Turning Tides (Elements, Book 3)

by Mia Marshall

  “Gotcha, Brook,” said a grinning Miriam. “It didn’t look like you were responding to logic, so I went with something a little different. Did I ever mention I won a national flag football title?”

  The tackle might as well have been a reset button, shocking my magic loose. My hold on both the flames and the water lessened, the magic flowing back into my core.

  I almost felt like myself again. I pushed weakly at Miriam’s shoulder, but she didn’t budge. “I thought you didn’t tackle in flag football.”

  “I like to experiment with the rules. If I let you up, do you promise not to fucking kill anyone?”

  I looked around the room. True to her word, Sera had taken control of the fire, and I suspected Josiah was adding his power to hers. They’d widened the flames, keeping Rivers trapped. She would be warm, but alive.

  Water hovered above her, being yanked to and fro by my family and Deborah. Lana still fought on the side that didn’t seem interested in burning people to death, and I was no longer sure I could blame her for that.

  “You don’t let a girl have any fun,” I muttered to Miriam, but this time when I pushed on her shoulder, she stood and offered me a hand up.

  The room stilled enough to watch me, their eyes telling me they thought my claim of being a stable dual magic had been rather overstated.

  “How does this end?” I asked the room.

  “She dies,” said Josiah, as calmly as he would tell me what he ate for lunch. “She has to.”

  “We can’t just keep killing everyone who knows what I am.”

  He turned to me with one eyebrow lifted, and in that moment he looked so like Sera I almost loved him, this man who lived by his own moral code, who’d given me my sister, who would literally find a way to move mountains if that’s what it took to save his daughters. He wasn’t a good man, but at least he was on my side.

  “Do you have another option?” Josiah asked.

  I didn’t. Some people could be trusted with my secret. Deborah was not one of them.

  And yet, I couldn’t speak the words. A moment ago, I’d been ready to kill her myself, but I couldn’t condemn her, not when I was in control of my own mind.

  Josiah didn’t wait for my permission. As I watched, the flames intensified, the heat felt throughout the room.

  “This is barbaric.” David stood, glaring at each of us.

  He was right. The room was about to watch a woman burn alive.

  And once she was dead, Josiah would move on to Michael, and Lana, and David. No threat to my life would leave the room unscathed.

  “Stop.” It was my voice, though I didn’t recall making the decision to speak. “No more.”

  The flames dipped, and Josiah frowned at me. “Have you thought of another way?” It sounded like he was humoring me.

  “Pull the flames back.” When he didn’t, I looked at Sera. She nodded and fought Josiah for control of the fire. Her attention was fixed on the flames, but her features were marked with sadness. She knew what I was about to say.

  It was what needed saying.

  “No more death. No more protecting me by destroying others.”

  Josiah began to protest, but I talked over him. This wasn’t up for debate.

  “You know this is the right call.” I spoke to my mother, Grams, and Sera. I met my aunts’ sad eyes, and even dared a glance at the others, those I’d just fought against. “Josiah can’t keep killing in my name. It would destroy me. And if that wasn’t reason enough, it’s only a matter of time before I start doing the killing myself.”

  My mother shook her head, but words failed her.

  “It’s the truth, and while I still have the capacity to regret my actions, I have to do the right thing. I don’t want to be a killer. Please, honor my choice. Take me to Eureka, put me in a room across from Trent, and let me have my trial. We can make the case for treatment instead of execution. But no more hiding, and no more killing. I can’t take any more.”

  My throat closed on the words as I finished, and a strong arm wrapped around my shoulders. I leaned into Mac, borrowing his strength.

  No one was happy with my decision, but no one fought it.

  Sighing heavily, Josiah walked up to Deborah, now standing in a ring of burnt carpet. My eyes widened when he held out his hand. “No hard feelings, old girl?”

  They turned downright bug-like when she took his hand in hers. “You were protecting your own, Josiah. Though I don’t agree with your choices, I understand them. And, as everyone is still alive, no elemental laws were broken tonight. I see no reason to take this further.”

  And they worried that I was the crazy one. Millennia of life might give one a different perspective on life and death, but this was still unexpected. I was starting to think, if my time in Eureka got me far away from these batshit old ones, it would be time well spent.

  “What the hell is wrong with you people?” asked Miriam, echoing my thoughts.

  All our eyes were on two of the most powerful creatures in the world as they forgave each other for attempted murder.

  No one was watching David.

  We had one warning, a small cry from a tinny speaker. I stepped toward the computer, to ask Vivian to repeat herself, and almost missed seeing what she’d already spotted.

  The letter opener in David’s right hand, just as it plunged between Josiah’s ribs and deep into his heart.

  Screams and gasps and magic filled the room, everyone trying to stop him as the letter opener was withdrawn and inserted again and again, piercing the heart twice more.

  David was soaked, covered in the water with which the others had tried to slow him, but he was smiling, a grim, satisfied smile as Josiah fell to the floor.

  Some things, even magic couldn’t cure.

  His eyes were open, wide and black and so like Sera’s, except now they were empty. A man who’d practically glowed with the energy that fueled his every movement was still, and forever would be.

  Beside me, Sera didn’t sob. She wasn’t there yet. She drew short, jagged breaths, her shocked body struggling to remember how to survive. I felt her grief, waves of horror and disbelief that this man we’d believed was practically immortal was gone.

  It took seconds for my sister’s life to irrevocably change, for a pain that would never truly heal to take root in her soul.

  Despite what Josiah was, she loved him, and her father was dead. Our father was dead, and one man was responsible.

  That was when I finally lost my mind.

  Chapter 27

  The fire shot through me, taking over my entire body. Arms, legs, hands and feet filled with heavy strands of magic. It slid into my throat and climbed the back of my neck, creeping like a spider across my skull. It filled every cell, every pore with unrepentant rage.

  I’d given in before. I’d accepted the fire’s embrace, its absolute knowledge that what I did was right. Those times, there’d been a quiet voice I chose to ignore. The voice insisted that I couldn’t give in. It told me to fight the fire’s ravenous ways.

  Now, the voice was silent. It was just me and the fire. This time, I wanted to be consumed.

  “If you want to live, you should leave now.” My voice sounded foreign, flat and hard. “This house is going to burn.”

  I sent a burst of flames toward the curtains. In a room full of waters, it was extinguished immediately.

  I hissed, the sound more animal than human. “Do not interfere.”

  My aunts stood. I saw fear on their faces, but still they faced me. “Aidan, you can’t win.” Georgina searched my face, believing her niece still hid just below the surface.

  Tina nodded. “Think of the books. You like books. They’d all burn.”

  Marie chimed in. “Or be ruined by water. This isn’t like you.”

  I stared at them until their brave faces crumbled, until they no longer trusted themselves, let alone me.

  They were wrong. This was exactly like me. This monster had been inside me all along, waiting f
or an excuse to escape its bindings.

  I cast flames throughout the room. The carpet, the desk, the shelves of books. Books were replaceable. Josiah was not.

  One after another, each fire was doused. I set more, and more, and all were extinguished by the waters in the room. Marie grabbed Tina’s hand, and Tina grabbed Georgina, pooling their magic together. Three fulls working in tandem were unimaginably strong. Behind me, my mother and Grams also worked together.

  Everyone in the room was fighting me.

  Everyone except Sera.

  I clutched her hand, my fingernails digging into her skin until they drew blood. She was no more gentle. Our magic combined, crackling and sizzling and unbearably angry. Something needed to be destroyed.

  Someone needed to die.

  The room was full of people. I knew this. My mother and my grandmother and my aunts watched my every move. Lana stared between us with wide eyes, making strange squeaking noises. Michael and Deborah glared, and any hope I might have clung to that I would receive a fair trial vanished.

  If I released the fire, my life was over. They wouldn’t allow me to live long enough to see morning.

  Together, Sera and I set the room ablaze. If it was made of wood or fabric or paper, we torched it, and every time the flames were put out by the waters. We were outnumbered.

  I looked at Sera, my fire sister. We didn’t need to speak.

  I tugged the hand Sera wasn’t holding, trying to free it from someone else’s grip. There was no give. Growling, I sent fire toward the stubborn flesh and was rewarded with a low curse.

  “I’m still not letting go.”

  I paused. The voice was familiar. The hand was, too. I was forgetting something, something worth remembering. I scrambled after it for a moment, but it scampered away, unwilling to be caught. Not yet.

  Instead, I sent heat toward David, igniting his clothes even as I tapped into my water side. It came eagerly, craving the man’s execution as much as the fire did.

  Even as I knew the perfect clarity that only came when my magic worked together, darkness slipped over my mind. The shadow threatened to consume me, and part of me welcomed it.

  I fought the elementals who were determined to put out the flames. They sent water to him, and I hauled it away, one wave after another. They’d overpower me eventually, but first David would burn.

  He screamed, and I smiled to hear it. I laughed as he collapsed to the ground, using the damp carpets to smother the flames.

  The fool thought he might get to live.

  I stopped fighting the waters, instead taking the fire and sending it through his skin. He coughed, trying to expel the intruder.

  “Why did you do it?” I built the heat, raising his temperature.

  Sweat broke across his brow and his cheeks grew flushed. More heat, and more, until he was writhing in pain, struggling to find words.

  “I told you. He killed my mother.” He gasped the words, and the pained face he turned to me was clear of deception.

  That should mean something. Josiah hadn’t been a good man, and he’d probably earned his death. In all likelihood, he’d deserved it several centuries ago.

  He was also my father, the only one I had, and in his way he’d loved me.

  Though David’s words were steeped in memories of a child’s unspeakable pain, they left me cold. I was someone’s child, too.

  It was a bitter irony that the hotter my fire burned, the more I felt like ice, hard and immovable. I could destroy this entire room, and I would not care.

  Instead, I took the fire and wrapped it around David’s heart, around his lungs and windpipe and spine, and I let it burn. Hotter and hotter, until he was screaming and begging for mercy. I felt the tentative touch of a water, hoping to heal him, and I expelled that magic without hesitation. I would not allow the damage to be repaired.

  Someone sobbed, and when her hand slid from mine, I knew it was Sera. She’d had enough.

  I didn’t think I could ever have enough. The fire, so long contained, would never be silent again. It would never fit back into its little box, never allow me the comfort of pretending I was just another water.

  I’d accessed it too many times. My body was not the same one Sera found on that porch in Oregon months ago. This one was marked by my own magic, scorched and scarred from the inside out.

  Lana knelt at David’s side, her cries wild as only the screams of grief can be. I think she looked at me once, possibly even spoke to me.

  I think many people spoke to me. Somewhere, underneath the rage and the certainty and the perfect knowledge that I was never coming back, there were familiar voices.

  I ignored them all, and I watched David burn.

  It only took seconds for the magic to incinerate the organs he needed to live. Seconds for a man to cease to exist.

  Seconds for me to become a murderer.

  I’d killed before, with Sera. It had been an accident, and I spent ten years punishing myself. I’d killed once after that in self-defense. Just a day earlier, I’d caused Rachel’s death.

  This was different. This time, I’d chosen to kill. I’d wanted to watch him die.

  The voices continued to hammer at me, demanding I release the fire. I knew what would happen if I let it. I would return to myself. Forever altered, but in some way the Aidan I’d known my whole life.

  If I let go of the fire, I would feel again. Grief and guilt and rage and more pain than one soul could bear.

  I could never let go of the fire again.

  Someone else needed to burn, and the fire turned to Lydia. Whatever her motivation, whatever her original plan, she was the reason we were all here. It didn’t matter that she never could have foreseen this outcome. She’d wanted Josiah dead, and now he was.

  “Any last words?” A collective gasp filled the room, and I replied with a cruel smile. “She’s already condemned. Let’s end this now.”

  Lydia said nothing. She fixed calm eyes on me and waited. With a shrug, I withdrew my magic from David and sent it towards her.

  At once, I met a block. Sera’s magic surrounded Lydia in a protective barrier.

  I called on the water, letting it boost the fire’s power, and sliced through her magic.

  “Goddamn it, Aidan, stop.” Sera almost never raised her voice, but she was screaming now. She stood in front of me, her face tilted toward me until she was only an inch or two away. “It won’t bring him back. You have to stop. Aidan, please. I can’t lose both of you.” Her voice hitched.

  But no one could stop me. No one in this room was strong enough. I felt my aunts’ magic push at me and I waved it off with no more effort than I would a bug. Grams and Deborah and my mother stretched their hands toward each other, trying to combine the full-blooded magic of three old ones, but they wouldn’t be on time. Already, my magic threaded through Lydia, easing through her veins and arteries. I might make her death quick, just to see how that differed from David’s slow torture.

  Around me, everyone screamed. They called my name and pulled on my arms, fighting for my attention. It was all just noise, and it meant nothing.

  The power was so intense I felt myself growing again, rising from the ground until my feet no longer had to touch the floor.

  I blinked, confused. I wasn’t touching the floor. My feet were, in fact, about two feet above the ground, and my view of Lydia had been replaced by a close-up shot of a green t-shirt.

  “No. Put me down,” I cried. More power than anyone on the island, and I was reduced to a petulant whine as Mac hauled me from the room, unceremoniously tossed over his shoulder.

  I couldn’t see ahead of us, but one voice drew us forward, toward the study rather than the front door. “This way. Through here, quickly,” said Simon, standing back and allowing everyone into the passageway, then closing the door behind us before the council had even exited the library.

  I had a vague impression of a bookcase turned at an odd angle, a dark hallway, whispers and footfalls around me a
s Sera and Miriam followed Simon’s lead, and then we burst into the kitchen pantry.

  No one paused. The kitchen door was wrenched open and we tumbled out into the night, fleeing down the rocky path, the shortcut giving us a vital head start on those who would chase us.

  I beat my fists against Mac’s back, pummeling the kidneys. His stride never broke as he carried me away from Grams’ house, running along the eastern shore. He was carrying me away from the people I could hurt.

  I disliked that plan. “Take me back,” I cried. No one answered me.

  Rain poured down, soaking both of us within seconds of stepping outside.

  “Stop them!” Deborah’s voice cut through the night. We were downwind, and every word reached us clearly.

  I raised my head to find Sera, Simon, and Miriam right behind us, and nearly a hundred feet further back, everyone who’d been in the library was now spilling from Grams’ front door. They didn’t yet have our speed, and their steps were unstable, as if they were still deciding whether they should risk their own lives in pursuit or just watch me go.

  Deborah felt no such uncertainty. “She is a dual magic. She is too dangerous to live.” She clasped Lydia’s cheeks between her hands and stared into her eyes. “If you can stop her, no one will ever hear what you did on this island.”

  At those words, Lydia found her feet and began the chase.

  Mac didn’t turn, but he picked up speed, legs pounding against the ground with each step.

  The fire slammed back into my body as he built the distance between me and Lydia, carrying us beyond the limits of my power. As long as he ran, I couldn’t hurt anyone else.

  Lydia continued to chase us, seeming determined to put herself back in harm’s way, but with every step Mac pulled away from her.

  The sound changed. No longer did his feet crunch against rocky paths. A solid thud greeted each step as he landed on the wooden pier.

  “Stairs?” He yelled behind him.

  “No time.” Simon didn’t pause. One second he was running on two legs, the next he was on four and leaping for the seaplane’s door. He shifted back mid-air, his human hand catching on the handle and drawing it downwards, opening the door in a single movement.