Forged from Flame

by Kasey Mackenzie

  Jake arched a brow. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up at all, but remember what adding Spirit to my firewall did to your mom and Ju Hai?”

  He let out a choked laugh. “Uh, how could I forget. You almost burned them to a crisp.”

  Bianca frowned, wrapping both arms around her belly. I replied before she could freak out. “Yeah, but to be fair I had the vague intention of the firewall spell protecting us from any harm. I’m learning that I really need to be more specific with intent when it comes to Spirit. And having Spirit affect that spell the way it did made me think about experimenting to see how Spirit can enhance other spells. Maybe I could even come up with a way to help a Quatrain buffer the crazy magic that accompanies the birth of Elementals, for instance.”

  Jake’s eyes widened, and he squeezed my hand. “That would be amazing! If you could manage something like that…think of all the lives you could save. And not just those of wildlings. There are plenty of Beholden and Freeholder mothers who could benefit.”

  I raised my other hand in a cautionary gesture. “Slow down, Jake. It’s just an idea I have. I’m not sure it’s actually possible, or whether I’ll be able to work things out in time.”

  Bianca leaned forward, an earnest expression on her face. “Just the fact it may be possible gives me more hope than you can know. That you’re willing to help me given…given everything that I have done to wrong your Clan in the past. It means a lot to me. And I’ll make sure your youngest siblings know they have you to thank for saving them.”

  “Whoa, if it works! There are no guarantees of anything.”

  “Perhaps not, but any hope is better than none.”

  Jake nodded. “I agree. But back to finding Colin. Did you have any luck deciphering the final clue while we were gone?”

  Bianca jumped to her feet and crossed the living room to a small desk where an even smaller laptop sat. She retrieved it and brought it back to where we sat on the sofa. After reseating herself, she swiped the touchpad a few times and then pointed to the laptop’s monitor. A map of Missouri dominated the screen, with several spots on the map circled and then Xed out. One unmarred circle remained, this one on the southern edge of Missouri, just north of its border with Arkansas. Several large lakes branched out around that circle, some actually over the Arkansas border.

  I sat up straight in recognition. “Oh! Those are the lakes around Branson. Is that where you think Colin is?”

  Bianca’s gaze locked onto Jake’s face. “Putting together several of our individual clues resulted in a bunch of numbers that I eventually figured out gave a huge range of latitude and longitude locations surrounding Branson. I’ve ruled out all of the other major bodies of water in that area on this map. But for me to rule this spot in definitively, I need to know whether that region holds any significance to your family.”

  Jake nodded, excitement lighting his eyes. “The Clan owns several properties in that area, and my parents own a lake house at Table Rock Lake. We used to spend several weeks each summer there when Rhianne was a child. It was her favorite place to practice her skills as a Selkie.”

  I frowned slightly. “And your family didn’t think to check in that area?”

  “Of course we checked around that summer house. And all the other Clan properties. Rhianne turned herself inside out trying to scry out Colin’s location. But those lakes are huge, and we never found any traces of him.”

  Bianca clicked the touchpad again and pulled up the digital copy of the map Colin had left across one side of the screen. She clicked again and the answer to the final clue she’d been puzzling over settled to the right of the map. The words Dragon and Water stood next to what I was willing to bet were the corresponding Chinese symbols for each. “Are there any lakes in that area that resemble the shape of a dragon, by chance? I tried searching for lakes with the actual word dragon in the name but came up empty.”

  Jake leapt to his feet, pacing excitedly. “That’s it! It has to be. It all makes sense now.”

  I blinked. “What makes sense now?”

  “Colin enjoyed going off by himself in that area to explore. Pretended he was the first to discover landmarks and lakes that were off the beaten path. He would name them himself based on whatever they were shaped like. I remember that he once found a private lake in that area that reminded him of a dragon. I never knew it’s real name, but surely we can find it on a map.”

  My anxiety that we wouldn’t be able to find Colin in time to save Bianca and her children eased slightly. It’d been running in the background constantly ever since her revelation that they were my siblings. I would have been committed to helping them anyway, but knowing they were my own flesh and blood made that sense of urgency a hundred times more potent. Throw in the fact that we’d be saving Jake’s beloved brother, and urgency didn’t begin to describe the sensation sweeping across me.

  Now, if only my father would stay quiet long enough for us to find and revive Colin. That wasn’t something we could count on, but it was also something we couldn’t wait on. Finding Colin and seeing him bonded to Bianca needed to happen, no matter what. Everything else could wait. At least now, with the pinpointing of Colin’s most likely resting place, we actually had a snowball’s chance in hell of saving not just one or three lives, but four.

  But first things first. We had to take another road trip. This time to Missouri’s version of Las Vegas—only with way fewer people, way less alcohol, way less gambling, and way more Country music. It sounded like my own private circle of hell, but I just reminded myself that we were doing this for the babies…

  We didn’t dare take much time to rest, especially since my father could restart his shenanigans at any moment. Bianca was especially excited about the possibility of leaving behind the cabin where Garrett had nearly suffocated her and the babies to death. I had hazarded the guess that it’d be harder for him to reconnect to her if we were in a completely different locale, but really that was just something I said to make her feel better. For all I knew, he could find her using Spirit, anytime and anywhere.

  But boy, was I hoping that wasn’t true. There had to be some sorts of limits to his powers. There sure were limits to mine. For one thing, I really wanted to wrap a Spirit-amped firewall around our vehicles when we set off for Branson the next day, but that just proved impossible. I couldn’t maintain such a complex weaving of all five elements around two separate vehicles while we were moving. Not at this point in my Elemental magic career.

  For now, we just had to hope that Garrett wasn’t hovering on the nearest bands of Spirit watching as we left Greener Pastures behind the next morning. Breena had tried to talk us into taking longer to recuperate, but Ju Hai had overruled her. The longer we waited, the greater potential for disaster she Foretold. And so, we were speeding our way down I-44 by 7 a.m. the next morning. Jake, Rhianne, Bianca, Liam, and Nic were in our 7-passenger SUV. Dia had chosen—not surprisingly—to ride with Isaac, Avani, a Clan Zi Gryphon named Micah, and two other Freeholders in the second vehicle.

  The trip to Branson passed uneventfully enough, with one stop to fill up on gas, caffeinated beverages, and convenience store cuisine. Nothing beat a 44-ounce Dr. Pepper and bag of Doritos on a road trip. Okay, and a hot dog drenched in chili cheese may have somehow found its way into my hands. Practicing magic took a lot out of a girl. Jake just shook his head with a grin when I climbed next to him in the SUV.

  “No wonder you took so much longer than everyone else. I was about to send a search party.”

  Snickers came from the backseat, but I just stuck out my tongue and slurped some Dr. Pepper.

  Jake couldn’t resist another headshake as he started up the SUV. “Remember that first night when you were so scandalized by my daring to take you through a fast food drive-through? Look at you now.”

  I finished a bite of chili cheese bliss and shrugged. “That was back before I needed a zillion calories to keep magic from eating every last ounce of
muscle and fat from my body.”

  Nic gave a sigh in the background. “If only those bullies in high school could see me now.”

  I glanced over my shoulder curiously. “You were bullied in high school?”

  He made a sour face that wasn’t due to the Warheads candy he’d grabbed from the gas station. “Classic case of a bisexual kid getting picked on by some of the popular kids, with a side order of the year-long chubby phase I went through. They made my life hell for a while. One reason I cannot stand it when people body-shame.”

  I gave a sympathetic wince. “High school is hell. And kids can be assholes.”

  “So can adults,” Liam pointed out in a reasonable tone. His eyes roamed over Nic’s lightly-muscled frame with admiration very much evident. “But yeah, if those bullies could see you now, I’m sure at least half of them would eat their words.”

  Whoa. I was so not prepared to see Jake’s brother salivating over mine. I mean, I still didn’t like Jake’s brother and wasn’t even sure I fully trusted mine; oathbond or no. The thought of them hooking up…for some reason it unsettled me. Ironic, given that I’d been doing my best to push Dia and Isaac back together.

  Nic bit his lip, cheeks flushing slightly, indicating he hadn’t missed the admiration in Liam’s eyes. He looked unbearably young next to Liam, who was a decade or so younger than Jake. That couldn’t be what uneased me, though, because I was over 40 years younger than Jake and Dia was even decades more than that younger than Isaac.

  Yeah, but Isaac and Jake made no bones about the fact they were in the chase for the long haul and not just the thrill of it. And Nic’s emotionally fragile enough with his parents being held hostage by our psycho dad. The last thing he needs is for commitment-phobic Liam to screw his mind up even further.

  And there it was. Those big sister protective instincts I was still learning to recognize. Liam had never had a long-term lover, according to Jake the night before. Nic, on the other hand, had confessed that he rarely dated casually. Which meant that these two hooking up would almost certainly end in disaster.

  Not that I can do a damned thing about it, I reminded myself. You’re not Nic’s mother—and even if you were, you just got done lecturing Breena about letting Rhianne make her own mistakes to learn her own lessons.

  That had me turning back to the front to focus on the passing scenery rather than trying to baby my little—but most definitely adult—brother. A little over three hours later, we pulled into the driveway of a Freeholder safehouse perched atop a hill overlooking Table Rock Lake. We’d decided that one of their properties would be a safer bet, since it was so newly purchased that it had the least danger of being already known to outside parties. Specifically, to someone who might be able to rat us out to my father. In the event he did track us here quickly, that’d be evidence he likely could use Spirit to find us far too easily for my peace of mind.

  And that was something else I’d added to the list of magical tricks I wanted to develop. Modifying Elemental wards containing the four physical elements to include Spirit, in a way that would prevent Daddy Dearest from worming his way into anyone’s mind against their wishes. For now, though, we were focused on finding Colin as fast as possible so we could get back to Greener Pastures. Separating from our main forces to head hours away from their support had my shoulders feeling itchy, as if a million eyes were upon us searching for weakness.

  And that did not help ease my fears that Garrett might even now be watching.

  Here we were, climbing out of our nice SUVs in front of a perfectly gorgeous lake in prime water sport season, and all I could think about was getting inside and away from prying eyes. No one else was in the mood to enjoy our lakeside view either, as evidenced by the speed with which the overnight bags were unloaded and hustled into the large but modestly-appointed lake house. Jake and I claimed an upstairs room that barely had space for a double bed, closet, dresser, and tiny desk with chair. No private bathroom here, but hopefully we’d be in and out quickly enough that it wouldn’t matter. In an ideal world, we’d zero in on Colin’s location in hours and hightail it back home.

  It was almost like I didn’t pay attention to my own life…

  Within 15 minutes, we reassembled in the house’s largest room: a combination kitchen and dining room. Most of us fit around a long, battered dining table surrounded by mismatched wooden chairs, with the others seated at the nearby kitchen bar. Bianca had an oversized map spread out over the dining table’s center, and she had pinpointed three private lakes that most resembled the shape of a Chinese dragon during our drive here.

  Isaac, Rhianne, and Nic exchanged glances and began more closely poring over her map. As the expedition’s Selkies, the lion’s share of the actual search and rescue duties would fall upon their shoulders. The rest of us would help as able, of course, and keep watch to make sure no enemies snuck up on them unaware. But they were certainly the underwater experts.

  As the oldest and most experienced, Isaac became the natural leader. Nic and Rhianne made a couple observations that added value—especially Rhianne, given her familiarity with the Tri-Lakes area. Not even she, however, had swam in any of the three private lakes we had identified as the most likely candidates to be what we had dubbed Dragon’s Rest Lake by virtue of their being privately owned. She’d never joined Colin on any of his elicit explorations.

  Gaining access to these lakes without being caught by the authorities was where the rest of us would earn our keep. This would be an excellent chance for me to practice using Spirit in the field. I knew it was a powerful tool for concealment, if only my strength and stamina were up to the task. I’d spent most of the car trip here—when not inhaling junk food—resting as much as possible. Once I mentioned my intention to channel Spirit to help conceal us, Jake spent the late afternoon and early evening trying to further fatten me with snacks and then a decadent Italian meal from a local restaurant offering carryout. When he tried to push dessert on me, too, I gave him an exasperated look.

  “What is this, December and you think I’m Santa?”

  He blinked and then tried for an innocent expression that would never work on him. “Eat, Papa, eat.” he quipped.

  “Very funny.” I threw the protein bar he’d none-too-subtly foisted on me right back at him. “I’m stuffed to the gills, Jake. I expect to enter the perfect food coma at any moment.”

  “Excellent. My master plan is working.” He rubbed his hands together like a supervillain and nodded toward the nearby stairs. “I can tuck you in while everyone else is on cleanup duty.”

  On the one hand, I was a grown woman who could tuck her own self in. On the other, it had been my intention all along to go to bed early, and I never turned down a bedtime kiss.

  “Who’s got first watch?” I asked, my last word interrupted by a yawn.

  “Not you,” he said with a pointed grin as he began guiding me upstairs. I opened my mouth, but he beat me to the punch. “If we’re still here tomorrow night, you can take a turn then. But we all know the toll learning your new abilities is taking on your body, and you need all the beauty rest you can get.”

  By this point, we were stepping through the threshold of our room, and I turned a mock glare his way. “Whoa. Are you saying I’m not already beautiful?”

  “Far more beautiful than I could ever say—or deserve.”

  “Nice recovery,” I said with an eyeroll.

  Within minutes, he had me out of my clothes, into my favorite PJs, and tucked into bed. Someone had cranked the AC up high enough that I burrowed deep within the blankets with a contented sigh.

  Jake leaned down to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and plant a quick kiss on my mouth.

  “Wake me if something comes up,” I managed around another ear-popping yawn.

  “Good night, sleeping beauty,” I heard him say, and then I was out like a light.

  My sleep was deep and restful—until about an hour before Jake was supposed to wake me. A vivid dream struck at
that point, one of those that feels incredibly real even though you’re consciously aware it’s a dream. Garrett approached where I sat next to the lake at Greener Pastures. The sun had just begun to sink in earnest, and I enjoyed the late summer rays still bathing my face in warmth. Garrett smiled a charming fatherly smile and seated himself in the grass a few feet away.

  “I’ve been trying to get your attention all day, daughter.” His tone didn’t sound quite as charming as his smile appeared, but neither did he sound angry.

  I leaned back further upon my elbows and smiled lazily. “That sounds frustrating for you.”

  He barked a laugh. “Indeed. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to affect your dreams without knowing your exact physical location. Seems you’re not the only one learning new tricks.”

  “Mm. The infamous they were incorrect when they said old dogs can’t learn new tricks, I suppose.” I watched the glorious shades of vibrant hues painting the sunset sky. “Not that I don’t always enjoy our father-daughter bonding time, but I’m due to wake any minute. If you have a point in invading my dreams, you might want to make it.”

  “How very considerate of you to warn me that we’re under a time constraint. I suppose I’ll just cut to the chase then. Have you given thought to what I said last time we spoke?”

  I let a little half-smile play upon my lips while I continued basking in the fading sunlight. “Are you talking about your fatherly invitation to help you take over the world or your very unfatherly threat to hurt everyone I love until I do?”

  His expression remained eerily cheerful. “Both.”

  “Oh, I’ve thought about them all right. Not that I think you’d like my opinions very much.”