“Anytime,” he replied.
“Go get some rest and let me know if you need anything. Don’t forget, classes start next Monday,” Mrs. Sullivan told me.
I walked up to my room and sat on my bed, grateful to be back. I couldn’t wait for my friends to arrive and the new semester to start. I heard a noise and whirled around to see the little water sprite sitting on my pillow.
“Oh hi, where have you been?”
“I’ve been with you the whole time, but I didn’t want anyone to see me. It wouldn’t be good for other people to see you and me together. Then they would know that something is different about you.”
“I think they already know. I had to use water around Mr. Damon. Now he knows I have two powers.”
“That’s ok, now you can use water and air whenever you want since they already know.”
“That’s true. So do I need to do anything for you? I’m not sure how to take care of a water sprite.”
“You don’t have to take care of me,” she laughed. “I can handle everything myself, but if you need me or have a question, ask, and I will answer what I can for you. Now, are you ready to start a new adventure?”
“A new adventure? Already?”
“Look on your dresser,” she grinned.
I walked over to look. A piece of paper sat there written in the ancient language. “Find the sylphs as quick as you can. If you don’t find us by summer, we will be lost to you,” I read out loud to the water sprite. “I guess that’s our next adventure.”
She smiled at me.
Thank you for taking the time to read Lost Tides. If you loved it, or even hated it and made it to the end, I would appreciate a review.
Take a sneak peek at the next book in Elemental Seekers, Guarded Skies, on the next page.
Guarded Skies Elemental Seekers Book Two
I searched the library, trying to find information on sylphs. Before coming to this school, I didn’t even know what a sylph was, and I still barely had an idea. I knew they were air spirits, but that was about it. Somehow I had to find them by summertime. It was already February, and I hadn’t learned anything new. The internet wasn’t helpful. All I could find were articles from the sixteenth century on. I needed something that went back much further than that.
“Have you found anything?” I asked my friend, Abby.
“I found a section over here that might be helpful,” my other friend Richard said, walking out from behind the bookshelves. He was carrying a large pile of books.
“Hey, Richard. I didn’t even realize you were in here. I thought you had class.”
“Mr. Connor had to finish my masters class early. He got a text message and said he had to go. I tracked down Abby and decided to help. By the way, how did your meeting go with Mrs. Sullivan?”
“I didn’t get to talk to her. She got a phone call and said we would have to talk later. She had something urgent that needed to be taken care of.”
“What are the chances that both Mr. Connor and Mrs. Sullivan had something urgent come up at the same time?” Richard questioned.
“I would say pretty slim,” Abby spoke up.
“So would I,” I agreed. “There’s no way they both had emergencies at the same time. Something must be going on.”
“We should go find out what,” Abby said.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. What if we get caught?” I didn’t want Mrs. Sullivan to be upset with us. She hadn’t said anything about what happened over Christmas break when we were visiting the Ireland haven, but I didn’t want to press our luck.
“What if it has to do with the Pulhu. You need to know if they found anything else out about you,” Richard said.
The Pulhu are a group of elementals that are trying to kidnap me. We think it’s because they know I’m a powerful water elemental. After I was almost captured in Ireland and had to defend myself, they found out I controlled two elements, so they have even more reason to come after me.
My friends think I’m part of an old prophecy because I can use all the elements including void, but I’m still not sure. All I know is that someone left me a note telling me to find the sylphs, so that’s what I’m going to do.
“I’m sure Mr. Connor will let us know if something is wrong. Besides, I talked to my parents last night. There haven’t been any problems with the Pulhu since I left,” I said.
“I still think we should check it out,” said Abby.
“I don’t know. Sally is probably right,” said Richard. “Mr. Connor would tell us if something was wrong and if Mr. Connor knows what’s going on, so will Mr. Merrem. He will definitely let us know if we have to worry.”
“That’s true,” Abby said. “He’s not worried about following the rules if it puts someone in danger.”
“Good, then we can stay here and try to figure out where the sylphs are hiding.”
Richard divided the books up he was carrying, and we all sat down to look through them. I was lost in the book I was reading and didn’t realize someone else had walked into the library until Richard’s chair scraped against the floor as he quickly stood up.
“What do you want?” he asked.
I turned to see who it was and recognized Sean, the jerk in our class who thought he was better than everyone else. I was pretty sure his family was involved with the Pulhu too.
“I came in to see what kind of filth was in here. I can’t say I’m surprised to see you. And I see all your friends are here too.”
Slowly I stood up, “What do you want, Sean? We are busy.”
“Doing what?” Sean tried to pick up Abby’s book to see what she was reading, but Richard moved forward, causing him to stop in his tracks.
Sean glanced nervously behind him but continued to talk, “I want to know what you are doing. You guys are up to something. I can tell, always whispering and hiding in the library. When are you going to learn that you can’t hide from me?”
“We aren’t hiding from you,” I said. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less about what you think we are doing. Now leave us alone.”
“Don’t worry, Sally. Soon you will see things my way,” he said with a small grin. It made me flinch, and he smirked. Something was off, but I couldn’t figure out what.
He looked over his shoulder again, and I thought I saw a flash of color. I could see magical auras with my eyes open ever since the water elemental king had given me some of his power, but I wasn’t seeing anyone else’s magic but Sean’s. I saw the flash of color again.
I closed my eyes and looked around the room carefully while Richard talked to Sean. He must have realized what I was doing because he was keeping Sean’s attention off me. With my eyes closed, I looked behind Sean. I could see two muddy green magical signatures, and as I turned my head, I saw another one creeping closer to Richard. I looked behind me and saw one coming towards me. They must have found a way to hide their signatures and become invisible. I opened my eyes and grabbed Abby’s hand.
“What is it you want, Sean?” I interrupted. I was squeezing Abby’s hand, trying to warn her.
“What I’ve always wanted, you and Richard to switch sides.”
“Yes, but why are you pushing the issue now?”
“Because I’ve figured out how to make you see reason.”
“Sean, we will never side with the Pulhu. You don’t seem to understand that,” Richard started saying, but I cut him off. I walked forward, dragging Abby with me and stepped up to Richard.
“What is it you think you have figured out?” I reached out with my other hand and grabbed Richard.
“Oh, don’t worry. I will show you,” he said menacingly. I saw him start to raise his arm and immediately threw a shield up over us. Vials of foul-smelling liquid hit the shield with a hiss, and we watched as the liquid ran down the side of the shield before disappearing. I wasn’t sure what was in the vials, but it looked bad.
“What? Where did they go?” Sean asked what appeared to be an empty room.
&nbs
p; “They have to be here somewhere,” a voice came from behind us, but when I looked there was no one there. I closed my eyes and saw the dark green and brown signature.
I shook my head when Abby went to whisper something. I didn’t want them to hear us. I could keep us invisible for a long time as long as we didn’t move a lot, but if Sean found us and started hitting my shield with magic, it would eventually burst. Richard whispered a word as quietly as he could and then looked at me.
“We should be fine now. I put a silence bubble around us so they can’t hear us.”
“What did they throw at us?” Abby asked.
“I don’t know, but it didn’t look like something we want getting on us,” I grimaced.
“It had to be a way to control us, like how Mrs. Ravenis was controlling Abby’s dad. Remember, Sean said that he found a way to get us on his side. That’s the only way he would ever be able to do that. None of us would join him willingly,” Richard said.
“What do we do now?” Abby asked.
“Sally, can you hold the invisibility spell if we all move very slowly?”
“Maybe, but not for long. Not long enough to get to the door.”
“We don’t need to get to the door. We only need to get out of their way so they don’t run into us.”
I turned to look at Sean. He had moved down the aisle and was standing in front of the door, blocking our escape. I closed my eyes and tracked the other people he had with him. One of them was standing at the base of the stairs so we couldn’t get upstairs and go out that way.
The others had spread out around the library and were shooting bursts of magic down the aisles trying to find us. It was a good thing they didn’t know that we couldn’t move quickly and stay invisible at the same time.
They must have thought we had an invisibility potion like they did and scattered as soon as we used it. They didn’t even try to hit the spot we were standing in. Eventually, they would come back to this spot when they couldn’t find us anywhere else.
“Why haven’t you found them yet?” Sean yelled.
“We don’t know where they are.” someone yelled back. “We will find them.”
“You better, or my dad is going to be angry at all of us.”
“Come on. We need to try to make it to the elevator,” Richard said.
“We can’t use the elevator, they will hear it,” Abby replied.
“We don’t need to use it. We only need them to think we used it. When they all run upstairs, we can make a break for the door and get out of here.”
“Do you think they will fall for that?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
“It might be our best chance at getting out of here without a fight,” I said. “It will take us a few minutes to get there though. Hopefully, we won’t run into them first.”
We started to inch forward. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the gold strands of magic trying to flow into my shield. For some reason, every time I tried to move while invisible, these gold strands of magic would try to seep into my shield and disrupt it. I still hadn’t figured out a way to stop them so I could move quickly. We had only made it halfway down one of the aisles leading to the elevator when I heard Sean.
“I think they are over here,” he yelled. “I can sense magic coming from that side of the room.”
I looked at Abby, and she shook her head. We didn’t know Sean could detect magic. There were a lot of elementals that could detect strong magic, but Sean had to be extra sensitive to pick up on my magic. I was barely using any, and what I was using wasn’t powerful magic.
“Which aisle?” someone yelled.
“I don’t know. I could only sense it for a second. Check all of them. Quickly.”
“That’s still a lot of aisles,” the other person grumbled.
“We need to move quickly,” Richard said, “or they will find us.”
We crept forward, trying to move as quickly as we could, but I was having a lot of trouble controlling the gold strands. We could hear the people looking for us a few aisles over, and we hurried even more. I was sweating by the time we finally reached the elevator, but I didn’t let the shield drop.
“Everyone get as close to this corner as you can. I will hit the button, and then we need to stay as still as possible when they come over here to look.”
“We are ready,” Abby said.
I reached out, pressed the button, and then squeezed into the corner with my friends. I closed my eyes as the elevator opened and dinged, alerting Sean. Immediately I saw the greenish-brown signatures of two people come running down the aisle. The elevator doors started to close, and I watched as the figures ran as fast as they could. The doors shut as they made it to the elevator.
“We missed them. They are headed upstairs, hurry,” they yelled.
Sean came running down the aisle, “How did you miss them?”
“We were at the other end of the aisles. We couldn’t get here in time.”
“Get up there now,” Sean yelled. “Don’t let them get away. Rafael, guard the door up there. I’m on my way.”
Sean turned and headed towards the stairs with the other guys but turned back and stared right at us. I didn’t breath, and after a few seconds, he shook his head, turned and ran to the stairs. I let out a sigh of relief
“Now’s our chance. Let’s go.” Abby tried to take off for the door, but I grabbed her.
“No, we go slowly for now. The closer we get to the door without them seeing us, the better chance we have.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Holly Sandlin is a stay at home mom of two daughters. She loves to read, garden and run. She lives in Rock Hill, South Carolina but grew up in New Jersey.
Lost Tides is her first novel and she has enjoyed writing it. No matter what she has going on she always finds time to write when inspiration strikes. She sets time aside every day to check her emails and respond to everyone. You can contact her at [email protected]
If you want to stay up to date on any news from H.M. Sandlin check out her website at https://hmsandlin.com/
Lost Tides: Elemental Seekers Series Page 28