Firespell

by Chloe Neill

  “They’re called darkenings. We all have them,” Scout answered, the beam of light swinging as she moved. “All the members of the ‘Dark Elite,’” she flatly added, using her hands, flashlight and all, to gesture some air quotes. “That’s what some of the Reapers call us—all of us—who have magic. Elite, I guess, because we’re gifted. They think we’re special, better, because we have magic. And dark because the darkenings are supposed to appear when the magic appears. Well, except in your case.” She stopped and looked at me. “Still no powers, right?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, no. Is that why we’re down here? Are you going to prod me or poke me or something, to figure out if I have secret powers? Like a chick on an alien spacecraft?”

  “And you think I’m the odd one,” she muttered. “No, Scully, we aren’t going to probe you. We’re just going to talk to the Adepts and see what they have to say about your new tat. No bigs.” She shrugged nonchalantly, then started walking again.

  Ten or fifteen minutes later, Scout stopped before a door made up of giant wooden beams, two golden hinges running across it, an arch in the top. A large numeral “3” was elegantly carved into the lintel above the door. And on the door was the same symbol I’d seen in the model room—a circle with a Y inside it.

  This was Enclave Three, I assumed.

  Scout flipped off her flashlight, then held out her hand; I pressed my flashlight into her palm. She flicked it off and deposited them both back in her messenger bag.

  “Okay,” she said, looking over at me. “I suppose I should prep you for this. The other seven Adepts in ET should be here. Katie and Smith are our Varsity Adepts. You remember what that means?”

  “They’re the college kids,” I answered. “And Junior Varsity is high school. You just told me on Friday.”

  “You’ve brat-packed since then,” she muttered. “Your IQ has probably dropped.”

  I gave her a snarky look.

  “Anywho,” she said, ignoring the look, “Katie’s a manipulator. Literally and figuratively. You know, in history, when they talk about the Salem witch trials, about how innocent girls and boys were convinced to do all these horrible things because some witch made them?”

  I’d read The Crucible in English last year (probably just like every other sophomore), so I nodded.

  “Yeah, well, they probably were convinced. That stuff wasn’t a myth. Katie’s not a wicked witch or anything, but she’s got the same skills.”

  “Well, that’s just downright disturbing,” I said.

  “Yeah.” She nodded, then patted my arm. “Sleep well tonight. Anyway, Katie manipulates, and Smith—and, yes, that’s his first name—levitates. He lifts heavy stuff, raises things in the air. As for JV, you know me, Michael and Jason, obvs, and there are three more. Jamie and Jill, those are the twins. Paul’s the one with the curls.”

  “You said you were a spellcaster?”

  “Binder. Spellbinder.”

  “Okay. So what are these guys? Michael and the rest of them. What can they do?”

  “Oh, sure, um”—she shifted her feet, her gaze on the ceiling as she itemized—“um, Jamie and Jill have elemental powers. Fire and ice.”

  “They have firespell?” I wondered aloud.

  “Oh, sorry, no. Jamie can manipulate fire, literally—like a firestarter. Set stuff ablaze, create smoke, general pyromania. She can work with the element without getting burned. Firespell is different—it’s not about fire, really, but about power, at least we think. There aren’t any Adepts with firespell, so we kind of go off what we’ve seen in action. Anywho, you put Jamie, Jill, and me together, and we’re one medieval witch,” she said, with what sounded like a fake laugh. “Paul is a warrior. A man of battle. Ridiculous moves, like something out of a kung fu movie. Michael is a reader.”

  “What’s a reader?”

  “Well, I bind spells, right? I take words of power, charms and I translate them into action, like the house I showed you.”

  I nodded.

  “Michael reads objects. He can feel them out, determine their history, hear what they’re saying about things that happened, conditions.”

  “Well that’s . . . weird. I mean cool, but weird.”

  She shrugged. “Unusual, but handy. Architecture speaks to him. Literally.”

  “And for all that, you two still aren’t dating.”

  She narrowed her gaze. “I’m not sure I should let you two talk to each other anymore. Now, are you done procrastinating? Can we get on with this?”

  “I’m not procrastinating,” I said, procrastinating. “What about Jason?” I already suspected, of course, what Jason’s magic was. But he hadn’t exactly confirmed it, and my own suspicions—that he had some kind of animal-related power—were strange enough that I wasn’t ready to put them out there. On the other hand, how many teenage boys growled when they were attacked?

  Okay, when you put it that way, it actually didn’t sound that rare.

  Scout dropped her gaze and fiddled with her messenger bag. “Jason’s power isn’t for me to tell. If he’s ready for that, he’ll tell you.”

  “I—I have an idea.”

  She went quiet and slowly lifted her gaze to mine. “An idea?”

  We looked at each other for a minute, silently, each assessing the other: Do you know what I know? How can I confirm it without giving it away?

  “I’ll let you talk to him about that,” she finally said, raising her hand to the door. “Are you ready now?”

  “Are they gonna wig out that you’re bringing me?”

  “It’s a good possibility,” she said, then rapped her fist in a rhythmic pattern. Knock. Knock, knock. Bang. Knock.

  “Secret code?” I asked.

  “Warning,” she said. “Jamie and Paul are dating. In case we’re early, I don’t want to walk in on that.”

  The joke helped ease my nerves, but only a little. As soon as she touched the door handle, my stomach began rolling again.

  “Welcome to the jungle,” she said, and opened the door.

  The jungle was a big, vaulted room, of a quality I wouldn’t have expected to see in an abandoned railway tunnel far beneath Chicago. It looked like a meeting hall, the walls covered in paintings made up of tiny, mosaic tiles, the ceilings girded with thick, wooden beams. It had the same kind of look as the convent—big scale, careful work, earthy materials. The room was empty of furniture—completely empty except for the seven kids who’d turned to stare at the door when it opened. There were three girls and four guys, including Michael and Jason.

  Jason of the deadly blue eyes and currently frigid stare.

  The room went completely silent, all fourteen of those eyes on us as we stepped into the room. Scout squeezed my hand supportively.

  Silently, they moved around and formed a semicircle facing us, as if containing a threat. I shuffled a little closer to Scout and surveyed the judges.

  Jamie and Jill were the obvious twins, both tallish and lanky, with long auburn hair and blue eyes. Paul was tall, lean, coffee-skinned and very cute, his hair a short mop of tiny, spiral curls.

  The guy and girl in the middle, who looked older than the rest of them—early college, maybe—stepped forward, fury on their faces. I guessed these were Katie and Smith. Katie was cheerleader cute, with a bob of shoulder-length brown hair, green eyes, a long T-shirt, and ballet flats paired with jeans. Smith—shaggy brown hair pasted to his forehead emo-style—wore a dingy, plaid shirt. He was the rebel type, I assumed.

  “Green,” he bit out, “you’d better have a damn good reason for calling us in and, more important, for bringing a regular in here.”

  Okay, so pasty hair was clearly not impressed with me.

  Scout crossed her arms, preparing for battle. “A,” she said, “this is Lily Parker, the girl who took a hit of firespell to save us and wound up in a paper nightgown in the LaSalle Street Clinic because of it. Ring any bells?”

  I actually took a hit because I’d tripped, but since the Adept
s’ expressions softened after she passed along that little factoid, I kept the truth to myself.

  “B,” Scout continued, “I have a damn good reason. We need to show you something.”

  Katie spoke up. “You could have showed us something without her being here.”

  “I can’t show you what I need to show you without her being here.” Her explanation was met with silence, but she kept going. “You have to know that I wouldn’t have brought her here if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Trust me—it’s necessary. The Reapers have already seen her, and they already think she’s associated with us. They get ambitious and come knocking on our door tonight, and she’s in even more trouble. She’s here as a favor to us.”

  Katie and Smith glanced at each other, and then she whispered something to him.

  “Five minutes,” Smith finally said. “You have five minutes.”

  Scout didn’t need it; it took two seconds for her to drop the bomb. “I think she might be one of us.”

  Silence, until Katie made a snorty, skeptical sound. “One of us? Why in God’s name would you think she’s one of us? She’s a regular, and getting hit with a blast isn’t going to change that.”

  “Really?” Scout asked. “You don’t think getting hit with a dose of firespell is going to have an effect? Given that we’re all bouncing around Chicago with magical gifts, that’s kind of a narrow- minded perspective, isn’t it, Katie?”

  Katie arched an arrogant brow at Scout. “You need to watch your step, Green.”

  Michael stepped forward, hands raised in peace. “Hey, if there’s something we need to figure out here, the fewer preconceptions, the better. Scout, if you have something you need us to see, you’d better show it now.”

  Scout glanced over at me, nodded her head decidedly, then spun her finger in the air.

  “Turn around,” she said. I glanced around the room, not entirely eager to pull up my shirt before an assemblage of people I didn’t know—and a boy I potentially wanted to know better. But it needed to be done, so I twisted around, pulled my shirt from the waist of my skirt, and lifted it just enough to show the mark across my lower back.

  Their faces pinched in concentration and thought, the group of them moved around me to stare at my back.

  “It’s a darkening,” Jason said, then lifted his killer blue eyes to mine. “Is it okay if I touch it?”

  I swallowed, then nodded and gripped the hem of the shirt, still between my fingers, a little tighter. He stretched out his hand. His fingers just grazed my back, my skin tingling beneath his fingers. I stifled a shudder, but goose bumps arose on my arms. This wasn’t the time or the place for me to get giggly about Jason’s attentions, but that didn’t make the effect any less powerful. It felt like a tingle of electricity moving across my skin, like that first dip into a hot bath on a cold night—spine tingling.

  “It’s definitely like ours,” Jason agreed, standing again. “Have you developed any powers?” he quietly asked me.

  I shook my head.

  “I have no idea how she got it,” Jason finally concluded, his brow furrowed. “But it’s like ours. Or close enough, anyway.”

  “Yeah,” Scout said, “but you nailed it—there’s something different about hers, isn’t there? The edges are fuzzier. Like a tattoo, but the ink bled.”

  “What could that mean, Green?” Katie asked.

  She shrugged. “I have no clue.”

  “Research is your field,” Smith reminded her. “There’s nothing in the Grimoire?”

  “Not that I could find, and I checked the index for every entry I could think of.” I assumed the Grimoire was the giant leather-bound book she’d skimmed through before deciding to notify the elders.

  Smith raised his gaze to me. “I understand that you’ve been provided with the basics about our enclave, our struggle, our gifts.”

  I nodded.

  “And you’re sure you haven’t . . . become aware of any powers since you were hit?”

  “I’d remember,” I assured him.

  “Maybe this is just a symbol of the fact that she was hit?” Jason suggested, frowning, head tilted as he gazed at my back. “Like, I don’t know, a stamp of the shot she took?”

  “I really don’t know,” Scout said quietly.

  Their conversations got quieter, like scientists mumbling as they considered a prime specimen. I stared at the wall at the other end of the room while they whispered behind me and tried to figure out who—or what—I’d become.

  Eventually, Smith straightened and, like obedient pups, the rest of the group followed suit and spread out again. I pulled my shirt back down and turned to face them.

  Smith shook his head. “All we know is that she’s marked. It might not be a darkening. Anything else is just speculation.”

  “Speculation?” Paul asked. “She’s got a darkening, just like ours.”

  “Not exactly like ours,” Katie reminded him.

  I watched Michael struggle to keep his expression neutral. “Enough like ours,” he countered, “to make it evident that she’s like us. That she’s one of us.”

  Katie shook her head. “You’re missing the point. She’s already told us she doesn’t have skills, magic, power. Nothing but a fancy bruise.” As if to confirm that suspicion, she turned her green-eyed gaze on me. “She’s not one of us.”

  “A fancy bruise?” Scout repeated. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Katie shrugged, the movement and her expression condescending. “I’m just saying.”

  “Hey,” Smith said, apparently deciding to intervene. “Let it go. It’s better for her, anyway. Hanging out down here isn’t fun and games. This job is dangerous, it’s hard, and it’s exhausting. This might feel like rejection. It’s actually luck.”

  The room went quiet. When Scout spoke again, her voice was soft, but earnest.

  “I know my place,” she said, “and we all know this isn’t the easiest job in the world. But if she’s one of us, if she’s part of us, she needs to know. We need to know.”

  “There’s no evidence that she’s one of us, Scout,” Smith said. “A mark isn’t enough. A mark won’t stop Reapers, and it won’t save regulars, and it won’t help us. This isn’t up for debate. You bring me some evidence—real evidence—that it’s a darkening, and we’ll talk about it again.”

  I could feel Scout’s frustration, could see it in the stiffness in her shoulders. She looked at her colleagues.

  “Paul? Jamie? Jill? Jason?” When she met Michael’s gaze, her expression softened. “Michael?”

  He looked down for a moment, considering, then up at her again. “I’m sorry, Scout, but I’m with Smith on this one. She’s not like us. She wasn’t made the way we were. She wasn’t born with power, and the only reason she has a mark is because she got hit. If we let her in anyway, if we play devil’s advocate, she takes our attention away from everything else we have to deal with. We can’t afford that right now.”

  “Her being damaged isn’t reason enough,” Katie put in.

  I arched an eyebrow. Scout may have had to play nice for hierarchy reasons, but I (obviously) wasn’t part of this group.

  “I am not damaged,” I said. “I’m a bystander who got wrapped up in something I didn’t want to be wrapped up in because you couldn’t keep the bad guys in hand.”

  “The point is,” Smith said, “you weren’t born like us. The only thing you’ve got right now is a symbol of nothing.”

  “There’s no need to be harsh,” Michael said. “It’s not like she got branded on purpose.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  The room went silent, all eyes on Katie.

  “Are you suggesting,” Scout bit out, “that she faked the darkening?”

  Katie gazed at her with unapologetic snarkiness. This girl had college brat pack written all over her.

  “So much for ‘all for one and one for all,’ ” Scout muttered. “I can’t believe you’d suspect that a person who’d never seen a darkening
before faked having one forty-eight hours after she was put in the hospital because she took a full-on dose of firespell and managed to survive it. And you know what’s worse? I can’t believe you’d doubt me.” She pressed a finger into her chest. “Me.”

  The JV Adepts shared heavy looks.

  “Regulars put us all at risk. They raise our profile, they get in the way, they serve as distractions.” Jason lifted his chin, and eyes of sea blue stared out. He gazed at me, anger in his eyes. My slight at the mall must have hurt more than I’d thought.

  “Until we know more, she’s a regular, and that’s all she is. No offense,” he added, his gaze on me.

  “None taken,” I lied back to him.

  “We have other business to discuss,” Smith said. “Escort her home.”

  “That’s it?” Scout’s voice contained equal parts desperation and frustration.

  “Bring us something we can use,” Smith said. “Someone we can use, and we’ll talk.”

  Scout offered a sarcastic salute. “Let’s go,” she said to me, her hand on my arm, leading me away as the group turned inward to begin their next plan.

  We were fifty yards away from the room before she spoke. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not a problem,” I said, not entirely sure if I believed that. I hadn’t wanted to be the victim of the firespell attack, hadn’t wanted to find the mark on my back, hadn’t been thrilled about being dragged to a meeting of Adepts, or becoming one. I knew what Scout went through. Late-night meetings. Fear. Worry. Bearing the responsibility of protecting the public from soul-sucking adults and hell-bent teenagers—and not just your run-of-the-mill soul-sucking adults and hell- bent teenagers. I’d seen the exhaustion on her face, even as I appreciated her sense of right and wrong, the fact that she put herself out there to protect people who didn’t know she was burning the candle at both ends.

  So even though it wasn’t something I’d asked for, or something I thought I wanted, it was hard not to feel rejected by Smith and Katie and the rest of Enclave Three. I was already the new girl—a Sagamore fish out of water in a school where everyone else had years of history together and lots of money to play with. Being treated like an outcast wasn’t something I’d signed up for.