Firespell

by Chloe Neill

  Suddenly she pulled back her hand, then shot if forward, as if to throw something at the two of them. The air and ground rumbled, and this time, the rumble was strong enough to knock me off my feet. I hit the ground on my knees, palms extended.

  By the time I glanced up again, Scout and Jason were only feet in front of me. That meant the blond girl was only a few yards behind. I saw the look of horror on Scout’s face. “Get up, Lily!” she implored. “Run!”

  I muttered a curse that would have made a string of sailors blush, and ignoring the bruises blossoming on my knees, jumped to my feet and did as I was ordered. The three of us took off down the hallway, presumably for a safer place.

  We ran through one corridor, then another, then another, heading in the opposite direction of the path I’d taken with the brat pack—probably a good thing, since there was no giant metal door in that part of the convent to keep them out.

  To keep her out.

  Whatever juju the blonde used before, she used again, the ground rumbling beneath our feet. I don’t know how she managed it, how she managed to make the earth—and all the limestone above it—move, but she did it sure enough. We all stumbled, but Scout reached out a hand and grabbed at the wall to keep her balance, and Jason caught Scout’s elbow. I caught limestone, the stones rushing toward my face as she knocked me off my feet again. I braced myself on my hands, the pads of my hands burning as I hit the floor.

  They were on their feet again and yards ahead before they realized I wasn’t with them.

  “Lily!” Scout screamed, but I was already looking behind me, watching the blonde. The earthquake- maker just stood there, and I figured if I was already on the floor, there wasn’t much else she could do to me.

  Of course, that didn’t mean the guy who stepped out from behind her couldn’t do damage. He was older than she was—college, maybe. Curly dark hair, broad shoulders, and blue eyes that gleamed with a creepy intensity. With a hunger. And all that hunger and intensity was directed at me.

  I swallowed down fear and panic and tried to make my brain work, tried to make my arms and legs push me up from the floor, but I was suddenly puppy-clumsy, unable to order my limbs to function.

  The boy stepped beside the blonde, muttered something, and just as she had done, whipped his hand in my direction.

  The air pressure in the room changed, and something flew my way, some thing he’d created with that flick of his hand. It looked like a contact lens of hazy, green smoke, but it wasn’t really smoke. It wasn’t really a thing. It was more like the very air in the room had warped.

  Still on the floor—only a second or two having passed since I fell to the ground, time slowing in the midst of my panic—I stared, eyes wide, mouth open in shock as it moved toward me. Nothing in my life in Sagamore, or my week in Chicago, had prepared me for . . . whatever it was. And whatever it was, it was about to make contact.

  They say there are moments in your life when time slows down, when you can see your fate rushing toward you. This was one of those times. I had a second to react, which wasn’t enough time to move out of the way, so I turned my back on it. That warp of air slammed into me with the force of a freight train, pushing the air from my lungs. It arced across my body like alien fire, like a living thing that tunneled into my spine, through my torso, across my limbs.

  “Lily!” Scout screamed.

  The floor rumbled beneath me again, and I heard a growl, a roar, like the scream of an angry animal. I heard shuffling, the sounds of fighting, but I could do nothing but lie there, my body spasming as pain and fire and heat raced through my limbs. I blinked at the colors that danced before my eyes, the world—or the portions of the floor and room that I could see from my sprawled-out position on the floor—covered by a green haze.

  I must have passed out, because when I lifted my eyelids again, I was in the air, cradled by strong arms. I looked up and found bright eyes, eyes the same blue as a spring prairie sky, staring back at me.

  “Jason?” I asked, my voice sounding hollow and distant.

  “Hold on, Lily,” he said. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  The world went black.

  9

  I woke blinking, my eyes squinted against the sunlight that streamed through the wall of windows on my left, and bounced off white walls on the other three sides of the room I was in. I looked down. I was on a high bed, my legs covered by a white sheet and thin blanket, the rest of me wrapped in one of those nubby, printed hospital gowns.

  “You’re awake.”

  I lifted my gaze. Scout sat in a plastic chair across from my bed, a thick leather book in her hands. She was in uniform, but she’d covered her button-up oxford shirt with a cardigan.

  “Where am I?” I asked her, shading my eyes with a hand.

  “LaSalle Street Clinic,” she said. “A few blocks from the school. You’ve been sleeping for twelve hours. The doctor was in a few minutes ago. She said you didn’t have a concussion or anything; they just brought you in since you passed out.”

  I nodded and motioned toward the windows. “Can you do something about the light?”

  “Sure.” She put aside the book and stood up, then walked to the wall of windows and fidgeted with the cord until the blinds came together, and the room darkened. When she was done, she turned and looked at me, arms crossed over her chest. “How are you feeling?”

  I did a quick assessment. Nothing felt broken, but I had a killer headache and I was pretty sore—as if I’d taken a couple of good falls onto unforgiving limestone. “Groggy, mostly. My head hurts. And my back.”

  Scout nodded. “You were hit pretty hard.” She walked to the bed and hitched one hip onto it. “I’d say that I’m sorry you got dragged into this but, first things first, why, exactly, were you in the basement?”

  There was an unspoken question in her tone: Were you following me again?

  “The brat pack went down there. I was invited along.”

  Scout went pale. “The brat pack? They were in the basement?”

  I nodded. “They fed me a story about a stash of contraband stuff, but it was just a prank. They locked me in the model room.”

  “The model room?”

  I drew a square with my fingers. “The secret custodian’s closet that contains a perfect-scale model of the city? I’m guessing you know what I’m talking about here.”

  “Oh. That.”

  “Yeah. Look, I was patient about the midnight disappearances, the secret basement stuff, but”—I twirled a finger at the hospital room around us—“the time has come to start talking.”

  After a minute of consideration, she nodded. “You’re right. You were hit with firespell.”

  For a few seconds, I just looked at her. It took me that long to realize that she’d actually given me a straight answer, even if I had no idea what she’d meant. “A what?”

  “Firespell. The name, I know, totally medieval. Actually, so is firespell itself, we think. But that’s really a magical archaeology issue, and we don’t need to get into that now. Firespell,” she repeated. “That’s what hit you. That green contact-lens-looking deal. It was a spell, thrown by Sebastian Born. Pretty face, evil disposition.”

  I just stared blankly back at her. “Firespell.”

  “It’s going to take time to explain everything.”

  I hitched a thumb at the monitor and IV rack that stood next to my bed. “I think my calendar is pretty free at the moment.”

  Scout’s expression fell, her usual sarcasm replaced by something sadder and more fearful. There was worry in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Lil. I was so scared—I thought you were gone for a minute.”

  I nodded, not quite ready to forgive her yet. “I’m okay,” I said, although I wasn’t sure I meant it.

  Scout nodded, but blinked back tears, then bobbed her head toward the table beside my bed. “Your parents called. I guess Foley told them you were here? I told them you were okay—that you fell down the stairs. I couldn’t—I wasn’
t sure what to tell them.”

  “Me, either,” I muttered, and plucked the phone from the nightstand. They’d left me a voice mail, which I’d check later, and a couple of text messages. I opened the phone and dialed my mom’s number. She answered almost immediately through a crackling, staticky connection.

  “Lily? Lily?” she asked, her voice a little too loud. There was fear in her tone. Worry.

  “Hi, Mom. I’m okay. I just wanted to call.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said, relief in her voice. “She’s okay, Mark,” she said, her voice softer now as she reassured my father, who was apparently beside her. “She’s fine. Lily, what happened? God, we were so worried—Marceline called and said you’d taken a fall?”

  I opened and closed my mouth, completely at a loss about how I was supposed to deal with the fact that I now had proof my Mom was on a first name basis with Foley—not to mention Foley’s perspective on my parents’ careers—so I asked the most basic question I could think of. “You know Foley? Ms. Foley, I mean?”

  There was a weird pause, just before a crackle of static rumbled through the phone. I pressed my palm against my other ear. “Mom? You’re cutting out. I can’t hear you.”

  “Sorry—we’re on the road. Yes, we’re—yes. We know Marceline.” Crackle. “—you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I said again. “I’m awake and I feel fine. I just—slipped. Why don’t you call me later?”

  That time, I only heard “traveling” and “hotel” before the connection went dead. I stared at the phone for a few seconds before flipping it shut again.

  “I just lied to my parents,” I snottily said when I’d returned the phone to the table. I heard the petulance in my voice, but given my surroundings, I thought I deserved it.

  Scout opened her mouth to respond but before she could get words out, a knock sounded at the door. Scout met my gaze, but shrugged.

  “Come in?” I said.

  The door opened a crack, and Jason peeked through.

  “My, my,” Scout murmured, winging up eyebrows at me. I sent her a withering look before Jason opened the door fully and stepped inside. He was out of his Montclare Academy duds today, and was dressed casually in jeans and a navy zip-up sweater. I knew this was neither the time nor the place, but the navy did amazing things for his eyes. On one shoulder was the strap of a backpack, and in his hand was a slim vase that held a single, puffy flower—a peony, maybe.

  The flower and backpack weren’t Jason’s only accessories. When Michael appeared behind him, I gave Scout the same winged-up eyebrows she’d given me. A blush began to fan across her cheeks.

  “Just wanted to see how you were feeling,” Jason said, closing the door once he and Michael were in the room. He dropped his backpack on a second plastic chair, then extended his arm, a smile on his face. “And we brought you a flower.”

  “Thanks,” I said, self-consciously touching a hand to my hair. I couldn’t imagine that anything up there looked pretty after twelve hours of unconsciousness. Scout reached out to take the vase, then placed it atop a bureau next to a glass container of white tulips.

  I pointed at the arrangement. “Where’d those come from?”

  “Huh?” Scout asked, then seemed to realize the tulips were there. “Oh. Right. Let’s see.” She pulled out the card, frowned, then glanced back at me. “It just says, ‘Board of Trustees.’ ”

  “That was surprisingly thoughtful,” I mumbled, thinking Foley must have given them a call.

  “Garcia didn’t want to study,” Jason said, “so we thought we’d amble over.”

  Scout arched a brow at Michael. “Does Garcia ever want to study?”

  “I have my moments, Green,” he said, then moved toward the bed. When he reached me, he picked up my hand and squeezed it. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I was hit by a freight train.”

  “Understandable,” Jason said behind him, and Michael nodded in agreement.

  “Scout was just about to explain to me exactly what’s going on beneath Chicago.” Jason and Michael both snapped their gaze to Scout. I guessed they had mixed feelings about her confession. She waved cheekily.

  “But now that the full club has convened,” I continued, linking my hands in my lap, “you can decide amongst yourselves who wants to do the explaining. Blue eyes? Brown eyes?” I glanced over at Scout. “Instigator?”

  “I am so not an instigator,” Scout said. “I was the one being chased, if you’ll recall, not doing the chasing.”

  “Instigator,” Michael said with a grin. “I like that.”

  When Scout stuck her tongue out at him, he winked back at her. Her blush flared up again. I bit back a smile.

  “All right,” Jason said. “You got dragged into the conflict, so you deserve some answers. What do you want to know?”

  “Scout already said I was hit by firespell,” I said, “and I’ve figured out some of the rest of it. You three are in cahoots and you roam around under the convent and battle bad guys who make earthquakes and shoot fire from their hands.”

  Silence.

  “That’s not bad, actually,” Scout finally said.

  Michael cocked his head at me. “How are you feeling about the earthquakes-and-shooting-fire part of that?”

  I frowned down at the thin hospital sheet, then picked at a pill in the fabric. It was probably time for me to give some thought to whatever it was I’d been dragged into—or, maybe more accurately, that I’d fallen into.

  “I’m not sure,” I said after a minute. “I mean, I’m not really in a position to doubt the earthquakes-and-shooting-fire part. I’ve felt the earthquakes, felt the fire. It hurt,” I emphasized. The memory of that burning heat made my shoulders tense, and I rolled them out to relieve the tension.

  “I’m alive,” I said, glancing up at them, “which I guess isn’t something I can really take for granted right now. But beyond that, I haven’t really had time to think much about it. To process it, if that makes sense.”

  I glanced up at Scout. Her expression had fallen, and she nibbled the edge of her lip. There was fear in her face, maybe apology, as well. It was the insecurity that comes from knowing that someone you’d brought into your life could disappear again, leaving you alone.

  “It makes sense,” she quietly said. Her words were a statement, but there was a question in her tone: Is this it for us? For our friendship?

  Scout and I looked at each other for a few seconds, and in the time that elapsed during that glance, something happened—I realized I’d been given an opportunity to become part of a new kind of family; an opportunity to trust someone, to take a chance on someone. My parents may have been four thousand miles away, but I’d gained a new best friend. And that was something. That was the kind of thing you held on to.

  “Well then,” I said, my gaze on hers, “I suppose you’d better fill me in.”

  It took her a moment to react, to realize what I’d said, to realize that I was committing to being a part of whatever it was they were really, truly involved in. And when she realized it, her face lit up.

  But before we could get too cozy, Jason spoke up.

  “Before you tell her more than she already knows,” he said, “you need to think about what you’re doing. She was underground for only a little while. That means there’s a chance they won’t recognize her. We can all go about our business, and there’s no need for them to know she exists.”

  He crossed his arms and frowned. “But if you bring her into it, she becomes part of the conflict. Not a JV member, sure, but part of the community. You’ll put her on the radar, and they’ll mark her as a supporter of the enclave. She may become a target. If you tell her more, she’s in this. For better or worse, she’s in it.”

  I was okay with “for better or worse.” It was “till death do us part” that I wasn’t really excited about.

  “Look around,” Scout quietly said, her gaze on me. “She’s in the hospital wearing a paper nightgown. She has a tube i
n her arm.” She shifted her gaze to Jason, and there was impatience there. “She’s already in this.”

  As if she’d made the decision, Scout half jumped onto the bed and arranged herself to sit on the edge. As she moved around, Michael and Jason took a step backward to get out of her way, exchanging a quiet glance as they waited for her to begin.

  “Unicorns,” she said.

  There was silence in the room for a few seconds. “Unicorns,” I repeated.

  She bobbed her head. “Unicorns.”

  I just blinked. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with that.”

  “Aha,” she said, a finger in the air. “You didn’t expect me to start with that, did you? But, seriously, unicorns. Imagine yourself in medieval Europe. You’ve got horses, oxen, assorted beasts of burden. Times are dark, dirty, generally impoverished.”

  Jason leaned toward Michael. “Is this going somewhere?”

  “Not a clue,” Michael said. “This is the first time I’ve heard this speech.”

  “Zip it, Garcia. Okay, so dark, dirty, lots of peasants, things are dreary. All of a sudden, a maiden walks into a field or some such thing, and she expects to see a horse there. But instead, there’s a unicorn. Horn, white mane, magical glow, the whole bit.”

  She stopped talking, then looked at me expectantly.

  “I’m sorry, Scout, but if that was supposed to be a metaphor or something, I got nothin’.”

  “Seconded,” Michael added.

  Scout leaned forward a little, and when she continued, her voice was quieter, more solemn. “Think about what I said. What if, all of a sudden, every once in a while, it wasn’t just another horse in the field? What if it really was a unicorn?”

  “Ohhh,” Jason said. “Got it.”

  “Yep,” Michael agreed.

  “There are people in the world,” Scout said, “like those unicorns in the field. They’re unique. They’re rare.” She paused and glanced up at me, her expression solemn. “And they’re gifted. With magic.”

  Okay, I guess with all the unicorn talk, I probably should have seen that coming. Still, I had to blink a few times after she laid that little egg.