by K. J. McPike
Solstice scowled. “Delta, are you sure this will work?”
“It should. I’m using the same intention they made me use to awaken the semmies’ powers. Our astral energy is dormant, just like theirs.”
I did my best not to cringe. Delta basically just admitted what we were hoping to make happen with Lali’s siblings. I snuck a glance at Solstice. She looked unconvinced but not suspicious. I was probably being paranoid. Delta’s words were only questionable to me because I was in on the plan.
Solstice moved to sit in front of the fabric circle, and Delta sat down across from her. I stood off to the side, unable to shake the feeling that I was betraying Lali. This time, it was even worse because I knew her. At least when I took her mom, I had no connection to anyone in the family.
“Awaken the energy that rests,” Delta chanted, snapping me out of my thoughts. She put her hand on the clear, fist-sized stone that Solstice held over the middle of the circle and closed her eyes. “Just for X, O, D, U, and S.”
The stone flashed, and Delta pulled the dagger from the pouch. Pressing her index finger against the tip of the blade, she squeezed a drop of blood onto the stone. It sizzled, and she repeated the chant.
Solstice went through the same steps, and soon the candles flickered like they were caught in the wind. Delta shut her eyes again and put both hands on the stone. This time, the light that came from inside it washed out everything in the room. The next second, it dimmed into nothing.
I blinked, trying to readjust my eyes. “Did it work?”
“It must’ve,” Delta said. “You saw the light.”
“Well, let’s try projecting and find out.” Solstice squeezed her eyes shut. After a minute, she cursed and shouted, “I can’t do it!”
“I can’t, either.” Delta scratched her head, trying and failing to look distraught. “I was sure that would work.” She gave Solstice a long, hard look, but all Solstice did was snap about how Delta’s tweaks had failed.
I pushed off the wall. “Hey, we had to try. But if you don’t mind, I’m going to head home. I’m exhausted.”
“Wait,” Delta called, following the script she’d come up with earlier. She took the quartz from Solstice and hurried over to me. “Keep this somewhere safe until we can find the others.”
“Okay.” I tried to look caught off guard as I took the stone from her. “See you both tomorrow.”
Projecting to my room, I stared at the crystal in my hand. I still wasn’t sure this was a great idea, but there was no point in turning back now. I checked my phone. It was already two in the morning, so Lali’s family would surely be asleep. Knowing I’d probably need a flashlight to get around the house, I switched my phone to airplane mode. With my luck, Cade would call while I was in one of the kids’ rooms.
I previewed the upstairs hallway of Lali’s house. It was dark and empty. Perfect.
Appearing in front of the door to her littlest sister’s room, I slowly turned the knob. Mercifully, it opened without creaking. The girl I’d since learned was named Salaxia lay konked out, her arm draped over the side of the bed the way it had been when I grabbed her stuffed elephant months ago. Just like Delta had instructed, I brought the stone close to Salaxia and waited for it to light up. I kept it toward the back of her head so it wouldn’t wake her, but the flash was quick enough that she probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway.
I repeated the process with Lali’s other sister and two brothers, surprised that the whole thing went so smoothly. One of the twins stirred but didn’t wake. Thankfully, her family members all seemed to sleep soundly.
When I was done, I stepped back into the hallway and looked toward Lali’s room. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was still awake. I kind of felt like I should apologize for kissing her. Things were already complicated enough, and she didn’t need more to deal with right now. The least I could do was acknowledge that.
Tiptoeing toward her door, I eased it open and poked my head inside. It was dark, but I could make out the unmade bed. Lali wasn’t in it.
I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. “Lali?” I whispered, though a quick glance around the space told me she wasn’t there. Where would she have gone? I’d just passed the bathroom, and I knew she wasn’t in there.
Closing my eyes, I tried to preview her. The next second, it felt like a bus hit me. My back cracked against the dresser, and I slumped to the floor before I’d realized what happened.
What the—
How did she have a block around her? Had she found her mom?
No. It wasn’t possible. Even if Lali had somehow projected to Xiomara, she wouldn’t have been able to switch into her physical body without a transposer. The only one she knew about was in San Francisco, and there was no way she could get from there to Miami that quickly.
Pushing myself to sit up, I pulled out my phone to call her. As soon as I switched it out of airplane mode, it beeped with a voicemail from Lali. I pressed the button to play the message.
“Kai!” Lali’s recorded voice gasped. “Call me back as soon as you get this!” She sounded hysterical, and obviously eager to tell me something. There was only one thing that would have made her sound like that. The realization made my body go numb. She’d found the portal.
Lali was in Alea.
Chapter 46
Rescue
I cursed and scrambled to my feet. What was Lali thinking? How could she go to Alea alone? I told her not to go without me. Now I had no way to get to her, and she could be in danger.
Swallowing hard, I fought to calm my racing thoughts. Maybe I was overreacting. There might’ve been somewhere in this realm that was blocked. But where? The only place I could think of with any Astralii link was the house above the transposer. That would make the most sense, and it would have been easy for Lali to get there. I had to check.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I projected to the glowing ring I’d seen under the bay not twenty-four hours prior. It didn’t take long to find the steps leading to the trap door Solstice had described. Shoving open the hinged wooden square, I found myself looking around the common area of an enormous house.
“Lali?” I called out, not even caring if there were any Astralii around to hear.
No response.
“Lali!” I clambered out of the rectangular hole in the floor and ran through the massive home. I barely noticed any of the details as I raced past the living room, down the halls, up the stairs. I checked each of seven bedrooms and four bathrooms, calling Lali’s name the whole way.
The place was empty.
Tearing back down the steps, I took the deepest breath I could manage. Okay, think. Where else could she have gone? Even though it was unlikely, I had to check the in-law, just to be certain. It was the only place I knew for sure was blocked.
I projected to my house and sprinted toward the basement. “Lali?” I shouted over the pounding of my feet on the stairs.
Xiomara appeared at the bottom of the steps just as I reached the last one. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Why are you calling my daughter’s name?”
“Is she down here?” I panted, scanning the small apartment.
“Of course not. How could she be?”
“I can’t project to her.” I nearly choked on the sentence.
“What? Why are you—”
“She’s somewhere with a block! Where could she be if she’s not here?”
“I don’t know, Kai.” Xiomara was suddenly breathing as hard as I was. “What’s going on?”
I ran my hands over my face. “She must’ve found the portal. Somehow, she found it and she went to Alea without me.”
“What? How is that even possible?” I met Xiomara’s gaze, and she seemed to read everything on my face. “Are you insane?” she shrieked. “How could you send her there by herself? Do you know what they’ll do to her if they find her?”
“I know! I never told her to go alone. I specifically told her to wait for me.” I pulled the ends of my
hair, hoping the pain would ground me so I could think. “Are there blocks around the transposer in Alea?”
“No. The only blocks are around houses and—” Xiomara made a sharp, shrill sound, as if she’d been stabbed.
“What?” I demanded. “Houses and what?” The terror in her eyes answered my question. The lab.
Xiomara grabbed her stomach. “My baby. My baby!”
I shook my head, refusing to believe it. Lali couldn’t be in the lab. I couldn’t lose someone else to that place.
“Delta,” I gasped. “She can trace her.”
“What?” Xiomara gaped at me. “She—”
I spun around and started up the stairs before she could finish. I heard her footsteps behind me, and she caught my elbow as I stepped onto the main floor.
I projected us to Solstice’s apartment without explanation. Solstice and Delta were settled at the table, but both jumped to their feet when they saw us.
“Lali’s in Alea,” I breathed before they could say anything.
Solstice’s jaw dropped open.
“Del?” Xiomara sounded relieved to see her even though Delta looked like she’d seen a ghost. “Can you trace her? Please.”
“How could she have gotten to Alea?” Solstice asked. “The—”
“We can figure out how later,” I shouted. “We have to find her before…” My voice refused to finish the thought.
“I’ll get the stones.” Delta booked it to the bedroom with Xiomara right behind her.
I couldn’t just stand around and do nothing. I had to try going after Lali again. Maybe there was a chance she had moved out of range of the block.
Heading for the living room, I dropped onto the sofa to minimize the block’s effect if I hit it again. Sure enough, I felt my body thrown back into the cushions, the air ejecting from my lungs. Gasping, I tried again. And again.
The kick back felt stronger every time, or maybe I was getting weaker with each hit. But I couldn’t give up.
“Stop that,” Delta scolded as she and Xiomara came back into the living room, their hands filled with the supplies Delta and I had stolen earlier. “You’ll knock yourself unconscious.”
“Have to…find her,” I choked out, closing my eyes to try another time. The hit made me grunt, and I felt sweat slide down my forehead.
“Not like that,” Delta said, frantically setting up the stuff for the ritual with Xiomara scrambling alongside her.
Despite her scolding, I couldn’t keep myself from trying to go after Lali. Twice more, I took the block’s beating, and every inhale became a wheeze.
“I said stop that, Kai!” Delta shouted. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
But I couldn’t stop. Not until I knew Lali was safe.
“We don’t know for sure she’s in trouble,” Solstice mumbled, kneeling next to the cloth now covered in crystals.
“She’s behind a block!” Xiomara exploded. “Where could she be that isn’t dangerous?”
Her words seared through me. This was my fault. I should’ve been honest with Lali from the beginning. All my lying had put my only friend in danger.
I wouldn’t rest until I got her out. Closing my eyes, I braced myself for the kick in the gut as I tried to project to her. But this time, the images came together in my mind.
Yes! I followed the preview without thinking. The white-haired man behind Lali didn’t have time to react. I tackled him, and metal flashed in my peripheral vision as something in his hand fell to the ground. I jumped to my feet, my brain focused on Lali. Everything else blurred as I dove at her. I didn’t care that I knocked her off balance, or that we landed hard in the sand as I projected us back to Lanai.
Gulping the salty air, I lifted my head and took in Lali’s bewildered expression below me. I felt my heart stammer. She’s safe. She’s safe. My brain ran on a loop, repeating the thought until it finally convinced me I hadn’t been too late.
But my relief quickly gave way to anger. We warned Lali not to go off on her own, and she’d risked her life because she was too stubborn to listen.
“Are you crazy?” I yelled, stumbling to a standing position. “What were you thinking going off by yourself? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? You could’ve been killed!”
“Kai, we have to go back,” she cried.
I opened my mouth to argue, but she cut me off with the only two words that could stop me dead in my tracks: “Kala’s there.”
Chapter 47
Backstabber
The world froze. At first, I was sure I’d misheard her. “What?” I managed to get out despite the spinning in my head.
“I saw her in the lab,” Lali gasped. I blinked, my brain a million miles away as I stared at where she lay in the sand. Lali had been inside the lab. If she’d seen Kala there, that meant…
I nearly collapsed. I’d just been right outside that place—the closest to Kala I’d ever been since she was kidnapped—and I projected out of there without a second look. I wanted to tear my hair out. I was so stupid! I let myself get so distracted with saving Lali that I didn’t even think about bookmarking the location so I could go back.
“She was in a classroom.” Lali’s voice broke into my thoughts, and I did a double take.
“A classroom?” I repeated. No, that couldn’t be right. There was no way Kala was going to school in Alea. Cade would have told me if that were even a remote possibility. Wouldn’t he?
“Are you sure it was her?” I asked.
“Positive.” Lali clambered to her feet, sand spilling from her clothes as she moved. “I swear. We have to go back and get one of those stones.”
“What stones?”
“The guards,” she said, still breathless. “They have these purple stones around their necks. They can move through blocks. I saw them do it.”
Some of the higher Astralii have stones that can penetrate blocks. Delta had told me that while we were talking in her motel room. That must’ve been what Lali was talking about.
“There’s a block around the lab,” Lali continued. “But if we can sneak up on one of them, we can steal a necklace and break through it.”
That was all I needed to know. Whatever it took, I was going to get back to that lab. “Okay,” I said. “How do we sneak up on them? Where are they?”
“There were some right outside the transposer. Maybe you can peek out the door and get a glimpse of the area before they can catch you.”
“I’ll have to,” I admitted, the whole beach seeming to come into sharper focus. “I didn’t get much of a look at Alea when I went after you. I just wanted to get you out of there, and…” I inhaled slowly, studying Lali again. Her hair was matted and tangled, her face was streaked with sweat, and her bottom lip was swollen. What happened to her over there? I wasn’t even sure she could make it to Alea again.
“Can you go back?” I asked. “You look—”
“I’m fine.” She snapped her eyes shut, and I tried to catch my breath. I waited for her to disappear, preparing for the moment I’d have to project after her. This time, I would go right after her. No more mishaps.
But she didn’t disappear. At least, not as quickly I expected. I waited, bouncing on my toes impatiently. What was taking so long? She’d already seen the place, so she wouldn’t need to go after the portal anymore. All she had to do was picture it and show up next to it in her astral form.
Her breathing went ragged, and I knew something wasn’t right.
“Lali?” I jiggled her shoulder. “Lali, you’re panting like you’re going to faint. What’s wrong?”
“I messed everything up,” she sobbed.
“What?”
“They’re watching the transposer. Their weapons are pointed right at it.” She grabbed her head. “I ruined everything.”
No. That couldn’t be true. After everything we’d been through, I refused to give up now.
“There has to be another way,” I insisted, mentally racing through everything I’d learned from Cad
e about Astralii and their realm. He’d mentioned once that there were more transposers than the main one. That could be our way in. If he knew where they were, he could help us. He had to help us, whether it was the week to pursue his agenda or not.
“Cade told me there are more transposers in Alea,” I said. “It’s not just the main one. Maybe we can try one of the others. Come on.”
I grabbed her hand, not caring anymore about the issues Cade would have with involving her. He couldn’t argue now that she’d made it.
I took us to Delta’s bedroom, not wanting to startle Cade by appearing right in front of him with Lali. “Uncle Cade!” I yelled, pulling open the door to the hallway. I gestured for Lali to come after me as I walked toward the living room.
“What?” he called back.
“Where are we?” Lali whispered as we moved down the hall.
“This house belongs to a friend of Solstice’s,” I told her. “Cade has been ransacking it looking for clues about other Astralii and sending me off to follow up on the leads he finds.” That was mostly true. I just didn’t have time to explain the rest.
Lali and I stepped into the living room, and Cade looked up from where he sat in the middle of a mess of papers and boxes. I didn’t even care what he was looking for now. Nothing he found could trump what Lali had done.
His eyes narrowed as soon as they landed on her. “What’s she doing here?” he barked. “We agreed to leave her out of this.” Of course, he was going to make a big deal about the stupid week rotation.
“Yeah,” I started. “But—”
“But you’re still running around with her behind my back?” He lumbered to his feet. “Is this why you haven’t found anything with any of our leads? Because you’ve been too busy chasing a crush?”
“She found Kala!” I hadn’t meant to shout, but at least it got Cade’s attention.
“That’s not possible.” He glared between us. “You’d never get anywhere close to her without clearance to the lab.”
