Those Who Fall

by Rachael Arsenault

  “No!” I shouted. She jumped, then stepped out a little further, eyes darting wildly in search of me. I stepped out from my alcove, hands help up placatingly. “Y-you shouldn’t call her right now. She’s trying to lie low and her phone going off could be a disaster.”

  The woman’s blue eyes were torn between fear and suspicion. “Who are you? Why were you hiding? What do you want from me?”

  This was not going well. I kept my hands up and took slow steps closer, aware of how public this scene was and how close we were to the police station. My mind was spinning as I grasped for the right thing to say. I had been in her shoes before, more or less. I knew what it was like to be scared and confused by a group of strange women speaking cryptically to me. “Things have gone very badly the past couple of weeks and we’re just looking for somewhere safe, someone we can trust. Farida recommended you.”

  “Please,” Emily said in an uncharacteristically desperate, sugary tone. Gesturing to her slinged arm, she said, “We really need your help.”

  Eyebrows raising, the woman blinked rapidly, looking startled. “I — well — you… you seem to know a lot…” Her expression gradually softened, eyes sweeping over us — scarred, bruised, and dirty. Eventually, she nodded as she stepped aside, making room at the door. “Okay. Come in. She should be here soon.”

  Inside, the empty store was dark, the only source of light coming from the uncovered window in the door and the room off the hall. The space wasn’t dusty, surprisingly, and smelled of fresh paint.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said suddenly. “I never even introduced myself. I’m Alicia.”

  The name sparked something in my memory. It took me a moment to place where, exactly, I had heard it before: Farida had mentioned her once, when we were fleeing the police at the motel. She had never explained it at the time, but now I wondered if this was the contact she had mentioned, the one who helped her and Masika collect stones.

  I studied the woman as surreptitiously as I could. She had grabbed a chair from the room down the hall for Emily to sit on; watching her carry even a light wooden chair made it apparent how unmuscled her build was, her hands clumsy under the weight. Her pale face was naturally pink around the cheeks, creating the illusion that she was perpetually flustered. She looked like someone’s bookkeeper or a librarian, not like someone who was tangled up in the mess and danger of magic stones.

  (It occurred to me that, not very long ago, I had probably looked about the same to most people. Honestly, I probably still would if I weren’t so filthy and battered up.)

  Maybe she was just someone who handled the family finances. That would make sense — Farida was bound to need money sooner or later, at the very least for food. But if that was the case, why hadn’t they met at a bank? Or anywhere other than a vacant store?

  “It’s a shame, you know,” Alicia said as she paced the room. I got the sense she was nervous-rambling. “This store was lovely when it was still open. Piles and piles of books, all kinds of art of owls — there was even a chubby little cat that hung around the store.”

  That did sound nice. Shrugging off my disappointment at never getting a chance to visit when the Owl’s Nest was open, I asked, “What’s it being turned into now?”

  “Oh, um, a jewellery store of sorts.” Her cheeks had turned even pinker. “I-I’ll be overseeing it. For a little while. Until it’s on its feet, you know.”

  So she wasn’t the bookkeeper, then. She really was the person who had helped Farida and Masika find more stones. Or the person who set up the storefronts through which the stones were acquired. Or… something. Farida had never gone into great detail about how it worked and, looking at Alicia, I had a hard time imagining her involvement in such an enterprise as particularly deep. She didn’t strike me as the type to run around starting new businesses before flitting off to the next project either, though.

  “Right,” Emily was saying, eyeing the woman skeptically. She glanced over at me, raising an eyebrow. I could only offer a slight shrug and shake of my head in response. We could hash out what we did and didn’t know about this woman later.

  The time passed slowly. And awkwardly. Alicia kept springing into babbling fits, pacing and wringing her hands and glancing obsessively toward the door. Tara, Emily, and I didn’t say much except the occasional response to her various questions and prompts, though I, for one, had about a million and one things I wished we could discuss.

  Had that tree kid, Eden, caught up with Farida again? Was Farida okay? Was she really, for sure coming here or had she changed her mind? What if she had veered off into something rash and reckless, like going after Arman? She had left me in a fit of grief, and there was no telling if or when that grief might twist itself into a quest for vengeance.

  But we couldn’t exactly scry on her in front of Alicia since I wasn’t sure if she actually knew the stones were magical, so I was stuck waiting and worrying and wondering.

  It wasn’t just Farida I was worried for, though. I was also worried for us. Staying in one place for too long was dangerous. For one thing, there was a police station just up the block and more people than I could count had seen me walking through the city. Plus, I wouldn’t be surprised if our confused introduction out in front of the store had drawn some attention. I was trying to take Tara’s assurances on board, but it was hard not to feel like I was suffocating when I thought about how very, very, very close I was to the great danger of being arrested. Plus, Imani and Destiny both kept somehow finding us. I was hoping Imani would be majorly set back by the loss of a vehicle, but she had summoned a dragon. I knew firsthand how great of a transportation alternative that was. I was hoping Destiny wouldn’t be a problem anymore, or at least not for a long time, but, as Tara had said, Destiny was completely unpredictable.

  I found it hard not to be paranoid after being attacked so many times. And I definitely didn’t want our next altercation to happen in the middle of a city, especially not while we were with someone as innocent and defenseless as Alicia.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I tensed, my heart slamming into overdrive. Should I run to answer the door? No, seeing me right away might spook her. I would stand calmly and… and wave when Farida came in! No, that was lame and weird. I’d just say hi. But… But she had left. Purposely. Deliberately. She didn’t want to be around me anymore. She would get angry and bail as soon as she saw me, whether I answered the door or waited for her inside. I didn’t want to try and chase her — that would only end poorly, especially in the middle of the city right by a police station. I needed to say something — something that would stop her in her tracks and convince her to listen.

  God, why hadn’t I rehearsed this? I should have planned something. I’d been building to this for a week and I didn’t even know—

  And now Alicia was opening the door, stepping aside to make room for our guest to enter. I thought, for a wild moment, that maybe it wouldn’t be her. Some stranger would walk in and the world would crash back down around me and I’d be stuck at square one all over again.

  She was silhouetted, backlit by the afternoon sun. Then she stepped forward and I finally saw her face again. Her eyes fell to me, widening. Then to Emily, confusion beginning to colour her expression. It was about a millisecond before her gaze turned to Tara that I recognized my mistake.

  Fire ignited in her palms and she hurled a fistful at Tara, who screamed as she dove for the ground. Alicia was shrieking (“Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!”) and ran for the room off the hallway; flames had caught against the back wall.

  “Farida,” I said, rushing closer, trying to put myself between her and Tara. “Calm down! It’s okay — she’s—”

  “You’re with her, aren’t you?” she yelled, hands still blazing. Sweat was already beading on her forehead and her breathing was strangely ragged. Now that I was closer to her, I could see that she looked rough. In the dim light of the store and orange glow of her flames, she
looked sallow-skinned and exhausted, with darkness rimming wild, panicked eyes. Some of her braids had come undone. She was even filthier than I was. “You used her to follow me. You’ve been after me this whole time!”

  The fire in her hands flared brighter, glinting off her necklaces, an armband, a set of earrings — all bearing stones.

  Somewhere behind me, I heard the spray of a fire extinguisher. But I paid no attention to that. I had only eyes for Farida as I moved even closer, heart panging at the fear and anger in her expression as she staggered back a step. I grabbed her by the shoulders as she raised her hands to strike; it was painful just to be close to her fire, but I grit my teeth through it.

  “Farida, please. Listen. I know this isn’t you — the magic, it’s—”

  “You don’t know anything!” she snapped. One of the necklaces (a dull, red-brown stone knotted elaborately into a length of cord) flared with light.

  Unthinking, I grabbed it and tore it from her neck, earning a gasp of shock and pain. The light died.

  “What do you want from me?” she snarled. Up close, with one hand still on her shoulder, I realized she was shaking. Her whole body was seized by small, constant tremors. “You followed me all this way. You must want something.”

  “I want you,” I blurted. Then, realizing how that sounded, I rushed to add, “I want to help you, Farida.”

  “You can’t!” She tried to pull back, but I kept hold of her. It didn’t escape me that I shouldn’t have been able to hold her in place so easily — Farida was a lot stronger than me. “You can’t do anything!”

  It hurt. She could have just as well punched me in the stomach or pulled out a fistful of my hair. My memories and my heart tore me back to that hiatus house, when I was staring at her in fear and shock and confusion as she reamed me out with tears pouring down her cheeks. I wanted to shrink away, hug myself, hide behind Emily who would defend me no matter what.

  But as I stared up at Farida, at her wide eyes and sickly skin, her words rang hollow. She didn’t mean what she was saying. She couldn’t. She wasn’t herself, just like she wasn’t herself when she nearly set the store on fire.

  “Emily,” I called over my shoulder softly, my gaze never straying from Farida. “Can you guys go to the other room for a bit?”

  There was a pause. I thought maybe she was going to refuse — maybe she was scared to leave me alone with Farida after seeing her lob fire at us. Eventually, however, she said, “Sure thing, boss.”

  I didn’t bother to comment on the obnoxious nickname.

  “You’re with her,” Farida growled again. She was staring over my shoulder as the others quickly and quietly left the room. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who she was talking about.

  “A lot’s happened.”

  “Enough for you to side with one of his minions?”

  “I’m not with Arman, Farida.”

  “Yes, you are! You have to be! You’re with her!”

  “She freed my parents!”

  Her expression twisted in anger, deep furrows cutting across her brow as her eyes narrowed to slits. Her flaming hands reached up to shove me; I screamed out as fire bit into my skin, vision flashing white, the stench of burning cotton and flesh assaulting my nose. Blindly, I grabbed for her hands instead of her shoulders, the devouring heat of the flames licking at my fingers. It was easy to shove them away from my chest and toward hers. My vision was blurry and disoriented, but I saw her eyes widen and the fire fade from her hands.

  Breathless, voice shaking, she said, “You’re with her. You’re with him. You used her to find me.”

  My chest was still in agony and it hurt to breathe and I was struggling to focus on anything else. But I had to. I had to get through to her. “Okay, yes, I used Tara’s scrying to find you. But not to hurt you!”

  “You’re lying!” She was desperately trying to pull away, but the effort only made her tremors worse. Sweat ran thin rivers along her forehead and neck. “You’re lying!”

  “Farida, look at me! What have I done? What have any of us done? No one has hurt you! If I was following you to hurt you, don’t you think I would have done that already?”

  “Only because you don’t know how to!”

  I let go of one of her hands to stick mine out to the side. The burns across my chest made it difficult to concentrate, but I managed to call on a short burst of black, poisonous mist. It sprayed out into to the room, away from either of us, dissipating harmlessly in the air. I watched her watch my poison, her expression shifting frantically between emotions, and I suddenly realized that I recognized what she was feeling. Shock. Fear. Confusion. Panic. The same exhausting, adrenaline-fueled cocktail I had experienced with regularity since I had started traveling with her.

  I brought my hand forward to grab hers, entwining our fingers gently as I murmured, “It’s destroying you, Farida. You can’t pretend you don’t notice.”

  She glared at me, lip beginning to curl. “I’ll never beat Arman if I’m not stronger.”

  “You’ll never beat him if you’re dead.” She flinched as though I had slapped her, but didn’t say anything. I took that as encouragement to keep going. “Doing this isn’t making you stronger. Not really. You need to let us help you.”

  “No! You can’t!”

  “Yes, I can. My magic is a lot—”

  “No!” She yelled, louder, her voice beginning to crack. “You can’t! You can’t help! I need to do this alone. He killed her!”

  Tears were welling in her eyes and her voice was breaking from more than just the volume of her shouts. This wasn’t just anger. This wasn’t just about revenge. This was fear.

  “Are you… trying to protect me?”

  She was shaking her head now, trying to pull away as tears streamed down her cheeks. On a sob, she choked out, “That bastard killed her!”

  And then she was crumbling, completely dissolving into her tears as her legs gave out. I shifted one arm to wrap around her, catching her and lowering her to the ground gently.

  “She’s dead,” Farida sobbed. “I was supposed to protect her and she’s dead!”

  I pulled her close, ignoring the pain in the raw, burnt skin across my chest. I let her bury her face between my neck and shoulder as I murmured, “It’s not your fault. She knew what would happen when she used her magic.”

  “She shouldn’t have had to. I should have been stronger — I should have been saving her instead of her saving me.”

  I hugged her close as she sobbed. It felt like I had finally found solid ground again, but also like an avalanche was crashing down on me. She was back. She was weak and grieving and a long way from okay, but she was back and I could work with that.

  “I’m sorry,” she choked after a long moment. Her voice was scratchy and stuffy from crying. “I’m so sorry. For saying all those awful things to you and abandoning you. I just didn’t know if I could protect anyone anymore and I didn’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

  “So you lit my tits on fire?” I teased.

  Unbelievably, she laughed. My heart could have sprouted wings and fluttered away. “No, that’s not what I mean. I didn’t want you to get hurt, so I tried to make you go home.”

  “Emily. Right. How were you able to text her, anyway?”

  “I watched you unlock your phone once. I’ve got good memory.”

  “Sneaky, sneaky,” I muttered, rubbing small circles along her back.

  But she pulled away, wiping at her tears with shaking hands. “I should heal you.”

  “Stones off, first.”

  “What?”

  I gestured to the pile of necklaces she was wearing. “That stuff is killing you. You should take it off before you use any more magic.”

  She managed a small smile and rolled her eyes. “Okay. You’re right. And…” Her expression sobered. “I’m sorry. Again. I was being reckless and selfish.”

  “It’s okay. Grief is hard.”

  She threw her arms around me agai
n so suddenly that I jumped, which sent stabbing pain through my burns. Her voice was low, warm breath tickling my ear as she said, “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

  I couldn’t summon any words in response to that, speechless with joy and relief and something all-consuming that I wasn’t ready to put a name to. All I could do was hold her tight.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Once we had settled, it quickly became clear that Farida was in no shape to heal me or Emily. She tried, placing a gentle hand on the section of my chest she had so recently burned, but when her palm started to glow with healing magic, her face paled to a corpse-like complexion. She swayed in spite of being seated on the floor and, before I could push her hand away and stop her, she collapsed sideways with her eyes rolling back to show the whites. I caught her before she hit the floor; it took a long few seconds for her to regain consciousness.

  “You need to let yourself heal first,” I said gently, smoothing back some of the hair that had come loose around her face.

  “But—”

  “You’re a wreck. It won’t do any good if you hurt yourself trying to help someone else.”

  She sighed. Her eyes were shiny with tears and her voice cracked a little when she said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Though, you do have your work cut out for you when you get better.” With my best attempt at a wry smile, I added, “It’s not just me you’re healing. Emily dislocated her shoulder — it’s a long story — and she may need some help healing up properly.”

  Her gaze dropped to the floor. “We should probably go join them. Make sure they know I’m not gonna try to kill any of them.”

  I helped her to her feet and we headed down the little hallway. Tara, Emily, and Alicia were huddled in the room that I’d seen the light shining from, which turned out to be a cramped little office. Farida and I stayed in the hall, both of us leaning on a different side of the doorway.

  “Farida’s gonna need a few days to recover,” I said. “She’s worn herself out pretty badly over the last week.”