“We’ll pack up your stuff and make sure it gets off the ship,” said Lough. I thanked him and hurried over to the former Public committee member.
Without a word I followed Risper down, lower and lower, until we were in the very belly of the ship.
“I didn’t think there were rooms down here,” I said in surprise.
Risper chuckled a little. “I appropriated a space from a very flustered captain. He wasn’t about to argue with me,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
I felt strange seeing Risper. The last time I’d seen him I’d been about to expose him as the renowned thief Elam, who possessed the Map Silver and was after the Mirror Arcane. He had gotten away before I’d done that, and he hadn’t returned to Public. As far as we knew, he had been spending his time since then looking for the last object on the wheel, the Globe White.
Which we still didn’t know the location of.
“You are becoming quite the little fighter,” Risper said as we walked. He wasn’t being ironic, he clearly meant it.
“Thank you,” I whispered, blushing slightly at the compliment.
After a short silence during which we entered one of the engine rooms, he said, “Here it is.” The room was spotless, but it was also dark and small, not a place where I would want to sleep. But Risper seemed at home.
“There’s a trap door,” he explained, pointing. “Well, I created it from magic so that if I should be trapped in here, I can always get away.”
“You mean if they figure out who you really are?” I asked.
Risper looked at me sharply. “Who I am is a darkness mage, a bounty hunter, a brother, and an uncle.”
I sighed. “Right. I miss Lisabelle.”
His eyes softened and he nodded sympathetically. “I do too. I came as soon as I heard.” He looked more tired than I remembered him, and there were more lines around his eyes.
“You’ve been here all summer, then!” I cried, angry that I had missed so many chances to speak with him.
“I traveled back,” he said shortly. “It took nearly a month and would have taken longer if I hadn’t already been planning my return.”
All else was forgotten when the weight of his words sank in. “You know where the Globe White is?” I asked eagerly.
Risper, who had busied himself packing up his own things, started to pace.
“Yes, Charlotte, I do, but it’s worse than I thought.”
“How could it possibly be worse than we thought?” I demanded. “We can’t even get back to Public without being attacked.”
“I’ll know more in a week or so,” said Risper. “I’m going to try and get it myself.”
The way he said it made me think it was incredibly dangerous, but he looked relaxed despite the risk to his life. Lisabelle often projected much the same look of deep calm.
“What if you need help?” I asked. “Please let us help you.”
Risper shook his head. “I have another task for you. It’s a key to unlocking your family’s past.”
This silenced me. Sigil, the ghost who lived in the Astra library, had done what he could to help me learn about elementals, but whoever my family had been, the information seemed irretrievable, even by Sigil. He had found Grace Lancing in the records, but it hadn’t helped; the trail was cold.
“You mean, to find out who my father is?” I asked quietly. “That would be glorious.”
Risper paused in his pacing to nod. “Yes, to find out who your father is. He was elemental. There weren’t many of them. I mean, hundreds, but really, that’s not many when most can be accounted for. Somehow, what happened to your parents and what happened to Grecko Malle are linked. That’s the other connection I’ve been exploring.”
Grecko Malle was Cynthia Malle’s brother. He and their parents had been tortured and killed by a rogue band of pixies, and many people believed that her family’s death was what had put Cynthia Malle over the edge and tipped her to the side of darkness.
“You’re lucky to be friends with a werewolf as smart and talented as Ms. Quest,” said Risper. “She has unlimited access to the archives, into which I do believe you have never been allowed?”
“I barely knew they existed,” I said softly.
Risper nodded, as if this confirmed something for him. “Of course not,” he said. “Malle was president there, and now, after her there’s Oliva, who’s a pixie.”
“Wait,” I said, trying to take in what he was implying. “You think that Oliva is working with the Nocturns?”
“I honestly don’t know,” said Risper, “but I doubt it. I just mean that we paranormals tend to protect our own. He wouldn’t want you snooping in the archives any more than Malle would.”
“Do you think the same band of pixies that killed Grecko Malle also killed my parents?”
“Grecko died well before your parents,” said Risper, “and it is assumed that your father died before your mother.”
“Assumed?” I asked incredulously.
“You believe that your mother was killed by elementals, correct?” Risper raised an eyebrow at me.
“How did you know that?” I gasped.
Risper waved his hand. “Charlotte,” he said, clearly trying to be patient, “it is clear that whatever we thought we knew about the elementals and their relationship to darkness was false. Therefore, everything is open to question.”
I mulled that over. It was true that when I had first arrived at Public, I had just assumed that my mother had been killed by demons. When I had discovered that it wasn’t demons at all who had killed her, but elementals, who should have protected her, everything I thought I knew and everything I thought I wanted, like a relationship with my history, had been thrown into question.
“There are only three motivations anyone would have had for killing your mother,” said Risper quietly.
I looked desperately at the bounty hunter and thought about how much I trusted him. I trusted him almost as much as I trusted Lisabelle.
“What are they?” My voice was barely above a whisper. I’d no idea Risper would want to talk about this.
Risper ticked them off on his fingers. “There’s your brother Ricky. Maybe because he’s a dream giver or maybe because he’s an elemental, but someone wanted him exposed and without protection. Then there’s you,” he continued, pacing once more. “Maybe so that exactly what happened could happen - you, confused and isolated.”
“You mean that first night when the hellhound was stalking me?” I asked.
Risper nodded. “Anything like that. As I said, we do not know what really happened.”
“What’s the last reason?” I barely dared to ask.
“The last reason,” said Risper, “is the key to it all.”
He turned to face me. His eyes were hard and I suddenly realized I knew what was coming.
“The last reason was your father,” he said. “Did your father love your mother? Did he not? He must have once upon a time. But what happened later? It’s easy to assume that he was dead when your mother married your stepfather, but what if he wasn’t? What if your mother was attacked to try and draw out your father? What happened there? Who was he loyal to? I’d posit that above all he was loyal to your mother.”
I was staring desperately at the man standing before me. My father still alive when my mother died? How could he have left her alone like that? What about Ricky and me?
I sat down on an old crate and put my head in my hands. Risper gave me a minute while he rifled through a stack of papers. When I looked up he paused and raised an eyebrow at me.
“You can do this, Charlotte,” he said. “All the answers you want are there. They have to be. Look in the archive. I’ll go after the Globe White.”
I nodded, feeling numb. “Alright,” I said finally. So much was happening that I couldn’t seem to absorb it all at once.
He nodded approvingly. “Now,” he said, coming to sit on his own rickety box, “tell me about Lisabelle.”
In the end I sp
ared no details in telling him about Golden Falls. I started with the battle we fought at the end, after the Happiness Enforcement Officers had come to take Lisabelle away, but he wanted to hear what had led up to that moment. He wanted to hear about the entire semester, in fact, including the hybrids. So I told him.
When we reached the final battle, Risper looked angry. His hot temper was in stark contrast to the placid calm I always saw from Dacer.
“Luc should have done more than send his mother,” said Risper angrily. But then, after a moment’s reflection, he smiled. “Although the Unforgiver. . . .” He shook his head, appreciating something I didn’t know about.
“She helped,” I said quickly. “Lisabelle was able to make sure I got back to Public safely.”
“But at that point it was already too late,” said Risper. “It was too late by the time the Officers came for both of them. Lisabelle could fight her way out - magic is more malleable than werewolf abilities - but Sipythia would be at the mercy of her captors.”
I nodded. “Are you going. . . .”
Risper help up his hand and cocked his head, listening. “I do believe we’ve arrived at our destination. Come on,” he said, standing. “Enough questions for today.”
“I don’t want you to leave again,” I blurted out, surprising myself as much as I’d just surprised Risper. He was a Public professor, after all. What I wanted should be irrelevant to him.
“It cannot be helped,” said Risper kindly. “If it makes you feel any better, Luc is a far better mage than I am.”
“But he’s a vampire,” I said incredulously.
“Yes,” said Risper, “he is. But his father wasn’t. I wouldn’t ask him about it, though; it’s a touchy subject. But Luc has powers beyond what most of us dream of. It is only by happenstance that he enjoys channeling them into masks. And speaking of masks,” he continued, as though he was remembering one last thing he wanted to speak to me about, “do you still have Alixar?” How he even knew I ever had it was beyond me.
Dacer had given me a mask at the end of the previous summer, when we had failed so miserably to find the Globe White.
“Of course,” I said. “It’s at Astra.”
Risper nodded. “Good,” he said. “I would keep it handy if I were you.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I promised to do what he suggested.
“Public is going to be different this year, isn’t it?” I asked softly, thinking of the accusations Caid had thrown out with so much confidence the night before.
“Yes,” said Risper, “it is, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Let us just hope that the demons do not already possess the Globe White.”
“Even if they do,” I said, “what about the Mirror Arcane?”
Risper glanced back at me, anger sparking in his eyes. He looked just like his niece now. “What indeed?” he asked softly. “What indeed.”
We joined the streaming mass of students heading off the ship. We were next to a stretch of woodland that I recognized, and with that I knew that we weren’t far from Public.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Paranormal Public rose in front of our group. We’d been driven to the school on buses, much like the ones we had used when we came back after Caid’s end of summer party, and we were now standing outside the gates.
Sip and Lough had waited for me to board the bus they were on, and Risper had melted into the crowd. I’d been so preoccupied with what he had said about my father that I had forgotten to press him about where the Globe White was. I regretted that omission, because I had a feeling I wouldn’t have another chance to see him before he left.
“What did he say?” Lough whispered as we stood in front of the gates.
“A lot,” I said. “Come to Astra and I’ll tell you.”
“Sip, who stayed behind to look after Public?” This was Trafton, who stood casually holding his bag. Even now he looked like he should be a model.
Sip grinned. “A friend of Charlotte’s.”
I groaned. Instantly I guessed who she was talking about, and as the gates swung open and a short woman came out, her hair in a bun and a ridiculously colored pink and brown dress covering her round frame, I knew I had guessed right.
“All’s well,” cried Martha, waving to us. “Come on in.”
Martha was Public’s last defense mechanism. Effective, but also a bit dotty.
“I bet she’s been baking,” said Lough happily. “I’m definitely coming to Astra.”
The students streamed in. I could barely believe that I was a senior at Paranormal Public. Somehow, I had never thought I would get this far, but now that I had, I had a mission. Actually, a dual mission. We needed to get to the archive, and we needed to find Lisabelle.
Those two goals would be made significantly more difficult by the fact that Caid had said that the mass murder of paranormals by the Nocturns was my fault, and Sip’s. How that accusation was going to affect this semester was anybody’s guess, but I wasn’t optimistic.
That night we all stayed in Astra together. Sip didn’t like staying in Airlee without Lisabelle, and Lough said we both needed protecting. I told them everything Risper had said, including the part about my dad and the archive. Sip promised that we would go the second we could.
“I don’t even know what classes we have this semester,” said Lough, yawning.
Sip nodded agreement. “They start tomorrow, and we’ll get our schedules in the morning.” Her lids were heavy and she could barely keep her eyes open. “I wonder if the other students will come after us with pitchforks and try to use us as bait.”
“That’s why you need protecting,” said Lough sagely.
“I’d like to see them try,” I muttered.
The next morning we made our way to the new dining hall in the new building in the center of campus, which was finally finished. At one point Dacer had intended to move the Museum of Masks there, but in the end he decided that he liked his place in the Long Building just fine.
I had to remember to test Alixar at some point, since Risper had warned me to keep it close. It was the only thing I owned that I knew to have belonged to Queen Ashray, and it was all the more precious to me because of that.
Once we were seated at a table in the dining hall, our class schedules simply appeared in front of us. They were on light blue paper, the writing ornate and silver. Light streamed down from the large windows, blanketing our table, the breakfast trays, and our class lists.
Sip eagerly leaned forward to read her schedule and immediately groaned.
“I was hoping to have one semester here without a class with Zervos,” she said bitterly.
“There’s always next semester,” said Lough, squinting at his own schedule.
“As a senior, don’t you have a thesis to write?” he asked Sip.
She shrugged. “Yes, but since our majors are predetermined by our paranormal type, I don’t think it will prove much of a challenge.”
“What classes do you have?” I asked Lough.
“The History of the Paranormal Strange, with Zervos,” said Lough. “Advanced Pixie tactics with Korba, Advanced Spell-Casting with Professor Erikson, and Advanced Elixirs with Professor Dacer. Do you have the same?” he asked hopefully.
Sometimes we had electives, but since we’d been gone last semester and the amount we had learned at Golden Falls was in serious question, Oliva had decided that we were to return to basics for our senior fall.
“I have that plus thesis,” said Sip, looking focused as usual.
“What’s your thesis topic? Have you already chosen it?” Lough asked.
As seniors we had semester-long writing projects to complete, but my plan was to do mine next spring, and Lough’s was as well.
“Whatever will give me access to the archive,” Sip said seriously, lowering her voice. “Something to do with the evolution of werewolf transformation. It wasn’t always so easy for us to slip back and forth between forms. It took time, or we we
re only able to do it during the full moon.”
Lough nodded. “Sounds fascinating.”
Sip straightened her shoulder blades. “It’s a difficult subject,” she said. “It requires an advanced understanding of the dynamic between werewolf and form.”
“Sure,” said Lough. His eyes darted behind Sip’s head and I saw his cheeks flush. It was the only warning I had before Camilla Van Rothson stormed up to us, glaring at me as usual. We might be seniors, but some things never change.
“You saw Cale?” Her voice was high and shrill and her eyes burned. She wore jeans and a green shirt, her long blond hair cascading over her shoulders.
“Camilla,” said Lough evenly, “didn’t you graduate?”
I sighed and put my fork down. I had thought I might still see Daisy and Dobrov, since Dobrov had been on the ship, but Camilla was supposed to be finished and gone. She and Cale had dated as freshmen, before I’d gotten there, and she had never forgiven me for being his friend. It didn’t matter to her that we knew each other from having grown up in the same town.
“I’ve been kept back,” she hissed.
I was surprised she even answered the question, and even more surprised that she offered some details.
“I went to Golden Falls to get real world experience, but apparently I didn’t get enough of an education to count as my senior spring, so here I am.” She threw her arms up, bitterly taking in the campus.
“It’s your own fault, isn’t it?” Lough demanded. “You’ve been helping the Nocturns.”
Camilla’s eyes sparked, and for a second I thought she’d hit him, but instead she turned her attention back to me.
“Cale?” she asked.
“What about him?” I picked up my muffin and started to break off pieces of it to put in my mouth.
“Did you see him?”
“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t,” I said, meeting her angry brown eyes.
She leaned forward and I saw Sip shift, ready to fight if necessary. I didn’t move; I had no problem holding my ground in the face of Camilla’s anger.
“You think you’re so cool because you’re the last elemental,” she said, her voice hard. “You aren’t. President Caid knows the truth and he finally called you out for what you really are, which is a danger to all paranormals. It won’t take long for everyone else here to realize that.”
Elemental Darkness (Paranormal Public Series) Page 14
