The Enchanter Heir thc-4

by Cinda Williams Chima

  “Welcome, Emma,” Ramon said. “I hope you like it here. Jonah . . . do you have a minute? I have a question about Kenzie’s treatments.”

  “I’m showing Emma around right now,” Jonah said.

  “Maybe we can—”

  “Go ahead,” Emma said. “I can wait.” She crossed to one of the whirlpools, squatted, and dipped a hand in the water. Jonah turned back to Ramon. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been looping your music during Kenzie’s therapy sessions, like you suggested,” Ramon said. “It’s really improved his exercise tolerance. I’d like to try it with some of the other clients, if that’s all right with you.”

  Jonah hesitated. His first impulse was to say no. “The music . . . it’s just something Kenzie and I share. It seems to help him, but maybe that’s because we’re brothers. I have no idea what effect it would have on other patients.”

  “That’s what we want to find out,” Ramon said. “You know, kind of an experiment.”

  “What if it’s harmful?”

  “All right, confession time,” Ramon said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve already tried it on one patient who’d been in steep decline, and I’ve seen some improvement.”

  After that, of course, Jonah couldn’t say no. Not to Ramon, who’d been fighting a lonely, losing battle for years.

  “All right,” Jonah said. “But go slow, all right?”

  “Awesome!” Ramon grinned. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  Jonah looked for Emma, but she’d disappeared.

  “Emma?” She was nowhere to be found in the hydrotherapy area, nor in the gym they’d just come from.

  He finally found her in front of the door to one of the sparring gyms. The display next to the door said Closed session. Jonah could hear the thud of bodies colliding behind the door, shouts of triumph, and screams of pain.

  “What’s in here?” Emma asked, trying the door, which was locked, of course. “It sounds like people fighting.”

  “It’s martial arts,” Jonah said.

  “Can I see?”

  “It’s a closed session,” Jonah said. “Look, we’d better get you over to Oxbow. We still haven’t been to the woodshop, and I’ve got to get to class.”

  Emma hesitated for a moment, her hand on the door handle. Then she turned away. They were almost to the other end of the hall, when the door to the sparring gym slammed open.

  It was Alison Shaw, Bloodfetcher in hand.

  “Jonah!” she cried, sprinting toward them. Instinctively, Jonah thrust Emma behind him and stood, facing off with Alison, balanced on the balls of his feet.

  Alison’s face registered surprise, which quickly turned to anger. She looked from Jonah to Emma and back again. “What did you think I was going to do?” she demanded. “Attack? ”

  Jonah shook his head. “No. I wasn’t thinking anything,” he said. “You just surprised me, is all.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Alison said. “Who’s this?” she asked, peering over Jonah’s shoulder at Emma.

  “This is Emma Greenwood,” Jonah said, shifting out of the way. “She’s a new student. Emma, this is Alison Shaw.”

  Alison studied her. “Are you a senior?”

  Emma shook her head. “Sophomore.”

  “I thought you looked good, for a senior,” Alison said. Drawing another look of confusion from Emma. Alison rested the point of her sword on the floor and leaned on the hilt. Something Jonah had never seen her do before. Something nobody who knew anything about weaponry would do.

  “So where’d you come from, Emma?” Alison asked.

  Emma looked at Jonah, and Alison noticed. “I see. Keeping secrets, are we?”

  “No secrets,” Jonah said. “Natalie brought Emma in from the shelter. She’s new in town.”

  “Speaking of secrets, how much do you know about our Jonah?” Alison asked, directing the question to Emma. “Not much, I’ll bet. Better watch yourself. Jonah may be hot, but he’s dangerous. Deadly, even. Look but don’t touch is my advice.”

  Emma looked from Alison to Jonah. “Dangerous?”

  “She’s kind of slow on the uptake,” Alison said, smirking at Jonah. “Don’t you think?”

  “Come on, Emma,” Jonah said, propelling her toward the door. Thinking, This is turning out to be a disaster. I never should have brought her here.

  “Jonah!” Alison called after them. “Don’t forget we have practice tomorrow morning.”

  Practice? Jonah thought. Are we on the sparring schedule tomorrow and I just didn’t—oh. Natalie had scheduled Fault Tolerant’s first practice for the next morning. The first practice without Mose.

  On the street, Emma eyed him quizzically. “What was that all about?”

  “What was what all ab—oh, the practice? She’s talking about the band. Fault Tolerant. Remember . . . the one you saw at Club Catastrophe?”

  “I meant the part about you being dangerous.”

  Jonah shrugged. “I have no idea. We’re all dangerous in our own way, I guess.”

  Fortunately, Oxbow was deserted at this time of day. Room 800 was an efficiency on the eighth floor, several floors beneath Jonah’s apartment. Small, but replete with the high-tech gadgets Gabriel loved. Jonah showed her how the key card and the iris scanner worked, and demonstrated how to activate the security system.

  Emma put her food in the refrigerator and set her purchases down on the bed. She took a quick walk around while Jonah hung out by the door. He loved the way she moved, loose-limbed and relaxed, at peace with her body. At one point, she dragged a chair over and stood on top of it to examine the sound system. She stretched up to examine the ceiling-mounted speakers, exposing a strip of flesh between sweatshirt and the waistband of her pants. His pants.

  You’re like one of those randy nineteenth-century dudes, Jonah thought. Aroused by a glimpse of ankle.

  Finally, she rejoined him. “Can I ask some questions?”

  “Sure,” Jonah said. Eager to end the one-on-one, he added, “Can we walk while we talk?”

  “Sure,” Emma said. “You got a hot date or what?”

  Jonah’s cheeks burned as the blood rushed to his face. “Ah . . . no. I just—you know . . . homework.”

  As they left the apartment, she reactivated the security system. She seemed absolutely comfortable with devices of all kinds.

  “Where’s your room?” she asked as they got on the elevator.

  Jonah pointed at the ceiling. “Four floors up.”

  “I could tell you were surprised that Mr. Mandrake put me here,” Emma said, in that direct way she had. “Why?”

  Jonah shrugged. “Oxbow is reserved for staff and . . . and . . . staff. So prepare to be put to work. Teaching, maybe, or repairing musical instruments, or helping with the music program.”

  “But he’s never even seen my work,” Emma said as they turned down the sidewalk. “How does he know I’m any good?”

  “I don’t second-guess what Gabriel does,” Jonah said, which was a total lie. These days, anyway.

  Emma digested this for a few moments. “So you work for Mr. Mandrake, too?”

  “Gabriel.”

  “For Gabriel?”

  Jonah nodded. Anticipating the next question, he volunteered, “I’m training with him in community relations, fund-raising, management of the club, and like that.”

  “And you’re just seventeen?”

  “Gabriel is never afraid to give responsibility to a person just because he’s young,” Jonah said. “We grow up fast.” Or we wouldn’t grow up at all.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Jonah. What is your gift?”

  He should’ve been ready for that question, but it still caught him by surprise somehow.

  “I’m an empath. Do you know what that is?”

  Emma shook her head.

  “I can read people’s emotions,” Jonah said. “Gabriel finds that helpful sometimes.” Along with my other skills. Like killing. Oh, right. Not anymore.

  Emma stop
ped dead in her tracks, embarrassment rolling off her in waves. “You read minds?”

  He shook his head. “Feelings. I can’t tell what a person is thinking, plotting, or planning, but I can sometimes tell when they’re lying, or when they’re afraid, angry, and so on.”

  She didn’t look reassured. “Great,” she muttered, peering at him out of the corner of her eye.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jonah said. “I’ve learned to filter most of it out. It’s just background noise. Otherwise, I’d go crazy.” Liar.

  “Who’s Kenzie?” she asked then.

  “My brother.”

  “Younger or older?”

  “Younger.” Jonah guessed he should give more than one-word answers. “His real name is McKenzie. So Kenzie for short. He lives at Safe Harbor.”

  “Safe Harbor? What’s that?”

  “It’s a skilled facility for savants with severe disabilities,” Jonah said. He pointed up St. Clair. “It’s a few blocks that way.”

  “Oh.” A blush stained Emma’s cheeks to a coppery red. “He’s disabled because of the . . . because of what happened at Thorn Hill?”

  “Because of the poison,” Jonah said bluntly. “It hit some of us harder than others. Kenzie has intractable magical seizures.”

  “Magical seizures? What’s that like?”

  “Unforgettable. Life-changing, even.” He turned up the walk to the arts-and-crafts building. “The woodshop is in this building.”

  “Will I get to meet him?” Emma persisted.

  “Do you want to?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “He’d like that.” They stood on the porch of A&C. “It’s in here, first floor, to the rear. Your key card should open the door. If I leave you here, now, can you find your way back to Oxbow?”

  “No problem,” Emma said.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  I’m with the Band

  Emma awakened with a jolt, momentarily disoriented, her arms crossed over her face to ward off danger. Propping up on her elbows, she looked around. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the window, flaming dust motes in the air.

  Right. She was in the Oxbow Building, eighth-floor studio, view of downtown.

  She pulled her shirt away from her clammy skin. Jonah’s shirt. She’d bought pajamas at the store in the student center, but when it came down to it, she’d slept another night in Jonah’s clothes. She pressed the faded cotton against her nose. It still carried his scent.

  They ought to bottle that, she thought. And call it Boy Blue. Or, maybe, Bad Idea.

  She had nothing to bring to this game. She had no skills. It was her kind of luck to fall for a boy who could read minds. Well, emotions. Did that include lust? It was humiliating . . . like walking around naked with someone who was fully clothed. A just God would have given that gift to Emma . . . so she could sort out the liars.

  What time was it? She groped for her phone. Not there. Where was her phone?

  Oh. It was back at home. Tyler’s home. It seemed so far away, now. Just one more dream that fades upon waking. A stopping place on a journey to nowhere.

  Her groping hand found the notebook paper with her wish list on it—the notes and measurements she’d taken at the woodshop the day before. The shop at the Anchorage was top-shelf, just like everything else on campus. Still, it had an air of neglect, as if the administration had sunk a lot of money into it at the front end, but nobody had paid much attention to it since. It didn’t smell like any woodshop she’d ever been in. Not even any sawdust on the floor.

  She’d made a slow circuit of the larger tools, trying them out with scrap lumber she found in the discard bin. The tools looked nearly new, though some of the blades needed sharpening and everything was covered with a fine layer of dust. She was used to Sonny Lee’s tools and their quirks. For instance, how the pulley on the table saw would slip on the shaft and bind against the body of the saw and you had to act quick if you smelled burning rubber or you might burn up the belt. Or how you had to give the old disc sander a spin to get it going because the capacitor didn’t work and it wouldn’t start up on its own.

  There wasn’t much in the way of materials—woods, fittings, and the like. Wistfully, she recalled the racks of seasoned woods she’d left behind at Tyler’s, and wondered if they were still there. I need to get back there, she thought. Somehow.

  Propping herself up in bed, she scanned the rows of tiny, precise handwriting, making a few additions and clarifications. New saw blades. Lubricants. The specialized wood glue Sonny Lee always ordered from Germany. And woods: birch and ebony and book-matched maple.

  Setting her list aside, she slid out of bed and padded across the floor to the bathroom. She was at a boarding school, where they had set times for things. She’d probably already missed breakfast. She didn’t want to miss lunch, too.

  A blinking light in one corner of the mirror caught her attention. She squinted at it, puzzled. Then poked at it with her finger without result.

  Then she remembered. Jonah had said something about a digital display embedded in the mirror.

  A remote was propped against the backsplash. She scooped it up and began hitting buttons until a message appeared.

  We’re in the practice rooms on the first floor. Take the elevator down (use your key card). Entry key is GIST27. Nat.

  Emma pulled on the jeans she’d bought the day before, crispy and new. She chose a black T-shirt with Security in stark white letters on the back and a line drawing of a castle keep on the front. She tugged a brush through her resistant hair, twisted it into a knot, grabbed a hunk of crumb cake from the refrigerator, and went to find the practice rooms.

  Emma stepped off the elevator on the first floor. To her left, toward the front, was a common area, with a flat-screen television, comfortable furniture, and a fireplace. It was deserted.

  The rear of the warehouse was a rough-finished workspace that showed its warehouse bones, partitioned off with dividers. She walked down a short hallway lined with doors. Displays next to each door listed the room schedule for the day. As she neared the end of the hallway, she began to feel the thud of percussion under her feet, and heard the faint, anguished cry of a blues guitar, the wail of keyboards. Next to the last door, the display said simply Diaz.

  Through the door, she heard a voice that all but brought her to her knees.

  Just one kiss,

  That was never meant to be. Just one kiss

  One more bitter memory.

  A blighted love, a mortal sin, A doomed encounter skin to skin.

  She eased the door open. It was Jonah, a vintage Stratocaster slung low on his hips, knees bent, head thrown back, eyes closed as he searched out the chords with his fingers. Which should have been difficult, since he was wearing fingerless gloves in studded black leather. Who wears gloves, even fingerless ones, to play guitar?

  And why was Jonah playing with the band she’d first heard at Club Catastrophe? She looked them over. Their lead guitarist was missing—the one who’d played the Parker Dragonfly.

  The other players were the same. Natalie hunched over a drum kit, her sticks a blur, face gleaming with sweat. The purple-haired girl from the fitness center played an Ibanez bass guitar, and the boy who played keyboards was the same, too.

  Emma leaned against the doorframe, head swimming as Jonah’s voice poured over her.

  Just one kiss,

  Was enough to break my heart. Just one kiss,

  A disaster from the start.

  Like the kiss of frost that chars the rose, An assassin in a lover’s clothes.

  Jonah prowled back and forth, exuding a feral heat, his movements mesmerizing, his T-shirt plastered to his washboard abs, jeans riding low on his hipbones.

  Get ahold of yourself, girl, Emma thought. You of all people know better than to fall for a musician.

  Just then, the music tangled up in itself and dwindled away amid laughter and good-natured swearing.

  “What the hell was that, Sev
erino?” Nat asked.

  The keyboardist blotted his face with his sleeve. “I was . . . you know . . . improvising.”

  Natalie snorted. “I thought maybe you were starting your own band, right here and now.”

  Severino looked up and spotted Emma in the doorway. “Hel-lo there! Who are you?”

  Jonah had been trying out some riffs, but now the guitar cut off abruptly. He stared at Emma with a stricken, guilty, almost horrified expression. The kind you get when you’ve been caught making out with your best friend’s boyfriend.

  “Emma!” Natalie said, grinning. “You’re finally up. How are you feeling this morning?”

  “What are you doing here?” Jonah demanded. He’s blushing, Emma thought. He’s actually blushing. “I invited her,” Natalie said. “Why?”

  “Because she said she wanted to hear us play,” Natalie said, giving Jonah a behave kind of look.

  “Great to see you, too, Jonah,” Emma said. She strode over to the keyboardist and stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Emma Greenwood, from Memphis.”

  “Rudy Severino,” Rudy said, grinning at her. He was good-looking, and knew it, but sometimes confidence looks good on a person. It was more stage presence than arrogance.

  “And this is Alison Shaw,” Natalie said, pointing at the bass player. “Rudy, Alison, this is Emma Greenwood, a new student here at the Anchorage.”

  “We’ve already met,” Alison said, around the pick in her teeth.

  “Don’t let me interrupt,” Emma said. “Pretend I’m not here.” She straddled a chair, resting her arms on the back. “Was that one of your original songs? The one you just played?”

  “Yes,” Jonah said, keeping his eyes fixed on his fingerboard, busily tuning a guitar that was already in tune.

  “That one’s brand-new,” Natalie said. “Jonah and his brother collaborate on songwriting.”

  “Your brother Kenzie?” Emma asked. “The one you mentioned?”

  “Yes,” Jonah said. “There’s nothing wrong with his mind.”

  “He’s a genius,” Natalie said.