap between us, forcing me backward.
“I can’t stop him,” Evie said. “You have to run. Anise, get her out of here!”
Samson walked me far enough back that Anise could grab me around the waist and hold me. Jermay took one of my arms—the traitors.
“I can help her!” I insisted. Usually, this kind of fit would have brought a dozen disasters to life off the end of my tongue, but I was left with nothing but a tantrum.
“You’ll help her become the reason you’re in chains beside her,” Anise hissed. “Think of the damage he could do with you at his command.”
“Come with us,” I called to Evie. “Fight it!”
She was already shaking her head.
“I can’t.”
Without permission, she couldn’t even walk. She was exhausted, doubled over, tottering on the edge of falling until the warden spoke again.
“Burn it!” he ordered, finally in control of himself. “Burn it all!”
“No!” Evie shrieked, then she was convulsing in pain. The collar wrenched her upright against her own fatigue, bowing her back beyond its natural curve.
Samson howled, but there was no fighting the collar for him, either. I’d worn one, and knew how quickly the vile thing could break someone. It wasn’t some twinge or prick; the collar painted you with shades of anguish. While it was in place, it was all you could see or hear or even smell. The difference was that I’d only been subjected to it by a man who loathed its use. Evie had been imprisoned for weeks by someone who couldn’t have cared less. The agony had left her very little of her own life.
Heat flowed out of her body, mirage rings undulating in every direction. Samson sprinted past me, brushing furniture with his ember-crusted fur and lighting up the rugs with every burning footfall.
It was happening again. My life and my past were smoldering around me, but this time, I should have been able to stop it. I’d taken down the Commission’s entire aerial armada while the Center fell out of the sky. Defeating a single warden with a handful of men should have been simple. I called for rain and rushing water from the Hollow’s pipes. I bade a geyser split the ground and wash the flames away.
Nothing.
I was powerless.
Was this another dream?
“It’s not working,” I said dully, staring at my hands. My whole life had been a fight to keep the Celestine inside her cage, and now, with the door wide open, she refused escape. She was cowering in the corner and clinging to the bars.
In the tunnel, Files held the door open, giving the rising smoke a path to follow. “One way out. Live with me, or die here.”
Anise pulled me toward the hall, stopping in front of the trapdoor that led to the lower level.
“First rule of The Show—anything obvious is an obvious lie.” She stomped out the signal for someone inside to open the trapdoor. Winnie popped her head through, and Files’s triumphant smile faded.
Anise released me, and Jermay’s grip tightened. Winnie grabbed my other arm, and when the two of them together weren’t enough to move me, Birch came to help.
“Stop it, Penn,” Jermay ordered. “Get downstairs. We’re counting on you.”
They were pulling me toward the workroom, but if I left, I might never see Evie again. If stubbornness was the only weapon left to me, then so be it. That was a skill I’d practiced since birth, no special powers required.
“Let go!” I screamed, fighting my friends. Warden Files couldn’t be allowed to win—he couldn’t!
“Klok!” Winnie shouted over my head. “Penn’s being difficult!”
I couldn’t hear him on the stairs, but had no doubt he was on his way. He’d been ordered to protect me by my older sisters. So long as he was functional, Klok would do as he was told.
But why? Why would they all risk themselves for me? Even a Celestine wasn’t worth so many other lives. I wasn’t worth The Show or the scattering of our family.
“Stop!” I shouted.
I felt reality shatter around me.
The room slowed down. It had happened often enough in times of crisis that the phenomenon wasn’t unexpected, but it was definitely unwelcome. No one else could feel or see the world the way I did. It should have been an advantage. Why couldn’t I make it one?
While I continued to thrash against the combined hold of Jermay, Winnie, and Birch, Samson’s fire-trail became a stop-motion track of arcing swirls, graceful in their devastation, near
ly beautiful. They were singing, but I couldn’t catch the frequency of the sounds. And if I couldn’t catch the fire, I couldn’t control it.
Klok emerged from the trapdoor stairs wearing one of my father’s work coats over his clothes. Above his collar shined the edge of chest-plate armor he’d made at the Center by absorbing the hummers that should have killed his systems and shut him down for good. It shimmered blue-black, like a beetle’s shell, with streaks of green along the veins.
Anise’s Kodiak was rising into existence by grain and stone until it had to stoop within the confines of the Hollow. It roared in opposition to Samson’s assault and reached out with clawed paws that couldn’t burn. The two golems collided with the force of a ballistic charge, neither advancing, neither giving quarter.
My sisters looked at each other for one forever-second. Evie nodded, still crying, so that ashes stained her face beneath the tears.
“Do it,” her mouth said, but I couldn’t hear her voice.
The sight of her cost me my control over the moment, if I was ever in control at all.
“Get down!” Anise turned her head toward the rest of us, shooing us with her hand. “Go!”
Birch held the workshop door to allow us to pass—me thrashing in Klok’s arms and held a foot off the ground because it was the only way he could get me to move.
The walls were shaking, rumbling floor to ceiling. Anise’s Kodiak let go of Samson and spun. The bear thrust its shoulder into the Hollow’s central support beam and pushed, then fell to dust. Anise flung her arms wide and brought the Hollow down on top of us as she dove for the workshop door. Evie was still mouthing “I love you” as Samson ran to her and an inferno engulfed them both.
I saw her close her eyes and smile.
The ceiling crashed against the hatch above, hard enough to throw us off the stairs and into the basement. Klok took the hit, so all I felt was a thump cushioned by his armored body. He sat me down, and I didn’t get up.
“You killed her,” I said.
No anger. No grief. I was hollowed out. I never thought one of my sisters would be a threat to another. Even Nim with all her sniping annoyance wouldn’t hurt one of us. But Anise had killed Evie, and she’d done it of her own free will without a collar driving her.
