The Rodans’ puzzled expressions reappear, but only fleetingly. Mrs. Rodan pats Lucas on the arm. “That was much longer than three months ago, dear. Had to be a year or two at least.”
“Yes, this has been our home for quite some time now. We hardly ever leave. Though Doyle will visit again when he is done with his schooling. We wouldn’t want him to take a break just to come home. It is too important.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Rodan says. “He is very special. And he writes us all the time how happy he is there.”
“He writes to you?” I remember the tree house and the letters we saw there. “I’m surprised he has time, if he is so busy.”
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Rodan’s face lights up. “He is a good, thoughtful boy. Let me show you.” She leaves the room, and returns a few moments later carrying several papers in her hands. “I’m sure he’d be happy to write to Lucas too, if he had your new address. I know he is fond of you, dear.” She hands us the letters. Lucas looks like he is about to be ill.
Together, we read the first letter:
Dear Mum and Dad,
Zinnia is the most beautiful place. The Lady was right; the school is perfect for me, and I am making many friends. Thank you for sending me. I am so happy here! I cannot wait to show you all I have learned when I come home.
Love,
Doyle
My skin goes cold. This letter is identical to the one we read before, word for word. Lucas lets out a small gasp when he shuffles the letters and pulls out another.
It is exactly the same.
Every single letter in the bunch is the same. The Rodans haven’t even noticed.
Cary is right. Something is terribly wrong with her parents. Something Lady Aisling did. And it is something Lucas and I shall have to find a way to undo on our own.
Chapter Fifteen
After dinner, Lucas and I are ushered into a long hallway with another set of rooms. Cary’s parents show Lucas the spare room and set up a cot for me in Cary’s. It’s the same as how we slept when they visited us in Parilla, leaving me with a strange sense of déjà vu. I just hope we don’t leave this place the way we did the last time—ablaze and on the run from Lady Aisling’s guards. I shiver as I settle on the edge of the cot, watching the Rodans smile and bid us all good night.
As soon as the door closes, Cary drags my cot closer to her bed, making me yelp.
“You need to leave. I don’t think it’s safe here,” she hisses in a low voice.
I’m surprised by how closely her thoughts echo my own. “I agree. We’d hoped your parents could assist us, but it seems they need help too. Help we don’t know how to give.”
“Now that isn’t true.”
I frown. “We’ve barely been able to help ourselves.”
Cary smiles, the shadows gathering around her face prettily in the faint light. “Saving Lucas’s parents and mine is really the same task.”
“What do you mean?” My chest feels tight and itchy, almost like my body has figured out what she plans to say before my mind does.
“We’re going to defeat Lady Aisling once and for all.”
I suck my breath in sharply, the truth of it cutting into me like a knife.
Cary continues. “If what you say is true about the Cerelia Comet, that she risked chaos just to have more power, we have to stop her before those new talented children fall into her hands.”
“And before the skies fall apart from what she made the sky shaker do.” I smooth my hands over my skirts. “We need to talk to Lucas. I don’t know if we can do this on our own, that’s why we’ve been seeking other talented folks and the people who protect them.”
Cary grins wider. “Oh, I have a few ideas.” Energized, she bounds off her bed and peeks out the door to ensure her parents are nowhere in sight. The hall is empty, and, moments later, she drags a curious Lucas into her room.
He glances between the two of us as he perches on the other end of my cot. “What’s going on?”
I shiver again, this time pulling the shadow from the cot around me like a blanket, making it tangible so it has some warmth.
“We’re leaving here tonight,” Cary says.
Lucas shoots me a confused look. “What do you mean we? Your parents are behaving very oddly right now. I don’t think it’s safe to bring them with us…”
Cary shakes her head. “No, we as in you, Emmeline, and I are escaping here tonight.”
“Escaping?”
“I can’t trust my own parents right now. The way to save both our families is simple: destroy Lady Aisling. Permanently.” Cary’s hands ball into fists, her eyes flashing with a hatred I’ve never seen in them before. Even Lucas seems taken aback.
“Destroy her? How? Do you know what she is capable of?” Lucas says.
“All too well,” Cary responds.
“How can we possibly defeat someone with so many talents under her command? Maybe we could stop her from taking more talented people and free some of the ones she’s captured. But not destroy.”
The light of understanding crosses Cary’s face. “The comet. Don’t you see what that means? She needs more talents. Her supply, it must be running low.”
“Running low?” Lucas frowns. “But she has her garden. If her talents are running low, then that must mean…”
“That her ‘flowers’ are beginning to die.” Cary finishes for him. “Which makes this the perfect time to strike. She still has to wait for the new talents. Right now she is at her weakest.”
A heady feeling rushes over me. Cary’s theory makes sense.
“But that doesn’t change the fact she still has more power than we do,” Lucas objects.
“No, she doesn’t. She can only use one talent at a time. You two are some of the most talented I’ve ever encountered, and we’ve seen a lot from our work with the network.”
A few months ago, Lucas and I battled Lady Aisling’s hunters and Dar, and we prevailed against them both. But we only stopped them temporarily. We won the battle but not the war.
“We need stronger talents. A fire breather or something like that,” I say.
Cary laughed. “No, you don’t. Trust me, I’ve been thinking this over for a while now. Even thought I might run away and see if I could find you, but I didn’t want to accidentally bring trouble down on your heads. You have powerful talents, you just haven’t weaponized them yet.”
I shrink back. Dar used my talent as a cover to behave like a weapon herself, and I took the blame for it. I love my shadows—they are good and sweet and dear. I’d never want to use them as weapons. I do not want to hurt anyone. I don’t even want to hurt Lady Aisling. I just want her to stop.
Though perhaps those desires are at odds with each other.
Lucas’s face contorts. “I’m not sure how I feel about that,” he says. “Besides, the most impressive things I can do are toast bread and work with Emmeline’s shadows to make a cage.” I put my hand over his and he squeezes reassuringly.
“My point is that you both already know how to make your magic tangible. Most talented people don’t,” Cary says. “All you’d need to do, Lucas, is take it further.”
Lucas’s brow furrows. “I don’t understand.”
I confess, I don’t quite understand either. I lean forward, curled in my shadow blanket.
“You can toast bread by focusing the light, right?” There is something darkly pointed in Cary’s expression.
“Of course, you’ve seen me do that a hundred times.”
“And what does toasting bread entail?”
Understanding dawns, quickly followed a hint of fear. “Heat…” he says softly.
“Exactly. Focus that light more sharply, and it will get hotter. You’ve been focusing on making your light tangible already, this is just the next step.”
Lucas stares at his hands, and the fl
icker of light he has been absentmindedly rolling over his knuckles goes out.
“I suppose you think I could use that on people. To hurt them if they threaten us.”
Cary leans forward, elbows on her knees and a wild light in her eyes. “To hurt Lady Aisling. She won’t be expecting it. But Emmeline here could bind her with shadow ropes while you make the killing blow.”
The blood drains from my face. Cary is deadly serious.
Lucas shakes his head. “But I grow things with my lightcraft. And bake. I don’t think I can use it that way.”
I squeeze his hand again, relieved he feels this way too. “Stopping her is one thing. Killing her is another.” Suddenly, my mouth runs dry. Little Rose, my childhood friend who made Dar jealous and paid the price. I’ve been blamed by my parents and neighbors for her death for most of my life, even though it was Dar who led her to her demise, not me. But I gave Dar free rein to do what she wanted, so much of that blame still falls on my shoulders. All the people we hurt with tricks and games—the girl who broke her arm, Kendra’s ankle—I don’t relish adding more names to that list. “I’m sorry, I can’t do it either.”
Cary sighs and sits back on her bed. “You’re wrong. Stopping her and killing her aren’t different things at all. They’re one and the same.” She hops down from her bed and begins throwing things in a bag she pulls from her bureau. “You’ll see that eventually. But for now, we need to leave.”
Now that I can agree with. I get to my feet. “Let me see if your parents are asleep yet.” I call the rest of the shadows in the room and swirl them over me, then I swiftly go through the door. The hallway is a well-polished tunnel chiseled from the cliff face, and I make my way back to the kitchen without trouble. There is still a light there. When I peek inside, I find Mr. and Mrs. Rodan awake—at least, I think they are. They sit at the kitchen table, still as statues, staring off into space. Their faces are expressionless. I watch them for several minutes wondering if they will snap out of it.
But there is no change. Not one twitch, nor a single eye blink. I’m not even sure whether they’re breathing.
Cold sweat trickles down my spine, and I slink away. When I reach Cary’s room, I step inside and release my shadows. My hands quiver no matter how much I try to stop them.
“Are they awake?” she asks.
“Yes, but…there’s something strange going on. They’re just sitting at the kitchen table, not moving. We can’t escape that way. It’s too well lit.” I reconsider. “Well, maybe they wouldn’t notice since they’re so still. But I’m not sure we should risk it.”
Cary’s face has paled, but her jaw is set. “I know another way.”
I open the door to Cary’s room cautiously, hoping nothing has changed to bring the Rodans down to check on us.
We step into the hall, hearts in our throats, and close the door with a click. The Rodans do not seem to notice the soft noise that sounds like a violent crash to my ears, and we continue on with jagged breaths.
Cary signals which way to go, and I keep to the walls opposite the lights that zigzag down the hall. We pass a couple other rooms and creep by them cautiously, until Cary stops us in front of a dead end. I give her a questioning look, but she raps sharply on the wall without hesitation. The wall creaks far more loudly than I’d like, then sinks outward and opens into the fresh night air.
Cary grins. “Escape hatch. Just in case Lady Aisling ever found us.” Her smile falters. “Except I guess it didn’t work so well when she did.”
“Well, it’s useful now,” Lucas says.
I balloon the shadows around us as we duck through the exit and steal away into the dark night.
Chapter Sixteen
With an unusually bright moon to guide us, we spend the rest of the night putting as much distance between the Rodans’ cliff home and ourselves as we possibly can. Cary is near frantic to go after her brother. We have to force her to stop when Lucas and I need a rest.
Cary takes the first watch, and Lucas and I fall asleep quickly. A couple hours later, she wakes me with a soft touch on my shoulder. She looks haggard, as though staying in one place allowed her thoughts to catch up with her.
My mind keeps straying back to what Cary said about Lady Aisling’s garden wilting. It must be the oldest talents in the garden, the ones she first planted there. After all this time and in spite of all her powers, the flowers can only withstand so much. We must find a way to free them before it’s too late. Dar might have been able to help us. At the least, I hope she won’t stand in our way.
My thoughts circle and scatter as light begins to inch across the sky. I watch it for a long time, waiting for Lucas and Cary to wake.
* * *
Dusk is beginning to shroud the forest when we reach the next home on our list, but the moon above is still as unsettlingly bright as ever. I am not fond of horses—and they’re terrified of me—but my feet are sore enough I almost wish we had some right about now. It would make our task much easier and faster.
We approach the house from the west. It’s a cottage, settled between tall, close knit trees that remind me of the forest where I first found Lucas. But before we get too close, Cary stops us.
“Hold on,” she says. “Listen.”
We hover behind a tree, straining to hear. Just when I’m about to give up, I hear it too. Hoofbeats.
Riders, and they’re close.
My heart leaps into my throat. “What do we do?” I whisper, glancing toward the house. It must be Lady Aisling’s men. I don’t want to be caught, but I also don’t want to leave the talented person in that cottage to their mercy. Indecision freezes me.
Cary shakes her head. “We’ll never get them to safety in time. Quickly, Emmeline, hide us. Then we can follow them and see if there’s a way to help them while the guards are sleeping.”
I pull the shadow of the great tree we are huddled under around us like a blanket, obscuring us from view. Moments later, the riders with their telltale green cloaks arrive and dismount in front of the cottage. My pulse spikes again as my eyes rove over the group. I’m relieved to see no sign of the cloaked woman or the familiar dirty white dress of Simone among them. If either of them were here, our chances of helping would be severely reduced.
Helpless, we watch the hunters knock on the front door and shove their way inside. The three of us crouch down, listening to the angry shouts of the men and the screams of the parents.
Then silence.
It falls over the forest abruptly, leaving us terrified to move a muscle. We may be hidden, but one snapped twig could give us away if the guards were to hear. My breath aches in my chest as we watch them lead a boy our age with mousy brown hair and wild, terrified eyes out of his home.
“I don’t understand! What do you want with me?” He frantically tries to see behind him, but the guard holds him fast. “Why can’t my parents come with us?”
The guard hisses something at him and whatever it is, it causes the boy to stop thrashing. My heart sinks. I can’t stand watching them take him away from everything he loves, but I can’t risk getting caught or putting Lucas and Cary in danger either.
We might be able to delay these men right now if we tried, but I know Lucas and I are both exhausted and not at our strongest. It feels like it’s been weeks since we’ve had a good night’s sleep. Plus, there may be more guards ready to swoop in and help if trouble arises.
And the moment we launch an attack, Lady Aisling will know where we are. But if we go with Cary’s plan and steal him away under cover of darkness, we can avoid detection. At least, I hope we can.
One of the hunters pulls the boy onto his horse and soon the platoon is tearing off through the woods. Once they’re out of earshot, I can finally breathe again.
“Come on.” Cary leaps to her feet. “Let’s follow them.”
“But what about his parents? Shouldn�
�t we help them?” Lucas says. I feel like I’m being yanked in two directions at once. We need to follow that boy, but if his parents are hurt, how can we abandon them?
Cary huffs. “You can stay if you want, but I’m going after that boy. It sounded like he didn’t even know what his talent is.” She strides into the woods in the direction of the hunters.
I glance back and forth between the cottage and Cary. Lucas’s frown forms a deep V on his forehead. “Doyle would never have made a choice like that. He would have stayed and helped the family.”
“But what about Cary? We can’t leave her either.” My head spins as Cary starts to disappear from view.
Lucas grunts. “I guess Cary isn’t willing to give us much of a choice.” He stomps off after her, and I hurry to catch up with them both.
“Cary!” I hiss. “Wait!” Finally, she spins with her arms folded across her chest.
“Decided to join me? Good. It’s the right call.”
“It isn’t right to leave the parents behind,” Lucas says.
She whirls on him. “And it is right to leave the boy to Lady Aisling and her hunters? Which do you think will suffer most?” She snorts. “Besides, if they’re anything like the other parents you’ve met, including my own, they’ve probably already convinced themselves he’s happily off to an exclusive school that will do wonderful things for him.”
She continues walking at a fast clip. “The parents can fend for themselves. We’re not leaving any more kids behind.”
Chapter Seventeen
We walk in silence for a long time, following the hunters by the wake their horses leave in the dirt. It takes us an hour to catch up to where they’ve stopped to make camp. Exhaustion seeps through my veins, and I’m sure Lucas feels the same. Cary, however, seems to have an endless supply of nervous energy that keeps her going. We halt at the outskirts of the camp, cloaked in my shadows and looking for sentries. Campfires flicker between the trees, and we edge closer until we reach a spot with a better view of the layout.
We’re not far from where their horses are settled down for the night. At least a dozen tents cover this part of the forest, some in the clearing, others spread between trees. A handful of men sit around the main campfire drinking, but aside from their occasional outbursts of laughter, everything is quiet and still.
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