by K. Gorman
Meese, who looked rather shocked at the soldier who’d just walked in.
Nathan turned back, closed the front door, then dragged his bags the rest of the way into the room. He hefted them onto the couch beside Robin before looking down on her.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Welcome home, dick-face.”
Meese never took her eyes from him. She looked stiff, tense.
Must be the uniform.
“It’s okay, Meese,” Robin said. “This is my brother, Nathan. Nathan, Meese. Mieshka, really, but everyone calls her Meese.”
Nathan’s eyes flicked back over Meese with a renewed interest. “The Fire Mage’s apprentice?”
He knew about that? “Yeah.”
He grunted. Then, taking a smaller pouch out of one of the bags, he disappeared into the bathroom.
Meese raised an eyebrow. Robin shrugged.
“Guess he’s tired,” she said.
They heard something heavy clunk in the bathroom. Robin narrowed her eyes as the water ran. He wasn’t normally this obtuse, but she supposed she’d be tired if she’d just spent the last few days crammed into a truck with a bunch of sweaty, smelly men. She didn’t know much about her brother’s service, but the news reports were enough to fill in the blanks.
Meese shifted. Her hair caught the light, eel-slick. Again, Robin found herself staring. She shook her head, gulped back the last of the drink, and forced herself to look away.
God, maybe she was getting tired again.
She pushed herself off the couch.
“Let’s watch a movie. I’ll get my computer.”
As she crossed to her room, her brother came out of the bathroom. Metal glinted in his hand.
In one swift, military-trained move, he leveled the gun at Meese.
Robin froze, halfway through her bedroom door. “Nathan, what the—?”
He pushed past her, putting himself between her and Meese. Her friend’s eyes widened as the barrel focused on her forehead. Robin saw a twinge of panic—the same panic Meese had arrived in Ryarne with six months ago.
She wasn’t doing much better, either. Her heart hammered in her chest. Her hands shook. For a moment, she couldn’t speak.
She forced her voice out.
“Nathan, what the fuck are you doing?”
He ignored her. “Mieshka Renaud, you are under arrest.”
His voice was low, steady, and dead serious. The gun never wavered.
Meese took shallow breaths. Her hand—the bandaged one—gripped either side of her knee.
“For what?” she breathed.
“Nathan, what the fuck are you doing?” Robin repeated, stepping back into the hallway. “She’s my best friend.”
“She’s also on the military’s most wanted list.”
Robin stared. “That’s impossible. She saved the shield. She beat—”
Meese interrupted her. “Since when?”
Her eyes had focused, sharpened. They studied Nathan with an unearthly calm.
“Bulletin went out last evening,” he said. “It’s on all the military feeds.”
Silence followed his statement. Emotion furrowed Meese’s brow. Her brother’s shoulder was in the way, but she could see the calculation in her friend’s eyes.
“What did it say about me?”
“You run with terrorists,” he spat. “You are to be taken in for questioning.”
Meese’s eyes flicked up and met Robin’s. Her newly dark hair framed either side of her face. Robin thought back to the dye—had it all been about not looking like Aiden’s daughter? Or had there been another motive?
She shook her head. What was she thinking? This was Meese—her friend, not a terrorist. There must have been some mistake.
Her brother shifted, tilting his face to the side but never lifting his stare from the Fire Elemental. “Robin, go get your phone. Mine’s out of battery.”
Robin looked between Meese and her brother. Then, she disappeared into her room.
When she returned, she had her phone. She also had her gun.
She pointed it at her brother.
“Nathan,” she said, her voice calm and steady. “Put the gun down.”
Meese’s eyes flicked to her, but Robin didn’t meet them. She didn’t take her focus from her brother.
Perhaps he sensed something had changed, or maybe heard the tone of warning in her voice, because he turned his head. Her gun caught his attention.
“On second thought,” she said. “Give the gun to Meese.”
“Robin, what—?”
She didn’t let him finish. “Give it.”
He didn’t move for a long time, and his stare bored into her. He gave her his entire focus now.
Apparently, the gun in her hand made her a more immediate threat than the Fire Elemental on the couch.
Finally, he relented. Without a word, he held out his gun, butt first, to Meese. She stirred, grabbed her crutch from where it leaned against the back of the couch, and stood. She took the gun and dismantled it with practiced ease, taking the magazine and leaving the rest of the parts scattered on the coffee table.
Then, she edged toward the door.
Robin followed, never taking her sights off her brother. At the door, she grabbed her coat and backed into the outside hallway. The hallway’s bright lighting cast her shadow across the threshold. The last she saw of her brother, his face had a grim, stern look, blue eyes watching her with a look she wouldn’t soon forget.
She shut the door and followed Meese away.
Chapter 25
Ketan froze, one foot halfway down to the next step. Dead silence filled the room, as if the building held its breath. The sound of the knock reverberated through his mind, pulling every string in his body taut with tension.
Who could have found him here? Leloni? Carson? Someone else? Who’d even seen him come in here? He hadn’t been the sneakiest person breaking into here, but it’s not like he’d advertised himself.
There’d been no one around.
Stale air pressed against his nose. Shadow pooled on the walls behind him. He’d turned the flashlight straight down when he’d heard the knock, and the old drywall beside him looked drawn and pale in the light’s backsplash. Old sawdust gathered along the baseboards and clung to long strings of cobwebs that draped over the edges of the stairs. A single set of footprints—his—smeared the dust on the floor.
He let his eyes unfocus, released the breath he’d been holding, and cocked his head toward the door. Whoever had knocked was being quiet, too.
Suspicious? Hell, yes. Though probably not any more suspicious than some street kid breaking into old apartments.
He had to admit that much. Maybe it was just the landowner coming to check on the building.
Something scraped against the door, and he held his breath again. Low voices—a man and a woman—murmured on the outside, too quiet and muffled to pick out the words. Unease prickled his skin. Maybe this place hadn’t been quite as abandoned as he’d thought—but what could he do? It wasn’t like people put signs up. Not down here. Maybe if he explained himself, apologized…
Yeah, how often had that worked in Terremain?
He slipped a hand inside his sleeve. The knife was right where he’d left it, strapped into a homemade wrist-sheath.
The voices stopped.
Then, they knocked again, louder this time.
“Meese, we know you’re in there.” The voice—female—came from the middle of the door.
Meese? Ketan blinked. They thought he was Meese?
The knocking returned. Dust fell as the door shuddered in its frame. If the bottom hadn’t been stuck fast on the concrete floor, it would’ve swung open.
The voice outside turned into a whine. “Meeeeeeeeese!”
He lifted an eyebrow. Well, that didn’t sound very threatening.
The man’s voice, louder now, cut her off. They argued in a harsh whisper, then stopped.
There was a pause.
Ketan stiffened as energy surged around him.
The door burst inward—hinges screaming, bottom scraping on the concrete—and slammed into the wall. He jumped back, feet slipping on dust as he adopted a semi-defensive stance on the stairs. The knife was in his hand, blade hidden, edge facing outward, gripped against the underside of his wrist.
Two people stood on the other side of the door, a single flashlight shared between them. The woman was small, slight—maybe five-foot-six, max—with skin several shades darker than Ketan’s. She wore a mix of post-punk attire—leather jacket with extra zippers, distressed jeans, an excess of necklaces. Two studs pierced her eyebrow.
He could see her running with Leloni.
The man beside her, on the other hand, looked out of place—instead of the streetwise air carried by his companion, he would look more at home in the city above, closing business deals in Ryarne’s Uptown high-rises, or perhaps lounging in some of the ritzy restaurants Ketan had seen on the bus ride in.
The man shifted, and the woman gave him an annoyed look.
“You must just love being Underground.” She crossed her arms, one hip cocked. “I haven’t seen you use this much since back in Tieffe.”
Ketan’s eyes narrowed. Tieffe was a major city in Swarzgard, the country currently invading Westray. What had they been doing there?
Before he could wonder, the woman’s sharp eyes caught his own. She looked him up and down.
“You’re not Meese,” she said.
“He isn’t,” the man agreed.
He shifted forward, closer to the light, and Ketan got a better look at him. He was tall—taller than Ketan by a head—and had a lanky but solid frame. He wasn’t white, as Ketan had first assumed, but his skin wasn’t nearly as dark as either Ketan’s or the woman’s—and it had a different tone to it. More olive than coffee.
Middle-Eastern, if he had to guess.
But it was the eyes that drew his attention. There was something wrong with them. Even when the light shifted up, it never quite hit them—as if he didn’t have any irises, only pupils.
Ketan stayed where he was, above them. Well out of range. Although, if that surge of energy he’d felt had been magic…
They could be more trouble than they looked.
The woman crossed the threshold first. The light caught on the white soles of her high-top runners and the ragged, rainbow-colored strings that laced them up. The front step creaked when she stepped on it.
She stuck out a hand. “I’m Kitty.”
Kitty. He recognized the name. The Electric Elemental from Terremain—a legend on the gossip vine that made up the streets.
Seconds ticked by as he considered the hand. Then, he shuffled the knife into his other hand and took it. The blade flashed in the light, and Kitty’s grin grew wider.
His gaze switched to the man. Kitty, teeth flashing with humor and mischief, introduced him. “And this is Gobardon.”
He hadn’t heard of Gobardon before. Ketan sized him up once again, gaze lingering on those dark eyes.
But the man had dismissed him. The eyes turned to Kitty. “Well?”
Kitty still held his hand. She pulled herself closer and stuck her nose out. “He smells like her. Like fire.”
Ketan’s eyebrows shot to the ceiling. He’d never heard of anyone who could smell an Elemental. But then, some of the stories of Kitty were pretty outlandish. Some said she couldn’t just control lightning, but darkness, too.
He’d only met a Dark Elemental once. It was not something he wanted to repeat.
“But,” Kitty said, her lip dropping in a pout. “He’s not Meese.”
Silence met her statement. Gobardon stared at the back of Kitty’s head with an indeterminate look. He folded his arms across his chest.
“You know,” he said, drawing the syllables out as if he were talking to a small child. “It is possible that there is more than one Fire Elemental in the Underground.”
Gobardon’s eyes slid up to meet Ketan’s, a single eyebrow lifting.
Ketan met it with one of his own. How many times had he done this in the last forty-eight hours? Without a word, he retracted his hand from Kitty’s and held it up.
Fire crackled on his fingertips, bathing the hallway in gold light.
It still didn’t reach the man’s eyes. Gobardon’s shadow jumped behind him, shivering on the brick wall of the alley behind him.
Kitty was impressed. She turned back to Gobardon, her grin flashing in the light.
“We must tell Meese.”
Shadow flickered in his corner. “We have other priorities.”
“But Gobb-eeeeeeeeee!” The whine was back.
He sighed. “Fine. We’ll tell her—if we see her.” A hand came up to his face, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Considering my father is actively looking for her, I find that probability in your favor.”
Ketan shifted, held up his other hand. “Actually, I’m looking for Meese—”
Gobardon gestured toward him. “See? She’ll find out sooner or later.”
Kitty stuck her bottom lip out. “But I want to tell her!”
“Wouldn’t you rather save her?” Gobardon moved away from the doorway, turning back into the alleyway. “Come on, let’s get going. Stop looking for Fire Elementals. You’ve got a job to do—”
“A quest,” she hissed.
“A quest,” he amended, sarcasm tainting his tone. “You know what he smells like. Earth, not Fire. Like me, not Meese.”
Kitty skipped down the steps after him. “Fiiiiiine.”
But as she reached the threshold, she paused and glanced back in his direction. Her dark eyes gave him a onceover.
“You know,” she said, “I think Meese will like you.”
And then, she was gone.
*
Rain was home when he arrived back at Leloni’s place, and the smell of fried onions filled the air. The teen barely looked up when Ketan walked in, bent over the tablet he’d propped up on the table.
“What’s up?” he asked as Ketan walked past.
Ketan’s bag had been moved to the corner, where it slumped against the wall next to his jacket. Things shuffled and clunked on the inside as he picked it up and swung it back onto the couch.
“How much do you know about Elementals?” Ketan asked.
Rain looked up, the blue of his hair jagged against his face.
“Not much. Why?”
The main light was back on, though he had suspected that from the lit streets he’d passed to get here. They used to have similar outages in Terremain—what had they called them? Brownouts? That's what the news called any scheduled power outages, but the ones in the Underground seemed just as unpredictable as the ones in Terremain had been.
He ignored the question. “Like, how many are there? I thought it was just Meese and that other guy.”
“And now you. That’s what I’ve heard.” Rain lifted his head. “Why? Did you run into more?”
He nodded. “Two of them. Kitty, from Terremain, and another guy. Gobardon. She’s Electric—apprenticed to the Mage in Terremain. He is… Earth.”
He had been Earth, right? They’d alluded as much. Ketan thought back to the surge of energy he’d felt, that burst just before the door had been forced.
“Huh. Maybe they came over from Terremain? I haven’t heard of any others. But then, that’s not really my crowd.” Rain stirred the pan before it could burn. “I heard the Earth Mage is a bit of a bastard.”
Ketan nodded. “I’ve heard much the same thing.”
He checked his stuff. It didn’t look like anyone had gone through it, at least. Everything was still there. His phone, still without charge, made a useless lump in a side pocket. Eventually, he’d have to get electricity. Maybe Devin could help him with that. If his new apartment still had functioning pipes and wires, then it couldn’t be too hard to hook it up to the Underground grid, right?
Otherwise, he’d have to live
without.
Which didn’t bother him much. There were other ways to get light and heat, especially for a Fire Elemental.
He swung his backpack up around his shoulder and hooked his jacket around its strap.
Rain regarded him, straightening. “You find a place?”
Ketan paused. “Yeah.”
“Nice place?”
“Decent. It will be nice when the utilities are hooked up. You know anything about that?”
“Maybe.” Rain tilted his head to the left, glancing at his tiny stove. “It got a kitchen?”
He nodded. “Galley.”
“With counter space? Made of actual counter?”
He nodded a second time. He had a feeling he knew where this was going. He sized up Rain, evaluating him in a new light.
“Would you consider a roommate?” Rain asked.
Ketan glanced around the room, surveying the ruined walls, exposed wiring, and the stains on the floor. “What, you don’t want to stay here?”
Rain laughed. “Not particularly.”
Okay, then. It would be good to have someone around when he was out. And Rain seemed like a decent person.
He shrugged. “Sure. There’s enough room. A little closer to town, too. You look busy, though. Should I come back for you?”
He eyed the simmering pot on the stove.
“Yeah, how about—?”
A flurry of footsteps ran up the stairs, cutting him off.
Leloni burst through the door. She scanned the room, her eyes skimming over Rain and settling on Ketan.
“Hey, you’re here.”
She was out of breath, as if running up the stairs had winded her. Even in the warm light of the room, she looked too pale. Her cheeks were gaunt and drawn, eyes sunken and shadowed into her face. But they looked straight at him. Bright. Hopeful.
Happy.
“We got a job,” she said. “Carson needs you.”
Ketan recoiled. Helping Carson was not on his priority list—and he sincerely doubted the legality of Carson’s ‘job.’
“I dunno, I—”
“Pleeease? For me?”
Leloni’s eyes pleaded with him. She looked frail in the shadows.
