by Wendy Knight
"She's not breathing," Charity whispered.
"Shane," Hunter said, looking from Ari to Shane and back again. Shane and Charity both froze, looking up at her.
"What?" Ari asked. She had her phone in her hand, holding it up toward the sky. "I'm trying to call nine-one-one but my phone doesn't have a signal here." She dropped her arm in frustration.
"There's no time," Shane said. He started to draw in the air above the girl's wound.
Ari's chin dropped.
"Ari, whatever you're about to see, you can't tell anyone. Anyone! Do you hear me?" Hunter yelled as Ari ignored him, staring in shock as Shane repeated the spell and then pushed it toward the girl. Blue flames seeped into her skin, threading over and under, healing her.
"Oh my…." But Ari never got to finish. Hunter grabbed her by the shoulders and jerked her none-too-gently. Her head snapped back and she reached up to grab her neck, glaring at him.
"If you tell anyone, you could get him killed. Do you understand me?" Hunter barked at her. She stared at him, her mind racing. Charity was suddenly at her side, pushing Hunter's hands away.
"I saw this a… a .. .a couple of weeks ago. We've been looking for them ever since. We've spent every waking hour looking for them. But we couldn't find them."
"That's why you've been acting so weird," Ari murmured.
Charity nodded.
Ari looked over at Shane and the girl, whose color was returning."She's breathing," she said dumbly.
Shane raised his eyes to meet hers, his blue gaze pleading with her for understanding. "I healed her."
Ari could see the blue magic pulsing through the air, rippling away from them. Slowly she turned her eyes back to Hunter, who still stood in front of her, breathing hard, his hands fisted at his sides.
Hunter stared back at her. Her gaze swept to Shane again, then to Charity. Her mind raced. She could tell them who she was. They might understand. Or… they might kill her. An eternity passed in a few seconds as she battled within herself.
"Ari!" Hunter yelled, jerking her again.
Her head snapped back and forth like a rag doll. Oh yeah, they'd kill me.
"Okay! Hunter, who would I tell? Who would believe me if I wanted to?" she yelled back, shoving him away from her. She rubbed her temples, where a headache was forming, and closed her eyes.
"We need to get her to the nurse. And call the police," Charity said. No one moved.
Shane stood up, leaving the girl's side to come over to Ari. "Hey," he said quietly. She opened her eyes, dropping her hands to her sides. He reached up and tucked a wild red wave behind her ear. "I know it's unbelievable. But there are people out there who want to kill us for what we can do. If you tell anyone…"
"I won't, Shane." She met his gaze and held it. He studied her for a long minute. Ari didn’t breathe, her eyes lost in metallic blue. How had she never noticed before that his eyes were the color of Carules flames?
Charity yelped, breaking the spell. "They don't go to this school. That's why we couldn't find them," she exclaimed. Her eyes were glowing again.
"So Charity can see the future? She's a psychic?" Ari asked, playing dumb. She knew perfectly well what Charity was, although Edrens didn't have any Seers. Ari had never even met a Seer before. They weren't sent out to battle, probably because they would see their own imminent deaths.
For some reason, they all sided with the Carules. Seers didn't have any magic of their own, so they shouldn’t belong to one side or the other, but somehow their little gift was always in the Carules' favor.
"I'm a Seer. But not a good one," Charity said, interrupting Ari's racing thoughts.
"Not a good one? Serious, Charity? You just saved this girl's life!" Ari exclaimed, flinging her hand toward the girl, whose color was almost normal.
Charity looked at her, startled. Apparently, that hadn't occurred to her.
Nearby, the boy moaned and put a hand to his face. "Don't heal him," Ari snapped when Shane glanced over at him. "I hurt my knuckles doing that."
Hunter crossed to the boy and jerked him to his feet. Hunter towered over him and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds, so the kid didn't even attempt to fight. Instead he held a hand to his bleeding nose and glared at Ari fiercely.
"Was there something you wanted to say to me? Maybe the fact that you got knocked out by a girl is bugging you and you want another shot at saving your ego?" Ari said through clenched teeth.
He jerked away from Hunter and started toward her, swearing. Ari didn't move. "Let’s go, big boy." She narrowed her large eyes, but Shane stepped between them and shoved the boy back into Hunter's grasp.
"Back off! You lay one hand on her and you'll wish she’d killed you the first time.”
"Easy Shane. We need to get her to a hospital," Charity murmured as she placed a hand on his arm. Shane glared at her for a minute, and then released his pent-up breath, nodding.
Hunter wasn't so inclined to be nice. He shoved him forward, smacking the boy’s head into the tree. "Oops."
"Hunter! You aren't helping," Charity exclaimed, frustrated. The boy's face was scraped, but Ari was sure he'd live.
Several minutes later, Ari was on her phone calling nine-one-one as they walked onto the manicured lawns of the school. There was a yell from inside the gym and students started streaming out, filling the area with noise and crowding Shane, who was carrying the girl. "Back off and give her some air!" Ari yelled at them. “No, no. Sorry, not you,” she quickly told the operator on the phone.
The rest of the night was a chaotic blur of flashing red and blue lights and questions. Lots and lots of questions. Someone bandaged her knuckles, which she thought about mentioning was a pointless endeavor, but she didn't argue.
****
It was late and the dance was long since over. All the students were gone; Ari and Shane were the only ones still sitting in the commons. Charity had been nearing a complete physical and emotional collapse so Hunter had walked her back to her room.
Ari listened to Shane tell the last police officer what they knew. Again.
"We'll be in touch if we need anything else," the officer said as he stood up. Ari stood with him, and Shane hauled himself to his feet as well. They watched the police car back away.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" Ari asked in the sudden silence.
"Yeah. She didn't even need to go to the hospital. I'm a good healer," Shane said.
Ari glanced sideways at him. "One day soon you'll have to explain to me what, exactly, you are."
Shane stared at her for a long moment, shoving his hands in his pockets. "It's dangerous for you to know anything, Ari," he said.
"I know that you do magic with little blue flames. What could you tell me more dangerous than that?" She raised an eyebrow. He smirked and looked down at the ground. "It's just that…" He didn't get to finish because a teacher approached from the main building, calling that it was past curfew. Shane looked over at him, then reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently. "I'll tell you what I can, one day. But not tonight. It's been a long couple of weeks and I am exhausted."
She looked down at their hands, together. Her heart raced and her mouth was so dry she couldn't form words. Slowly she raised wide eyes and found him staring at her with the most unfathomable expression.
He opened his mouth to say something else but the teacher was within earshot, clapping his hands at them like he was trying to scare off a flock of birds.
Ari shot him an annoyed glance, but Shane let go of her hand with an embarrassed chuckle. "See you tomorrow," Shane said, giving her one last, long look.
Butterflies attacked Ari’s stomach; all she could do was nod and give him a half-wave. Turning, she went inside.
Chapter Thirteen
Ari was exhausted, but her mind was racing and she knew she wasn't going to fall asleep any time soon. And she needed to call Will. He would tell her what to do about this startling new development. She was just reaching for her phone when it
rang. She resisted the urge to swear under her breath and ignored Brittany's annoyed glare as she snatched it off the desk. One glance at the caller ID sent her spirits plummeting.
"What?" she asked, putting the phone to her ear and stalking out of the room. She slammed the door, just for effect, reveling in the fact that for once she was the one doing the slamming.
She was about to ask Richard why he was never there when she tried to call him, especially when he always expected her to come running, but he interrupted her.
"We need you in Adlington," Richard said.
Ari stopped in the middle of the hall, shocked. "Adlington?"
"Yes. This is a bad one, Arianna. Normals have gotten involved. You have to stop it," he said. "No one else can."
"It's a several-hour flight. I'll never get there in time." Ari whirled back toward her room to grab her things.
"You aren't flying. We've… ah…” He hesitated and Ari was instantly on edge. “We’ve found someone who can do saldepement spells," Richard finished.
Ari’s head jerked up, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "What? Who?"
****
Ari bounded down the stairs, three at a time, her bag bouncing against her back. She launched herself around the corner of the last staircase, and skidded to a halt, almost toppling down the last few steps.
Hunter and Charity stood at the doorway, talking in rushed, harsh whispers.
“We’ve got to get him out of here.” Hunter said.
They both jumped at the sight of her, fear plain on Charity’s exhausted face.
“What’s going on?” Ari asked. Her hands kept gripping and releasing the strap on her bag. Stop it, she commanded herself.
“Nothing.” Hunter growled as Charity looked away, her eyes shifting.
“We uh, just… Shane’s just not answering his phone. We were a little worried, that’s all,” Charity finished weakly.
Hunter rolled his eyes heavenward. “Oh. Well, he was tired. He’s probably sleeping. See ya!” she said, her voice falsely bright as she pushed past them into the night.
“Weren’t you with Shane? Why didn’t you bring him with you instead of coming to get me first?” Charity asked Hunter as the door swung shut behind Ari, cutting off the rest of their conversation.
****
“Swarms of Edrens could be on their way here, right now!” Shane could hear the panic in Charity’s voice long before he could see her. He leaned against the wall outside his dorm, waiting. He glanced again at the text he’d gotten two minutes before. “Edrens have Taylor.” Taylor was one of the Council’s highest members. He knew who Shane was and where Shane was. He knew everything.
“No, he wasn’t in our room. I thought maybe he was with you. Obviously he’s not with Ari.” Hunter’s deep rumble didn’t carry as well as Charity’s higher pitch. Shane had to strain to hear him.
“Hunter! What if they — “
“The Council has someone ready to do a saldepement spell. We’ll get him out before they’ll have time to get here.”
“But—”
“Charity, Taylor was taken not even an hour ago. He isn’t going to break right away, no matter what spell they’re using on him. We’ve got time to get Shane out of here,” Hunter snapped. Charity knew Hunter as well as Shane did; it was his own worry making him so tense.
They ran around the corner and smack into Shane. “Shane! We have to—”
“I know. I got the text. Charity, we’re going to sneak you up to our room and go from there. No one will see us that way.”
“You should have gone to our room to wait for us! You’re safe there!” Hunter said. Shane sent him an annoyed look but said nothing.
Charity glanced from one boy to the other, her small fists clenching and unclenching, resisting the urge to strangle at least one of them. “How about we skip the part where we lecture Shane and just get him out of here?”
****
"I'm ready," Ari said into the phone. She stood alone in the woods by the main road, surrounded by hiding crickets…creepy little bugs. The saldepement spell had failed all three times so far. The Carules they had captured was intentionally messing it up. She could hear him scream every time and knew they were torturing him. I should have just taken the jet. It would have been faster, she thought, shifting from one foot to the other.
"Count down from five… four… three…" Ari counted, matching pace with the Carules voice in the background, and then traced the spell, yet again, into the air, ready to watch the red flames flicker out and die like they had before. But this time the spell caught and expanded into a shimmering door in front of her. Wow. It worked. Finally.
She didn't hesitate, jumping through before the door could disappear on her. The Carules stood facing her, grinning triumphantly. The air in front of him was burning with a rikil, one of three kill spells. Ari saw it in the air just before he pushed it at her. She shrieked and dove out of the way, hitting the floor and rolling. He spun toward her, already tracing the spell again as the room exploded into movement, everyone going after him at once.
Ari moved so fast she blurred, and she could see the confusion on the Carules’ face as she felt her fingers explode with flames. Furious, she traced a lirik into the air and threw it at him. It hit him before he could finish his spell, before anyone else in the room had a chance to get near him. He exploded into ash and was gone, wafting smoke the only indication he had even stood there.
"Are you trying to get me killed?" she screamed at Richard as she jumped to her feet. "What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking he was a Council member and he could have told us who their Prodigy is until you killed him!" Richard bellowed, striding across the room, his face red and bloated.
"Knowing who their Prodigy is will do you little good if I’m dead!" she yelled back.
Richard had ceased to scare her several years ago; the rest of the room, however, wasn't so brave and most of them cowered near the doorway. She glimpsed her mother and could read the terror and pain in her face, the need to protect her daughter warring against her fear of her own father.
But Ari didn't need protection. "How did you not know he would do something like that?" she shrieked.
Richard's face contorted with rage and his breathing came in short, angry gasps; he was at a loss for words. It hadn't even occurred to him.
"Wonderful." Ari rolled her eyes heavenward and shook her head in disgust. "I'm here to do a job, right? So let’s go."
Richard's eyes narrowed with menace, but she met his gaze, sparks flickering from her fingers, daring him. She wanted him to attack so that she would have an excuse to strike back.
Richard was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them, and he backed down. "Keisel! Get her out of my sight," he said, spinning on his heel and stalking from the room.
Keisel, a huge man with a big, furry beard, stepped forward, his gaze flickering to Ari’s face and down again in fear.
"I'm not going to attack you, Keisel." She sighed as her hands dropped to her sides and the sparks died, all the fight gone out of her with Richard’s departure. "We're on the same side, remember?"
"So's Richard," Keisel said into the silence.
Ari's eyes drifted toward the door Richard had just gone through, and her brows furrowed. "I wonder," she said. Shaking her head, she glanced at Keisel, shocked to see silent agreement brewing in his brown eyes. Then he turned away and she had nothing else to do but follow him to the waiting car, with one backward glance at her mother.
It was time to go to work.
****
“What’s going on? How did they get Taylor? And do we have any eyes on him?” Hunter started firing questions before he was through the portal.
“Taylor made a mistake and they took advantage of it,” Charles said. He sat behind a raised partition like a judge, scowling down at them as they came in. The five other members of the Council sat at lower seats in rows on either side of him.
Two seats were glaring
ly empty.
Shane struggled to tear his eyes away from it. Taylor was Shane’s favorite member on the Council.
“Where is Lewis?” Shane asked.
“Adlington. He’s already joined the fighting.” Charles gave Lewis’s empty chair a stiff glance. He didn’t seem to approve of Lewis’s absence.
“So? Is anyone watching him? Taylor, I mean,” Hunter said.
Charles didn’t reply but looked toward the back of the room, where the Council’s favorite Seer, Sabine, sat silently, eyes glowing.
“You’re safe here, Mr. Delyle. Why don’t you go get comfortable in your rooms until this all blows over?” Charles motioned toward the hallway with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“No way. What has Taylor told them? I want to know how much danger Shane is in. Now,” Hunter said briskly.
Charles raised his eyebrows at Hunter’s audacity, but they had dealt with him before and the knowledge that he took his job seriously was nothing new. Charity was watching Sabine with a frown, and Shane understood that frown and what caused it. She was uncomfortable around what she called “real Seers”. They made her feel inferior and she had even mentioned that they had called her worthless a time or two. As anxious as he was to get her out of this room and away from these people, he had to know what they were facing.
“They haven’t gotten anything out of him. They’re using him to transport the Prodigy but he’s fighting them.”
Shane frowned. “Transport the Prodigy? To where?”
“Adlington,” Charles responded. “We’ve been fighting for three days. I’m surprised they haven’t called their Prodigy in before now. I guess they were busy trying to capture Taylor.”
Just then the Seer at the back of the room gave a sharp cry. Next to Hunter, Charity’s eyes were glowing, her lips pressed together so firmly they were white, and she was shaking. She was trapped in one of her visions, but before he had a chance to ask what she saw, Sabine’s wail distracted him. They all whirled to face her.
