The light from the kitchen window highlighted Ryan’s strong jaw but left his eyes in shadow. “Are you upset that they’re going to get married?”
Leah felt certain the marriage must be part of Qeturah’s plan to gain influence—she cared only for power. But the duke could take care of himself. Ryan was the one in true danger. “It doesn’t bother me,” she said. “What about you?”
“I like your dad, but it would be pretty weird if we ended up as stepbrother and stepsister,” Ryan said.
Leah didn’t know what he meant by stepbrother. “You are not related to me by blood.”
“Hell, no. But I bet the tabloids will jump on that angle if we’re not careful.”
Leah felt confused. She’d thought tabloids were a type of printed gossip. How could such a thing jump?
“You look cute when you frown.” Ryan kissed her.
Leah responded helplessly. Her arms twined around his neck. He felt warm and alive—
A noise from inside broke them apart. Leah glanced at the window, but the kitchen was empty.
“One good thing about their engagement, we’ll be able to see each other every day,” Ryan said huskily. “Are you staying for the whole summer?”
“I—I’m not sure,” Leah said. That would be Holly’s decision. Her business on this world shouldn’t take that long.
Ryan looked disappointed but swiftly covered it up. “At least you’re here now. I think your dad has plans for tomorrow, but can I take you out the day after that? We can go on a real date.” His eyes looked soft.
“Dating” was the Water word for courtship. “I would love that.” Sadness stabbed Leah. Gideon had never gotten a chance to court her properly, and now he never would.
Because Ryan wasn’t Gideon. And she wasn’t whom Ryan wished to court, not really.
The thought was like drinking bitter poison. When Ryan would’ve kissed her again, she drew back and broached the subject of Qeturah. “Has your mother…changed much?”
His face lit up. “Isn’t it amazing? She’s like an entirely new person.”
Leah stifled her dismay. “And that pleases you?”
Ryan hesitated. “It took some getting used to. I was her caretaker for years. Sometimes I have to catch myself—it really annoys her when I nag her about her meds. Part of me is scared that she’ll slip back into what she was like before.”
“Is she still afraid of mirrors?” Leah asked.
“No. Her only flaky belief is that her son’s a merman,” Ryan joked.
“But the person she is now,” Leah persisted. “Do you like her? She seems…harder to me.”
“Well, yes,” Ryan admitted. “But she was very childlike before. It’s good that she’s a little harder now.”
To Leah, he sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.
But then Ryan smiled. “Plus, the toughness makes her a better agent. She’s done a lot for my career already.”
Leah didn’t doubt it. Qeturah would have used the eight months she’d spent on Fire to gain power from Ryan’s siren nature, just as she’d used Gideon’s dragon nature. Leah didn’t understand a lot about movies, but she knew actors were idolized and had an audience of millions. Power indeed.
But Qeturah’s goal would’ve changed since Gideon’s death. Now that she knew shattering a world was possible, she would seek Ryan’s death.
Leah had to convince Ryan of his danger before it was too late.
…
Holly dusted off a chair—and then wondered why she’d bothered. More volcanic particles drifted in the Aerie’s balcony window every second, and Leah’s clothes were already filthy.
Her throat felt like it was coated in ash. And the Aerie had no water. Her anxiety spiked. Even if Qeturah intended to bring Holly supplies, what if the time streams slipped out of sync again? Holly could die of dehydration while Leah swanned around L.A.
Wondering what Leah might be doing ate at her. What if Leah’s behavior made people think Holly was crazy? She could wake up in the loony bin.
Then there were Qeturah’s schemes to worry about, too. As mad as Holly was at Ryan, she didn’t want him to die.
Holly peered over the balcony edge. It looked way too far to jump.
Except, she remembered, Gideon had scaled it.
Energized, Holly hunted for Gideon’s tied-together bedsheets and found them coiled under the bed. She tied one end to the iron bed frame and dangled the rest over the edge, but it fell short by at least eight feet.
Gideon had hung by his arms and blithely jumped, but Holly had always sucked at rope climbing in gym class. And, okay, sliding down ought to be easier, but if she broke her leg… Fire World was a bit outside the 9-1-1 service area.
Thunderhead blasted another fountain of lava into the air. Holly watched uneasily as orange braids of fire ran down the mountainside. Movement partway up the slope caught her eye.
At first she thought it might be a tree branch sticking up, but then she recognized the triangular tip of a dragon wing.
It. Was. Moving.
Her heartbeat sped up. Was Gideon alive, after all?
Without giving herself any more time to think, Holly squirmed down on her belly and started to lower her legs over the side. Leah’s stupid skirt bunched up, but the Fire version of underwear, which were like capris, protected her skin as she hung against the rough rock of the Tower.
She only glanced down once. Holly enjoyed flying, but looking out an airplane window was vastly different from dangling off a cliff. Her breath rushed through her teeth, but she forced herself to keep sliding from knot to knot.
Her arm and thigh muscles trembled. It became harder and harder to slow her descent, until—crap!—she ran out of sheet. Her arms couldn’t take the strain.
Two seconds later, bang, she hit the ground. She whacked her knee but didn’t break anything. A small sense of accomplishment glowed inside her. Take that, Qeturah.
Out of the shady interior of the Tower, the day was scorching. Ash piled everywhere like gray snow.
From the ground, Holly couldn’t see the dragon anymore. Could Gideon truly be alive? Holly searched Leah’s memories. He hadn’t been breathing, but his body hadn’t cooled. Maybe dragons had some kind of coma-like shut-down mechanism where they only looked dead while they finished healing.
Except the spear was still embedded in his chest.
She had to check. Not only would she be overjoyed for Gideon’s own sake, but if he lived, Leah would give Holly back her body.
Her instinct was to charge out there, but she paused to get some water from a rain barrel. Even after straining the water, it still tasted ashy. She drank two dippers full then filled it a third time to carry along with her.
Needing to get to Gideon, she set out trotting, but the heat and uneven ground soon slowed her movement to a more reasonable walk.
Shading her eyes, she scanned Thunderhead’s lower slopes for the dragon. There. That irregular black spot must be him. She thought she discerned movement, but she was still too far away to be sure.
Drawn by hope, she hiked to the foot of the mountain then started climbing over bumpy, cooled lava.
Holly had drunk two-thirds of the dipper, and her feet ached by the time she came close enough to see clearly.
Disappointment stabbed deep. The dragon’s body bobbed on a boiling lake of orange lava. The spear in his chest had burned away.
Her eyes newly opened, Holly suddenly saw that the Volcano Lord was building dikes of cooled lava then flooding the enclosed areas to float his son up to the next terrace like locks on a canal.
Thunderhead was taking his son home. The terraces led to the new second mouth that had opened on Thunderhead’s slope, but it was still a task of weeks, if not months, and explained Thunderhead’s continuing eruptions.
Tears filled her eyes, aided in part by the sulfur stink of volcanic gases. Although she’d never truly known Gideon, she took a moment to mourn.
The realization of her
own danger crept up on her.
She’d turned her head, hoping for a cooling breeze, when movement on the distant side of the lake caught her eye. A fresh stream of lava churned the black crust under.
Was her own shore in danger of crumbling in?
Holly knelt and put her hand down on the black surface. It felt side-of-the-oven hot. Her heart started to hammer.
Oh God, oh God… She wasn’t standing on solid stone. She was walking on top of a cooled crust, like a skim of ice on a pond. Mere centimeters below her feet, molten rock still flowed.
On shaky legs, Holly backed up and up and up. When she reached a distance of one hundred meters, she stopped to rest. Cold sweat coated her skin.
How could she have been so stupid, wandering around as if this were a tame city park? Duh! Volcanoes erupting. Lava.
She had to get out of here.
Holly pushed back a lock of sweaty hair and oriented herself on the fingerlike spire of Qeturah’s Tower.
She’d only taken about twenty steps when, with a thick, sludgy noise, a ragged section of crust collapsed two meters ahead of her. Steam scalded her face. Lava swiftly consumed the broken pieces of stone.
It was like looking down into a window of hell.
Swearing, Holly backpedaled but then stopped, afraid that any unwary step might send her plunging into that fiery orange death.
She needed Leah’s help, but there was no ice mirror here—the dipper! Only a little water remained at the bottom. She cocked her head so that one eye reflected in it and Called with all her strength.
…
(Leah, I need your help!)
Leah opened her eyes to Holly’s darkened bedroom. Her otherself’s obvious ploy irritated her. “I don’t believe you.”
(please! I’m trapped on a lava flow, and I don’t know which way to go. it’s crumbling all around me.)
The panic in Holly’s Call propelled Leah out of bed. This could still be a trick, but…
She hurried into the en-suite bathroom and flattened her hand on the mirror. She avoided looking directly into her reflection’s eyes as the image of her otherself floated to the top.
Her heart sank. She couldn’t conceive of a reason for Holly to have left the safety of the Tower, but she clearly had. “What are you doing out there?”
Holly hesitated. (never mind. just tell me how to get out of here. where is it safe to walk?)
Leah had navigated a few lava flows after Gideon’s death. “Walk where it feels cooler.”
Leah watched in bewilderment as Holly ran her hand over the rock surface at her feet. (but it’s all hot.)
“Not with your hands—”
(then, what? my feet?)
“No. Just feel the heat.”
(I don’t know what you mean.)
And Leah couldn’t explain it, because it wasn’t part of Holly’s magic. Leah was the hot-blooded daughter of Duke Ruben; Holly was Joseph Beecher’s daughter. Leah suspected the Beecher family carried a faint strain of merman blood, but Holly’s natural resistance to Ryan’s silver tongue wouldn’t help her now.
The patch of molten rock behind Holly seemed to be spreading. The crust under her could give way at any moment. Holly—and Leah’s body—were in deadly danger.
Had that been Holly’s plan? To put her body in jeopardy so Leah would be forced to return? Anger stirred. Maybe Leah should just leave her there.
Leah wrestled with the decision. Stopping Qeturah from killing Ryan and shattering Water was obviously more important than saving Holly. But it was her fault Holly was trapped on Fire. She’d promised her otherself she wouldn’t come to harm. If Leah broke her word, she would be as bad as Qeturah.
Leah spoke slowly, “If we switch bodies, will you give me your oath to save Gideon? Your Ryan?”
(yes! I’ve been telling you that for hours.)
“Very well.” Leah felt an odd sense of relief. Fire might be dying, but Water was so terribly strange. Every moment she spent here strained her. “Just remember,” she warned, “I’ll be watching you. If you play me false, I’ll take over your body again. Even if I have to Call you every waking moment for a year.”
(so noted. now do it!)
Leah met Holly’s eyes in the mirror and let herself go. She fell back into her own body with a jarring wrench.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Miss Insecure
Holly couldn’t believe it: Nimue, her father’s latest bimbo? Ick!
Holly had spent the night reviewing her memories, but she was still having trouble wrapping her brain around the idea when breakfast rolled around. Nimue was a far cry from the under-thirty blondes her dad usually dated. But then, it wasn’t really Nimue, was it? Qeturah’s hair lacked Nimue’s gray, and she was more youthful looking—perhaps True Worlders had longer lifespans?
Voices in the kitchen slowed Holly’s steps. She didn’t feel prepared to face Qeturah, much less Ryan. Overcoming a cowardly urge to go back to bed, Holly entered the kitchen. Her dad’s housekeeper had arranged silver chafing dishes on the semicircular counter to keep brunch warm. Her dad perched on one stool, his cell phone jammed against his ear. Ryan was dishing up some waffles.
When he saw her, a smile lit his face. Holly felt like she’d been hit in the chest. A TV screen couldn’t convey the impact of those midnight-blue eyes. He looked so happy to see her that she started to melt.
Then the memory of the newspaper photo of him kissing Cassie, his hands molded to her bare lower back, slammed into her.
Averting her gaze, Holly tried to convince herself that the black hole inside her was hate, not pain. Ryan had broken her heart. She didn’t know if she could smile and pretend everything was great just because Leah had confused him with her lost love Gideon.
Just. Breathe.
Her dad held up a finger and mouthed, “One minute.”
“Good morning,” Ryan said huskily.
She ought to say something or at least smile, but her face felt stiff. She skirted around Ryan in silence. How could she possibly pretend she was still his girlfriend?
He put his plate down two spaces away from her dad, leaving room for her to sit between them. “Want some coffee?” he asked eagerly.
She managed a tight nod.
Ryan frowned, sensing something wrong.
He was a cheating jerk, not stupid.
Holly welcomed the surge of anger; it relieved the pain. She busied herself getting a plate of fresh fruit and a waffle. She had to get a hold of herself. She’d promised Leah she’d save Ryan, and Qeturah needed to be stopped. So. Calm.
She sat down on the other side of her dad. He set down his cell. “That was Samantha. She’s putting together the final details for the movie premiere next Wednesday. We’ll be at the Chinese Theatre, with the after-party on a yacht—Nimue’s idea—and I think it’s going to be terrific.”
Holly’s heart clutched up. Cassie Burns would be there, and— “I don’t have a dress to wear.” Leah had packed one, but the dress she’d worn to her cousin Tammy’s wedding would look frumpy at a Hollywood premiere.
Her dad heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Then you’ll have to buy one. I’ll give you my credit card, and you can go with Nimue. She has exquisite taste.”
“She’ll probably be busy,” Holly hedged.
Ryan interrupted. “I told her I want to take a break while you’re here.”
Fan-freaking-tastic. Holly took a bite of waffle.
“You might want to remind Nimue about that,” her dad said. “She headed out to her office first thing this morning.”
“Office?” Holly asked.
“I gave her use of the guest house. So what do you want to do today?” her dad asked. “Disneyland?”
Holly loved Disneyland, but Ryan would want to go, too. “Maybe later in the week. Could we just have a stay-at-home day, maybe laze around the pool?”
“If you’d like,” her dad said. But she should have remembered her dad didn’t really know how to laze around. Soon
he started yakking on his cell again, and before lunch he’d decided to “run in” and do a little postproduction work. “Just for an hour or two, okay?”
Other vacations she would’ve felt abandoned, but her dad’s faults shrank in comparison to Duke Ruben’s. She cut him some slack. “Sure. When you get back, we can play water polo.”
He kissed her forehead, then drove off in his SUV.
Which left Holly alone with Ryan. The realization made her stomach knot up. She made a break for the stairs.
Ryan snagged her wrist. “Holly, what’s wrong?”
Damningly, her pulse still sped at his touch. She jerked free. “Nothing’s wrong.”
He didn’t let it drop. “Yes, it is. You’ve been mad at me all morning. What is it? Did the tabloids print another lie?”
“I haven’t seen a paper,” Holly said tightly, “but it sounds like you have a guilty conscience.” She shouldn’t care, but acid jealousy burned her stomach. Had he been dating Cassie Burns? Someone new?
“No!” Ryan denied. “Please, Holly. What happened between now and last night to make you mad at me again?”
“Last night, I—” Switched bodies with my otherself. She tried again. “Yesterday I thought I could pretend the whole thing never happened. But I can’t. I can’t forgive you.”
Ryan’s face blanched pearl white. “I never kissed her. Cassie. We rehearsed scenes together, yes. My character kissed her character. But I never kissed her. Your dad works in Hollywood. Why can’t you understand that?”
“I did believe you—more fool me—until you used your siren voice on me.”
He winced and averted his eyes.
Pain stabbed Holly’s gut. Had she, even now, been hoping for an explanation? How stupid could she get? “That’s what I thought.” She pushed past him.
“I didn’t mean to use my siren voice on you,” Ryan called after her. “I was afraid you were going to hang up, and it just…slipped out.”
Holly paused on the stairs. His shoulders were hunched in despair. A lock of hair fell over his midnight-blue eyes.
Through Fire & Sea Page 26
