Elemental Thief

by Rachel Morgan

“The food?”

  “I heard them saying they were getting Chinese.”

  “From Shen’s place?” Meera’s expression suggested that of all the things Ridley had told her so far, this was the strangest.

  Ridley breathed in deeply—inhaling the spices wafting through the air from whatever was cooking in the kitchen—and sighed. “I don’t know. I assume so.”

  “Wow. Never in a million years would I have pictured Delilah Davenport inside the Lins’ place.”

  “Who’s Delilah Davenport?” Anika asked, looking up from her book. “That name sounds familiar.”

  “Nobody you know,” Meera said, waving away her sister’s question. “So did Archer say where he’s been for the past year and a bit? Or why he’s back now?”

  Ridley leaned her elbow against the back of the couch and rested her cheek against her palm. “Sure, yeah, we sat down over a cup of tea and chatted all about what he’s been up to since he left.”

  Meera grabbed one of the smaller cushions and threw it at Ridley. “I mean, like, did you overhear anything interesting?”

  Laughing, Ridley threw the cushion back at Meera. “No, I didn’t overhear anything interesting.”

  “But you agree that this is all super weird, right?

  “Yes, definitely. Either that or a crazy bunch of circumstances.”

  “Oh, and what about the fact that the guy who died was following you earlier in the day? How did he figure out where you live if you managed to lose him in the subway? And why was he following you in the first place?”

  Ridley shook her head. “Don’t know.” She was fairly certain he’d been following her because of the envelope of cash, but she couldn’t tell Meera that. Meera knew nothing about that particular extra-curricular activity of Ridley’s. Nobody except Ezra knew what she did in her spare time, and that was only because she needed someone to sell the things she stole. What bothered Ridley more than the fact that someone wanted her money was the fact that he’d managed to follow her home after she’d been convinced she’d lost him. Was she losing her touch?

  “Is this what you guys are talking about?” Anika asked, pointing to the TV where the story about the unidentified man murdered by a magic-laced knife had popped up in the queue of scrolling stories.

  “Yes, that must be it,” Meera said. She pointed the remote at the TV and clicked on the story. A still image of the alley behind Ridley’s apartment appeared alongside a male news presenter’s head, and the same words Ridley had heard numerous times already began playing. After relating the incident, the news presenter explained that the deceased victim, who had no scars behind his ear, let alone any arxium implants, had not yet been identified.

  “No amulets?” Anika said. “But that’s not possible. He’s, like, grown up. Wouldn’t the drones have caught him by now?”

  Ridley shrugged as she played with the silver chain around her neck. “He must have managed to stay away from the drones somehow. Or found a way to fool them.”

  “A witness reported seeing magic on the blade,” the presenter continued, “and police who were at the scene have confirmed that the nature of the wound was consistent with the type of conjuration meant to ensure a quick death.”

  “A quick death,” Anika repeated in a whisper. “I didn’t know there was a conjuration for that.”

  “Yeah, you probably shouldn’t be listening to this,” Meera muttered, pointing the remote at the TV again and exiting the news story. “You can carry on reading your book.”

  “Fiiiiine.” Anika returned her gaze to the book on the floor in front of her, and Ridley leaned forward to get a closer look at what she was reading. Larger than a novel, with curling page corners and dirty smudges along the fore edge of the book, it could only be one thing. “You’re reading a textbook right now?” she asked. “You know school doesn’t start for another few days, right?”

  “Uh huh,” Anika answered absently as she turned another page.

  Ridley looked at Meera, who sighed. “She’s an overachiever.”

  “Like you?” Ridley asked with a grin.

  “And like you.” Meera shoved Ridley with her foot. “She’s hoping to get into Wallace next year on scholarship.”

  “Don’t bother, Anika,” Ridley told the younger girl. “Wallace Academy is full of stuck-up rich kids. You’ll have way more fun down the road at Park High. Ask Shen. He finished last year, but he always said he enjoyed it there.”

  Anika looked up. “You guys are at Wallace.”

  “Yes, but we’re part of a very small group of completely awesome, non-snobby, non-rich kids.”

  “And by ‘small,’ she means the two of us,” Meera added with a laugh. Wallace Academy was where Meera and Ridley had met, when they both began seventh grade at the prestigious school situated two blocks away from Aura Tower. Being the only two scholarship students in their year and feeling very much on the outside, they naturally gravitated toward each other, forming a fast friendship early on.

  Anika frowned as she pushed her glasses—almost exactly the same as Meera’s—up her nose. “I know you’re joking. You and Meera wouldn’t have worked so hard to keep your scholarships at Wallace if it wasn’t the only way for people like us to have a better future. So I’m going to keep working until I get in. And right now I’m learning all about the way things used to be before magic turned wild, like all the magi-tech stuff, and it would be a lot easier for me—” she glared at Meera “—if you would just tell me what it was like, since you’re old enough to remember.”

  Meera shifted against the cushions, straightening ever so slightly. “I don’t need to tell you what it was like. Whatever you need to know is in that textbook. And don’t spend too much time on that section. You don’t want your teachers to think you’re showing an inappropriate interest in magic.”

  “My interest isn’t inappropriate,” Anika argued, wrinkling her nose. “It’s academic. I want to know as much as I possibly can before I get to the scholarship exam in a few months.”

  “So read the textbook,” Meera replied. “And every other textbook I gave you. You’ll be fine.”

  “It wasn’t particularly exciting,” Ridley said to Anika. “You only think it was that way because it’s forbidden now. But back then, it was just an ordinary part of life. Just another subject to study at school. Some people were good at it and ended up specializing as magicists so they could learn how to transform magic into an energy source and how to create all that magi-tech stuff you’re reading about. And everyone else just did basic, everyday conjurations.”

  “Ridley!” Meera hissed. She’d already grabbed her commscreen while Ridley was talking and shoved it under the nearest cushion. “You know people can land themselves in serious trouble for showing too much interest. Our commscreens are probably listening to us right now, getting ready to send this conversation straight to the government.”

  “You know you’re completely paranoid, right?”

  “I’m not paranoid.” Meera pulled her commscreen out and held it near her mouth as she added, “Magic is bad. It’s a danger, a threat to our society, and we have no interest in the way it used to be incorporated into our lives.”

  “I know it’s bad now,” Anika said, “and I definitely don’t want to pull it or manipulate it or anything. I just figured that if I know more than what’s in the textbooks, then I’ll have a better chance of—”

  “Hey, girls,” Mrs. Singh said, hurrying into the living room with a bag over her shoulder and her staff access tag hanging around her neck. “I’m off to the hospital.”

  “Now?” Meera asked. “Isn’t your next shift only supposed to start this evening?”

  “Yes, but Helen’s sick. I’m filling in for her.”

  Meera pushed herself to the edge of the couch and stood. “Mom …”

  “It’s fine, honey.” Mrs. Singh crouched down and kissed Anika’s cheek. “Extra shifts are good, remember?”

  “Not when you’re supposed to be catching up on sl
eep,” Meera reminded her. Mrs. Singh was a hospital laboratory technician, and it seemed to Ridley that she was almost always working more than was healthy.

  “It’s fine,” Mrs. Singh repeated, but Meera stood and took her mother’s arm.

  “Can we talk?” she asked quietly, pulling Mrs. Singh toward the kitchen.

  Ridley met Anika’s gaze. A beat of silence passed. Then Ridley grinned, shoved Meera’s commscreen back under a cushion, and lowered herself to the floor beside Anika. The younger girl tugged at the blanket she was lying on and draped the free half over her head and Ridley’s. Once they were enclosed within their makeshift tent, Anika focused on Ridley with shining eyes and said, “It can’t have been that ordinary. Magic can do amazing, unexplainable things. Even the everyday things must have been cool.”

  “They were,” Ridley said. “We just didn’t realize it because that’s the way life had always been for everyone. No one ever thought there’d come a time when we couldn’t pull magic and use it.”

  “But some people did think that, didn’t they? You told me before that there were always some who didn’t trust magic. They said it was too unstable and shouldn’t be used as an energy source.”

  Ridley nodded. This wasn’t the first secret conversation she’d had with Anika about magic. The girl was just as studious as her older sister, but she lacked Meera’s fear of the law. She was thrilled by the stories Ridley told her of the way things used to be. “Yeah, there were always a few extremists trying to get the rest of the world to agree with them, especially after the GSMC was proposed,” Ridley said, “but hardly anyone took them seriously. Obviously a whole bunch of people in positions of power decided we should be careful, which is how we ended up with arxium panels hovering over certain cities, but even most of those people were still happy to enjoy the benefits of magic.”

  “And the walls covered in arxium weren’t built around cities until after the Cataclysm,” Anika said, “so I guess they didn’t think we needed to be that careful.”

  “Correct. The only reason some cities survived was because of the panels.”

  “Oh, I had a question about the panels. They’re high up, higher than the tallest buildings, obviously, but not many thousands of feet high. So sometimes clouds form lower than the panels, right? That’s what this book is saying. So what stops the magic that’s in those clouds from also being below the panels?”

  “The cloud level might be lower sometimes, but the actual magic doesn’t usually get past the panels,” Ridley explained. “It stays higher up at the top of the clouds. And the panels have these small sections that are not made of arxium that use the magic up there to generate enough power to keep the panels hovering. It’s quite clever.”

  “Oh yes, there’s this whole section about the hover tech and how it manipulates the magic up there to do something that keeps the panels from being blown around when the wind is super—” Anika stopped at the sound of footsteps.

  “Next time,” Ridley whispered before throwing the blanket off and scrambling back toward the couch. She climbed back onto it and pushed her hair out of her face—and met Meera’s confused gaze across the room.

  “Everything okay?” Meera asked, her eyes moving back and forth between her sister and her friend.

  “Yep,” Ridley said. “Just explaining a few important things to Anika. I think she understands now.”

  “All right. Cool.” Meera crossed the room and plopped onto the couch with a sigh. “Mom’s gone to the hospital. She asked if we can look after Anika and Triven until my dad gets home.”

  “Okay. Sure. I’ll just let Shen know we can’t meet him this afternoon.”

  Meera nodded. “He’ll understand. He always does.” It wasn’t the first time she’d been forced to cancel plans to look after her younger siblings, and she was right that Shen would understand. He often had to do the same thing.

  “So,” Meera said, sitting up and tucking her legs beneath her. “Let’s talk about Derek. Have you heard from him again?”

  Ridley blinked at the sudden change of subject. She forced her mind away from her two best friends’ family responsibilities and turned it to Derek for the first time in days. What with planning the Davenport job, and then the murder outside her back door, there hadn’t been much time recently to think about boys. “Uh, no, I haven’t heard a thing,” she told Meera. “I asked for another week, so he’s giving me another week.”

  “And this week ends …”

  “Um … tomorrow? Maybe the next day?”

  “Ridley! If you’re so uninterested in the guy that you can’t even remember what you told him, then—”

  “I do remember what I told him,” Ridley insisted. “I just forgot what day it is. Today’s Thursday, right? And I told him … Saturday.” She nodded. “Yes, I said Saturday, because I wanted to make a decision before the Wallace dinner.”

  “It’s just a date, Rid,” Meera reminded her. “Why do you have to think so hard about it? Either you’re interested in the guy or you’re not.”

  “I am interested, it’s just … well, he’s one of them. You know, the entitled rich kids who look down on people like us.”

  “Well clearly he doesn’t look down on you or he wouldn’t have asked you out. Come on.” Meera poked Ridley’s leg. “You guys spent all that time together researching solar vehicles—”

  “That was your project actually. We were doing battery electric buses. Way more useful in a post-Cataclysm world than a solar vehicle.”

  “Whatever. You spent a lot of time together, and he obviously decided you’re worth pursuing.”

  “Pursuing?” Ridley deadpanned. “Seriously? Nobody our age says that.”

  “Stop avoiding the subject. You need to decide before tomorrow night, not Saturday night.”

  “Tomorrow night? I thought the Wallace dinner was on Saturday.”

  “It is, but Elise’s thing is tomorrow. I’m pretty sure Derek will be there, so just tell him then.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Elise’s party.” Ridley twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “Are we going to that? It’s always so awkward.”

  “I know, but it’s tradition. And it’s our last time. Our last end-of-summer bash. If we don’t go through the awkwardness one last time, we’ll someday regret it.”

  Ridley rolled her eyes. “I highly doubt that, but yeah. I guess we should go. I’ll message Derek.” She lifted her commscreen from a side table and typed a quick message to Derek, asking if they could talk at Elise’s party.

  “Meera?” Anika said. “Look. It’s about the guy in Ridley’s alley.” Ridley sent the message, then looked up. Anika was pointing at the TV where a new story surrounded by a flashing red border had popped up at the top of the news app. The words ‘Breaking News’ were stamped across it.

  Meera rummaged among the cushions until she found the remote, then pointed it at the TV and selected the story. The same news presenter’s voice filled the room once more. “… that new footage has been released from a hidden surveillance camera at the scene.”

  “What hidden surveillance camera?” Ridley muttered. “There’s no camera in our alley.”

  “Well, he did say it was hidden,” Meera pointed out. “Maybe it was one of the drones?”

  “… which reveals,” the man continued as an image of Archer being pushed into a police vehicle filled the screen, “that another person was present at the time of the murder.”

  Ridley breathed out as a weight lifted from her shoulders. At least she no longer had to feel guilty about keeping this knowledge to herself. There had been two rich kids in her alley last night, and the police could figure out which one of them had been responsible for the murder.

  “Wait,” Meera said, leaning forward as a different still image, slightly grainy, appeared on the screen. “Wait, wait, wait. Holy freakin’ crap. Is that …”

  Ridley gripped the arm of the couch, ice shooting through her veins at the sight of the person she most certainly had not seen
in the alley behind her building last night.

  “We can now reveal to you,” the news presenter announced, “that this person was a young man named Shen Lin.”

  6

  Ridley’s blood pounded in her ears as she headed straight for Aura Tower. Her shoes smacked the pavements, her hands curled into fists, and she was in danger of grinding her teeth away completely as she marched past block after block toward the Opal Quarter, the most affluent part of the city center. The bus had wound up in a traffic jam about halfway there, and Ridley couldn’t handle sitting still knowing she could walk faster than the bus could drive.

  The grimy streets and graffitied walls gave way to glass structures that grew ever taller as she neared the center of town. Gigantic screens on the sides of buildings flashed brightly colored advertisements and reminder messages prompting people to visit their nearest clinic or hospital if they suspected a problem with either of their arxium implants. Ridley saw none of it; the screens had become part of the background years ago. Instead, she focused on the words repeating endlessly in her brain—A young man named Shen Lin—as her fury simmered.

  When she reached Aura Tower, she slipped past the reception desk in the foyer, ignored the elevator reserved exclusively for the penthouse level, and made her way into one of the others. Archer wasn’t at home right now. Ridley had scrolled through the various social feeds after getting onto the bus and spotted three different photos of him eating lunch at De-Luxe on the hundred and fiftieth floor. Apparently he’d been released in record time once the police confirmed that this new evidence now pointed to Shen. It seemed it hadn’t taken long for Archer to resume his normal life.

  Ridley’s anger mounted as the elevator soared upward. It slowed, stopped, and she marched out onto the hundred-and-fiftieth floor of Aura Tower. She crossed the indoor park that took up half this level, forcing herself to uncurl her fists as two young children watched her with worried expressions.

  She reached the other side of the park, stepping onto glossy tiles once more, and stopped in front of the glass sliding doors of De-Luxe. It didn’t take long for her to spot Archer. He was sitting with his mother and sister on the far side of the restaurant at one of the tables positioned for the best panoramic view of the city. Filthy liars, Ridley thought as she glared at them. She wondered how much they’d paid their lawyers to fabricate this so-called ‘new footage’ that supposedly showed Shen stabbing the unknown victim. She was about to march in and confront all three of them when Mrs. Davenport and Lilah stood and headed toward the ladies’ room.