by Ashia Monet
Her chair clatters back as she stands. “Come on,” she says. “I’ll walk you out.” She eyes them sternly. “No panicking.”
Antonio seems to be doing just that, his attention divided between their faces and the storm brewing outside. “But like, this…this isn’t a big thing, right?”
“No,” Ms. Torres agrees. “Not if I can help it.”
The house seems to sway on its stilts as Ms. Torres leads them to the door. Blythe thinks it’s her imagination until a vase crashes to the tile and shatters.
“Ma…” Antonio mumbles.
She turns to him, holding his face in her hands and speaking words in Spanish that are beyond Blythe’s one year of studying it in school.
Whatever she says, it is serious, and Antonio nods, repeating it back to her. She smiles, pats his cheek, and opens the door.
Wind bursts into the house, strong enough to make everyone but Sofia stumble on their feet. The air curls through Blythe’s clothes, tossing her hair into a frenzy.
The stairs shift and groan beneath their weight. The beach has completely changed; the friendly ocean now froths and vomits foam. All of the colors are gone, replaced with a sickening grey that spans from the sky to the sand.
Ms. Torres is unfazed—like the eye of the storm, she only presses forward.
Sand cuts against Blythe’s exposed skin. She has to squint against it. The only way she knows where she is going is by following Ms. Torres’ calm movements.
When Ms. Torres stops, Blythe realizes they are standing in the beach grass that marks the end of the Torres’ property.
“Go on, hurry,” Ms. Torres ushers them ahead, giving Antonio a gentle push.
He whirls around to hug her, and she holds him tight before pushing him off again, rushing him to go.
“I’ll call!” Antonio yells. “And bring you back something cool!”
Daniel and Cordelia follow him through the grass without a second glance; Daniel folds his arms tight across his body while Cordelia’s hair flies wild in the wind.
There is something familiar about the way the air blows against them. Blythe has felt its sharp, cold hands on her skin before.
She is the only one who looks back at the beach.
A man hovers above the raging ocean waters; a hat rests on his head and bronze cuffs glow on his wrists. The general of the Trident Republic. The executioner of Walden Oliver’s war. Whiteclaw.
Rage tears through Blythe’s chest, choking her throat. She can’t go after him. He is above the ocean and she can’t swim. And she left her hockey stick in the van because this is the the last place she expected to see Whiteclaw.
Pain sinks Blythe’s stomach as she realizes that she is, yet again, powerless.
But Ms. Torres has not gone anywhere. With her back to Blythe, she watches Whiteclaw’s approach with squared shoulders. Like a warrior prepared for battle.
Blythe is not the only one affected by the Trident Republic. She is not the only one hurting.
Blythe has never met Cordelia’s family, but she imagines they are worried about her safety. And the Quintons were clearly terrified, but they fought back in their own way, coming out of hiding to make sure Daniel was safe.
And here is Ms. Torres, fists balled as she stares down the storm.
So Blythe runs to join the others. She may be powerless now, but this upcoming battle is not hers to fight.
When the time comes for Blythe to face Whiteclaw, to remind him of what he did to her family—to her—she will not be helpless.
She will be ready.
Twelve
Antonio has gone quiet.
He slouches into the backseat of the van, head against the window, playing with the rope bracelet around his wrist.
“So…” he begins. “Are there…always people popping up like that?”
Blythe speaks as gently as possible. “Basically,” she says, and Antonio studies her face, willing her to say something a bit more optimistic. “I mean, to be fair, they’re not always people. Sometimes they’re monsters.”
Antonio blinks. “Oh,” he says. “Variety.”
That probably wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Sorry,” Blythe apologizes.
She wishes she could do more for him; not only did he have to leave home, he had to watch a storm shift into something terrible and ruined.
Antonio’s quiet. Then he musters a perfect, sunny smile. “It’s okay,” he says. “I’ll just get used to it.”
Blythe wants to tell him the truth: about how they left Katia, about where they’re really going, about the actual plan. But he has enough to work through as it is.
Somehow, within a matter of minutes, Antonio slips back into his normal personality. He shares the radio with Cordelia, which means bubbly chart toppers have joined Cordelia’s selection of slow, dreamy indie pop. He alternates between toying with whatever he can get his hands on and leaning his head out of every hole in the van.
He’s halfway out of the window when he turns to Daniel. “Do you play video games?”
Previously, the van was plagued with unbreakable silences—but that will never happen again, not as long as Antonio Torres is here.
The good thing about him is that he never stops talking. The bad thing about him, however, is that he never stops talking.
Daniel regards this energetic stranger warily. “W-What are video games?”
Antonio considers this. “…Where are you from?”
“Montana.”
“Montana must be weird,” Antonio muses. “What did you do all day?”
“Read. A-And plant.”
“Oh, cool!” He pulls himself back into the van, and Blythe takes that opportunity to roll his window all the way up. “What kind of plants? Did you ever grow your own food?”
“Oh, a-all the time,” Daniel nods. “My mom has a huge vegetable garden in our backyard. It’s very pleasant, especially to pick things from whenever we want to make something. Plants grow really easily around me, so I’d spend most of my afternoons there, just reading.”
“That sounds so peaceful. Did you like it?”
“Immensely. But not as much as the rest of the forest. I…I knew every tree and bush on our land, and I never strayed far but it was still beautiful.”
Blythe has never heard words pour of Daniel like this before. He’s talking like a normal human being.
She has to hand it to Antonio, the boy knows how to make anyone talk to him.
“But our house was interesting as well. Some days I would stay in our library all evening and read the nonfiction, and sometimes I would have to help Father in his study,” Daniel continues. “Oh! And I get to drink all types of tea in the morning, and help my mom bake pies. It’s lovely.”
“I wanna move to your house,” Antonio laughs. “I’ve always wanted to grow my own food but eh, cons of living on a beach. It’s good for surfing though, and I do surf a lot.”
“Surfing has always seemed unsafe to me.”
“It is! Especially since I just started and I’m not good at it yet! I almost drowned once!”
Daniel checks out of the conversation after that. The concept of doing something dangerous for fun seems lost on him.
Antonio turns his attention to the front seats. “So, where are we headed?”
“Right now I’m just trying to find a good way into the Tempore,” Blythe says. “Do you know what that is?”
“Yeah, of course!” Antonio says. “My uncle uses it to get to work in the morning. But isn’t it closed now?”
“Nothing’s closed if you’re brave enough,” Blythe says and Antonio shouts, “Hahaha, heck yeah dude!”
Cordelia looks up from her phone. She picked it up to add Antonio to their group chat and never put it down.
But, apparently, she’s sensed a moment of weakness. “I’m beginning to think growing up with magic stunts your logical development,” she grumbles.
“Wait, were you not?” Antonio asks. “Where are you from?”
“I-I knew about magic, I just didn’t know I was a Guardian,” Daniel joins in. “My parents told me everything really slowly because they thought I-I’d cry when I heard I’d be leaving home...”
“Did you cry?” Cordelia asks.
Daniel hesitates. “…Yes.”
“Dude, you never left your house?!” Antonio yells.
Daniel’s face has gone red. “W-We had no reason to leave…F-Father says we m-moved to the house when I was five, b-but I don’t remember living anywhere but there.”
“Wait, y’know what, I was actually thinking about that,” Antonio begins. “Like, dude, can you imagine if like, the apocalypse happened and you had to make your entire life revolve inside your house because there’s nowhere to be except your house?”
Cordelia and Daniel stare at him in confusion. Even Blythe’s brow is furrowed.
“I’m not even talking about like for a few days or something, I mean for like, forever,” he continues. “Like, what if aliens attacked and destroyed the world? Would I have to like board up the windows and stuff? And only eat like, canned foods? I couldn’t live off canned foods! They’re basically all vegetables. Okay, there’s like, canned ravioli and stuff but you have to cook that, you can’t eat it cold. You ever think about that?”
Blythe is speechless. “Uh, not really—”
“Oh, wait, I did eat cold ravioli once. It was weird. My mom got mad at me for eating straight out of the can, but I was like, six. I forget out how I got it open,” He frowns. “I think I used my teeth. Which is pretty weird when I think about it, actually.” Antonio takes a breath. “What were you guys like as kids?”
“Might wanna put a pin in that one, Antonio,” Blythe says. “We’re heading into the Tempore.”
At this point, entering the Tempore has become a routine—find trees, drive into them, reappear into...a scene that looks completely different from what Blythe remembers.
The Tempore is in the middle of autumn. The trees are bare and their fallen leaves coat the forest floor in a patchwork of red, orange, and gold.
The sky is still a blanket of darkness. Someone—possibly a traveler who hasn’t stopped used the Tempore—has hung lit torches from the trees. The light makes it easier to see, but doesn’t help the Tempore’s creepy atmosphere.
“Whoa,” Antonio gasps. Whoa indeed.
“…Do we have time to care about this?” Blythe asks.
Cordelia is already flattening out Katia’s paper of addresses. “No.”
Their next destination is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, home of a girl named Storm Crane.
They’ve barely begun their drive before a scream pierces through the car like a bullet. At least, that’s what it sounds like. It may be an animal. Or something else entirely.
Blythe eases up on the gas. The van goes still enough to be part of the forest.
“What was that?” Antonio asks.
Cordelia is already tucking her phone into her purse as if she needs to be prepared to run. “We’re in the Tempore so it was probably a bloody monster,” she grumbles.
“Oh, monsters already?” Antonio asks. “That was quick.”
Blythe tunes them out. She has to think. Whiteclaw may have seen them leaving Antonio’s house. If Sofia couldn’t fend him off, this could be an attempt to find them.
Or maybe it’s none of that at all. Maybe the Trident Republic is causing trouble that’s completely unrelated to them.
In the rearview mirror, Blythe sees it. It moves at the tops of the trees and looks like a gust of darkness shooting through the air. Right for them.
“Hide,” Blythe can’t speak quickly enough. “In the back away from the windows, on the ground—go now!”
Daniel goes pale as he rushes to the trunk. Antonio stares outside.
“Shouldn’t we fight it?” he speaks as simply as if he’s asking if they should stop for gas. “I mean, we’re all Guardians right? We could totally fight that thing.”
“We need to figure out what it is first,” Blythe responds.
Antonio relents, moving to join Daniel. The rear windshield is wide, but it’s high. If they sit on the truck bed, they could go undetected.
It’s a big “could”. If the creature sees them first, it gets a head start on its attack. And Blythe doesn’t even know what this creature is capable of.
Blythe slides against the left wall of the trunk, shoulder to shoulder with Daniel. Cordelia and Antonio have squeezed in on the right, Cordelia’s head right beneath the glass.
They are silent. Blythe’s hands have started to tremble, and she tucks them against her stomach. Her mouth is dry. But nothing is happening.
“Are you sure it—” Cordelia starts.
A caw cuts her off, identical to the one they heard before, except this time, the sound is only feet from their window.
Cordelia clamps her mouth shut. Antonio pulls his legs against his chest as he straightens to see through the window.
A streak of billowy black fabric shoots toward the driver’s seat.
A sound chokes out of Daniel’s throat. Blythe covers his mouth. The back rows of leather sets are tall enough to obscure them from the thing’s view—but they don’t block Blythe’s view of the monster.
It is not a shadow; it is a cloaked, humanoid figure. Its black hood covers most of its features, except for a forked tongue that licks between yellow fangs. Its exposed skin is yellow and wrinkled, black veins pulsing beneath its surface.
The creature screams, a shriek that shakes Blythe’s eardrums and rings through her head. She swears the entire van vibrates.
The creature settles in front of the windshield. Its black cloak takes up every inch of the glass, curling and echoing in a nonexistent wind.
Blythe’s hockey stick lies under the backseat, a good three feet away from her right hand. She can grab it and maybe fight this thing. As long as there’s only one.
But it doesn’t attack them. It shoots up in a blur.
“…is it gone?” Antonio whispers. Blythe shushes him.
Daniel pries her hand from his mouth. “That was a Krubim,” he whispers.
“You know what they are?” Blythe blurts.
Of course he does. This is the boy that made his own grimoire. He probably knows more about magic than all of them combined.
Daniel bobs his head. “They’re a species of Calling creature. They’re blind, so perhaps if we don’t make noise, it’ll flee.”
Cordelia peers out of the back window. The creature appears behind the glass with an echoing caw.
The thing dives forward. Blythe reaches for her hockey stick, but she doesn’t get a chance to grab it.
Cordelia screams and the creature grasps its head, spine arching, cloak shaking. It collapses beneath their view.
Cordelia’s eyes are huge. Blythe can’t stop watching her. “What did you do?” she whispers.
Cordelia shakes her head. “I…I don’t know. I don’t know. I had this ringing in my head and it just…” she points a shaky finger forward. “It travelled to that thing.”
“Whoa,” Antonio breathes.
Cordelia is the Guardian of the Mind, sure, but there are so many ways to incapacitate a person—or, apparently, a Calling creature—using the Element of the Mind. Did she shut down that thing’s mental processing? Did she put it in a coma?!
Regardless, that creature’s down. And it doesn’t seem like it’ll be getting up anytime soon.
A cacophony of shrieks echoes in the distance, identical to the ones before, but much larger in number.
“Oh no,” Daniel breathes, because outside the rear windshield is a swarm of black cloaks soaring straight for them.
“There’s never only one…” Blythe mutters. “Guys, lay flat and don’t make a—”
“Cordelia could just do that thing again!” Antonio interrupts.
“Cordelia d
oesn’t know how to do that thing again!” Cordelia screams.
“Get down!” Blythe orders.
She can hear their cloaks fluttering on either side of the van. Like a swarm of birds, or one hundred waves crashing at once.
Blythe pulls herself into a ball, pressing her forehead against the cold metal floor. The creatures’ deafening shrieks pierce the air like an ocean of startled birds.
One of their bodies hits the passenger door; the force wobbles through the van. Another slam has Blythe’s side up in the air.
Her body slides forward and she slams her hands against the floor to keep still. Daniel yells as the car rights itself; another slam and it happens again, on Cordelia’s side.
Those things are going to turn the van over.
As quickly as it starts, it’s over. Blythe can hear the creatures above them, a mass of cawing monsters, swarming like vultures above their prey.
Blythe is silent and still. They all are. Antonio stares at the ceiling as if he can see through it. Cordelia’s jaw is clentched. Daniel gasps for breath.
The cawing fades. Through the windows, Blythe watches them soar back into the forest, returning the same way they came.
At this point, Blythe should get back behind the wheel and drive them to Philadelphia. Should. But if those things were Calling creatures, someone had to summon them—and there’s a chance those Krubim are returning to the magician that did so.
It could be Whiteclaw. It’d make sense; he could have entered the Tempore and saw them. Blythe’s heart races. She has her hockey stick now. She could actually do this. She could fight him.
This is probably the dumbest idea she’s had in her life, but she’s desperate enough to do it.
“We should follow them,” she blurts.
Cordelia’s head snaps up. “Where do you get these ideas from?! Do you want to die?”
Blythe tunes her out. The tail end of the Krubim swarm is about to fly over their heads. It’s now or never.
“Fine,” she says, standing. “You all stay here, I have to go.”
“Blythe!” Cordelia calls, but Blythe is already crawling over the seats. She can’t waste time trying to convince them. If they’re too scared, that’s their problem. She’s not missing this opportunity.