by Jess Bowen
Cassius strode into sight, looking thoroughly nonchalant as people parted to let him through. He smiled genially at the band, causing them to immediately reassemble themselves and start playing. Cassius turned his smile on the watchful crowd, which immediately dispersed and headed off to other parts of the room.
Kali still showed no signs of consciousness—Ethan was going to have to ask Evan exactly how to do that so effectively. Once the crowd had left them and the band mercifully resumed its normal playing level, drowning out the sound of Dorian weeping over Kali, Cassius turned to them. His pleasant smile vanished and was replaced by absolute seriousness.
“I was delayed in coming to the ball this evening. I only saw Phoebe fleeing from the hall. What happened?”
They all started talking at once. “One minute everything’s fine…” Cynthia started.
“Yeah, Phoebe and Dorian were opening the ball and showing off, of course.” It amazed Ethan that Evan could still use sarcasm in this situation.
“Then the song ended…” Jared continued.
“…and Phoebe was hungry…” Ethan added.
Cassius held up his hand to stop the excess flow of voices. “Perhaps it would be prudent if only one of you spoke at a time. Ethan?”
Ethan took a deep breath to steady his voice and organize his thoughts. As he did so, he took a second to realize that Lucy’s thoughts were nothing but a nonsensical blur. Like something was being censored from him. But he could tell that she was completely focused on Kali and Dorian. Ethan wasn’t even sure if she was aware that Cassius had arrived.
Ethan let out his breath and answered Cassius. “I’m not sure, sir. One minute everything was fine. When the first song ended, Dorian went to get some food for Phoebe, and we all talked for a few minutes until the next song started. Phoebe danced with Hector while she waited for Dorian. Then sometime during the third song, Phoebe started acting weird, and we all found those two—” he jabbed his finger at Dorian and Kali “—dancing together. Dorian completely ignored Phoebe, and she froze herself. Hector, Cynthia, and Evan managed to unfreeze her, but then she took off.”
He tried to summarize as quickly as he could. He was starting to feel uneasy. They probably should have already started looking for Phoebe. There was no telling where she could have gone and how long it would take to find her. What if she had gone off somewhere else to try to kill herself? Cassius glanced at Dorian and Kali, and his expression turned dark. Dangerous. Ethan felt fear, and the look wasn’t even directed at him.
Cassius’s eyes didn’t move as he spoke. “Thank you for explaining this to me, Ethan. I do not believe that Phoebe has gone far, but it would be wise to find out for sure. I will take care of this.”
Five elves stepped up beside Cassius as he placed emphasis on his last word. Ethan and the others knew they were politely being told that whatever happened between Cassius, Dorian, and Kali was none of their business—yet. Cassius didn’t move, nor did he motion for the elves to close ranks around an agonizing Dorian and a still-unconscious Kali. Ethan knew Cassius was waiting for them to leave. They didn’t hesitate, although Ethan almost had to drag Lucy behind him.
They exited quickly and found an empty room halfway down the hallway where they could decide what to do next. Cynthia lit the candles with a halfhearted wave of her hand.
This is wrong. Something is very wrong. That wasn’t real. Lucy was finally thinking in a recognizable pattern again.
What do you mean it wasn’t real? Are you saying that we’re all dreaming or something? Ethan wasn’t sure what she was trying to get at. Her green eyes were very troubled.
No, I wish. I meant that wasn’t real, because something is very wrong with Dorian.
What’s wrong with him?
I don’t know. She sighed dejectedly. But I think Cassius will be able to figure it out.
“Okay, what now?” Cynthia asked as she started pacing.
Jared watched her progress as he spoke. “Well, obviously at least one of us needs to go after Phoebe. If she needs space, fine, but someone has to at least keep an eye on her.”
“Before we decide who’s going, we need to figure out where she would have gone,” Hector added.
“The gardens?” Evan suggested.
Ethan shook his head. “Too obvious. If she wanted to be alone, that would be the last place she’d go.”
Evan’s eyes lit up again. “How about her room?”
By “her room” they all knew that meant Dorian’s room. Phoebe hadn’t slept in the girls’ room in months.
“Maybe the gardens would be the second to last place she would go,” Ethan answered.
Jared sighed. “Let’s face it. She wouldn’t have gone anywhere inside.”
Cynthia’s face hardened. “The tunnels.” It was where each of them had been leading up to.
Ethan thought he had subconsciously known that was where she had gone. The real question was how far would she go?
Jared nodded in agreement. “Where else is there?”
Ethan had one last hope, even though he knew it was a long shot. “You don’t think she might have gone over to Rose and Philip’s? She loves being with the children.”
Evan shot this one down. “She would never go there upset. She wouldn’t risk upsetting Christopher or Millie.”
Ethan knew Evan was right. That still didn’t make a long run down the tunnels anything to look forward to. But, it had to be done.
“Then I say we all go, and once we find her, we’ll decide who should stay.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. It went without saying that they all needed to change their clothes.
“Bree, Sapphire, what is with you two? Quit nudging us!” Evan glared at the now-mature polar bear reproachfully, and Hector peered at Sapphire with concern.
Hope surged up inside Ethan at the same time he felt immensely stupid for not thinking of it in the first place. “Wait, how long have they been doing that?”
He hadn’t even noticed until that moment, but Bree and Sapphire had been taking turns to nudge Evan and Hector in their backs.
Bree couldn’t disobey a direct order from his Master, but he looked very upset about not being able to try to deliver his message anymore. “I don’t know, since we came in here, I guess. Why?” Evan asked.
“They know where she is!” Once again, Ethan marveled at his idiocy for not realizing that Sapphire would know where Phoebe was. Sapphire snorted in agreement and finally stopped trying to spear Hector with her horn. Not that she could have, of course.
Evan leaned down in front of Bree and looked excited again. “Did she go very far?” Bree shook his pure white head. “Well, where is she then?”
Bree made a forlorn sound in the back of his throat. Evan straightened up. “We need Pallin to translate.”
Jared raised an eyebrow at his brother. “No, we don’t. We can just follow them.”
Evan’s face flushed crimson, and Ethan couldn’t help but chuckle when his friend muttered, “Oh yeah.”
Sapphire snorted again and made her way over to Lucy. Aside from Phoebe and Dorian, Lucy was Sapphire’s favorite person. Phoebe’s companion rested her long face against Lucy’s cheek. Images burst to life in Lucy’s head, and Ethan gasped in shock.
“No way!” Jared exclaimed at the same time.
“What?” Cynthia demanded at the same time Hector asked, “What is it?”
“Sapphire has a talent,” Jared breathed.
Ethan knew it. He knew it the second that the images had burst into Lucy’s head—it had sent off a strange gnawing sensation somewhere in his stomach as heat crept up the back of his neck.
Evan stood slack-jawed and wide-eyed, as if he had never heard of such a thing before. Suddenly, Jared spun and turned his attention to Bree. “So does Bree!” he exclaimed.
The gnawing in Ethan’s stomach intensified as the images in Lucy’s head portrayed what was clearly the lake. Then the image changed, and it looked like dark water was all aroun
d and nothing else. He had no idea what any of it meant.
“What’s going on?” Cynthia said. She looked irritated by the fact that something was going on and she had no idea what.
“Sapphire has a talent, Image Projection, basically. Bree has a talent too. I never noticed it before. Empathy. He can sympathize with others and calm them. That’s why he’s always with Phoebe. She feels so much that Bree likes to be there so she doesn’t get overwhelmed!” Jared explained hurriedly.
Ethan vaguely realized that his hands were clenched into fists, and some region of his brain felt like it was on fire. Another part felt distinctly deadened. Shade shifted uncomfortably inside him, and his conscious skittered away from Ethan’s. Even Shade was disgusted by him. Ethan was supposed to be a Master. He was supposed to have great power. He was supposed to be showing some sign that there was even the smallest chance that he had some extraordinary ability to fight against the evil, and all he had was nothing. He was nothing. No more than any other average human being here. Now, not only did Phoebe have her three wonderfully powerful talents, but her companion had one too. Wonderful. Something’s wrong with me. He felt like he didn’t deserve to be who he was. Whoever did the handing out of powers must have been sleeping when it came time for his.
“Thank you, Sapphire,” Lucy said sweetly. “Phoebe is in the lake. She’s fine. She’s hiding her pain as a mermaid at the moment. It won’t last forever, so someone needs to be there when she realizes that. She froze the surface about thirty feet deep—an obvious sign we should wait for her to come to us and not the other way around.”
Evan let out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good. So, who’s going to wait for her, and what are we going to do when she comes back up?”
Sapphire, who had stepped back from Lucy after showing her the lake, stepped forward and placed her nose against Lucy’s cheek. Hector’s face flashed through Lucy’s mind, and Sapphire stepped back again.
Lucy smiled at the unicorn. “I couldn’t agree more,” she said quietly. Then she addressed everyone else more loudly. “Hector, I think you should go wait for her. If you don’t mind, of course.”
Wait, Hector? Why? We’ve all known her longer, Ethan interjected into Lucy’s thoughts.
Trust me. I’ll explain it all later. Those two little words laid his questioning to rest. Lucy always seemed to know what she was doing, and he did trust her. And loved her beyond any possible limits, but that wasn’t a topic in question at the moment—or ever.
Hector’s eyes searched Lucy’s for a minute. He looked as confused as Ethan had felt only a moment before. “Why me?”
Lucy didn’t even need to answer.
“Because you understand her,” Cynthia said. “Or maybe you just balance her. I don’t know. Whatever it is, you get her. Which isn’t exactly an easy thing to do, but it’s exactly what she needs right now.”
Evan huffed in apparent disapproval. “Wait a minute, we’ve known her longer. We know her. What is she, like, an alien now because she’s spent so much time with Dorian that we couldn’t possibly understand her anymore?”
“Look, bro, we all see her every day; that’s not the issue. The issue is what’s best for Phoebe right now. And I don’t think brotherly-type joking and wrestling is what she needs at the moment. Which is undoubtedly what you would do,” Jared said with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Cynthia nodded in agreement, and Evan’s angry look faded. Jared was right. Phoebe didn’t need anything resembling a brother at the moment, and Evan, Jared, and Ethan knew that they all fit that mold. A brother would joke and toss out clichés, like “There’s plenty more fish in the sea,” which would be the exact wrong thing to say to someone who just had their heart ripped out of their chest and stomped on in the most brutal way possible.
Not to mention, when someone found their soul mate—and Ethan had no doubts that Phoebe had—there were no other fish in the sea. He had only needed to see Phoebe’s face for a second to know that’s how she had felt. The gnawing in Ethan’s stomach died down as the memory of the look of absolute torture on Phoebe’s face bubbled up to the surface of his mind. He could imagine what it might be like to feel like that, but he could not imagine surviving it.
Ethan suddenly very much understood why Phoebe was taking any route possible to escape her pain. It was too much for any one person to bear. He couldn’t even think about how he would feel if it had been him.
Still, Lucy and Cynthia could go to her. But again, they were more like sisters and still probably the wrong kind of company for Phoebe. A sister would sit with her and try to make her feel better by bashing the poor loser and saying things like “You can do so much better.”
What Phoebe really needed was someone who would know when to listen and when to talk and what exactly to say. Hector was as much a part of their group as any of the rest of them, but he and Phoebe had a different kind of connection. They seemed to always know what the other was thinking and teased each other mercilessly, in a way that that neither of them would’ve let anyone else get away with. It seemed like just days after they’d met Hector, he and Phoebe were as comfortable with each other as if they’d known each other their entire lives. Although, the way Hector had been looking at her tonight…
“I’ll go,” Hector said after he had thought it over for a minute.
“Take her to your room when she comes out,” Lucy instructed. “We’ll wait for you there. She shouldn’t be in our room. She needs to be away from anything familiar. She just wants to get away from it all.”
“I know,” Hector replied in a forlorn voice. He rubbed his hand to his forehead as if he had a headache before he strode out of the room.
Ethan sighed tiredly. Was it possible that it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet? He felt like he had been up for days. Lucy snuggled into his side, and he moved his hand from hers and wrapped it around her waist.
Cynthia finally stopped pacing and looked around the room. “Well, we still need to change,” she said.
“Yes, and I’m sure Phoebe will want some different clothes when she emerges,” Lucy added from against Ethan’s chest.
Cynthia nodded to Jared, Evan, and Hector, and they headed to their rooms to get ready for later. Ethan hated to see Lucy go off to change. She looked beautiful. Not that she didn’t always, but the cream color of her dress complemented her skin tone, and her hairstyle must have taken hours. The glittering silver chain of her Element necklace made her skin look like it was shining.
Finally alone, the two of them stood together in the hallway for a few minutes. Ethan pushed her long hair over her bare shoulder as he traced the side of her neck and curve of her collarbone. She shivered when his fingers reached her shoulder and continued on down her arm. His other hand was at the back of her neck, and he turned her head up so he could look into her eyes. They sparkled just like he imagined emeralds would in the soft moonlight filtering in from the hall window.
“You look beautiful tonight,” he murmured.
She smiled sheepishly. “You’ve said that already. Lots.”
Ethan’s fingers came back up and traced the side of her face and started their trail all over again. “And I’ve meant it every time.”
She shivered again, and he involuntarily smiled. “You look very nice as well,” she commented breathlessly.
He pulled her closer, and for some strange reason he wished that she could get cold so that he could be the one to warm her up when she needed it. He wanted to take care of her in every way possible. She would never let him, but he wanted to.
The only thing I won’t let you do is fight for me. What’s the big deal with that? I can take care of myself, she thought. Ethan wasn’t sure if she didn’t want to speak out loud anymore, or if she was breathing too quickly to be able to do so coherently.
Because if I did nothing else, that should be the one thing I should always do to take care of you. Ethan never understood why she didn’t get it. She was tiny and breakable and mea
nt too much to him for him to ever let anything happen to her. She needed him to protect her. She may not like it, and she may not want him to, and she might get really mad when he tried, but oh well.
Well, you don’t ever have to worry about it, because you always do take care of me. I just want you to realize that I’m not some helpless little creature who can’t take care of herself and need big strong men to do it. I’ve made it this far on my own, haven’t I?
Yes, but I still worry about you.
And I still worry about you. Worrying is one thing. Being overprotective and oppressive is another. Worry about me all you want, but don’t keep me from doing things because you think I’m weak. Her thoughts were firm, and Ethan knew there was no changing her mind.
He also knew that if he did cross that line, Lucy would be angry with him for a very long time. Not to mention, he didn’t really want to argue with her at the moment. She was entirely too beautiful to have frown lines creasing her brow. He smoothed the lines out with his fingers and smiled.
I’m sorry. I promise I’ll worry and nothing more. Ethan wasn’t sure if he could stick to his promise, but he would try. Anything for her. It wasn’t just his new mantra, it was a way of life, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Evan thought it was hilarious, but maybe one day, if he was lucky, he would understand.
So, now that that’s cleared up for the four hundred and eighty-seventh time, Lucy thought exaggeratedly. Ethan couldn’t help but smile. Lucy might be sweet and innocent most of the time, but she did have a cynical and sarcastic side that always made him laugh. I think it’s time you kissed me. Demanding too; he had forgotten about that one. She was so tiny and delicate-looking that it was hard to imagine that anyone else would actually take her demanding side seriously. But he did. He always did.
She had him firmly and completely wrapped around her finger, and she knew it. And she deviously used it to her advantage at all times. Her personality and her outward appearance were like night and day at times like this. She grinned innocently up at him, knowing she was going to get what she wanted without even having to say please.
