Elemental Unity

by Maddy Edwards

  So that he knew I was serious, I raised my ring hand, turned water from the ground to ice, and froze his feet.

  His mouth fell open at the speed of the attack. Unable to move but still carrying forward motion, he flailed his arms and tripped over himself.

  For a brief moment he hung suspended in the air, then barely caught himself with his hands before the rest of him whacked the still-iced-over ground.

  As we emerged from the woods, a shadow loomed up beside us. The next instant a vampire I had never spoken with lunged. I lifted my hand, but not in time.

  Averett whirled around, her eyes churning. The vampire hesitated for a split second at the sight of her. She was smaller and not as strong as he was, but that didn’t matter. Everyone knew she was deadly.

  The vampire made as if to engage her. “Go,” she said to me, without batting an eyelash. “Finish the plan.”

  The only fire ring that I could still see was the Lightmares’.

  The other rings had disappeared from off of the main field where they’d started. I figured the other teams were trying to get their rings away from us as a defense mechanism. We couldn’t possibly shove the Hellcats through their rings if we couldn’t find the rings.

  Racing forward, I decided to concentrate on finding the darkness mages.

  Just as I cleared the field I saw wheels of fire above the treetops. So the other fire rings hadn’t gone far, and that was probably where Eighellie and Ostelle had headed.

  The fallen angels had been forced back. Our team had managed to get half of each of the other two teams through their own rings of fire, but that meant that there were many opponents still roaming free.

  My eyes scanned the area. There was no sign of Eighellie or Ostelle.

  Not yet.

  But there was Greek! Right near him, Palmer shot into the air, seemingly out of nowhere, and the two of them began to duel with long swords. I blinked in surprise. If swords were now allowed, who knew what was going to happen next!

  Greek was bigger, but Palmer clearly had better skills with the sword. For the first time that night Candace was looking at Greek, her eyes filled with dread.

  “Ricky! Over here,” Keegan yelled. My green-handed friend was racing toward me with several Hellcats behind him and some pixies chasing him and throwing dust.

  But the dust just brushed off of him, probably because he was half pixie himself. On the battlefield, some of the Paranormal Strange were more deadly than anyone expected them to be. Their magics were hard to discern and unaccounted for. I swallowed hard as I watched Keegan run.

  “I’m coming,” I cried.

  I raised my hand and called the wind, my favorite form of nonlethal attack. Wind swept around me as I sucked air from every direction. Even across a large field I saw the flames better as air was taken from them.

  I nearly smiled, but instead of indulging myself I sent a gust of wind right at Keegan’s pursuers.

  They flailed backwards, some of them flying twenty feet in the air. Loud grunts could be heard as they landed. Little plops of snow rose up around them.

  Keegan grinned at me grimly. “I nearly had to plant several trees around me to keep you safe,” he said, sounding winded.

  “No need for anything like that just yet. What now?” I asked.

  He glanced around at the mayhem. After my magical display, no one was coming near us. I looked back toward where I had left Averett, but there was no sign of her or the vampire I had left her to fight.

  “We wait for the darkness mages. They should be showing their faces at any moment,” Keegan said, still breathing hard.

  Suddenly I felt waves of darkness roll around me. I pivoted to see Eighellie and Ostelle racing toward us.

  Eighellie’s eyes locked on mine for only a moment, just long enough for her mouth to split into a deadly grin.

  “Let’s do this thing,” she yelled.

  Then Ostelle split off from her, and they each called black magic in different ways. As if the dam had been released on a large river, rolls of darkness appeared everywhere.

  I gasped as darkness magic went flying past me. Was this how Lisabelle felt when she called magic? If these two could do this much damage, how much could she do herself? It made me think that we had only scratched the surface of the premier’s power.

  Lisabelle had known as much all along. Now a lot of others would as well.

  Screams erupted all around us at the attack. My wind looked like a cute summer breeze in comparison.

  Paranormals were ready for a certain amount of attack, and shields flew up around Hellcats and Razorhawks. I wasn’t certain they could hold.

  Fallen angels took flight and pixies furiously threw dust to keep the black magic away from them. All the while, Ostelle and Eighellie raced on, directing their magic. Even the fallen angels who had been forced to fly into the air were forced to fly a certain way.

  To a certain place.

  To a certain destination.

  That was the plan. We were going to drive them toward their own fire rings. They could choose blackness or burning. Neither would be a pleasant decision.

  “This was a good idea,” said Keegan happily.

  “Candace is more bloodthirsty than I thought,” I said.

  “We tend to given fallen angels too much credit for being nice,” he said.

  “I’ll remember that next time,” I said.

  “Yeah, we have three more of these to survive,” he said.

  Razorhawks and Hellcats were slamming through the air in every direction. Their rings of fire had reappeared, and darkness magic was ushering them toward the rings at an astounding rate. Both Eighellie and Ostelle were now ringed by fallen angels. Greek’s arm was bloody, but he held firm.

  I continued to wait. Keegan had stayed next to me, breathing hard as he stared down any challenge.

  Just then I felt something curl against my feet. My eyes found their way downward and I saw plants.

  “Just in case,” said Keegan. “Little trees.”

  I nodded once, then returned my eyes to the battle.

  “Wait for it,” said Keegan. “Just another few moments.”

  The Razorhawks were almost entirely finished; their ring of fire was nearly closed. A few were jumping through it voluntarily, landing on the other side slightly burnt but otherwise unharmed.

  “Now!” Keegan cried.

  Greek turned at the sound of my friend’s voice. The fallen angel nodded his head.

  “My turn,” I murmured.

  With that I called all of the essence that I could muster. An unbearable darkness started to flow up from the ground and down from the sky. My ring turned so hot I stopped even feeling the metal against my skin.

  Everything focused to a single point.

  The Hellcats had gathered to make a charge at my friends. Eighellie and Ostelle were standing dangerously close to our own ring.

  I realized now that there must be a couple of Hellcats pushing the ring up behind the Lightmares. They were trying to bring the ring to us instead of forcing us to move anywhere.

  Not a bad plan, I supposed.

  Some of my essence went to join with the darkness mages as we continued to make the field sing with dark magic.

  The rest of my essence trailed after me. Keegan came too, but I could sense that he didn’t like it.

  Palmer was leading the charge with the fire ring. All the remaining Hellcats were there. I raised my hand and my concentrated essence flared toward them. Palmer and the others never had a chance to hold the fire ring. It blasted away from them, clear off the field.

  Now it would be incredibly difficult for anyone to force the Lightmares through our own ring.

  Eighellie and Ostelle started to turn. Wind swirled around me as I kept my concentration on the Hellcats. All other foes were defeated. Now it was just the small cluster of Palmer and a few others who hadn’t been forced into their rings of fire.

  I swirled the essence in my hand and around my ring.
Averett and Keegan closed ranks nearby and walked side by side, making their way toward Palmer. Ostelle and Eighellie had so much darkness magic, I didn’t know where one’s magic stopped and the other’s started. My essence was barely needed.

  Then something shifted. A wave of fear rolled over all the Lightmares.

  Out of nowhere came Beatrice, her normally cheery face a mask of concentration.

  The next instant she slammed into me and I went flying backward, my essence cut off.

  It was unexpected, but it didn’t really matter at that point. The swirling blackness had done its work. Eighellie was somewhere on the ground, but at least Ostelle was still standing, a steady stream of unstoppable magic pouring out of her. Whatever dreams Logan had attempted to use to distract her had failed.

  I tried to rise. Beatrice had gone out of my line of vision.

  Then Palmer appeared, still holding a sword tipped in angel blood, his eyes trained on me. Beatrice appeared next to him and said something I didn’t hear. He shoved her aside and swung his sword upward.

  For a moment I thought he was going to cut me down. Instead, the butt of the sword’s handle merely connected with my face, and everything went blurry.

  I rolled around on the cold ground and tried to rise. My head was throbbing and I could feel a trickle of blood against my temples. When I tried to open my eyes, my vision blurred.

  A tall, dark, familiar figure stepped around the bodies lying on the ground, his black coat flapping. I could only see his angular face in profile.

  Shock spiked through me.

  Horveth was here.

  Quickly, I tried to rise, my head pounding from whatever had slammed into my temple.

  When Horveth saw me struggling, his eyes turned to black ice. He slowly started to melt back into the forest. I reached out a hand to yell stop, to do anything.

  But he was already gone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The snow came down thick and heavy. I was supposed to go to Keegan’s treehouse that afternoon, but I wondered how difficult it would be to get there in this terrible stormy weather. The snow was so thick I couldn’t even see the other buildings around the school from my window.

  Both of the darkness mages who often stayed at Astra had gone back to their own rooms for once. Eighellie sometimes disappeared without explanation, and Ostelle had made it clear that I shouldn’t expect her to be around. Still, often enough they liked staying in Astra, away from other students. Sometimes, if they were here but we weren’t even talking, it was nice to know that in this big place I was not alone.

  When they weren’t at Astra, I sometimes thought they might be doing a bit of spying on our classmates. I wasn’t certain, though, and I had never asked. Both of them thought that the Hunters had infiltrated Public, but they certainly weren’t going to work together to find out for sure.

  An image of Lisabelle marching all alone in front of everyone else popped into my head.

  Maybe it was a feature of all darkness mages that they were secretive.

  I shivered.

  The dorm was a little drafty and the fires would soon need to be stoked. I decided I’d spend the morning on classwork for once. After that was taken care of, I’d see if I could get to the treehouse through the snow to hang out with Keegan.

  “Good morning,” Sigil said, floating up behind me.

  “Morning, Sigil,” I said. The library ghost was his own sort of character. He loved to read, and he was always giving us new facts and information from his studies. “What brings you here?” I asked.

  “It sounded quiet around here for once,” he said.” I thought I’d come and speak to you about your sister.” The ghost had a particular fondness for Charlotte. In that he wasn’t alone.

  “What about her?” I asked.

  “Do you have any idea where she’s gotten off to?” the ghost asked. He was twisting his hands together, and I realized that he was upset about something.

  “No. I decided I didn’t want to know. I can’t spill the beans on a secret if I don’t know the secret,” I explained. “Safer for her and safer for Vera.”

  “A wise choice. A ghost cannot be tortured. If any more secrets need to be kept, I would happily oblige,” Sigil offered.

  “Thanks for the offer. I’ll keep it in mind. Are you sure you want to deal with Hunters attacking you, though?” I asked.

  The ghost straightened his shoulders. “I stand with the paranormals. I will not back down. I would love a good fight. I have books I can hit them with. At least, I will throw the books I don’t like in their direction. The books I like the most are sacred. They will not be thrown or used as weapons, unless it is their intellectual property I am using against my opponent.”

  My stomach twisted and I fought to keep from laughing. “Good to know,” I said.

  He floated nearby for a few moments. Clearly there was something else he wanted to discuss.

  “Do you have any more information on the Counter Wheel?” he asked me.

  I glanced at him. He knew what I was looking into and what I needed to find. He had tried to help by giving me books on the subject, but nothing had helped so far. I had a closet off my room filled with information on the Golden Rod and the Wheel. Although that room was private, it was difficult to keep a ghost out. Besides, I trusted Sigil.

  “I can’t say that I do,” I said. “I still need more information. I need to know why the objects might be hidden here at Paranormal Public. Who might have hidden them? When?”

  “You can always look into the Digger,” he said.

  “The what?” I asked.

  “A type from Airlee, I believe. He was a professor here who loved to search for buried treasure, and eventually they called him the Digger because of it. He wrote all sorts of books on a variety of subjects, from archeology to metalwork to soil composition. He also got into an awful lot of trouble over the course of his life. Not like you or me, of course. Serious trouble. Real trouble.”

  “For what?” I asked, thinking I had gotten into a lot of real trouble in my life.

  “Defying the rules. It was well known that if you wanted something nefarious done, you went to talk to the Digger. He was an accomplished professor of mathematics and a thief and a vandal. He was never caught at any of it, though. Too clever, I suppose. He wrote countless publications on top of all the rest. He made Paranormal Public his home in the later years of his life and became the sort of professor who was accepted if not understood or forgiven. He was given free reign on campus and he took full advantage.”

  “How did he do that?” I asked. Sigil loved to tell stories, maybe because he loved to read them. Even if this story had no bearing on my search for the Counter Wheel, listening to it was better than doing homework.

  It was also better than wading out into the snow that blanketed the campus at the moment.

  “He dug holes all around campus,” Sigil explained. “He always said he was searching for buried treasure. Funnily enough, he never found any. He had a cabin in the woods that they tore down a long time ago. In fact, they tore it down right after he died. I think they were worried about copycats. Also cockroaches. He wasn’t the most hygienic of fellows.”

  “And why do you think he might have known something about the Counter Wheel?” I asked.

  “I think he might have known something about the Wheel because he kept secrets. Therefore, he knew a lot of secrets. I don’t think anything went on at Public during his time here that he didn’t know about. He probably issued a lot of bribes. Some blackmail. But all of that was immaterial. What he really loved was digging,” said Sigil.

  “Doesn’t sound like the best life,” I said dryly.

  “I must disagree with you,” said Sigil. “To find something you’re passionate about in this world is a wonderful and precious thing. As for me, I found books, and I have never regretted it.”

  “I suppose you have a point,” I agreed. Still, this all sounded remarkably far-fetched. Paranormal Public must ha
ve been a vastly different place in those days if it allowed such nonsense. Nowadays if something like that had gone on, even Dobrov would have put his foot down.

  “If the Digger’s cabin was burned to the ground, weren’t all his carefully curated possessions burned as well?” I asked.

  “I imagine many of his worldly possessions were burned by him before he died. And yet what I’m trying to say is that he liked to dig holes around campus. What he did with those holes is unknown. I don’t actually believe that he was looking for treasure. I think he was hiding stuff,” the ghost said a little impatiently, as if I was being rather dim about what he had been implying all along.

  “Do you have any proof of that?” I asked.

  “Some of his writings. We don’t have those here. I think they’re mostly in the Volans dorm. But if you were to get your hands on those materials, I have a feeling they’d confirm my suspicions,” he said.

  I nearly laughed out loud at the absurdity. “You don’t seriously think I’m going to sneak in there, do you? If the pixies catch me in Volans they’ll string me up while they laugh and use pixie dust on me.”

  “I highly doubt they’d do that. They wouldn’t dare,” scoffed Sigil. “Any paranormal with any sense around here is afraid of you, afraid of your essence. They’re afraid of the elemental and they’re afraid of your family. If you truly looked at their faces when they look at you, you’d understand that. I suppose the one caveat is that not all paranormals around here have sense.”

  “You can say that again,” I grumbled.

  When he said family, he didn’t mean Charlotte. He meant Lisabelle.

  Sigil drifted away at that point, but he had given me a lot to think about. Although I had to get going on my homework and couldn’t really think it through yet, he might be onto something with this Digger theory. Could treasure be buried around Paranormal Public? Could this Digger fellow have buried most of the objects on the Counter Wheel? Is that why they hadn’t been seen in oh, so long? Was I really going to be crazy enough to sneak into the pixie dorm to get those writings?

  Was I?

  Definitely.

  Hopefully my friends were crazy enough to join me.