ALDER

by Melody Robinette

Though, not as insane as Avery.

  Well, it wasn’t fair for Luke to call Avery insane because he wasn’t, not like his mom, at least. But he was just…vacant. Even Luke had managed a couple of smiles and laughs with the Warriors and Casters within the past month. But not Avery. If he ever did make an appearance, it was reminiscent of the old Victor days where he would just sit to the side and stare off into the distance, his thoughts far from the present situation. Luke supposed he probably blamed himself as well. If he hadn’t been waiting in Fay Forest, setting up his proposal, he probably would have been with Autumn. But Luke was sure all of the Warriors were thinking similarly.

  “Maybe we should talk to him,” Kyndel suggested quietly at breakfast one morning. Her presence in the castle was still a strange adjustment for Luke. But Kyndel and Crystal had bonded over Autumn’s death, and both had lost their best friends. Well, Charlotte was still alive but remained unresponsive in the Healing Tree. Kyndel had taken up residence in Autumn’s old branch, which was even weirder to Luke. Sometimes the three of them would hang out in there, though, to feel Autumn’s presence again, because it was everywhere in that branch.

  “What would we even say to him?” Crystal asked, spreading a mixture of jam and clotted cream on a scone. “Hey, Avery, you know Autumn would have wanted you to keep on living. Perk up.”

  “Well, no,” Kyndel said, rolling her eyes. “Obviously not. I don’t know. I just feel so terrible for him. Being alone doesn’t help anything. In fact, it just makes things worse.”

  Luke and Crystal nodded in agreement, which was why Crystal had been spending the night in Luke’s bed most days of the week. Olympus would have been horrified.

  “Well, I imagine it was kind of scarring to see the girl he loved in the exact same position, the same place, as he had found his twin sister,” he said, referring to Avabelle. “I can’t imagine losing Autumn and Crystal. It would just be…too much.”

  Crystal reached over and squeezed his hand reassuringly.

  “You’re right,” Kyndel said frowning. “I guess we just need to let him grieve how he needs to. It’s going to take him a while to start feeling relatively normal again. I mean, I still have horrible nightmares and wake up crying, so it’s not like I’m even close to healed.”

  Healed.

  Luke didn’t like the word “healing” when used to describe what happened after the loss of someone you loved. A severe burn or a deep cut may heal, but the skin is never the same as it once was. Scarred was a much better word than healed in Luke’s opinion. Scar tissue covers the wound, keeps the blood inside, keeps you alive…but it’s harder, uglier, and less supple than the skin it replaced. But no one wants to say, “I’m scarring” instead of “I’m healing.”

  * * *

  AVERY found that living in the past was much more pleasant than living in the present. He’d spent much of the past month living within the confines of his memories, and he was completely okay with it. Not only did he visit his most precious moments he’d spent with Autumn, but he traveled back even further to the days of his childhood and early teen years when Avabelle was still alive.

  “Avery!” Avabelle screamed from across the tree playground. “Watch this!” She jetted forward a few feet and did a cartwheel followed by a back handspring.

  “Whatever!” Avery shouted from the tree swings, pumping his legs back and forth to gain momentum. “I can top that.”

  After he had felt confident that he was going fast enough and high enough to pull off what he wanted to, Avery swung his legs upward quickly and did a double backflip off of the swing. He landed on both feet in the soft dirt, eliciting a high-pitched giggle from his sister.

  “That was pretty cool,” Avabelle admitted. “But it didn’t top mine.”

  “Did so!” Avery said, giving her a playful punch.

  Avabelle giggled, doing a front roll and landing in a patch of wildflowers, looking up at the sky. Avery came to lie beside her, watching the puffy clouds float languidly through the vast blueness. “When do you think we will discover our Powers, Ave?” Avabelle asked. He shrugged, though he knew she couldn’t see. “I hope mine is something really cool,” she continued. “Like flying or something. What about you?”

  Avery thought for a moment. “I want something powerful.”

  “A powerful Power?” Avabelle said, chuckling.

  “Yeah. I wanna be a Warrior like Dad. And Warriors have powerful Powers.”

  “Not all of them,” Avabelle said, picking a flower and spinning it in front of her face. “Some aren’t even powerful at all, but they’re helpful.”

  “Well, you can have a helpful Power. I want mine to be something that will help me protect all of the elves.”

  “You can’t protect all of the elves, Ave.”

  “I can try.”

  Avery’s eyes slid open, bringing him back to the present. Even happy memories made him feel guilty. When he was still a young elf, he’d known he wanted to be a protector.

  But, clearly, he had failed miserably.

  * * *

  LUKE, Crystal, and the remainder of the Warriors and Casters decided a day at Steam Springs was long overdue. They traveled in a herd up to the sparsely forested hill covered in hot spring pools, all laughing and talking. It felt like things were actually almost sort of going back to normal. Sort of. Avery had agreed to come, but he may as well have stayed at home with the amount of interacting he did.

  Zane was fully healed and more energetic than ever. He ran around the hot springs screaming like a crazed banshee as he climbed a tree, swinging from a hanging branch and flipping into one of the pools. The others rolled their eyes at him, laughing.

  Luke moved to get into one of the smaller pools, looking back to Crystal to see her standing uncomfortably by a tree, her arms crossed self-consciously in front of her.

  “You coming in, Crys?” Luke asked. She glanced down at her leg and then at the water. Luke’s mouth tugged downwards. “Oh.”

  “Just take it off,” Wyx said brightly. “You’re beautiful either way.”

  Crystal blushed, but smiled slightly, nodding. She unwrapped the towel she’d tied securely around her waist and released her stump from her artificial leg. Luke knew she was self-conscious about the way she looked, but he honestly thought she’d never looked more beautiful.

  She knelt down beside the water and slid in, holding Luke’s outstretched hand for support. None of the others seemed concerned with Crystal’s leg, though. They were too busy either relaxing or swinging from the branches into the pools. The elves who had lost their significant others, though, were clearly not in the mood to have any fun just yet. Eden, Willow, and Avery sat quietly watching the others carry on.

  Eden and Willow spoke softly to each other, having formed a strong bond over their grief. Avery continued to stare off into space as usual. Luke was sure he would come out of his zombie-like state soon. He hoped. Or else they’d have yet another Warrior to replace, which they hadn’t gotten around to yet. So, they were now two Quinns down—not to mention one without a leg, one in a coma, and one who was now nearly nonverbal.

  “Remember that time we came to Steam Springs and you found your Power?" Crystal said with a small smile. "Then Autumn got all jealous and started bickering with you and ran off into the woods before running into that Shadow and attacking it before she even had her Power yet. She was already such a badass and she’d only been here, what, a week? Maybe two?”

  At the mention of Autumn, a few of the others glanced nervously over at Luke, but they didn’t realize that this was a common thing he and Crystal did. He didn’t want to forget his sister. She was a part of him. So, instead of avoiding her name, they brought her up often, reminiscing on old times. Keeping her memory alive.

  Luke laughed. “Yeah. I have to admit I was pretty impressed by that. It made me forget about learning my new, awesome Power for a few seconds,” he said, the others looking relieved that he was okay with talking about Autumn.

&n
bsp; “Huh. You know what’s weird?” Wyx said thoughtfully. “There haven’t been any Shadow attacks this month, have there?”

  “No. But that’s a good thing, though, isn’t it?” Zane said.

  “Not necessarily,” Luke said. “They could be building their army or trying to make us think they’re gone for good before they attack again. Give us a false sense of security.”

  “It was really weird that they just stopped fighting and left, don’t you think?” Edric said, literally jumping into the conversation after a particularly weak cannonball in Luke’s opinion.

  “It was like they had been called back or something,” Zane noted, brushing back his wet, russet hair. His hair color was rather similar to Autumn’s auburn, though it was slightly browner. It was little things like this that made Luke miss his sister most.

  “Victor probably called them back,” Luke said darkly. Avery looked up at this, broken out of his reverie for the first time that day.

  “Why would he do that, though?” Edric mused. “They most likely would have been able to kill all of us if he hadn’t done that.”

  “Exactly,” Luke said. “He’s messing with us.”

  The others frowned at this, until Avery spoke, taking everyone by surprise. “Then we need to mess with him.”

  “That will take the combined power of everyone in the Underground,” Luke said. “And even then, I’m not sure—”

  “Well, I guess you’ll just have to finish what Autumn was trying to start,” Avery said, cutting him off. “Convince the other magical creatures to fight together.”

  “You know it’s not that simple, Avery—”

  “I knew you’d let this place fall apart without her here to tell you what to do,” Avery muttered.

  Everyone watched this exchange with mouths agape.

  “You aren’t the only one who lost someone they loved, Avery,” Luke reminded him in a tense voice. “It’s only been a month.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Avery said sarcastically, rising out of the water. “Do what you want, Oaken.” Luke raised his eyebrows at this. Avery had never called him by his surname before. “It’s no longer a concern of mine.”

  “Avery!” Crystal called after him as he moved to leave.

  Luke put a hand on her arm. “Let him go.”

  It took a while for everyone to get back into the swing of having fun after Avery’s remarks. But the elves and warlocks soon returned to splashing and running around the hot springs. Being around the Warriors—though their numbers were noticeably diminished—made Luke feel almost normal, except when he looked around and realized that, of all the people at Steam Springs, there were only three of the original group of Quinns that had participated in the initial Warrior Test. Luke, Crystal, and Kyndel. Edric and Ember had joined after Victor left and Cera died. Jastin was absent because he had set up permanent camp by Charlotte’s bedside. And Autumn and Forrest were gone forever.

  But Luke had grown past looking at the Warriors as Quinns or Tetras or whatever. They were all Warriors, regardless of their age. He recalled the conversation between him, Autumn, and Atticus back in the Powers Tree, what felt like eons ago. Autumn had said she wanted the Warriors to become more of a complete team, bringing in two new elves every year, instead of ten every five. Luke was going to have to do something about that.

  Warm water sprayed in Luke’s face, effectively bringing him out of his head and into the present. Zane and the other male Casters were having a contest to see who could make the biggest splash, or perhaps who could annoy the most people.

  “We don’t have hot springs in Onyx Forest,” Wyx explained apologetically to Luke. “We don’t have much of anything up there. Except for pine trees. Lots and lots of pine trees. But I just love it here. I’m considering relocating permanently.”

  “You can’t do that,” Ember said, as she and Kyndel approached the rest of the group, apparently finished making out in the shadows.

  “What do you mean?” Wyx asked, frowning.

  “Warlocks can’t live here permanently. This is elf territory.”

  “Yeah, but…I thought we were moving towards cohabitation,” Wyx said, looking at Luke uncertainly.

  The others looked to Luke as well, their interest piquing.

  “Um. Well, of course, the warlocks are welcome to stay here for as long as they need, but the Underground leaders haven’t exactly met about this particular issue.”

  “I thought you were working on that, though,” Crystal said, clearly trying to help the situation.

  Luke’s face fell as he said, “Autumn was,” feeling more incompetent as a leader than ever.

  An uncomfortable hush fell over the group. Well, there went that brief moment of fun and forgetfulness.

  17

  Shhh…This is a Library

  Eris was clearly avoiding Autumn. Ever since the Atrum girl let it slip that Victor had been “right about her,” she wouldn’t stay in Autumn’s room long enough to explain what the heck she’d been talking about. Though, Autumn wasn’t even sure why she cared so much about what precisely Victor had said about her. She just didn’t like being talked about, especially not by someone she absolutely loathed.

  Without Eris to talk to now, Autumn’s time spent alone in her room had been severely dragging. Even with writing her story in her journals, she was beginning to feel utterly isolated from the entire world. Especially since she had reached the part of her story where she and Avery shared their first kiss in Fay Forest. It made her miss him more than ever and, for once, she didn’t really feel like writing anymore because, rather than make her feel like she was back in Arbor Falls, it reminded her of just how far away she truly was.

  Sighing, she closed her journal and looked out the window. The sun sank low in the sky, making the turbulent sea beyond the tree line appear even blacker than usual. She wanted a temporary distraction from her thoughts, from her memories. Looking over her shoulder at the closed, wooden door, she wondered what she might find beyond the confines of her room if she dared to leave for the first time since she’d arrived.

  Okay. It was decided. She was going to venture out into the rest of Bluff Bastion. After listening to Eris call it that for weeks, Autumn hadn’t even realized that her thoughts had stopped thinking of it as “Victor’s Lair.” She swept from the desk and moved silently to the door, pressing an ear up against the cold wood to listen for any footsteps or soft voices. Compared to the relentless and loud bustle of Arbor Castle, this place was like a forgotten graveyard.

  Opening the door just enough to peek outside with one eye, she looked left and then right down the endless corridors. There was no distant sound of footfalls, no sign that any living being accompanied her in these hollow stone walls. Finally, deciding the coast was clear, Autumn slipped out of her room into the empty hall, which felt incredibly strange, terrifying, and exhilarating all at the same time.

  Freedom. Kind of. Well, not really.

  The dark passageways reminded her strongly of the vampire caves in Blood Valley, except the torches here remained lit at all times, rather than lighting and extinguishing themselves as people walked by. It was colder in the hallway than it had been in her room and she was thankful for the thick sleeping cloak Eris had given her that she now used as more of a jacket than a sleeping anything. She folded it more tightly across her body to keep from shivering.

  Her footsteps echoed slightly on the rock floor, and she suddenly had the suffocating feeling that the stone walls were slowly closing in on her. Hurrying forward, she leaped at the first door she came across, slipping inside. Turning around, she felt her heart lighten. She’d discovered the library. Of course she had, where else would she end up?

  It wasn’t as grand as the library at Arbor Castle, but it was—though Autumn hated to admit it—slightly cozier, somehow. She hadn’t thought anything about Bluff Bastion could be cozy. But this was. The small hearth with a crackling fire already lit, the dark wood and deep red carpet, the comforting smell
of old books, and an enormous writing desk in the center of the room. Maybe someday she would bring her journals in here to write. Without any windows to show the passage of time, she was sure she could get lost in her mind in here.

  She ran her fingertips along the spines of a row of books, and they came away gray with dust. “Looks like I’m not the only one being neglected here,” she said aloud, almost scaring herself with her voice that had had so little use lately. She still didn’t really feel like reading anything just yet, but being around books made her a little happier somehow. Weary of sitting, she walked slowly around the library. She made something of a figure eight with an extra loop, around the writing desk, to the right of a fluffy, green pair of armchairs and around them, back to the writing desk and then to the right of a free standing bookshelf, to the left of the desk and back.

  Walking aimlessly was relaxing in its own way, until the rope on her sleeping cloak caught on the drawer of the writing desk and pulled it open, nearly making Autumn fall on her face. Luckily she still had her quick, Warrior reactions and caught herself on the edge of the desk before she did. The fay lamp sitting on the corner, however, was not quite as lucky and went crashing to the ground, the ethereal light escaping and vanishing into the air as the glass shattered against the floor.

  Autumn cursed, picking up the broken shards of glass and tossing them in the wastebasket beside the desk.

  Moving to close the drawer she’d involuntarily pulled open, Autumn hesitated when she spotted a red journal resting by itself. Given her new obsession with journals and her ever-present curiosity, she couldn’t help but pick it up, examining the worn cover with a single rose carved into the leather. Autumn’s heart ached at the thought of the red rose she had left behind in the glass case on her vanity. She wondered if anyone had thought to do something with it. Or was it just sitting there as solitary and alone as she was here?

  Suddenly, the sound of footsteps coming from outside the library door met Autumn’s ears, and she hastily shoved the red journal beneath her sleeping cloak, closing the drawer just as the door creaked open to reveal the owner of the footsteps.