Flames in the Midst (The Jade Hale Series)

by Reckenwald, Sarah

  “Why don’t you think his aura is real?” I asked.

  Little Jade frowned at me again. She looked like she wasn’t sure if I could be trusted. I rested my head on my knees and tried to look as trustworthy as possible. I closed my eyes, trying one last time to will this world away and return to Zach’s party. I could almost hear the thump of the music in the next room. Jade startled me back into my new reality when she began to talk again. She had come out from under the desk and knelt right next to me, whispering in my ear.

  “I’ve seen his real color. It comes through from behind the fake one every once in a while, when he doesn’t think anyone is around. It’s dark. Very dark. Darker than Cameron’s. Dark like the night with no moon and no stars and no lights,” she stayed hovering near my ear. Then she scooted across the room and sat in the armchair with the history book on her lap. I sat still. Her words sent a chill through my whole body. I remembered seeing that aura, that deep, depths of a coalmine black she described. I remembered seeing it on this night and never again. She was right. It wasn’t just Cameron who was a Shadow Ruler; it was his father, too.

  I looked up. Jade was flipping through the pages of the book, no doubt examining the illustrations and charts. I didn’t learn to read until I started school. She came to the loose page, the contract, and held it up.

  “What’s this?” she asked with genuine innocence.

  With a deep breath, I stood up. I would have to help Cameron, but I had to do it my way. I couldn’t have Jade set the whole place on fire. I scanned the room. Books lined the walls like hundreds of sentinels guarding a fortress. Then there was the fireplace. She could burn the books there and not set the whole place up in flames.

  “That,” I told her as I walked over to the chair and propped myself up on the arm next to her, “is something Cameron wants you to take care of.”

  “Oh,” she exclaimed with that same awe in her voice. “What does he want me to do with it? Should I keep it safe? Hide it someplace else?”

  “No, Cameron asked me to have you burn the books in this room. I think you might be right about his father, and I think that burning these books might upset Professor Michaels, but Cameron said it was very important. I know you don’t want to start a fire…”

  “Cameron wants me to? I’ll do it,” she interrupted me. You could at least key down the eagerness, I thought.

  “Well, let’s try to do this as safely as we can. I think it may take a while, but we should be able to burn the books in the fireplace.” I took the contract from her and the book and walked over to the fireplace. It would be easier to just burn the contracts, but I didn’t know how many there were or how long it would take to find them. I pulled the metal mesh covering to the side of the fireplace and checked to make sure the flue was open. I threw the book and the contract in. Jade already sat at my side.

  “Can you do this?” I asked, “Can you focus your gift just on the inside of this fireplace?”

  “I think so,” she replied as she knelt on the hearth. She stared at the book with concentrated intensity, and she no longer looked like a small child. She transformed into a miniature adult. Her body was tense with purpose, and her eyes had a glare to them that would frighten the most villainous criminal.

  I looked at the fireplace, wishing I could be the one to do this instead of her. If this didn’t go well, she would be scarred by this night. I knew it probably would not go well, but maybe I could alter this night and protect both of us in the process. A small wisp of smoke rose from the book. It burst into flames, but the contract resisted the first licks of the flame.

  Glancing back at Jade, I could see she was no longer with me. She was in another universe, all alone with only the purpose of starting this fire. I felt the heat radiating off her increase, and suddenly more light emitted from the fireplace. I watched as the contract dissolved in waves of blue heat. Jade crumpled next to me, breathing hard. How can she do this? There are so many books. She’s just a child. I had to think of something else.

  “Jade? Are you okay?” I lifted her shoulders gently, and she leaned in against my side. She couldn’t do this. It would kill her, and by default, me.

  “I’m…okay,” she forced the words out, but I could tell the eagerness she had only moments ago had escaped her. I held her by the fireplace while I thought. If I left her in her hiding spot, I could go back to Cameron. If I explained what I knew about his father and how we had tried to carry out the task he had given me, maybe he could make an elixir to give me back my abilities and gifts. Then I would start the fire. I would get Jade and my mother out, but no one could see Jade the way she was right now. She looked like the lone survivor of a train wreck—bewildered and beaten down. If Professor Michaels saw her, he would know immediately what we were up to; I was sure of it.

  “Jade?” I looked down at the weak child next to me, but she seemed to be recovering with the speed of Superman when the kryptonite draining his powers had been thrust out into the emptiness of space.

  “I’m starting to feel better,” she said, with only a hint of the weakness of moments before in her voice.

  “I still think you should rest while I think about this,” I told her. “Can you stay in your hiding space for a little while longer? I want to go and talk to Cameron. Maybe I can get him to help us.”

  She nodded, and I helped her over to the desk. She crawled underneath, leaned against the inner panel of the desk, and closed her eyes. I stared at her for just a moment. She had no idea how this night would shape and change the rest of her life. Before I left the room, I closed the metal curtain in front of the fireplace. The room looked almost exactly the way I had found it except for a clutter of papers on the floor from the backpack and two books missing from the bookshelf.

  “Stay here and stay hidden,” I instructed Jade one more time. “Don’t let anyone see you. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Quietly, I closed the door and stepped back into the yellow light of the hall. To my left and just a few feet down the hall stood the black door leading through the portal and into the bar. I would have to plan my words carefully so as not to upset Cameron. The result of that could be the end of my aunt’s life. I didn’t know if I could trust a Shadow Ruler, but maybe there was another way. To my right, I could hear laughter coming from around the corner in the hall. If my mother was there, maybe I could get her to fix an elixir. I could trust her. I couldn’t tell her outright who I was, but I could probably tell her about what Cameron had done. I could also trust her to keep little Jade safe. Other than Aunt Lynn, there wasn’t anyone else I could be certain about.

  I decided investigating the laughter down the hall might be more favorable than trying to reason with a Shadow Ruler, so I turned to the right and hurried down the hall. I passed by all of the remaining doors and took a left at the end of the hall. This opened into a great room of sorts.

  A small but elegant kitchen took up the left side of the room. Large terra cotta tiles covered the floor of the entire room. A kitchen island served as a divider to mark the end of the kitchen and the beginning of the rest of the room. Elegant bar stools with beige cushioned seats and dark wooden backs sat at the island. Across from the island lay a space used as a dining room. A large mahogany table stretched over the tiles with lavish chairs—shorter versions of the bar stools. Beyond this, the room opened up into a family room with another fireplace on the back wall of the building. This one was three times the size of the fireplace in the office where little Jade hid. Bricks painted white to stand out against the tan walls and terra cotta tile surrounded the fireplace. Too bad I couldn’t drag all of the books back to this fireplace; it would have made my task easier and more efficient.

  Several billowing couches and chairs formed a circle with the fireplace. There was no television. The room released a calm and soothing sensation, making it appear as the perfect room in which to relax or to escape from the battle between the Guardians and the Shadow Rulers. Unfortunately, as far as I could p
iece together, it was a room orchestrated by a Shadow Ruler disguised as a newfound Guardian. The sense of safety and security given off by the posh setting was merely an illusion. An illusion my mother had fallen victim to.

  Both the kitchen and dining areas were empty. I stepped towards the opposite end of the room and found Justin and Amy in quiet conversation on a couch near the fireplace, erupting in muffled laughter over a shared joke every so often. Madilyn slept on a large chair several feet away, but there was no sign of anyone else in the room. My mother was not here. It occurred to me she was either in one of the rooms I had passed by or she had gone out to check on Aunt Lynn and been trapped by Cameron as well. I turned quickly to exit before I was seen, but it was too late.

  “Jasmine,” Amy called, “I’m so glad you’re okay. We were worried when you just passed out like that. Did Cameron show you how to get back here?”

  I gritted my teeth at the sound of his name, but I managed to smile as I turned to face Amy and Justin.

  “You could say that,” I faked my best smile and thought carefully before I formed my question. The last thing I needed now was to create more problems for myself. “Have you seen Diana? I wanted to check in with her about some things I’m remembering.” More half-truths.

  Amy stood up and walked over to where I stood—halfway into the room from her viewpoint, halfway out from mine. Justin stayed on the couch for a minute, stretching his legs and arms out. Such a simple gesture, but it seemed so relaxed and so wrong. It didn’t make sense to me at this moment, as time was running out for my mother, for my aunt, and even for me, that anyone could be as relaxed as Justin and Amy were in this place. My nerves made me feel like a bomb disposal specialist; I needed to find my mother or give up and find Cameron. Yet, I didn’t know if I could trust the people in this room, so running off in the panic surging through my blood was not an option. I had to choose my options with a certain amount of caution, just as the bomb technician would have to choose his approach warily to avoid detonating the situation.

  “I haven’t seen Diana in at least an hour,” Amy said, touching my shoulder gently as she walked past me and into the kitchen. She opened a cabinet and grabbed three glasses; Madilyn slept on the couch blissfully unaware of the danger transpiring all around her. I watched Amy pull an elastic band out of her pocket and pull her long blond hair back in a ponytail before filling the glasses with ice cubes and water. Justin joined us, sitting on one of the barstools and pulling out another.

  “Sit down,” Justin invited, patting the barstool. Amy brought the glasses over to the island, scooting one towards Justin and one towards me. I figured neither of them had tried to cast any spells or they wouldn’t be able to be so relaxed. I didn’t sit right away. I tried to think of a way to leave without arousing suspicion, but nothing came to mind.

  “You might as well get comfortable,” Amy looked at me and the empty barstool. “Diana usually spends some time talking with Professor Michaels after a rescue. They plan out their next rescue and how long it will take to help the new Unknowns.”

  Unable to come up with a reason to leave, I found myself sitting down. I figured I could drink the glass of water and then excuse myself to the restroom down the hall. I would only lose a few minutes, fifteen at the most.

  “Diana seems like she has a big heart. How does she find the Unknowns so quickly? I mean, if they are already planning a new rescue, that’s a pretty fast turn around.” I might as well make the most of this and find out more about my mother. My aunt told me all about the type of person my mother was, but we didn’t talk much about who she was as a witch. It’s not that Aunt Lynn wouldn’t have told me, but anything having to do with witchcraft made me shut down. She probably tried to talk to me a few times, but I just tuned her out. Eventually, she even gave up on my studies. By the time I started high school, she no longer made me spend my weekends studying the family book and practicing spells. I wished now I had continued and I had learned more about my mother, but Aunt Lynn would have known this day would come. It must have been very hard on her to give up on preparing me for this journey.

  “It’s an ability of Diana’s, finding Unknowns. I’m not really sure how she does it, but thank God it’s her doing it and not a Shadow Ruler.” Amy took a drink from her glass and reached down into a cabinet below the island, pulling out a bag of pretzels. Again, I was stunned at how ordinary all of this seemed; meanwhile, Cameron held Aunt Lynn captive in another world. Amy had no idea my mother had unwittingly helped a Shadow Ruler.

  Justin reached into the bag of pretzels and brushed Amy’s hand. I have to warn them, I thought. They seemed innocent. They weren’t Guardians yet, but I was fairly certain they had no idea what was really going on with Professor Michaels and his son. It was a risk, but knowing my mother had risked herself to save all of these people, how could I not take the same risk?

  I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead. As sure as I was of what I had to do, I was equally terrified. If I was wrong, the result could be disastrous. I picked up the glass of water and chugged down the whole thing. I could feel Amy and Justin staring at me.

  “Are you okay?” Justin asked, compassion in his voice and deep within his chocolate colored eyes. His genuine emotion gave me the courage to move forward on my new course of action. Amy came around to my barstool, no doubt afraid I would pass out again. She gently took my arm in her hands.

  “Jasmine, you don’t look so good,” Amy said in a voice laced with worry. “Why don’t you lay down on one of the couches in the common room?”

  “No,” I said with a newfound strength. I took Amy’s hands in mine and turned to look at her. “I have to share something with both of you.” How could I make them believe me? I couldn’t explain everything. I couldn’t tell them who I was or where I came from, but I could tell them about some of the things I discovered since I had arrived.

  Justin stood up and moved over to where Amy and I stood. Suddenly they were serious; the relaxed atmosphere the room held minutes earlier dissolved.

  “I’m not really sure how to begin,” I started. Both Amy and Justin looked at me with patience, allowing me to continue at my own rate. I cursed myself for not being faster about this. I felt a duty to warn them. They needed to get out of here if things ended the way I remembered in my nightmares, but telling them without jeopardizing my time traveling ability and while still convincing them was not an easy task.

  “I don’t think Professor Michaels is who he says he is,” I hesitated to wait for their response, their argument. As I expected, it came from Amy first. She looked to Justin before she spoke.

  “Jasmine, I’m sorry, but you just got here. You don’t know Professor Michaels, Evan. Evan has helped us every step along the way. Justin and I were two of the first who Evan and Diana rescued as a joint effort. He created this place for us to seek refuge, as you did tonight. He helps run each of the rescues.”

  Justin backed her up, “Amy is right, Jasmine. What would make you think Evan is not what he appears to be?”

  I knew this would be difficult, but then I had an idea.

  “When I passed out, I don’t think it was from my experiences before entering the bar. I think it was something that happened while I was in the bar. When I woke up, I no longer had my abilities. I don’t think anyone else, other than Evan and his son, has their abilities either. I think something terrible is going to happen tonight, and none of us will be prepared for it.” I drew in a sharp and shallow breath and held it for a moment. Part of me feared their reaction; this was all I really had to share. Another part of me feared retribution from some higher power. Had I said too much?

  Justin and Amy looked at each other again, but this time with doubt. Amy’s lips started moving first. An incantation, for what I did not know, but it was definitely an incantation, a spell. And nothing happened. Amy’s lips stopped moving. She frowned. Then she started again. Still, nothing.

  After her second attempt, Justin tried. Once. Twice.
Three times. I didn’t need to risk any more. They believed me. Amy sat down on the bar stool to my left, and Justin held onto her hand.

  “I don’t understand why he would do this,” she bent her shoulders in defeat. This was not the reaction I had expected, but these witches were Unknowns within the past year or two. They had not known who they were their whole lives, as I had, and even I was still struggling with my knowledge. I had just dropped another bomb on them, and they were going to have to recover in the next few minutes if they intended to survive this night.

  I had done enough. I had given them their chance, so I had to leave and find a solution to getting Jade the strength to burn all of those books.

  As if she could read my mind, Amy asked with deep concern, “What about Jade? Is Jade okay? Where is she?”

  “He wouldn’t hurt Jade,” Justin said with certainty. “We may not know who he really is, but I am sure there is a reason for this. We would be dead if he was a Shadow Ruler. This has to be part of a bigger plan. I’m sure Jade is fine.”

  “Listen,” I lectured the two of them, fed up with trying to save their lives. I didn’t have time for this. I was about to put them in their places and leave to finish my task and save at least the life of my smaller self, when I stopped. We listened. In the silence as I gathered my thoughts, I heard a murmur coming from the opposite end of the kitchen, but there was no one there.

  “What is that?” Amy asked.

  Justin walked over to the wall where the noise came from. The sound came from a vent towards the ceiling. He walked back to the island and grabbed a barstool. Carrying it to the vent, he climbed up and opened it further. We could hear a conversation from the next room between my mother and Evan.

  This whole place was the product of a spell. Typical problems in construction like a vent carrying noise from one room to another should not have been an issue.