by Rae Else
‘Pallis…’ she said, panic seized her, her eyes darting around. Was her opponent lurking somewhere? She envisaged her rising in a coil of waves from the deep.
Luke laid a hand on her arm. ‘Shhh, it’s okay. She joined the fighting up there.’
El breathed a sigh of relief, her heart slowing as shock receded. She hugged her arms across her chest, trying to rid herself of the feeling of falling. She looked at Luke and felt a surge of guilt that he was here for her – had saved her – even after the way she’d treated him last night.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
His bright eyes flitted over her and he nodded.
She remembered how crushed he’d looked in the Gymnasium when he’d heard what the Order had done. He looked surer now. Alert. He was assessing one side of the tiered stadium above.
She shuddered as a body fell down from the left, impacting a column in the arena. The distinctive sound of bone shattering tore through the space. Luke was restless, his eyes roaming the stadium above and behind her.
‘Go,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’
He fixed her with his gaze but nodded and bolted up the stairs, going left at the top.
Feeling steadier, she let her senses travel again. The grim formations of arete were amassed on either side of the tiered ring. Torrents of wind whistled through the bare, metal frames, picking up arete on either side. El cringed as she sensed an arete being swept into the sky, his arms wrenched from their sockets and his body – like debris – being thrown into the frame, before falling lifeless to the ground.
El took a deep breath and readied herself. She bolted up the stairs and threw herself leftwards into the ranks of the Opposition. Through the grainy particles of sand, El caught sight of an arete on the other side, wearing clothes imbued with layered kerykeion; the changing colours of the garment drew the eye like a beacon. El shot a spurt of fire across the arena, willing the flames to tear along the woman’s gown as if adding a golden weave to the fabric. A shot of fire twisted towards El, but a torrent of water engulfed it. She glanced to her right – it was Luke, still watching her back.
With a jolt of shock El recognised a familiar woman through a cloud of sand; Louisa was heading into the elevator, on the outskirts of the fighting. El threw a burst of fire towards her, but it was snuffed out before it even reached the lift. Louisa’s look and smile were sharp as the doors closed.
El’s eyes tore through the arete surrounding her, past swirling elements, past bodies tensed in fighting, searching for Dan. She saw him in the middle of the Opposition, ducking and returning enemy fire, pushing the Opposition on. She squeezed along the tier, crouching and threading her way through. She sheltered next to him as a bout of fire streamed past.
‘Louisa’s got out,’ she shouted. He seemed not to hear her. ‘Louisa’s gone.’
He drew her down and they hid behind another rebel. Dan’s dark eyes held her.
‘We’ll be through soon. Once the Triad are defeated, we’ll go.’ His eyes shone with reflecting flame, but the fervour and determination burning in them seemed to outmatch all the energy that was flying around them.
El hurried back through to the end of the tier, towards the elevator. She drew a shield of flame up as she ran and ducked into the lift, half expecting Dan to be behind her. It was Luke that ran after her though. As the elevator doors closed, she could see Dan’s streams of flame pushing forward against the Order, wholly consumed by the battle that raged on.
- Chapter Twenty-Six -
Reunions
In a panic, El rushed out of the lift and into the lobby. They’d already checked the basement level. It was empty. El dashed over to the human woman who was still at the desk. Her fixed smile seemed out of place after the fighting above and the dark cells below. El had been immediately haunted by memories of the catacombs when she’d peered into the prison cells to check for her grandma.
It was the same human who had been at the desk last night. El’s eyes filled with heat as she stared at her. ‘Have you seen an elderly woman, with dark glasses?’
The woman’s pupils dilated, but her tone was mechanical sounding. ‘Yes, Miss Carras instructed me to inform you that she and her sister will see you at the manor.’
El stared at the woman’s artificial smile that followed this statement, the same that followed all of her statements. Louisa had known that she would compel this woman. She’d left this message for her. She wanted El to come after them. El gasped and turned away. Before, Louisa could only wound her by making her watch her mum’s execution but now that El and the rebels had attacked the Order there’d be no pardon. El was fair game, just like her grandma. And Louisa had taken Helena because she still wanted them both. She wanted to draw El away from the safety of the rebels.
It was reckless to follow but El marched out of the building and down the path. She stopped at the end, momentarily at a loss. Luke pointed to his car at the other side of the road and they hurried across. She was soon climbing into the hatchback she’d been in once before. The quiet washed over her, a weight settling in her core as dread filled her. Luke didn’t say anything but started the engine. The car’s reverberation seemed to flood her ears but El quickly realised it was her heart’s thunderous rhythm drowning out everything else.
She wondered how Louisa would get to the manor but then, all too clearly, imagined her clutching her grandma and rising into the air, manipulating the air currents as she soared above. Like a bird, a vulture, ready to swoop down and devour the rest of El’s life.
It was late and it didn’t take long to get out of the city. They hurtled along the motorway, eastwards.
‘How do you know where to go?’ she asked.
‘I don’t exactly, but the Order has a file on you. I found it in my father’s stuff – so I know your place is near Colchester. Let me know when to take the exit.’
El nodded, frowning at this intrusion of privacy. Then again, she supposed there was no such thing as privacy, not with the All-Seeing Eye.
She kept picturing the manor, its driveway of beech trees, its angular walls as she’d seen it the last night she’d been there – when she’d been forced to run. It had already been tainted with Louisa’s presence. Like a wolf she’d chased El, circled her and was now drawing in for the kill.
El tried to remember home as it had once been. Its lawns sloping towards the great walls, the ivy tracing the masonry of the front. It was always growing unwieldy, encroaching on the view from the windows, often having to be cut back. The curling red vines seemed to fasten the building like ropes to the earth, to the same ground it had occupied for centuries. Now it seemed polluted, even in memory. The curling red leaves seemed to climb up from the earth across the bricks like arteries of blood.
The countryside began to open out around them. Beech and fir trees started to rise along the verges; flat farmland flanked the motorway on either side. The trees passed by so quickly that their twisted branches seemed to be clawing through the night.
‘Take the next right, the signs to Colchester,’ she said.
Her stomach lurched as the car pulled away from the motorway. A wave of nausea rose as she pictured facing Louisa again. She swallowed down the rising bile as tears veiled her vision.
‘Are you okay?’ Luke asked.
She shook her head. He pulled over into a layby and El stumbled out onto the bank. She let the wave of sickness out. It was only bile as there was nothing in her stomach. She felt like telling him they shouldn’t have stopped, that they should get there as soon as possible, but the sickness took control, overriding her fear. As she crouched down on the moss Luke gave her a tissue.
She thought about how they’d first met. How he’d marched her into the meadow to shout at her and then softened, out of regard for Alex she’d thought, but really to get information on the rebels. As she saw his earnest look, a tremor of apprehension passed through her. He’d worn the same look in the meadow, not because he car
ed, but because he wanted to find out about the Opposition. Even after his help in the arena, saving her from the abyss, she couldn’t shake her distrust.
‘Why are you here?’ she said. Her voice sounded dull in her own ears as though the damp earth beneath her was creeping up and muddying her voice. She felt washed out and sensed that everything was drawing to a close. He must know that it was pointless following her. They couldn’t hope to save her grandma. She wanted to know what had possessed Luke to come with her. He must know this was a lost cause.
His gaze tingled across her face. He crouched down in front of her. ‘I know you can’t forgive me for what I did.’ His eyes were downcast. ‘And you shouldn’t.’ There was bitterness in his voice.
She laid her hand on his. His eyes flashed with pain. ‘When I helped you at first it was to find out about the rebels but, I swear, I’d never have taken you to that meeting if I’d known what the Order really was.’
He swept his hands through his hair; the movement reminded her of Alex and set her a little more at ease. ‘What you said last night shook me,’ he said. ‘I started looking for answers myself. I got in touch with my mum’s side of the family. We lost contact with them after she died. I asked them about her and about the Order.’ His eyes dimmed and he looked away. ‘Her death wasn’t the clear-cut picture my father made me believe. My mum was fighting – for the Opposition. She was killed by the Order.’
El knew the anger cloaking his face was what he felt towards his father, the lies that had shaped and distorted his world. Wordlessly, El got up and reached out to him. His emerald eyes stared at her, their coolness cast over her like the shade of a tree in the warm summer air. He clasped her hand and stood up. She felt relieved that he was here. He understood what it was like to be kept in the dark by those closest to you.
‘The rumour about your power–’ he said.
She shook her head. She wouldn’t give him false hope that they weren’t walking into a trap. She had no more power than he did. She had looked into that hydra’s eyes in the Elysium and seen her own death reflected back and still nothing had come.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I know you must have tried to summon it … but what I mean is … you’ve inherited the power from your grandma.’
El frowned. Her grandma was blind. She couldn’t help them.
Luke pulled a couple of vials from his pocket. ‘When I went to warn Alex yesterday about your match, he healed my arm with a few drops of this…’
El blushed, thinking of how she’d wounded Luke in the Gymnasium and was about to apologise but Luke hurried on,
‘He told me and Dan that if we got to your grandma to give her this.’
El stared at the containers. Alex was right. If they could get it to her grandma, her damaged eyes would repair themselves. Her sight and power would be restored. Her grandma could help them. Luke smiled and El felt the faintest glimmer of hope kindling. It wasn’t over yet.
They made their way back to the car. Within half an hour they were threading their way along the final road. At the end of the driveway, the stone house was thrown into sharp relief as the floodlights came on. El was right. The place was altered. The walls and eaves – always solid and reassuring – now looked menacing as if the woman inside had corrupted them.
- Chapter Twenty-Seven -
The Storm
El darted into the house, past the heavy wooden door that lay on the floor and allowed her senses to search for a moment; the soft sound of breathing and other minute movements issued from the living room. She forced herself to stop and think. She went to the armoire and opened it, withdrawing a jet lighter. She clicked the switch on, watching as the lighted flared with three, blue flames. She slipped it into her back pocket, sensing she may need it soon.
El walked past the broken furniture and ceramics scattered in the hallway and pushed open the living room door. Her grandma was sitting on the chaise longue and Louisa stood at the window.
‘El – welcome home,’ Louisa said. Her voice lowered when Luke came into the room, past El. ‘This is a family gathering, I didn't say plus ones.’
El pre-empted her and, withdrawing her lighter, flicked the switch and manipulated the blue flame into a trail that blazed towards Louisa. The typhon rolled out of the way of the fire, which caught the curtains. Louisa snuffed out the fire by altering the air. She coughed and ostentatiously swept the smoke away.
‘Fine,’ Louisa said. ‘You may stay, Mr Laukas, but your father will be … disappointed.’
Luke clenched his fists and Louisa smiled.
‘What do you want?’ El said.
‘Have you forgotten our heart to heart, little gorgon? I thought I made myself perfectly clear. I want to see my sister’s line extinguished.’ Her gaze shot to Helena and back. ‘And here you are – delivering yourself. I should thank you for being so cooperative. Then again, getting the Triad to be interested in your power was most … inconvenient. I hope you know that by aligning with the rebels tonight, any protection you previously enjoyed from the Triad, is gone.’ Her eyes glinted.
El realised that her grandma wasn’t just sitting still but was tensed. Her fingers were curled, her nails biting into the skin of her palms. Pain sharpened her features and there were tear tracts down her cheeks.
‘What have you done?’ El asked, rushing to her grandma. She felt her clammy skin and wiped her forehead.
‘It’s alright,’ Helena murmured through clenched teeth.
Louisa walked over and trailed her finger down her sister’s arm. ‘More?’
Helena’s chin fell to her chest as if she was going to be sick.
‘Too bad,’ Louisa said. She wrenched Helena’s mouth open and tipped a drop from a vial into her mouth.
Helena moaned, her grip tightening on El’s hand.
‘Grandma.’
‘I thought you might like to see the show this time,’ Louisa said.
With her free hand, El pulled the sunglasses from her grandma’s face. There was the laced pattern of scar tissue around her eye sockets but now, where they’d been empty, there were translucent orbs. As they whitened they seemed to move in the dark recesses, while the scar tissue grew redder and more inflamed, as if they were recent wounds.
‘An imperfect screening,’ Louisa said, ‘but better than nothing.’
El lunged at the typhon but she caught her wrists.
‘It’s only a game,’ Louisa said. ‘After your grandma tried to leave the Order and tore out her eyes, they locked her up, hoping to talk her round.’ Disdain deepened the faint lines on her face and for the first time there was a visible similarity between the two women. Her voice shook with anger. ‘You were gifted! But turned your back on it.’ Her eyes swung from Helena back to El. ‘So every time she cut her eyes out I brought them back. Drop by drop.’
Luke was beside Helena, a vial pressed to her lips before anyone realised. The transparent quality of Helena’s eyes altered quickly, the iris and pupils started to swell like blots of ink. The scar tissue began to fade and became smooth and unblemished. In spite of herself, El smiled at her grandma. How many times had she imagined looking into her eyes? Tears pooled in her own as she watched the miraculous transformation.
Louisa still had hold of her wrists. El remembered how quick she was at manipulating the air into dangerous currents. The horrible memory of being thrown across the catacombs replayed in her mind, the deadly air rushing through the space to snap her mum’s neck. Unexpectedly, Louisa let go. El backed away.
Helena stood up. El caught sight of her eyes, hazel like Louisa’s. Warm-hued but cold like her mum’s had been. A hydra’s eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ Helena said. ‘Please, Louisa. I was a child. I was raised to see my power as the only precious thing.’
Louisa scowled but tried to suppress it.
Helena moved towards her sister, her face gentle. El’s heart thudded. What was her grandma doing?
Louisa’s
face flushed with fury, but she backed up into the bay window. ‘How dare you speak of it.’
Helena looked crestfallen and didn’t attempt to move. ‘I’m sorry, Louisa. Truly sorry. What happened to Maria–’
‘Don’t say her name!’ Louisa shouted. Her hatred towards Helena seemed to outstrip the fear of her restored power. ‘You did it. You killed her! It’s only fair I do the same.’
Her eyes snaked to El, who was moving back, positioning herself tactically, as was Luke.
Helena simply stood still, gazing at Louisa as though there was nothing she could do but talk her out of her anger. El had to act now. She recognised the hardness in Louisa’s square shoulders, her muscles tensing as she prepared to strike. El flicked the lighter and conjured a wall of flame, thankful that even after seeing her in the arenas, the typhon underestimated her. The curved wall of fire roared into life, its flame catching Louisa by surprise as she fell back, fighting the blaze that had caught her arm. Luke wrenched Helena away.
They were all shielded by the burning screen that ran across the living room. El fuelled it further, allowing the books on the table and the couches to combust. She willed the flames higher and, released from their harness, they roared in a way that was both terrifying and thrilling. She backed out, following the others, leaving the typhon trapped behind the raging furnace.
In the hall, El concentrated on the fire behind and knew Louisa was changing the air to subdue it. There wasn’t much time. She’d soon be out. They hurried to the car. Helena was the last to pull the door shut in the back. As she did Luke slammed his foot on the accelerator.
Speeding down the drive, El fought with her entire will, straining her senses to track whether Louisa was through the fire yet. El prayed that the paintings, fabrics and furniture would feed it long enough for them to escape.
El's senses snapped back to the car. ‘She’s out!’
Luke answered by sending the car into the next gear and accelerating.
