by Ashia Monet
Jamie surveys the room. Their face has gone pale white. “Oh, that’s…bad.”
Before Blythe can agree, a new silence falls. Blythe is so used to the noise that it takes her a moment to realize that the generator has died.
The electricity shuts off. With only the faint light echoing from the windows, the Full Cup is a different place, distorted by silence and the sickening light of the storm.
“Mommy!” Lily wails. The dark has always spooked her.
“You’re such a baby,” Lena huffs.
“You’re alright, Lily,” Amber says. Her shoes click against the floorboards as she joins them at the window. “God, it must be terrible out there. We should call it a night. Nobody’s coming out in this weather, anyway.”
“Oughta wait until the storm passes,” Jamal mutters. “Jamie, grab a few candles from storage. I’ll see what I can do with that generator.”
“I’ll help,” Amber says. “Blythe, stay with the girls.”
The three of them head into the back while the twins lean against Blythe. Lily is trembling, so Blythe turns on her phone’s flashlight. White light bounces across the tabletops.
“See?” Blythe says. “Light.”
“That’s because you have a Zadis,” Lily mutters. “They have superior technology on all levels. Our phones are stupid.”
Blythe can’t disagree. Zadis is the technology corporation—from phones, to tablets, to laptops, if you want to buy modern technology, you’d better buy Zadis.
“Dad said you can get Zadis phones when you’re twelve,” she reminds them.
“But our phones suck now,” Lena says. “We can only download four games.” Her ponytail has somehow slipped to the side of her head.
“I didn’t even have a phone when I was nine,” Blythe says, taking off Lena’s hair tie. “Actually, no, I had like, a flip phone.”
Lily’s eyes light up. “It did flips?”
“Oh my Christ,” Blythe sighs. This must be what getting old feels like.
The wind shrieks outside again. Except, this time, the windows…rattle. Even behind them, the frame trembles—as if resisting an unseen force. The glass door of the entrance struggles the most.
A crack appears, racing across the glass.
“Get down, get down!” Blythe yells. She drops to the floor, pulling the twins down with her.
Every single window in the café bursts. Rain and glass hit the floor tile in a flood of freezing water and tiny shards.
The wind enters, cold and cutting. Wooden chairs screech as they skid across the floor. Paper cups and napkins are sucked into the air, cycling around the café in a tornado.
Lily is on Blythe’s left, Lena on her right. Their screams are piercing, their bodies curled up. Blythe locks her arms around them.
“It’s okay!” she yells. “It’s just the wind!”
The sound of a boot crunching on glass lets her know that she isn’t entirely correct.
The café door is only an open metal frame with a sea of tiny, sharp pieces strewn in front of it. A man steps through the frame.
He is dry from head to toe. On his wrists are bulky cuffs carved from bronze. They glint in the light of the storm, but there is another bronze item shimmering on him: a trident pin on his blazer.
Blythe recognizes him instantly: his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the confident way he stands, it’s all too familiar. He’s the man who stood outside of her house.
The air pushes at Blythe’s back like it has formed physical hands of wind and rain. The twins fall silent, their identical brown eyes wide on the intruder. Blythe grips them closer.
The man’s hat covers his face in shadow as he turns to them. His voice lilts with an Australian accent. “Isn’t that just the cutest.”
The wild coils around Blythe with the strength of a cyclone—forcing her arms off the twins. Their bodies rise off the ground, guided through the air even as they flail their limbs.
Blythe’s heart drops. The winds are carrying her sisters to that man.
“BLYTHE!” Lena screams. Lily shrieks her lungs raw.
The air is like sandpaper in Blythe’s chest. “Lena, I got you!” she screams. “It’s okay!”
She reaches until her shoulders ache. Their fingers brush, but it isn’t enough. Blythe throws herself forward and—
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, eh?” the man says. “Nobody’s going anywhere I don’t want ‘em to.”
Wind thuds into Blythe’s chest. She flies backward and her spine slams into the unforgiving ground.
She tries to inhale. Her lungs can’t draw air. Her hands fly to her throat. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. She tries to inhale, opens her mouth, gasping.
“Amber, Jamal,” the man says. “I visited your house yesterday, but it seemed you weren’t home, so I had to postpone. I can’t see Jamal but I know you’re there, mate.”
Something heavy and solid thumps against the back wall.
“Found you,” says the man.
The invisibility drips from Jamal’s body, revealing his form slumped against the wall. The back of his head is darkened. Blood.
His eyes spear into the man like a pair of knives. “Put them down you son of a—” His mouth freezes, open wide. He is choking on air.
Weightless, he is lifted off the ground, floating over the tables, towards the man.
The intruder sucks his teeth. “Don’t be rude and don’t waste my time. Do I look like I want to be here?”
A dome materializes around Blythe’s body, transparent besides a slightly blue sheen. Blythe inhales and air finally fills her lungs.
She coughs, clutching at her chest, catching her shirt in her fists. The wind still runs wild through the café, but for Blythe, the world has gone still. Nothing can touch her.
She has seen this dome before, in her childhood memories. It’s a force field.
Amber Fulton stands behind the counter inside a field of her own. Her expression is granite hard.
“Why are you here?” It is not a question, but a demand.
“MOM!” Blythe yells. The word springs out of her. She doesn’t know why. She wants her mother.
The man has not moved a muscle. He remains close to the doorway, with Lily, Lena, and Blythe’s father hovering in mid-air around him.
“I have orders,” he huffs. “And, I mean—” he jerks a thumb toward Blythe. “—you can probably guess.”
The words cut into Blythe. This attack—the pain her family is feeling, the tears wetting Lily’s cheeks, Jamal clawing at his throat—it is happening because of her.
“Your orders mean nothing here,” Amber growls. “Leave.”
A thin smile spreads across the man’s face. “Funny,” he says. “I said the same thing to a bunch of soldiers a couple of days ago.”
He lifts his hands. His wrist cuffs glow as the air around him twists into sharp, agitated wisps—as if he has made bullets out of thin air.
They shoot toward Amber, rocketing into her force field and popping it like a bubble.
Blythe screams, her voice echoing off the walls. The force field around her own body dissipates into nothing. Tears burn and blur in her eyes. She can barely see the wind pluck her mother up.
Anxiety and instinct thunder inside her ribs. She doesn’t have magic. She can’t fight. This man is taking her family. What is she supposed to do? What is she supposed to do?
From the counter comes a rising wave of water. It crashes into the man, throwing him again a table. He’s barely opened his eyes before another wave slams him into the ground.
It is as if the cafe has been turned into a wave pool. The chairs are buoyed as the water settles, pooling against the floorboards.
Behind the counter, Jamie’s jaw is clenched as tightly as every other muscle in their body. Their palm is angled beneath the sink’s faucet. “GET! THE FUCK! OUT!”
Water bursts from their hand, growing into a surge that crests against the ceiling. But when it meets the man, plowin
g into him, his body is as still as a statue.
He pushes to his feet, clothes heavy and dripping wet. “C’mon kid,” he grunts. “Don’t be annoyin’.”
His heavy bronze cuffs burst with light. Blythe inhales sharp.
“Jamie, move!” she screams, but the wind moves faster than her words.
Its bullets hit Jamie square in the torso. They are the same forces that pierced through Amber’s force field—but Jamie remains standing.
Blythe doesn’t understand what’s happening until the blood appears, blooming against Jamie’s t-shirt, tiny holes opening from every place the wind has touched them.
Blythe shrieks their name. Jamie grips the counter, eyes wide, unfocused and unseeing. They stumble, mouth agape, before their body gives out. They collapse behind the counter.
“I woulda let you go home free if you woulda minded your business,” the man says.
Blythe is on her feet before she can think. The wind twists around her legs, spinning until her balance is thrown.
She hits the ground with tears stinging her eyes. She screams, making incomprehensible noises, struggling to her feet.
She has to do something. She’s a Guardian—she’s a fucking Guardian, goddamn it, she’s supposed to be able to bring this whole building crashing down if she wants it to.
She balls her hands into fists and shuts her eyes, summoning all of her will, her energy, her power.
But her magic does not come to her. Nothing happens.
Lily and Lena choke on their tears. Amber and Jamal hang in the air on either side of the man, her father’s movements growing slower and slower. Her mother is unconscious.
Black bubbles form around them, like four cages of spilled ink, until they are erased from sight, leaving only hovering black spheres.
“Put them down!” The words claw out of Blythe’s throat. “Put them down!”
The man faces her. For the first time, light falls across his features. But he is not something grotesque, shocking, or monstrous. He is white and brown eyed with a strong brow and a chin covered in dark stubble. He’s just a man.
“I know how it feels to have your whole life overturned,” he says. “Trust me…you’ll get over it.”
A blinding flash of light sears Blythe’s eyes. She winces, shutting them as dancing colors echo against her eyelids.
But the wind has died. The café is still.
The electricity has returned, bringing back the lights along with the chattering TV. The café is empty. The man—and her family—are gone.
Napkins and glass cover every inch of the floor. The tables are scattered, the chairs overturned. The counter is a mess.
Blythe gasps. “Jamie,” she pushes to her feet. “Jamie!”
Behind the counter, Jamie is on the ground. “Jamie…Jamie, please…” she whispers.
Their body is still, long limbs splayed out at awkward angles. Blythe drops to her knees. Her tears drip, salty, into her mouth.
She presses her head against their chest. A heartbeat taps against her cheek. Their chest rises, ragged and pained, yes, but they are breathing. They’re breathing.
They need to get a hospital.
The Fultons are no longer part of the Black Veins—or any magician government. They are free from their rules and their wars. They are also free from their protection.
The Sages hold claim over Blythe and Blythe alone, only because the title of Guardian has been branded upon her.
There are no magician officials to help her family. To help Jamie.
Blythe runs for her phone, fallen near the windowsill (with the flashlight still on), and dials nine-one-one.
Outside, the fallen neon sign bursts alight. It faces the window, echoing the words THE FULL CUP. Blythe is covered in Jamie’s blood. It is on her hands, on her shirt, against her face. And her family is gone. Stolen. Choked and terrified and stolen.
When the paramedics arrive, they will be Common. They will see not a café, only an abandoned building. They will not see the perfect lights, the fallen neon sign, the glass, the chairs, the menus.
They will not know there were once four other people here.
Approaching police sirens sing to her. She does not know how long she’s been sitting in the middle of the café, covered in blood, surrounded by glass, drowning in neon light.
The Alistair French show echoes on the TVs. Only parts make their way to Blythe, the other words mangled and lost in static.
“In Electric City…Electric City…the Trident Republic…in Electric City.”
Four
Men always think they’re right.
She can read the paramedics’ eyes. They think they understand this whole scene: two teenagers were being dumb in an abandoned building and one got hurt.
She isn’t going to correct them.
They take Jamie into an ambulance on a rickety stretcher. The two police officers have few words for her, besides asking for Jamie’s moms’ numbers and telling her it’d be best if she went home.
She nods when they ask if she has transportation. She’s not going to put herself—a Black girl with a missing family—in the back of a police car.
She goes to the train station, alone, in the dark. She gets to her house, unlocks the door, and steps into a familiar space made unfamiliar.
The people who inhabit this house include two nine-year-olds, a father who never stops working, and a mother who never stops creating. This space is supposed to be an oasis of life and energy.
Now there is only darkness; there is no movement, no sound. The house has become a hollow corpse.
The silence pins her feet to the floorboards. She can’t move, can’t speak, can’t stop the tears from burning down the length of her face.
Their lives shouldn’t be like this. The twins should be enjoying their first days of summer vacation. Her dad should be watching the news and grumbling under his breath. Her mom should be searching for new recipes in her office.
It shouldn’t be this, her standing alone in a home she no longer recognizes, her mind too scrambled and her chest too tight to think of what to do next.
She was supposed to be scared and hunted by the Trident Republic. Not her sisters or her mom or her dad.
She lingers until she runs out of tears to cry. Her body is weak and her head is light. She needs to lie down.
She moves up the creaking stairs to the bathroom, where the shower bathes her in warmth. She turns up the cold water, higher and higher until her skin turns to ice. Ribbons of blood swim down her body and into the drain.
She can’t get the images out of her head. Jamie collapsed on the café floor. Her mother crumbling to the ground. The twins outstretching their arms to her.
The worst image of all is how she stood there. Doing nothing. A powerless, useless girl without magic.
Her room is as untouched as it was when she left it this morning. Her pajamas are where they always are. Her bed is as warm as it always is.
She hides under her blankets, pulling her knees to her chest. And she sobs.
Tears have long since left her. But her body shakes and heaves as sounds choke her. She buries her face into her pillow and screams.
There is no way to judge how long she stays there, veiled from the world beneath her blankets. But when it is over, she is empty and hollow and exhausted.
Her head is heavy. She squeezes her eyes shut. At some point, unconsciousness claims her.
When she wakes, the sun has risen.
Golden light leaves nothing untouched; the blue stationery stacked on her wall shelves, her favorite denim jacket folded over her desk chair. Her wall of photos glow; every single one of her best memories smiles down at her.
She stares at the ceiling as if her thoughts are written across it.
Her family left the Black Veins to escape the violence of the Uncommon world. But magician governments found them anyway and brought their war raining down on them.
She could lie here and lament this until the en
d of time, but sadness will not save her. Her family is gone. Staying in this room will not bring them back. Crying won’t conjure them out of thin air to console her.
She can’t stay in this house.
She spent most of her life running from the Erasers. Her parents taught her how to pack up her things and leave a place as fast as possible. They taught her how to navigate the roads, how to check into hotels, how to watch her back. She learned how to travel fast and hard and unseen.
Her childhood has prepared her for situations that look very similar to this.
She started to hate the Erasers as she grew older. She would slam her clothes into her suitcases, burning with resentment. She hated the drive away from a town she’d fallen in love with. She’s always hated running. She has always wanted to defend what was hers.
Because Blythe Fulton is not a girl who hides. She is a girl with white fire in her veins. She is a girl who fights.
The Trident Republic wants to take casualties in their stupid war? Fine.
Blythe will muster everything inside of her—all of her cunning and determination and pain and anger—and she will go to their city, stare them down, and take her family back.
The Full Cup is closed.
The cloaker runs on high, twenty-four hours a day. Commons see an abandoned building. Magicians see a destroyed café with a handwritten “BE BACK SOON! :)” sign that looks like it was crafted by a sixteen-year-old. Because it was.
Blythe tapes cardboard around the shattered window frames to keep looters out. It’s the best she can do, especially since she has more important things to focus on.
Legs folded on her kitchen counter, and armed with a triple espresso latte, Blythe scourges the internet for the location of Electric City.
She finds it in the Nevada desert, and though she doesn’t have the exact coordinates, she does have a mapped route to the general location saved on her phone.
Blythe sleeps in her parents’ bedroom, surrounded by the life they left on pause: her mother’s brush on the corner of the dresser, her father’s shoes by the closet door.
It feels like they could walk in at any moment, but Blythe is still alone when she wakes. So, she presses on.