Turning Tides (Elements, Book 3)

by Mia Marshall

  “We hardly thought we needed them. It was clear to everyone in attendance that his daughter caused the fire.” There was no mistaking Rachel Strait’s imperious tone. “I will write something up this evening and deliver it to him. We will not have him arguing this was improperly handled. The girl’s trial is tomorrow, and then we can return to the issue of the Brook child.”

  “And then we can get off this island, right?” Michael asked.

  “Are we really in such a rush to convict? Our verdict will lead to a death sentence. We can’t take that lightly. Don’t we owe it to ourselves, to the elementals for whom we are responsible, to treat our duty with the weight and honor it deserves? To truly consider what we plan to do to Aidan Brook?” Lydia Pond spoke quietly, but there was no missing her beseeching tone.

  Blood rushed to my face at her words. I fought to remain still when every muscle in my body yearned to jump out and demand they explain what, exactly, they had planned for my future.

  Grams couldn’t be with them. They’d never talk this way if she was there. It was just the four remaining council members.

  With every mention of my intended sentence, I became more certain it was something to be avoided at all costs.

  I thought of Edith and wondered if my fate had been something worth dying for.

  My fire stretched, reminding me of its presence, reminding me that I didn’t need to meekly accept whatever punishment they had planned. My core warmed, filling with the power and strength of forbidden magic.

  Impatience colored Rachel’s words. “We’ve had this discussion, and we voted. We voted with Edith, and we voted again after she was killed. The decision was made, and it is past time you accepted that, Lydia. We all know this is our best chance to do this.”

  Before, I’d been concerned. Rachel’s words pushed me into “downright disturbed” with the needle edging toward “really fucking pissed.” Whatever they were planning, all my instincts screamed that I needed to stop them, any way I could.

  There were murmurs and a bit of grumbling, but no one argued. No one fought against this mysterious sentence. No one stood up for me, not even Lydia.

  My fire side was not impressed.

  It growled and spat, no longer quiescent. In the face of a perceived threat, it wasn’t content to rest until I called on it. It whispered a solution, one so foreign and impossible I wanted to believe it came from elsewhere, from someone else. I couldn’t be the one thinking this.

  And yet, I was.

  I could end this, right here. All I needed to do was give the fire free rein to attack Rachel. I could blacken her heart, roast her lungs, turn her insides to ash. I knew I could. Just the thought was enough for the magic to roar in triumph.

  I gasped at its power and fought against it for the first time in weeks. I imagined the box where I used to trap it, where I would keep my fire separate, and I demanded it return.

  It refused.

  The fire knew exactly what should happen. It would only take one dead body. If Rachel fell while Sera was safely tucked away on the other side of the island, no one could say she was guilty.

  If Rachel fell before my sentence was read, they wouldn’t have the numbers necessary to complete my farce of a trial.

  It would solve all our problems. All I needed to do was kill one unpleasant woman.

  I narrowed my focus on Rachel’s voice, following her as she moved toward the stairs and dropped first one foot, then another onto the marble. It would be so simple to end her life. I’d need to be fast, before anyone understood what was happening and attempted to heal her, but I could do that. Though I tried to deny it every day, I knew I was a strong fire. I was Josiah’s half-blooded daughter, after all.

  I felt the magic uncoil, greedy and willful. It wanted release. It wanted payback for a lifetime of being ignored, for being denied access to its element. More than anything, it wanted to burn, and it agreed that Rachel was a damn good place to start.

  I thought I’d found some measure of peace with my magic. I thought I might control it.

  I was wrong.

  The magic poured forth, freeing itself from the confines of my body. A small voice whispered that I needed to stop, to consider what I was doing, but that voice was no longer in charge. Fire ruled me now, and it had no interest in debating its plans.

  The magic was not subtle. It did not flow toward Strait along a gentle path, as the water might. It surged toward her, hungry tendrils seeking their target. She was twenty feet away, then ten, then only inches from the fire.

  I wanted the flames to consume her. Fire is heat and life, but it is also change and destruction, and I longed to watch and laugh while Rachel succumbed to its power.

  I exhaled in pleasure.

  I was so lost in the moment, the noise hit me like a physical assault, bludgeoning me with its high-pitched demand for my attention. My alarm, telling me it was time to get out of the house.

  Though it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, I felt days pass, time stretching to impossible lengths as I was torn from my fire-induced stupor. I blinked and drew in a long, shaky breath.

  My water side surged and rolled, demanding my attention. It was almost enough to remember who I was. I yanked on the fire magic, pulling it hard to me. It resisted. It still wanted to feed.

  A shadow dropped over my mind, its inky tentacles threatening to consume the light I knew.

  I called to the magic again, putting the entirety of my will into the action. All my determination, all my stubbornness fed the command, ordering the fire to return. At last it came, sullen and reluctant, but it refused to be put back into its neat box. It whispered through my core, unwilling to be silent. It dared me to believe I’d ever been in control.

  The fire mingled with the water, the two magics speaking to each other in a language I didn’t understand and could not trust. I wrenched them apart. I called on memories of my friends and home and even my family, all the reasons I needed to fight, and after the longest moment of my life, the magic settled.

  The shadow receded. I felt myself return. I was still me, and I wasn’t a murderer. Not this time.

  I swiped the screen, silencing the beeping tone, but it was too late. Footsteps turned toward the library, the clack of heels telling me Rachel was leading the parade of council members. It wouldn’t take more than a cursory search for them to find me.

  Maybe I could have justified visiting my own relative’s house while she wasn’t there. It would be a fair bit harder to explain why I was hiding behind a curtain while doing so.

  I rifled through my brain, looking for any possible excuse for my presence. I made it as far as bay window fetishist before I was spared the need to defend myself by a black cat hurtling toward the council members.

  Though I dared not peek around the curtains, the sound effects were more than enough to fill in the missing visuals. The high-pitched yowl of an angry cat, starting from high in the shelves and arcing down to the floor. The startled exclamations from the four people in the doorway as the small body darted between their legs, escaping the room and fleeing upstairs, all the while making high pitched noises one might confuse for the beeping of a cell phone.

  The council questioned where on earth that cat had come from, but already they were laughing at their surprise. The clack of high heels was no longer in the library, and as I waited, the council members headed upstairs to their rooms.

  A few seconds later, I peeked around the curtain to confirm I was alone, then raced to the front door. I don’t think I took a single breath as I crossed the foyer, my rubber-soled sneakers far quieter against the marble than Rachel’s heels.

  I opened the door just enough to slide through and closed it gently. Even so, the click of the latch sounded impossibly loud, and I pressed myself against the house, fearful someone would look out an upstairs window and see me fleeing. I counted to five, then slid to the west side, where the only windows were in the garage and the billiards room on the second floor. I had t
o trust that a meeting with Josiah wouldn’t inspire a sudden need to play pool.

  I strained my ears toward the house, but all was silent.

  At last, I stepped away from the house. With each step, I grew more confident as I made the effort to look like I belonged there and absolutely had not been up to any sort of breaking, entering, or attempted murder on that particular day. At some point, a small black cat appeared at my side, and together we strolled along the northern shore, doing our best to look perfectly innocent.

  I was anything but.

  With each step that took us closer to the cottage, some facsimile of calm returned. My magic felt just as it had an hour ago, but I knew. I knew what it was capable of now. I knew what I was capable of doing.

  That was the woman I was edging closer to every day. Cruel, unrepentant, and more powerful than she had any right to be.

  It was why there was a death sentence imposed on all dual magics, and I couldn’t blame them.

  I wanted to find a dark corner, curl up in a ball, and give in to the fear and panic threatening to consume me. I didn’t know how to paste on a smile and pretend everything was okay, but I had to figure it out damn fast. Sera still needed me, and Mac. I could go crazy later. First, I had to save them.

  And maybe, just maybe, if I did that, everything would be okay.

  At least, that’s what I told myself as I walked to the cottage, clutching the tattered shreds of my sanity the entire way.

  When we neared the cottage but before we were in camera range, I placed my purse on the ground for Simon to jump into. Though the look he gave me was scornful as only a cat’s can be, he didn’t argue, so there was no photographic evidence that a small black cat entered the house along with me.

  His reunion with Sera was brief but sweet, though I was certain they’d both reject that adjective. They lifted the corners of their mouths slightly and nodded, acknowledging the other’s presence.

  “I knew you couldn’t stay away,” Sera told him.

  Simon grabbed a blanket and spread it on the sofa before curling up, a small concession to us weird elementals who preferred not to have butt sweat on our furniture. “I’m fairly certain it’s the other way around. You lot are useless without my help.”

  After the last twenty-four hours, I couldn’t even argue that point.

  I handed them the IP address. Vivian didn’t answer when they pinged her in chat, and she didn’t pick up the phone, so they sent her an email, arguing the entire time about what information they should include and how much grief they should give her about her continued silence. I figured, so long as they were the ones contacting her instead of me, I was sticking to the letter of her request for distance, if not the spirit.

  Neither noticed how quiet I was. I watched them, these friends I loved, and tried to burn their images into my memories, a reminder of something good and pure to cling to when my mind had little interest in being either good or pure.

  It was starting. The fire was done being quiet. I’d called on it too many times, granted it too much freedom. The schism was forming in my mind, the use of both magics creating a dual self. For now, it was just the fire side that lacked a conscience, likely because I’d never learned to control it, but it was only a matter of time before the damage seeped into my water side, as well.

  I’d dared believe I had it under control, but this afternoon exploded that particular self-delusion. I didn’t control the magic. The magic was beginning to control me.

  I needed to tell someone. I’d vowed to give up that whole “no man is an island” thing right around the time I burned down my house in Oregon. I just had no idea where to begin.

  If I told either of my parents, they’d lock me in a padded room for the rest of my life, safe from anything that could ever harm me, including myself.

  Josiah might be more creative. He would move me to his Hawaiian compound, as he’d tried to do on more than one occasion, where I’d be subjected to all sorts of tests intended to save me, if I didn’t mind being a lab rat for centuries to come.

  Once Mac knew what I was becoming, I’d lose him, and I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready for whatever we were to end before we’d truly begun.

  Mac was the last one. He was the last man I’d know, that I’d care for, that I’d be with, before the crazy fully took over. Fair or not, I needed that. I needed one night with him, one night when I could pretend forever was still an option, and then I’d tell him. And if that was playing dirty, I’d happily roll in the muck with the pigs to have just a few more days with that man.

  Sera’s trial was the next day, and I refused to give her more reason to worry. When she was safe, I’d tell her. It was a place to start, at least. I could wait one more day.

  And while I waited, I’d save my best friend this one time, to make up for all the times she’d been there for me. If my sanity was burning out at an accelerated rate, then I was going out in a blaze of glory. Fixing Mac. Saving Sera. Hell, give me enough time and I’d cure the common cold and find out who took the Lindbergh baby. Whatever happened, I wasn’t going quietly into madness.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” I announced, and exited the cottage before either could ask where I was going.

  If I was running out of time, there were a few loose ends I needed to tie up first.

  When I felt like this, felt the desire for action, for movement, for something concrete I could touch and understand and change, I knew that was the fire side speaking.

  It didn’t matter that my fire and water magic were equally strong. I identified as a water. It was how I was raised and what I saw in the mirror. It was the identity of the family that surrounded me. I could never see the fire as anything but an interloper.

  So I did the one thing that always worked for me, a quiet, calming activity I associated with my water side. I found a rock overlooking the ocean on the south side of the island and pulled out my notebook. I might not feel safe putting my recent personal problems in writing, but I could at least outline everything I knew about the recent murders.

  It didn’t take long. I knew the council had a plan, and based on all available evidence, I was fairly certain it was a nefarious one—and not just because nefarious is such an awesome word. In my experience, when people are keeping secrets at the same time bodies start falling, the two things tend to be related.

  It wasn’t much to go on.

  Next, I listed everyone I’d seen on the island since arriving. For the most part, it was one Brook after another, the people I’d grown up with, but I knew better than to discount them outright. After all, none of them knew I was part fire, so there was always a chance they were keeping the same secret. It was a teeny, tiny chance, but I was a desperate woman. I couldn’t afford to ignore any possibility.

  I wrote Lana’s and David’s names, and the four remaining council members. They were all strangers to the island, and smart money was on the hidden fire being somewhere in their midst. If it was Lana, we’d need to hand over the island to her, and possibly the keys to the entire world, because anyone who could hide her villainous intentions under such a ridiculous exterior was a criminal mastermind the likes of which the world had never seen.

  I knew little about David, which was reason enough to suspect him. It was a shame, because I liked the quiet stone, but I’d liked a couple of other murderers before I learned what they were. I underlined his name on the list, then studied the remaining four names.

  Four council members. Four powerful waters from old families. Four people in obvious disagreement over, well, something. I didn’t know what it was, but I was certain it was important.

  My phone buzzed. To my surprise, Vivian’s number came up on the caller ID.

  “You know, asking Sera and Simon to email instead of you doesn’t let you off the hook on the whole distance thing,” she said in greeting.

  “They volunteered. You said you’d help till Sera was clear, remember?”

  “I should know better than to e
ver give you lot an inch.” The words contained no small amount of frustration, but there was also an unexpected hint of laughter.

  “Well, they miss you.” She didn’t respond. “What’s up?”

  “I need to know what the priority list is. Computer files or info about the islanders?”

  I weighed the options. “Computer files, I think. Those bastards are up to no good.”

  “Got it. And so you know, I’ve already gone through half the list. Other than finding some possible contenders for a wine rehab program, I’m not uncovering much dirt.”

  Another dead end. This wasn’t the news I’d wanted.

  “Except there’s some stuff on the councilman who ruined the Transformers movies.”

  I perked up. “Not the same man. We can’t blame him for those. What’d you learn?”

  “He’s broke.”

  “Is that even possible? You know all the old ones are filthy rich.”

  “Well, numbers and offshore bank accounts don’t lie. He invested eight hundred million dollars in some seven-star hotel being built in Dubai, all of which vanished when the entire building fell into the Persian Gulf. Apparently, there are reasons one shouldn’t hire workers just a step above slave labor to build a luxury hotel on a man-made island.”

  “No insurance?”

  “Not a cent.”

  I wasn’t surprised. Being a flighty water had its downside.

  “That’s interesting, but I’m not sure if it helps us.”

  “I’m not done. Guess who his business partner and co-investor was? One Edith Lake.”

  My eyes widened. “Seriously? Am I correct in thinking she bought insurance?”

  “Made a tidy profit, while he was ruined. Sounds like a nice revenge motive to me.”

  “It sure as hell does. Vivian, you are a rock star.”

  “Keep your flattery. Just save Sera, okay?” Though she didn’t say it, the implicit meaning was hard to miss: clear Sera so we could once again leave Vivian alone. We hung up on her promise to get me the council’s files that night.

  While I waited for Vivian to hack the council’s laptop, I could manage a bit of legwork. I tucked my notebook into my purse and headed toward town.