Elemental Heir (Ridley Kayne Chronicles Book 3)

by Rachel Morgan

  “And, uh … no plans yet to ‘liberate’ any other cities?”

  Ridley turned so she only had one shoulder against the window and was fully facing Shen. “You know the answer to that.” She hadn’t had to liberate any other cities because after seeing what was happening in the rest of the world—after seeing that magic wasn’t waiting to tear down any area without protection—numerous cities had chosen to begin dismantling their own arxium infrastructure. “Shen,” she said. “I feel like there’s something you want to tell me, and for some reason you’re too afraid to spit it out.”

  He shut his eyes, ran a hand over his hair, then looked at her. “I’m leaving.”

  Ridley blinked and unfolded her arms. She pushed away from the window. “Again? Like … for good?”

  “I don’t know. I just … I don’t think I can stay here. I can’t get it out of my mind. The—the terrible thing I did. I have to learn to live with myself and I don’t think I can do it here. I need to start over somewhere else.”

  “I …” Ridley looked past him, considering this development before voicing her thoughts. “I think you’re right. Maybe it is best that you start over somewhere new. When are you planning to leave?”

  “Tonight. I made the decision this morning and booked a ticket on one of the inter-city trains.”

  “Oh, wow. So soon.” She looked around as the bell tinkled over the door and Dad’s customer walked out. He nodded briefly to Ridley and Shen before striding away.

  “Yeah,” Shen said. “Staying here another few days isn’t going to change anything. May as well leave now.”

  “I guess.” Ridley let her gaze travel his face, wondering if today was the last day she would ever see him. “So do you want me to explain things to Meera when I see her tomorrow?”

  Shen shook his head. “That would certainly be the easier way out, but I think I owe it to her to explain everything myself. We’ve been friends for years. I can’t just disappear forever without saying goodbye in person.”

  Ridley nodded, relieved. She happened to agree with him.

  “I, uh …” Shen straightened. “I’m heading over to see her now actually. I just wanted to come and tell you and say goodbye in case you’re out later and I miss you.”

  “So—so this is it? This is goodbye? I … this …” Ridley shook her head. How had this moment of great significance come out of nowhere? “Shen, you’re my oldest friend.”

  “Yeah, and I turned out to be a pretty terrible one.”

  “No, you didn’t. You just—”

  “I messed up. I was so intent on protecting you and everyone else like you that I went too far and I messed up. Anyway, this probably isn’t goodbye forever.” He stepped closer and pulled her into a hug. “You can race across the continent on the wind if you feel like it. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”

  After a final goodbye, Ridley leaned against the window again, watching as Shen’s long-legged lope carried him back across the street. When he was gone, she turned back to the shop’s front door. She opened it, then froze as something pressed against her ankle. Looking down, she found a black cat with one white paw, four ears, and eyes that glowed magic blue. “Ember?” she said in utter astonishment. She hadn’t seen the magic-mutated cat since she’d first escaped into the wastelands and Ember had helped Archer to find her.

  Ridley reached down to run her knuckles across Ember’s head, which Ember allowed for approximately two seconds. Then, shoulders back and tail held high, she sauntered past Ridley and into Kayne’s Antiques as if she’d been here all along and had merely gone out for a brief jaunt.

  “Wow, I thought that conversation was never going to end.”

  Ridley straightened in fright, looking around at the figure who’d suddenly appeared on the sidewalk behind her. “Lilah? How long have you been here?”

  Lilah pointed a perfectly manicured fingernail at Ridley. “You’re supposed to be the super powerful one. Didn’t you notice I was here?”

  Ridley hadn’t noticed a thing outside of her oldest friend announcing he was leaving and then her peculiar pet showing up out of the blue. What she did notice, now that Lilah was standing in front of her, was that while they were similarly dressed—jeans, T-shirt, jacket—Lilah managed to look like she’d stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine, and Ridley looked … well, average. “I was a little distracted, okay? Was that you moving the soda can? I knew that gust of air didn’t seem entirely natural.”

  Lilah grinned, like she was proud of the fact that she could roll a piece of tin across a street without touching it. She flicked her sleek dark hair over one shoulder. “That was me.”

  “You’re supposed to use your powers for good, not for eavesdropping.”

  “I didn’t eavesdrop. I watched from up there.” She gestured to the roof of Ridley’s building. “And I know you’ve done plenty of eavesdropping in your time, so get down from that high horse of yours before you fall off.”

  Ridley rolled her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s almost five. You’re supposed to meet us, remember? Sunset drinks in the wastelands? Toasting to something epic? With wine, because you and I used to do pretend wine tasting with our kiddie grape juice pouches?”

  Ridley smiled at the memory. Six-year-old Lilah and Ridley had thought they were so sophisticated copying their parents’ wine tasting ways. “I haven’t forgotten. But last I looked, it was barely four.”

  “Right, and four is almost five, and this way you get an extra hour with Archer.”

  Ridley had to admit, that was an appealing prospect. “Okay, either you’re bored, you’re overexcited by your magic again and can’t wait to use it, or things with your mom are becoming too much and you had to get away.”

  Lilah sighed. “All of the above?” She scraped the tip of her designer tennis shoe back and forth across the sidewalk. “Okay, maybe mostly Mom. Things are … hard. You know, because of—” she waved her hands in the air “—everything. Dad and the arrest and everything becoming public and now she’s suddenly being shunned by everyone who used to suck up to her. And Archer’s not around because she refuses to see him, so she takes everything out on me.”

  “She still doesn’t know you were the one who leaked the video of the conversation your dad had with me? About the Cataclysm?”

  Lilah shook her head. “No, things would be way worse if she knew about that. She’d probably kick me out. Anyway, let’s go.” She reached for Ridley’s arm and tugged it. “Hanging out on the sidewalk in a dodgy neighborhood is fun, but hanging out on the remains of a ruined building in the wastelands is funner—which, by the way, is a real word.”

  “Oh, trust me, ‘funner’ is not what I was about to object to. It’s the ‘dodgy neighborhood’ I take issue with.” Ridley opened the door to Kayne’s Antiques, and leaned inside. “Dad?” she called. Alone now—Grandpa must have gone back upstairs—Dad looked up from the desk. “Still okay if I go out with Lilah and Archer? I’ll be back later this evening.”

  Dad opened his mouth, then paused. Ridley could tell it was on the tip of his tongue to say something like ‘Be careful’ or ‘Don’t stay out too late’ or ‘Don’t take off on your own and do something crazy.’ But then he smiled and said, “Have fun. I’ll see you later.”

  Lilah grinned at Ridley. “Can we go burn something?”

  Ridley laughed. “When did you turn into a pyromaniac?”

  “Pyromania has nothing to do with it. I’m just a tiny bit obsessed with the fact that I have magic. Seriously, Ridley, this stuff is awesome.”

  “It is, isn’t it.” Ridley tilted her head as she eyed Lilah, who probably hadn’t shown this much excitement about anything since they were children.

  “So, lead the way,” Lilah prompted.

  They flew above the city, beyond the area where the wall used to be, and into the wastelands. On a buckled suburban street where nothing but rubble and overgrown vegetation remained of the homes that once filled
this area, Lilah leaped from shrub to shrub, burning through the tangle of weeds and grass. Ridley dove into the earth, confronting what little remained of her fear, pushing up the foundations of ruined buildings and sending faint shudders through the ground.

  As the sun inched toward the horizon, Ridley convinced Lilah to return to human form. “You can hang around here longer if you want, but I should probably go back and fetch Archer.” Until Archer made a more permanent plan, he was staying at the bunker, which had survived the destruction of the city wall with barely a broken brick. Ridley liked to think she’d been super focused with her earthquakes and with asking magic not to destroy the bunker, but the fact that it had survived probably had more to do with the magic users living there who knew how to protect their home with conjurations.

  “Oh, Archer’s already out here,” Lilah said. “I left him on top of that half-demolished cinema before coming to get you.”

  Ridley pinned Lilah with a glare. “You mean I could have spent all this time with him instead of supervising your pyromania?”

  “Don’t try to pretend this wasn’t fun,” Lilah argued. “You brought down that water tower like a kid knocking over a pile of blocks. Which is to say,” she added, “that you did it with great delight.”

  Instead of arguing further, Ridley launched herself into the air and swept back toward the city, sensing Lilah close behind her. The half-demolished cinema she’d mentioned was near the edge of the wastelands. As she drew near, she spotted Archer sitting on the highest point of the remaining structure, a commscreen in one hand and his back against a curved piece of concrete that had once been part of the building’s roof design.

  Ridley landed a little lower down on the roof and looked up. From this angle, she could see the small line between Archer’s brows and the intense focus on his face. Something about the way he sat there, one arm draped over one knee, entirely absorbed in whatever he was reading and oblivious to everything else, made her love him even more. Internally, she rolled her eyes at herself. Everything about him made her love him more. It was kind of ridiculous.

  “Hey,” Lilah said quietly, catching Ridley’s arm before she could climb up to Archer. “You know that long list titled Things Lilah Was Mean To Ridley About? I, uh …” She ran a hand through her hair, which was somehow still sleek and glossy even after all her wild elemental antics. “I need to add Archer to it. I know I said you were like all those other silly girls, falling for his charming ways and then ending up with a broken heart, and—”

  “And that’s exactly what happened,” Ridley said. “Sort of. I mean, I thought that’s what happened. And before you said it—before anything even happened between Archer and me—I was already thinking it. I was very much aware of that long list of girls, and I didn’t want to add myself to it. You weren’t doing anything more than voicing my fears out loud.”

  “Okay, but I still shouldn’t have said it. At least, not in the way I said it. I was …”

  “Hurt?” Ridley asked. She’d figured out that that was where most cruel comments came from.

  “Yes. My dear big brother told me I shouldn’t be friends with the girl whose dad used to be a magicist, and I listened to him. So you and I spent years at odds with each other. And then he returned after being away for so long, all secretive and refusing to share anything with me, and then showed up at that party with you as his date. And it was like …” She shook her head, her brow creasing. “I don’t know, like I was losing my brother and my friend all over again. I just felt really … alone.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ridley said.

  “I’m the one who’s trying to apologize here, Rid,” Lilah answered with a laugh.

  “I know, but I’m sorry too. You may not have heard any of the nasty comments I made about you over the years, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t make them. So yeah, I’m sorry too.”

  “Well, anyway, the thing I actually wanted to say—since I noticed you staring so adoringly at Archer—is that I’m happy for the two of you.”

  “Adoringly, huh?” Archer said, and Ridley looked around to see that he’d climbed down a foot or two. He extended a hand toward her.

  “Whatever,” she said, her face flushing, but she reached for his hand and let him pull her up. “I was looking at—the sunset.”

  “Sure you were.” He tugged her closer and wound both arms around her waist. “You two took your time getting here.”

  Ridley gave him a careless shrug and a teasing smile. “I guess we had better things to do.”

  Archer leaned down and pressed a long, lingering kiss to her lips. “Better than that?” he asked quietly, mouth close to hers still.

  “No,” she whispered, “but don’t tell Lilah.”

  “I’m right here,” Lilah announced flatly. “I can hear you both. Where’s that bag with the drinks?”

  “Behind that broken bit of concrete there,” Archer said, removing one arm from around Ridley so he could point. He sat and pulled her down next to him, sliding his commscreen into his pocket.

  “I thought we were too far from the city here to connect to any network,” she said.

  “We are. I was reading.”

  “All right, first up,” Lilah said, sitting on Ridley’s other side and placing a backpack in front of her, “we have another one from Alastair Davenport’s private collection.” She produced a bottle of red wine, followed by three plastic wine glasses. “Dad would be horrified we’re drinking out of plastic.”

  “I doubt he knows we even own those,” Archer commented.

  “When you say ‘first up,’” Ridley said, “are you telling me there’s more inside that bag?”

  “Just some sparkling water. Oh, and that coconut pineapple combo my mom loves. Plus snacks. Don’t worry, Rid.” She nudged Ridley’s arm. “I’m not planning for us to get drunk out here. Just enjoy a good vintage, watch the sun go down, and fly back home without crashing into anything.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Ridley said, watching as Lilah gathered up some wisps of her own magic and began a conjuration. She wove the magic around the top of the wine bottle, and the next thing—pop—the corked jumped free.

  “Where’d you learn that?” Archer asked.

  “I looked it up.”

  “Where? Nothing’s been legalized yet.”

  “I happen to be capable of accessing hidden information online,” Lilah informed him. She poured wine into the plastic glasses lined up on the roof in front of her. She passed a glass to Ridley and one to Archer. Then she lifted her own, held it beneath her nose, and inhaled deeply. She breathed out of her mouth. “Mm. Cigar box.”

  Ridley snorted. Archer reached around her and tugged Lilah’s hair. “Don’t be so pretentious.”

  “Hey!” Lilah leaned across Ridley and punched Archer’s arm.

  “Woah, hey!” Ridley held both hands up, her wine sloshing dangerously close to the top of her glass. “What happened to enjoying a good vintage and a sunset?”

  “I was enjoying a good vintage,” Lilah grumbled, “before I was rudely interrupted.” But she turned her face toward the city, swirled her wine, and took a sip.

  Ridley met Archer’s eyes, then bit her lip to keep her laughter in. She happened to agree with the ‘pretentious’ comment. Archer put one arm around her shoulders, and she snuggled against his side as she tasted the wine. “Better than a kiddie grape juice pouch,” she said.

  “Definitely,” Lilah answered with a laugh. Then she sighed and added, “Doesn’t this take you back in time? The three of us hanging out together, like we used to do before the Cataclysm?”

  “Yeah,” Ridley murmured. “Minus the wine.”

  “And minus us all sitting together,” Archer said. “Back in the day, it would have been you two playing together and me very definitely not playing with you.”

  “Oh yes, you were too cool for us,” Lilah said. “I remember now. You were probably stealing our unicorn cookies and running off with that jerk friend of yours. What was his n
ame? Verne?”

  “Jeez, don’t hold back, Ly,” Archer said. “Tell me what you really think.”

  Lilah smiled sweetly. “Asswipe?”

  “Nice.”

  “It’s a term of endearment.”

  Archer shook his head. “Sounds like you missed a lesson or two at school.”

  “Ugh, school,” Lilah groaned. “Do you think we have to go back on Monday?”

  “I hope so,” Ridley said.

  “Only you would say that,” Lilah accused with a roll of her eyes.

  “Look, I don’t know about you, but I still plan to graduate—if at all possible.” Ridley turned the stem of her wine glass, her eyes following the scratches on the plastic surface. “Hey, do you think if I let everyone know I’m an elemental I’ll be seen as cool or even more of an outcast? Not that being considered cool has ever ranked particularly high on my priority list.”

  “Hmm, I guess things are going to be quite different,” Lilah mused. “Even if I don’t show everyone my weird yellow magic—which I’m not planning to do, by the way—there’s the fact that I’m the daughter of the guy who made the Cataclysm happen.” She pursed her lips, absently running one hand over the bump beneath her T-shirt, where Ridley assumed her mother’s stone heirloom pendant lay. “I guess that puts me very firmly in outcast territory.” She turned to Ridley. “Will you be my friend?” Her tone was light, almost teasing, but Ridley could see the plea in her eyes.

  “I’m already your friend, nitwit.”

  “Nitwit. Wow.”

  “It’s a term of endearment.”

  Lilah laughed so hard she almost choked. Eventually, after Ridley smacked her back, she calmed down and sighed. Looking out across the wastelands, she said, “The city looks so different without the wall.”

  “And without the storm clouds,” Archer added.

  “It’s beautiful,” Ridley murmured. The sun had disappeared on the other side of the city, lighting up the sky with an expanse of color. Bright yellow bleeding into orange-pink bleeding into purple. Ridley leaned her head on Archer’s shoulder. “What about you? Any plans yet? You’re still staying, right?”