Then Christa arrived at the bunker. There were more than a few people who wanted to hurt her, given that they were all now aware she’d sold out certain magic users. But she’d seen Archer’s video, and since everyone now knew about elementals and the Shadow Society, she had decided to come crawling back to ask for help getting rid of the society members she knew about.
Archer hadn’t given Christa the chance to explain much—he didn’t, for instance, know anything about his father’s synthetic elementals and the fact that his sister and turned herself into one of them—but she did tell him about the research facility and helping Ridley escape. Having no interest in working with Christa, Archer left the bunker and decided to check out this backup facility his father had failed to tell him about when they were supposedly on the same side. That was what had led him to the city wall and the surveillance room Ridley was in just as the entire place began collapsing.
He sat beside Ridley now, occasionally resting a hand on her leg, or leaning over to press a brief kiss to her temple, or rubbing his hand in gentle circles on her back. She stole glances at him every few minutes, in between shoveling food into her mouth and deconstructing the past few days with everyone else who was squashed into the living room. He kept meeting her eyes, and some unspoken understanding passed between them each time. They hadn’t had a chance to properly talk yet, but the kiss earlier, and then the embrace on top of the Boards24 Building—plus all the secret glances and small smiles this evening—probably gave him a good indication of how she felt.
Lilah, who’d made a quick recovery once she was wearing the heirloom stone, sat primly on the desk chair Ridley had wheeled out of her bedroom, questioning Malachi about all things elemental-related and refraining from commenting on the worn, tattered state of pretty much everything inside the room. Her eyes had almost bulged out of her face at the sight of the loose plastic covering the gaping hole in the window but, to her credit, she’d managed to keep her lips zipped. Either that or she’d been shocked speechless.
Malachi, for his part, was playing things cool, but Ridley could tell he was a little star-struck. He’d hated the Davenports when Ridley met him—their first few minutes together had involved him attempting to beat up Archer—but Delilah Davenport was gorgeous, famous and currently directing all her attention at him. He was definitely soaking it all up.
Nathan was the one who completed the group of seven gathered around the collection of takeout containers on the crate at the center of the living room. He kept checking his commscreen, looking out for reports about cities being liberated, important people being arrested—like Alastair Davenport—and people attempting to remove their own AI2s. In between, he kept throwing out suggestions to Ridley about which city they should tackle next. “Other elementals are getting ready to act,” he kept saying. “They could use our help. There might be some other heirs out there, but probably not many. You can continue making a difference like you’ve done here.”
“Maybe,” Ridley kept answering. And she meant it. She was too exhausted and overwhelmed by everything to properly contemplate it right now, but she did want to keep making a difference if she could.
“And no, still haven’t heard from her,” Nathan added quietly after his latest city suggestion. Ridley had told him about Saoirse being the one to give up the location of the reserve and some of the other elemental communities, and then attempting to kill Alastair Davenport. Nathan said he’d sensed her out in the wastelands, helping to draw the manmade elementals away. But when he’d gathered together with everyone after it was all over, and before he and Malachi returned to the city to look for Ridley, Saoirse was gone.
“Oh, I think that’s my delivery,” Lilah said at the sound of a vehicle outside. She stood and squeezed around the couch to look out the window.
“Your delivery?” Ridley asked. “You don’t think we have enough food here already?”
“We have plenty of food, but I figured we need some celebratory drinks to go with the food.” Lilah peered through the window. “Yep, that’s Sven. Poor guy, he looks so lost out there. Probably never been to this side of the city. I’m just gonna go downstairs and—”
“You called Sven to come here?” Archer asked.
“Yeah. The world may be in upheaval, but he’s still employed by us, right?” Lilah maneuvered her way between chairs and knees and takeout containers. “I called him when we got here and sent him to Dad’s cellar to pick up some drinks for us. What?” she added defensively. “Dad was just arrested. He’s not going to need his Champagne in prison.”
“You asked Sven to bring Champagne?”
Lilah looked around the room. “I mean … if you guys don’t think we have something to celebrate, I’ll just keep it for another occasion.”
Grandpa leaned back and attempted to stretch his legs, which resulted in the crate of food sliding across the floor a few inches. “I wouldn’t mind some, especially if it’s the real deal.”
“Oh, it’s the real deal,” Lilah assured him with a grin. “Champagne with a capital C. I’ll go down and get it.”
Ridley looked at Dad. “Um … I don’t think we have appropriate glassware.” Legitimate Champagne was worth an appalling amount of money, given the tiny section of the Champagne area that had survived the Cataclysm and how little of the alcoholic beverage was produced these days. It seemed all kinds of wrong to drink it out of a cheap wine glass, and they didn’t even have enough of those for everyone.
“Actually,” Dad said, “there’s a set of antique champagne flutes in the store downstairs. I’ll get them.” Dad shuffled past Lilah’s empty chair and behind Malachi and made his way downstairs, leaving Ridley lost for words. If anyone in the room was going to disapprove of opening an astronomically expensive drink that several of the room’s occupants technically weren’t even old enough to consume, it was going to be Dad.
“He continues to surprise me,” she said with a laugh, lacing her fingers between Archer’s and then lifting his hand to give it a quick kiss.
Lilah returned with two Champagne bottles, which she clutched possessively to her chest when Archer stood and offered to open them. “I don’t think so,” she told him. Ridley’s mind flashed back to Lilah holding a shotgun while telling her brother not to patronize her. With considerable effort, she managed to keep her snort of laughter inside.
The takeout containers were moved aside, the antique glasses lined up, and Lilah popped the Champagne bottles without injuring anyone or losing a drop of the valuable contents. Then, on a cheap crate in a shabby living room on very much the wrong side of the city, one of the world’s most expensive drinks was poured. They toasted—“To a new world!”—and Ridley had her first taste of real deal, capital-C Champagne. She savored every sweet, sparkling sip.
Later, when she stood and took the glasses to the kitchen, Archer gathered up the empty takeout containers and followed her. She placed the glasses carefully beside the sink before facing him. Nerves fluttered in her chest. “Do you want to get out of here? Just for a few minutes?”
“Anywhere,” he answered, taking her hand.
They vanished and escaped the apartment within seconds, but Ridley didn’t take them far. They reappeared on the roof of her building. She looked up at his warm eyes and that beautiful smile she’d missed so much over the past few days—and then turned away. She’d wanted to be alone with him but suddenly she felt … awkward. She moved to the edge of the roof and looked out over the neighboring buildings. Sirens wailed in the distance. “What do you think is going to happen now? What kind of world are we going to wake up to tomorrow?”
“Honestly? Absolutely no idea.” Archer took her hand and pulled her around to face him again. “Though I think you can safely assume you don’t have school tomorrow.”
“Probably not. And if I do, I might just have to take a mental health day instead.”
“Or several,” Archer said, one side of his mouth curving up.
Ridley smiled, hesitated,
bit her lip. Then she finally said, “I got your message.”
Confusion crossed his face. “My message?”
“The one you sent out to your bazillions of followers.”
“Oh, right. The video message. Yeah, a lot of that was for you.”
“I know. I …” Ridley took a breath and let it out in a rush. “I’m sorry I reacted the way I did when you told me everything.”
“I don’t think there’s any other way you could have reacted.”
Ridley nodded. “I guess. I think I just needed … time? To process it all. I think I’m still processing everything. There’s … a lot.”
“Like … the news about your dad?”
“About him not being my dad? Yes. Definitely still processing that one. At the end of the day, it doesn’t change anything important. He loves me and I love him and he’ll always be my father. But I guess it takes a while to properly see yourself in a new light, you know?”
Archer nodded. “I do know.”
Ridley bit her lip again. “Your dad was arrested tonight.”
Archer nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“We all kind of just stepped over that moment when Nathan mentioned it and moved onto the next takeout container, but … it’s kind of a big deal.”
“It is,” Archer agreed. “It’s a good big deal. He can’t get away with all the terrible things he’s done.”
“I know. I guess I just wanted to acknowledge it.”
“Acknowledgment noted.”
They stared at one another for a moment or two, and then Ridley started laughing. “Why is this weird?”
Archer’s laughter joined hers for a moment, but then he sighed. “It’s weird because I screwed everything up between us. I’m sorry, Rid. You’ll never know how sorry I am.”
At some point he had reached for her other hand, and now she slid her fingers between his, gripping both hands tighter. “I think I do. When I saw you in that Shadow Society meeting … when I thought that everything that had happened between us was one big lie … it felt like it broke everything inside me.”
“Ridley …” Archer’s expression was pained. “I am so, so—”
“And I’m not saying this to make you feel worse. I’m saying this because the fact that it hurt so, so much made me realize how much you mean to me. So I do know how sorry you are, because that’s how sorry—how utterly, distressingly sorry—I feel when I think about not being with you.” She looked down at their joined hands, then up again. “You mean a lot to me. Like … a lot, a lot. A huge amount of a lot, a lot. And it’s kind of scary to say that out loud because what if—”
“I love you,”Archer said simply.
Ridley’s stomach dipped. Her pulse rushed and her breath seemed to keep catching in her throat. There were others words that had been cued up, ready to leave her mouth, but she couldn’t remember what they were.
“I’m sorry, that wasn’t supposed to freak you out, and it’s not like I’m expecting you to say the same thing back to me. I just wanted you to know. I wanted to tell you before, when the truth about everything else was spilling out of me, but it seemed selfish—manipulative—to throw it out there when everything else I was saying was breaking your heart, so I—”
Ridley stood on tiptoe and touched her lips to Archer’s. The first kiss was soft, chaste. Then she untangled her hands from his and wove her arms around his neck, pulling herself tighter against him. His hands trailed down her spine and pressed against the small of her back as his tongue slid across hers. She kissed him harder, shivers dancing up her neck and into her hair when his fingers found their way beneath the edge of her jacket and T-shirt and skimmed across her bare skin.
She rocked back down onto her heels, breathless, happy, exhilarated. “I love you too,” she said. Archer’s smile stretched wider. Ridley tried to keep hers a respectable size, but she felt like a grinning maniac so she was probably failing. “I very definitely love you too.”
He kissed her again. She kissed him back. They remained entwined until Ridley could barely breathe and her skin was flushed and her heart was racing out of control. Laughing, she finally forced herself to step back. She sucked in a deep breath of cool night air and released a happy sigh, turning her face toward the sky. The stars weren’t nearly as bright here as they were over the reserve, but the fact that she could see them at all was incredible. Lumina City had been covered in near-constant cloud for so long.
Her eyes lowered to Archer’s again. “The stars feel close enough to touch.” They didn’t—not the way they did out in the wastelands—but it had been far too many days since she’d spoken those words, and it felt like they needed to be said again.
Archer’s expression told her he knew exactly what she meant. “Stretch high enough,” he answered immediately, “and maybe your magic can touch the stars.”
She stood on tiptoe and stretched her arms up, fingers pointing toward the sky, reaching, reaching, reaching. Archer looped his arms around her waist, lifted her, and spun her around. She laughed, and it was one of the best feelings in the world.
“Are you touching them yet?” he asked.
“Almost!” She stretched high once more, then let herself slide back down to her feet. Her arms slipped around Archer’s waist. “We should probably go back before my dad finds us missing from the kitchen and panics.”
“Probably.” Archer kissed her brow, then her nose, then stopped near her lips. “One more kiss?”
She smiled. “One more kiss.”
Epilogue
Ridley took a step back in the living room and surveyed her handiwork. Well, her conjuration work, to be more accurate. It had been three days since the Reverse Cataclysm—a term someone had come up with that was now trending on all the social feeds—and it was technically still illegal to use magic. But everyone was doing it, no one was being arrested, and it was high time the hole in the living room window was fixed. So Grandpa showed Ridley a few conjurations, and she set about doing it herself. “Not bad,” she said, tilting her head to the side and nodding at the window. “Not bad at all.”
She skipped downstairs to tell Grandpa. He was behind the desk at the back of Kayne’s Antiques, writing something on a notepad. Dad was talking to a customer about repairing something, from what Ridley could tell. She caught the words ‘don’t mind if you use magic,’ and felt her eyebrows climb. Less than a week ago, people would have shamed Dad and turned him in if they’d discovered him using magic for anything. Now they didn’t mind?
Before she could say anything to Grandpa, the bell above the front door jangled, announcing the arrival of another customer. “Shen,” Ridley called, waving when she saw it was him. She made her way between the display tables and gestured for him to head back outside with her. No point in hanging around inside a dingy old shop if the sun was shining outside.
“How’s it going?” Ridley asked, hoping her words didn’t sound forced. She and Shen had seen each other a few times over the past several days, and even though things seemed normal enough on the surface, she could tell it wasn’t the same as before.
“Look at that,” Shen said, turning his face toward the afternoon sky and avoiding Ridley’s question. “Another sunny day.”
“I know. Amazing, right?” It wasn’t like the sun had never broken through the clouds after the Cataclysm. It did occasionally, and there was often a thin layer of dull gray cloud with sunlight burning through from the other side. But clear blue skies and blazing sunlight had been exceedingly rare over the cities where there was so much arxium.
Shen pushed his hands into his pockets. “I just came from the bank. You know there’s that clinic across the street?” Ridley nodded. “Almost everyone who came out of that clinic while I was waiting in line had a small bandage stuck behind their ear.”
“Getting their AI2s removed?” Ridley asked.
“Yep. It’s not allowed yet, but clinics seem to be doing it anyway. Probably a good thing, otherwise people are going to s
lice their own skin open at home to get their AI2s out and make a mess of things.”
“Yeah, definitely a good thing,” Ridley agreed.
“So, um … have you seen Meera yet?” Shen asked.
“Actually, she called earlier. We’re meeting tomorrow.” Her stomach clenched every time she thought about it. She had never before had any reason to feel anxious about seeing Meera, but now … she had no idea what to expect from the girl who’d told her she didn’t want to know anything about Ridley’s magic or any of her other secrets.
“Oh yeah? That’s great.”
“It is.” Ridley nodded, but her tone was hesitant.
“Or … not great?”
Ridley shrugged. “It was awkward. Talking via commscreen, at least. And it’ll probably be even more awkward talking in person. But it’s good. We need to talk about everything.” She folded her arms and leaned against the front window of Kayne’s Antiques. With a smile, she added, “I could hear Anika in the background begging to come with so she could also talk to me. Meera kept shushing her.”
Shen chuckled and leaned against the wall beside the window. “Anika must be overjoyed about this Reverse Cataclysm. She was always far more interested in magic than her older sister.”
“Yeah, not nearly as afraid of the law as she should be, Meera always liked to say,” Ridley added with a sigh. “Anyway.”
“Anyway,” Shen repeated. He looked away. An empty soda can tumbled across the street on a gust of air. “Um, how long is your grandfather staying?”
Ridley eyed Shen with a narrowed gaze. She got the feeling that none of these conversation points were the reason he’d come over here. “He’s uncertain at this point,” she answered. Technically, Grandpa was still officially dead. With no idea whether the people who’d threatened him years ago were still around, he didn’t want to stay here for too long in case someone found out. But he’d agreed to stick around for a bit while everything was so chaotic and government officials had other things to worry about.
Elemental Heir (Ridley Kayne Chronicles Book 3) Page 25
