by Sophie Davis
“Agent Kelley. Now,” another medic barked.
Under different circumstances, I wouldn’t have obeyed some jackass’s orders. But it was a miracle Frederick was alive, and I wanted it to stay that way. Slowly, I backed out of the room with a reassuring smile for my friend and a promise to return soon.
I should have gone straight to Talia. Not just because I hated the thought of her sitting somewhere stewing in her own anger, but also because she was going to be even more pissed when she learned Frederick was awake and I didn’t reach out to her immediately. Still, there was one person I needed to see first.
The Clearwood children were much easier to pinpoint in Crane’s house than my girlfriend, probably because she was actively hiding from me. Four of the six were together in the master suite of the same wing of the house as Riley and Frederick’s rooms, though in a different hallway.
When I entered the suite, the twins were gaming on the nicest console I’d ever seen. Zeta sat in the corner, reading a book and watching them with longing. Phi sat alone at a small table with four chairs and plates piled high with ribs, three different kinds of potatoes, glazed cabbage and beet salad, and four slices of pie. One of the pies must’ve been cherry, because it was all over his happy face.
“Hi Erik!” Phi waved enthusiastically, sending bits of potato flying.
“Hey. Got enough to eat there?” I teased but felt bad instantly.
The children were starving when we found them. Or maybe they’d found us, still wasn’t sure about that. Still, between healing so many people and the excessive blood loss, Phi needed all the calories in front of him.
“This stuff is so much better than the food at Clearwood,” he mused. Pointing to a free chair with his fork, he added, “Want to sit?”
“Um, sure.” I sat across from him but waved off his silent invitation to share the feast. “Thank you,” I said simply.
He looked at me curiously.
“For helping Frederick,” I elaborated. “And Talia last night, too. And I’m guessing Bryn Wellington, though I don’t quite understand how you got involved there.”
Phi grinned, exposing a mouth full of food that should never mix. He swallowed quickly. “It was what Talia wanted,” he said simply.
“Right….” It was what Talia wanted, but I still wasn’t clear on what had happened. “How did you know that? Did she come talk to you?”
I studied him closely as I waited for an answer. The Clearwood children were still unknowns for me. I trusted them more and more, yet I wasn’t ready to read too deeply into their minds. Talia could delve into another’s thoughts while keeping hers hidden, but I hadn’t practiced enough to prevent a curious kid from taking a peek if he really wanted to. Alpha and Epsilon both possessed incredible mental talents, so it was possible Phi did, too.
“She didn’t need to tell me.” Phi shrugged and took a large bite of pie with gooey purple filling.
“What do you mean? Can you…read her thoughts?” I asked carefully.
He shook his head and shoveled a beet in his mouth along with the pie. I nearly gagged.
“Sort of,” he said around the mouthful of food. “Only when she thinks really hard. Like when she’s blue or red. When she’s yellow, I just hear flies.”
Is that a riddle? I wondered.
“She’s red a lot when she’s with you,” Phi continued.
Ah. Emotions.
“Red, just like when she’s mad.” I laughed. “Can you hear her now? I bet so.”
Phi set down the fork and picked up a rack of ribs with his hands. He tore tender chunks of meat with his teeth, taking the time to chew and swallow before answering.
“Maybe if I tried. Alpha says it’s not nice to listen to people’s thoughts. She says, ‘if they wanted you to know, then they’d say it aloud.’”
I chuckled softly. “Your sister’s right.”
I watched him eat half the rack he was holding, which Phi then chased with chocolate milk. Again, things that should never go together. Several minutes passed with only the twins’ banter and the sounds from their game to drown out Phi’s chomping.
“Sometimes you can’t help it though, right?” I asked finally.
“I don’t mean to,” he said, looking sheepish. “Talia can be a really loud thinker.”
Yes, my girlfriend certainly is a loud thinker.
“Did you hear her thoughts about Frederick when we were in the hover?” I asked. Despite my best efforts, it was starting to sound as though this was an interrogation.
The boy didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn’t mind. Either way, Phi shook his head. “Nope. At the hospital. In the hover, she just wanted to hurt the doctor. Worse than you hurt the nurse.”
“Right. That makes sense.”
“Hurt” probably wasn’t the word that had been floating in Talia’s head. More likely, she’d been contemplating painful ways to kill Dr. Icaria.
“So, what about Bryn?” I continued. “How did you know about her?”
“Who’s Bryn?”
There wasn’t a trace of deception in Phi’s expression or his essence.
“Bryn Wellington. The girl you healed at the hospital.” I hesitated, my forehead wrinkling as I tried to puzzle it all out. “You did heal her, right?”
A spark ignited in Phi’s eyes. “The girl with the brother. Yep. It was what Talia wanted.”
Though I wasn’t sure how I’d expected this conversation to go, I definitely hadn’t anticipated it being so roundabout.
“Right,” I said, drawing out the syllable. “How did you know that, though? You weren’t around Talia long before that. Just those few minutes in the dorms.”
Had Talia and I even known then just how badly Bryn was hurt? I tried to remember, but so much had happened that the details were escaping me.
The look Phi gave me suggested I was an idiot.
“When I healed her,” he replied. “I could see everything. I could feel everything. That’s why I must stay close. She knows that one of you is going to die before this is all over.”
My heart dropped into my stomach. I had no words.
“But if I’m here,” Phi continued, “I can stop that. Talia should never be sad.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Talia
When I left Erik and Crane in the crypto bank, I didn’t have a destination in mind. All I knew was that I needed to get away from my boyfriend before I said or did something we’d all end up regretting. I wandered the wings of the presidential mansion and tried not to dwell too much on storm headed our way. There were any number of people I could have visited under the same roof. Nevertheless, in my mood, I thought it best not to subject anyone to my temper.
I actually considered finding Brand, just so I could be mean and not feel bad about it. But Penny needed her boyfriend more than I needed a verbal punching bag. Eventually, I found myself in an area with real punching bags. It looked like a training facility, not all that different from the ones at the McDonough School and Elite Headquarters.
I wasn’t the only one needing to work out my feelings. A very unlikely trio of people were already there: Kip, James, and Alpha.
“Talia, what are you doing here?” James asked, giving the punching bag a well-placed kick. He stepped aside deftly so it wouldn’t hit him on the backswing.
“Same as you, I guess.” I shrugged. “Where’s Kenly?”
“She went back to the crypto bank after we ate. I’m no help with all that rubbish, so I figured I’d come down here,” he replied.
“Have you seen Riley yet?” I felt bad that I hadn’t stopped by to check on him, but I had a lot of other things on my mind.
James nodded. “Briefly. I’m headed back up there after this.”
I looked toward the target range at the far end of the large, arena-like room. Kip was throwing pointy objects at moving droids. Pitching my voice higher, I called to him.
“And what about you? You have awful aim by the way.”
I caught it, only inches to spare between my nose and the tip and laughed. “Okay, right. I forgot you were a fisherman on Pelia.”
Alpha was halfway up a climbing wall—no ropes or carabiners in sight—and turned to look at Kip. “Sorry to interrupt, but did you say Pelia?”
“You’ve heard of it?” I asked, genuinely shocked.
Pelia was remote, isolated, and sort of stuck in a different era. Like the ice age.
“My family is from the region,” Alpha said. She leapt to the mats with feline grace.
Scars were visible on her arms and legs, and I assumed she’d dropped the perpetual morph in favor of her other talents while working out. I tried not to stare at the angry welts.
“That’s not possible,” Kip said. Even as the words left his mouth, he sounded uncertain.
“Well, not Pelia precisely,” she amended, walking over to where I stood with James.
Kip moved closer, too, so we weren’t all shouting at each other across the vaulted space.
“Paradis,” Alpha continued. “It’s a sister island to Pelia.”
“That’s not possible,” Kip repeated, giving Alpha a strange, appraising look.
James and I exchanged glances. I’d never of Paradis. Clearly, neither had James. Having been to Pelia, I was somewhat confident Kip was correct; there wasn’t another island anywhere near the frozen tundra he called home.
“Paradis was destroyed in—”
“In the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis,” Alpha finished for Kip.
“Yes. That was over a century ago,” Kip stated flatly.
Alpha smiled thinly. “I said my family was from Paradis, not that I myself was.”
Kip still looked a little…spooked.
“What’s going on?” I demanded, feeling very out of the loop.
After Erik’s rebuke, I was hesitant to invade anyone’s thoughts for the time being. Still, the urge was hard to resist when I knew I could just pull answers to my questions.
“Paradis de Fou,” Kip said. He turned slowly to face me. “It was a sister island to Pelia.”
“Paradise of Fools? That was the name of the island?” I asked, worried my French was rusty and I’d mistranslated the words.
Kip smiled wanly. “Yeah. Legend has it that hundreds of years ago, when pirates ruled the high seas—”
“A pirate story? This just keeps getting better,” I said, dropping to the mats so I could sit and give him my full attention.
History being one of my least favorite subjects in school, I was only mildly curious about these two islands and the legends associated with them. At the moment, though, I’d take any distraction.
Kip scowled. “Do you want to hear it or not?”
James eased down beside me, and I gestured for Kip to go on.
“Anyway,” he began. “Yes, this is back when pirates were a thing. It’s rumored that, at first, Paradis was this beautiful, tropical island that many of them aspired to find. It was said the soil was rich. All sorts of crops and wildlife thrived there. Plus, inside the volcanos, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds grew.”
“That’s not how that works,” James interrupted. “Volcanoes have lava inside of them. The others are just rocks from the ground.”
“It’s a legend.” Kip rolled his eyes and joined us on the floor, leaving only Alpha standing. “So, these pirates wanted to find Paradis to claim the riches or whatever. The few who actually located Paradis claimed that there were all sorts of treasures, just like the stories. They also said the island itself was cursed.”
Intrigued, I interjected, “Cursed how?”
“Like, weird stuff happened to the pirates while they were there,” Kip answered.
“One guy claimed that his ship levitated. Another said his captain saw a mermaid and then ran their ship into rocks. Others swear it was the people, the natives, who were cursed. That they were witches. Crazy stuff.” Kip shrugged like these types of stories were normal.
They were, sort of. But I’d just had a discussion with Crane about people throughout history reported to have bizarre abilities. Our conversation had even made me wonder if I might be descended from a family of witches, since Ferdinand Lyons had powers prior to the Great Contamination.
“When the pirates returned home to Europe,” Alpha picked up the story. “They would tell tales of their travels to this island paradise but warn of the curse. Or, rather, the cursed people who inhabited the island. Even still, others wanted to go. Monarchs sent explorations in search of this treasured land. Few returned. Those who did were supposedly never right in the head again.”
Chills ran up my spine, and I wasn’t entirely sure why.
“Exactly,” Kip confirmed with a nod. “So, the Europeans started calling the island Paradis de Fou, since only fools were stupid enough to seek out a cursed paradise.”
“You said Paradis was tropical? That doesn’t make sense,” I pointed out. “Pelia is frozen. It’s in the arctic.”
“It’s not in the artic, and it’s not always frozen,” Kip volleyed.
“The two islands were supposed to be like yin and yang,” Alpha said. “It has to do with currents and the winds from—“
I held up a hand. “Witches. Curses. Pirates. Levitating ships. Even mermaids. That I can follow. Let’s just skip over the science, okay?”
Alpha offered me a small smile as she bowed her head slightly. “Of course. My point is that the two islands were on differing sides of the Strait of Opposé. On one side, the waters were warm and the land tropical. On the other, the sea was icy and treacherous, and the was land frozen.”
“Fascinating,” I mused.
It really was. I still felt like I was missing something, though.
“As a more modern world developed, and air travel became a thing, more and more rich people began visiting Paradis,” Kip went on. Clearly, he was sensing that I wasn’t really getting the point of this story. “They built homes and flew their yachts out. They spent summers vacationing there. Few ever came over to Pelia, because it wasn’t nearly as enticing. Only those who thought themselves adventurous or brave would swim the strait or visit to climb the mountain.”
“The natives, however, were simple people,” Alpha continued seamlessly. “They worked the docks or ran markets. They made clothes and toys, that sort of thing. Like my family.”
“And mine.” Kip looked up at Alpha. “My family is originally from Paradis. We escaped to Pelia just before Paradis was destroyed. I thought we were one of the few, and I know all the others. They, too, live on Pelia. That’s why I am confused. How did your family get off the island? More importantly, how did they get to the States?”
Alpha shook her head. “I only know what my parents told me,” she hedged.
“Which is what?” I asked. “And please sit down, you’re making me nervous.”
She grinned, visibly relieved. It was almost as though she’d been waiting for the invite the entire time. Alpha sat cross-legged across from me, the four of us forming a circle.
“My great-great-great grandmother on my father’s side, she was a dressmaker on Paradis,” Alpha explained. “She caught the attention of a married man. He said he would leave his wife for her, but she did not want to leave Paradis. Still, she was pregnant with his son when the storms came. Supposedly, he made arrangements to fly her and his unborn child off Paradis before it was destroyed.”
“Supposedly?” James asked. “So, you don’t know for sure the story’s true?”
“I have no proof,” Alpha said uneasily. “The man did not leave his wife, he remained with her in France. Bindi, my ancestor, and her son started over in Athens, Georgia. Really, for all I know, it is just as much an urban legend as the tales that surrounded Paradis.”
“You think it’s true,” I said.
I
t wasn’t a question. Alpha clearly believed the stories about both Paradis and her family. Honestly, so did I. There was something about the strange story that resonated with me. Not that I’d heard it before or anything like that. Just…I couldn’t place my finger on it.
“What is it, Talia?” James asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
Did I tell them about the family trees? Did I tell Kip that his family—the one from Pelia’s sister island with all its mystical legends—had people with documented powers prior to the spill? It didn’t seem like the right time to bring it up.
“Kip,” I started. “You said you know the other families who escaped from Paradis to Pelia?”
He nodded.
“Is Emma’s family, the Montagues, one of them?” I asked.
Alarm made Kip’s eyes widen. “How did you know that?” he demanded.
Pieces began clicking into place. There were a lot of holes in the puzzle still, but I felt like I was onto something. Something huge. My gaze found Alpha’s. She was looking at me so strangely.
“What was the man’s name?” I whispered, locking her eyes with mine.
A part of me hoped that I was wrong. Another part prayed I was right. The theory forming in my mind was farfetched, but it also explained the message that Emma’s father received when I was on Pelia. It explained why he would be in contact with Nightshade. It explained who would have known to reach out to him and why they did.
Still, I wasn’t entirely prepared for Alpha’s answer.
“Ferdinand,” she said softly. “Ferdinand Lyons.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Erik
When I finally tracked down my girlfriend that evening, she in Alex’s room. I felt Talia inside, her emotions swirling from one extreme to another. She was so agitated, I almost didn’t go in. Then, laughter met my ears. Alex’s sweet, infectious giggles were a sharp contrast to Tals’ mood. With a deep breath, I entered the room.
My father stood with his back to me in the doorway to the attached bathroom. A proud smile softened his face. I joined him, Talia’s back to me. Alex patted soap foam on her cheeks.
