Elemental Thief

by Rachel Morgan

  “Just give yourself some time,” Dad said, reaching up to place one hand on Shen’s shoulder. “Things will return to normal again eventually.”

  “What have you done since you got home?” Ridley asked, almost adding that she’d seen him at the hot dog stand before remembering that no one knew she’d been in that part of town.

  “According to his family, he spent like an hour in the bathroom,” Meera said with a laugh.

  “Yeah, I’ve always been a shower kind of guy, but … I don’t know.” Shen lifted his shoulders, and when he gave Ridley a sheepish grin, he looked almost like himself. “My body ached from spending the past few nights on a super thin mattress, and I just felt kind of grimy. Like, you know. All that prison-ness seeped right through my skin and I needed to soak it all out. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a bath more than I did tonight. And then we went out for veggie dogs to celebrate. And then Meera came over. So, a pretty great evening.”

  “Shen?” They all turned at the sound of a new voice. Mrs. Lin leaned in through the doorway, the lines around her eyes crinkling as she beamed at her son. “Ah, sorry, I know I’m being paranoid,” she said with a chuckle. “I feel like I can’t let him out of my sight for long right now.”

  “Completely understandable,” Dad said.

  Mrs. Lin’s gaze moved to Ridley, and she added, “Glad to see you’re okay. You gave your father a bit of a scare.”

  “Um, I know. I’m sorry.” Ridley’s insides tightened with shame as more guilt piled itself on top of the healthy dose that had already settled there.

  “At least all our children are safely home now,” Dad said, moving to put his arm around Ridley’s shoulders. “And since it’s late, the three of you should probably catch up tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yeah, we just came over to say hi quickly,” Meera said. “My dad’s on his way to the Lins now so I don’t have to walk home on my own.”

  After saying goodnight to everyone, Ridley closed and locked the door for a second time and headed upstairs with Dad. She got ready for bed, and the last thing she did before turning off her light was get the old commscreen out from the bottom drawer of her desk and send a message to Ezra.

  Ridley: I’m so, so sorry about earlier. I know you probably think I’ve betrayed you, leading a Davenport right to your magical doorstep. But this is bigger than you or I know. I had to do it in case he was telling the truth. In case it really would affect many innocent people. I hope you understand, but I won’t hold it against you if you don’t want to work with me ever again.

  23

  The sound of a gunshot pierced through Ridley’s dream, and she jerked awake, her heart racing and her body sweating. She sat upright, looking toward the window where dull morning light seeped through the curtains. She waited for several heart-pounding seconds, but no sound came from outside her window.

  The gunshot must have been part of her dream.

  She lay back down, staring at the ceiling. The fact that she was still alive this morning and that no one had attempted breaking in during the night was a good sign. If yesterday’s shooter really was after her, he or she would know where Ridley lived, right? They would have come during the night to finish the job. Archer had said it was far more likely someone had been trying to shoot him, and he was probably right. Ridley was sure he had way more enemies than she did.

  Her mind traveled back over the previous day’s revelations: Magic isn’t deadly. There’s a secret underground community of people who still use it. And how was it possible that this community had remained a secret for so long? Surely there must have been people who’d heard of it and gone down there pretending to want to be part of it when their actual agenda was to expose it. And was there really some major government cover-up going on to hide the fact that the magic out there wasn’t as dangerous as everyone thought? The idea seemed ridiculous. Maybe Archer and Christa had both been lying.

  Something hard dug into Ridley’s shoulder as she rolled onto her side. She sat up again and found the old commscreen she’d contacted Ezra with last night. She tapped the screen, but there was no reply from him. To be honest, she hadn’t really expected one.

  She slid the old device onto her desk and picked up the one that had been well and truly drenched in a small tsunami of canal water the day before. Life had not returned to it during the night, and Ridley suspected it would never switch on again. Good thing tomorrow was the start of a new school year. The scholarship administrator at Wallace Academy would have a brand new laptop and commscreen ready for Ridley, just to make sure she didn’t fall behind the other students in the technology department. For today, her commpad would have to suffice.

  Leaning over a little further, she tugged the top drawer of her desk open. Her hand fished around inside until it located her commpad. She pulled it out, unlocked the screen, and sat back against her propped-up pillows. After opening the app displaying all her social feeds, she located Meera’s name in the private messages section and dictated, “Last day of holidays. What do you want to do?”

  Meera’s reply came less than a minute later: I don’t mind. Whatever. I’ll be happy as long as I’m with you and Shen.

  Ridley grinned as she raised the device closer to her face. “As long as you’re with Shen, I’m guessing.”

  Meera’s reply was almost instant that time: Well … maybe ;-) ;-) ;-)

  Ridley couldn’t help laughing at that. “I would pretend I’m offended,” she said to the commpad, “but I’m not. I’ll have to find an excuse to leave you guys alone for a bit.”

  I don’t know if I’m ready for that! Then another message: Talk later. Just helping Mom with breakfast now. But we must do something fun later. Reading can definitely wait!

  As Ridley returned the commpad to her desk, Christa’s words returned unbidden to the front of her mind: Do you ever play? Do you ever experiment, have fun?

  “Nope,” Ridley said out loud. She’d made her decision the night before. Magic helped her to steal things, but that was it. She wouldn’t do anything with it other than what was necessary. At some point in the future, she wouldn’t need to use it at all.

  She leaned across the bed and pulled her curtain open. Her heart jolted at the sight of something stuck to the outside of the window. It was a note, facing inward so she could see the sloppy letters:

  STAY AWAY FROM ARCHER DAVENPORT

  A knock on the door made her jump. “Riddles?” Dad called.

  She pressed her hand against her chest and took a deep breath, giving herself a moment to recover before she shut the curtain and called out, “Yes?”

  The door opened and Dad looked in. “Thought you might want to go out and have a late breakfast somewhere together. Last day of vacation. We can go somewhere fancy, if you want.” He stepped further into the room. “I ended up buying two clocks from that man yesterday—he had a vintage mantel clock he’d forgotten all about—and my new client loved them both. She’s paid already and sending someone to collect them tomorrow.”

  “Sounds good,” Ridley said, trying hard to focus on everything Dad was saying instead of the threatening note now hidden by her curtain. “Where do you want to have breakfast?”

  “Remember that little place on 7th Avenue where we used to go with Mom? You loved it there. We haven’t been back since—”

  “Since I found out I got the Wallace scholarship and we went for tea and cake to celebrate,” Ridley said, her lips stretching into a smile. “Yeah, I’d love to go back there.”

  Blue Cherry House was almost perfect: Country chic tables and chairs, charmingly mis-matched crockery in pastel tones, and a tiny but beautiful garden to look out at. But it was raining, of course, and the background music was overlaid with the distant rumble of thunder. The words ‘Stay away from Archer Davenport’—and, more importantly, the question of who had stuck the note to her window—plagued Ridley’s thoughts the whole way to Blue Cherry House. Despite the fact that their building’s fire escape was rusted and broken and
too dangerous to use, someone had climbed up to her window. Was it the person who’d shot at her and Archer the day before?

  She and Dad sat, and a smiling waiter brought them two menus. None of the waiters who worked at Blue Cherry House now had been employed here at the time of the Cataclysm, meaning none of them recognized Dad. There was no need for anyone to cast suspicious glances his way while having whispered conversations with managers. She and Dad could pretend, for just an hour or two, that they were like everyone else sitting inside this cafe. And though Ridley generally preferred not to pretend she was in any way similar to the kind of people sitting around her, this place was different. It was still special because it had been Mom’s favorite.

  Ridley looked down the menu until she found the most affordable tea—one that was at least manufactured somewhere on this continent rather than the horrendously expensive imported stuff. She and Dad both selected a simple breakfast, and the waiter returned to take their orders. Then the two of them chatted about Shen and school and the fond memories they had of past visits to Blue Cherry House while Mom was still alive.

  The waiter brought two teapots to the table and poured a cup for each of them. As he left, Ridley looked up and saw a group of girls at a table on the other side of the cafe. A bunch of Lilah’s friends. A bunch of Ridley’s old friends, if she was going to get technical. For a moment, it felt as if nothing had changed in ten years. She and Dad were at their favorite breakfast spot, Mom was about to join them, and Ridley would run over to say hello to all her friends before rejoining her parents.

  Thunder grumbled overhead, and in an instant, the thought was gone, leaving a hollow ache in Ridley’s chest. Mom wouldn’t be joining them ever again. She lifted her teacup and, with some difficulty, smiled across the table at Dad. At least she had him and Meera and Shen.

  She sipped her tea and glanced over Dad’s shoulder again, wondering why Lilah wasn’t here at Blue Cherry House with her friends. Perhaps she hadn’t been invited. Perhaps her friends were giving her the cold shoulder because of her brother’s involvement in a murder investigation, the same way Lilah had shunned Ridley so many years ago for something out of her control. Ridley’s lips turned up in a smug smile.

  This is more about bitterness and revenge than about justice.

  The echo of Archer’s words jarred her so badly she almost lost her grip on the teacup. It slipped sideways, sloshing hot tea over the side, which burned her fingers and dripped onto her lap. She sucked in a breath and hurriedly placed the teacup down.

  “You okay?” Dad asked as she grabbed the napkin to wipe her fingers, then dabbed at her skirt.

  “Yes, sorry, just being clumsy. I’m gonna go to the ladies’ and clean myself up.” She stood, pulled her purse onto her shoulder, and headed for the restrooms, giving a wide berth to the table of girls. She cleaned up quickly in the cafe’s restroom, but as she walked out, her purse began buzzing. Startled—her commscreen was sitting lifeless on her desk at home, wasn’t it?—she flipped the top open and looked inside, and remembered that she’d brought her commpad instead. On the screen blinked an image of Delilah Davenport’s perfectly smiling face—the most recent profile picture she’d uploaded to the social feeds.

  Ridley stepped back into the restroom, pulled the commpad out, and tapped the screen. The profile picture winked out of view and was replaced by a video call displaying Lilah’s far less happy face. “What the hell happened yesterday?” she hissed, her eyebrows pinching together as her face moved closer to the screen.

  “Uh … hello to you too, Lilah,” Ridley answered. Her eyes darted around the edges of the screen, but she couldn’t tell where Lilah was.

  “I’m serious. I know Archer came to Wallace before the dinner began. I saw him go into the library with you, and I heard you guys arguing. And, as everyone now knows, that’s where the shooting happened.”

  “You know he wasn’t shot, right?” Ridley said, wondering if perhaps Archer hadn’t been home yet and his family was just as worried as her father had been last night.

  “Yes, I’m aware of that, but—”

  “Then I don’t have much else to tell you. I have no idea who was shooting at us.”

  “I want to know what happened afterwards,” Lilah said, “because he didn’t come home for hours, and when he called for a car to go fetch him in the early hours of this morning, someone blew up that car.”

  “Holy crap.” Ridley’s hand rose to cover her mouth. “Is he …”

  “He’s alive. He was near the car, but not in it. He’s covered in cuts and bruises, and there are some fractured bones, I think, but other than that he’s fine. And it was one of our driverless vehicles, so no one else was hurt. But my point, Ridley, is that you were the last person I saw him with, and I want to know what happened in between the shooting and the time at which my brother was almost blown up.”

  “Why do you think I would know?”

  “Because he was with you!” she shouted. “Wasn’t he?”

  “Look, even if I was with him, that doesn’t mean I know who wants to kill him.”

  “Sure, okay, but maybe you saw something. Or someone. Where did you guys go last night? Just give me something to work with.”

  “I didn’t see anyone. I promise. And we were—” Ridley hesitated, unsure whether Lilah knew anything about her brother’s visits to the underground part of the city. Archer didn’t seem to know about Lilah’s hacking hobby, so perhaps all the Davenports were keeping secrets from each other. “We were just visiting someone I know. Archer needed to find something, so I took him to a friend who might be able to help. But that person wouldn’t have done anything to Archer. He’d have no reason to—”

  “Details, Ridley!” Lilah’s voice screeched so loudly through the device’s tiny speakers that Ridley flinched. “You’re not giving me anything useful here.”

  “Look, the only person I can think of is Lawrence.”

  “Lawrence Madson? We’re back to the mayor’s son again?”

  “Look, you don’t have to believe me, and I don’t actually know if it was him. But you asked for details, and that’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “It can’t be Lawrence,” Lilah murmured, her eyes focusing somewhere beyond the device she was speaking to. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Ridley gripped her commpad with both hands. “Lilah, did Archer say anything about a figurine? Did he manage to get it back?”

  “What?” Lilah focused on Ridley again. “A figurine? The thing that was stolen from my dad’s collection last week?”

  “Yes. Lawrence is the one who has it.”

  Lilah’s eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t make any sense either. There’s no reason for the mayor’s son to steal from us. And no, Archer didn’t say anything about it. He just keeps telling anyone who’ll listen that he can’t stay here at the hospital, and that he has extremely important business to attend to, though he won’t tell me what it is.” She rolled her eyes. “Total nonsense, I’m sure.”

  Ridley had a feeling it wasn’t nonsense. If Archer was desperate to leave the hospital, he probably hadn’t found the figurine yet. “Which hospital?” she asked.

  “Lumina Private. Obviously. Anyway, I suppose I can look into Lawrence Madson’s recent activities, just in case you’re telling the truth.”

  “All I’m telling you is what I’ve been told. Lawrence has that figurine, and Archer was probably trying to get it back last night before his car exploded. Make what you will of that information.”

  “Fine, well, I can’t say you’ve been helpful, exactly,” Lilah said as she looked over her shoulder, then began walking, “but I’ll see what I can find out.” She brought her hand up to the screen and ended the call before Ridley could respond. Ridley leaned against the restroom wall and stared at the blank screen, her mind working. So Archer had insisted he didn’t need her help anymore, but now he was stuck in hospital, and most likely hadn’t got that darn figurine back yet.

  It w
ill affect many people—many innocent people.

  I’m not so terrible a person that I’ll let dozens of people die if I can stop it.

  Which people? A bunch of Archer’s rich friends? Did it even make a difference who he was talking about? Ridley knew it shouldn’t, but she had trouble feeling as much empathy for the people filling the upper floors of Aura Tower as she felt for those in her neighborhood in Demmer District.

  This is more about bitterness and revenge than—

  She pushed away from the wall and away from the reminder of Archer’s accusation. She still didn’t know if he’d even been telling the truth, but if there were innocent people involved, then they needed to be protected. Which meant she had two options: get the figurine back herself, or make sure Archer could do it.

  She stopped outside the restroom and typed a quick message to Meera.

  Ridley: Turns out I have an excuse to leave you and Shen alone this afternoon after all. Enjoy ;-) See you guys this evening?

  24

  Made of air, it was easy for Ridley to sneak into Lumina Private Hospital. Finding out which room Archer was in took a little more effort, but she drifted around for a while, listening to snippets of hospital employees’ conversations, until eventually she heard the words ‘Alastair Davenport’s son.’ She twirled around a corner on a gust of air, and followed a woman in a suit and several security guards. “No, we’ve been told to keep the press away,” the woman said. “I don’t care that people have nothing better to do with their time than follow the lives of the city’s rich and famous, but if I see anyone with a camera on the twelfth floor, I’m holding the entire team responsible.”

  Twelfth floor. Ridley turned back, heading for the nearest elevator.

  She didn’t have to wait long before the doors slid open, someone stepped out, and another few people stepped in. As the numbers blinked their way up toward number twelve, she couldn’t help remembering the words stuck to the outside of her window: STAY AWAY FROM ARCHER DAVENPORT. Believe me, she silently answered the unknown author of the note. I’d like nothing more than to stay away from him. What was more important, though, was the safety of innocent people. If she had to spend a little more time with Archer in order to ensure that outcome, then so be it.