by Nina Walker
Contents
Prism
1. Jessa
2. Lucas
3. Jessa
4. Lucas
5. Jessa
6. Lucas
7. Jessa
8. Lucas
9. Jessa
10. Lucas
11. Jessa
12. Lucas
13. Jessa
14. Lucas
15. Jessa
16. Lucas
17. Jessa
18. Lucas
19. Jessa
20. Lucas
21. Jessa
22. Lucas
23. Jessa
24. Lucas
Epilogue
Fracture
1. Jessa
2. Sasha
3. Lucas
4. Jessa
5. Sasha
6. Lucas
7. Jessa
8. Lucas
9. Sasha
10. Jessa
11. Lucas
12. Jessa
13. Sasha
14. Lucas
15. Jessa
16. Lucas
17. Jessa
18. Sasha
19. Jessa
Blackout
1. Sasha
2. Jessa
3. Lucas
4. Jessa
5. Sasha
6. Jessa
7. Lucas
8. Sasha
9. Jessa
10. Sasha
11. Lucas
12. Jessa
13. Sasha
14. Jessa
15. Lucas
16. Sasha
17. Jessa
18. Lucas
19. Sasha - Two Weeks Later
Collide
1. Sasha
2. Jessa
3. Sasha
4. Jessa
5. Lucas
6. Sasha
7. Lucas
8. Jessa
9. Sasha
10. Lucas
11. Jessa
12. Sasha
13. Lucas
14. Jessa
15. Sasha
16. Jessa
17. Lucas
18. Jessa
19. Sasha
Epilogue
Please Support Authors
About the Author
Prism Acknowledgments
Fracture Acknowledgments
Blackout Acknowledgments
Collide Acknowledgments
Praise For Prism
“…The (quite literally) colorful landscape—animated by an intriguing cast—is complex but well-explained. Masterfully plotted, Walker builds to not one but several unexpected twists in the novel’s final pages.
Readers will no doubt clamor for the next book in this series; a thrilling start from an exciting new talent.”
Kirkus Reviews
Copyright © 2017 by Nina Walker
All rights reserved.
Characters, names and related indicia are trademarked and copyrighted by Nina Walker.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Published by Addison & Gray Press, LLC.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Ebook ISBN# 978-0-9992876-0-6
For everyone who believed in me.
1
Jessa
I didn’t collect secrets. I only had one. One little, messy mistake I’d kept buried in the back of my mind for months. Now, I felt the danger of its existence as I stared into the eyes of the person whose job it was to dig up this particular secret. She would inch around it, gentle at first, before she’d rip it out by the roots. Then the intruder would be taken away, and I would be taken with it.
“Do you know why we’re here?” the royal officer asked. Her glare locked me in. I shook my head, knowing the lie had to be seamless.
The officers had come with their questions on the worst possible morning. Every minute of this day should have been spent preparing for the most anticipated ballet performance of my life. Not this. Anything but this.
I wanted nothing to do with magic.
I glanced at my parents and little sister. The four of us sat side by side on the sleek couch. Our bodies stuck together as the summer heat pressed its way through the family room. Lately, our luxuries, like air conditioning, were faltering. We didn’t ask why. We just waited, letting the sweat permeate our lives.
My sister Lacey nervously held our dad’s arm with one hand and grasped mine with the other. Aged six, she couldn’t know what was at stake, but she could sense the danger all the same.
“Lacey, I have some questions for you,” the royal officer in charge said, showing a tight-lipped smile. She was a pale woman, with severe cheekbones and a glossy, tight blond bun.
Her subordinates lined the walls of our living room. They stood at attention, stony expressions etched into their features. They wore white uniforms, the royal family insignia was stitched on the left shoulder of each. I’d never actually seen a royal officer of the court before, and I’d hoped I never would. They were the highest level, the protectors of the monarchs and alchemists. They didn’t belong in my living room.
The lead officer reached into her pocket and pulled out a small vial. It was deep crimson, filled to the brim. She held it up between her long fingers, showing us the blood inside. She reached into her other pocket and pulled out a second vial. The lifeless, gray fluid seemed unrelated, but from the way her eyes leered at Lacey, something wasn’t right.
“Do you know what this is?”
But Lacey’s face only registered the same confusion as before. How was a child supposed to understand what it was, especially when everyone else was clueless? Well, not everyone. Not me.
“What about you, Jessa?” She arched an eyebrow in my direction. “Any ideas?”
“I don’t know.” The lie burned my throat but came out smooth.
“This is a sample of Lacey’s blood.”
My father sprang from the couch. He grabbed Lacey. She wrapped her thin arms around him and began to cry. The room grew unimaginably hotter. Gray blood? That had to be linked to alchemy. And anywhere there was alchemy was not a place Lacey should be.
My mother shook her head, apparently refusing to understand. “What’s wrong? Is Lacey sick?”
“Lacey is lucky. She’ll be fine. Our mission is to find out who did this to your daughter. Of course, it’s likely she did it to herself.”
Mom’s hand flew to her mouth. Dad tightened his grip on Lacey.
I sat still on the couch, lost as to how to fix this. I tried to keep my breathing in check, fighting the suffocation pressing down on my body. How could this be happening? I’d kept Lacey’s run in with alchemy hidden for months. Never uttering a word, I protected my family. But despite all that, our life was about to unravel anyway.
“Did you see anything you didn’t understand? Did anyone hurt you?”
The woman’s voice drew us back to the truth. Something was happening to Lacey and this woman didn’t care how that might affect the rest of us.
Everyone quickly settled back into the couch.
“No,” Lacey replied. She looked at Dad as her lower lip trembled. He wiped at her tear-stained cheeks. “Am I in trouble?” she asked.
“No
, you’re not in trouble,” the woman continued with fake tenderness in her voice. She wasn’t fooling me. “But it’s important you tell the truth so that you won’t be in trouble later.” The threat lingered.
Lacey nodded, her eyes glued to the woman.
It was finally clear that she was speaking of color alchemy. She had to be probing for something, hoping that Lacey would slip up on an important detail. Then they would take her away to some guarded place color alchemists go, to train her as their own. The problem with that? She wouldn’t come back.
No matter how much I wanted to stay in denial, I knew it was true. Something had happened to Lacey on that cold day six months ago. I wanted to believe it was just a playground accident gone awry. But I’d known. Of course I’d known. It was color alchemy; the strange ability, that mysterious magic that allowed color to be used as a tool. Sure, it was mostly an unknown to a regular girl like me. But what else could it have been? It was the only explanation.
An explanation that I hated accepting.
Color alchemists were sent away from home as soon as they were discovered, no matter their age. And they didn’t return. I’d seen it twice myself.
The first time, it happened to the neighbors, three houses down. Their boy seemed normal enough. He was the instigator, the ringleader of the boys our age. On those warm summer nights, I sometimes watched as they ran wild through the quiet streets. Even though I was also seven, they always said girls weren’t allowed to play. I didn’t mind so much, I wanted to be a ballerina anyway.
And then one day, that boy, his name long forgotten now, was simply gone. When I asked Mom and Dad, they’d briefly explained what a color alchemist was, then asked me to drop the issue. No one talked about it. His parents moved a few months later and that was the end of it. It wasn’t until the next spring, when the same thing happened to a girl in the classroom across the hall, that I started to ask more questions.
Between the hushed whispers and rumors, I knew little, but enough. The younger the alchemist was when discovered, the better. They were trained, day in and day out, to harness the magic in color and use it to society’s advantage. No one I knew really understood the details about color alchemy and those who wielded its supernatural power. They, and their strange magic, were kept out of the public eye. We did know that it kept our electricity strong, our medical facilities advanced, food on our tables, and most importantly, alchemy kept the rest of the world out of our prosperous kingdom. Our neighboring enemies hadn’t maneuvered a successful attack in decades.
We also knew to keep a lookout for anything out of the ordinary, anything unexplainable. The law mandated us to report possible color alchemy immediately.
Again, I wasn’t entirely sure what “possible alchemy” was, or how I’d recognize it. I guessed the idea was that I’d be a good citizen, going about my business, and if something magical happened, I’d report it.
Instead, I kept the secret hidden. When Lacey’s blood had changed before my very eyes, I didn’t report a thing. I couldn’t risk the outcome!
One thing everyone knew about color alchemists: they became members of the most elite and secretive branch in the kingdom, the Guardians of Color. “GC” for short.
The Royals assured us that we needed the GC. They said the guardians assisted our society economically. Their magic provided us with extra power, aided industry in advancement, and even sustained crops. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be enough food to go around. While most of the world suffered, the people of New Colony, our home, thrived. We had everything we needed in our kingdom. More, actually. And it was all because of alchemy and the royal family’s guidance.
But having this mysterious ability ruined people’s lives. Freedom wasn’t a possibility for alchemists. Not really. Their mission was too important. I was grateful I wasn’t one of them. I couldn’t imagine having such valuable abilities discovered as a small child, being trained to forget about my family just to learn how to do a job. A job so important that there was absolutely no other choice but to do it, and do it well.
The royal officer droned on but I couldn’t quiet my mind about the day that started all of this. The day, six months ago, when Lacey had injured herself on the playground and the unimaginable happened.
My heart ached to think Lacey was an alchemist, but I didn’t have any other explanation. After all, it was little children who developed color alchemy. She was six. It made sense.
I wanted to protect her. Whether on the playground or in my own living room, I couldn’t.
With the gray vial now gripped in this royal officer’s hand, I was sure Lacey had used alchemy on her own blood. What had that done to her? The magic only lasted a moment.
I peered at the royal officer as she ordered her underlings to begin searching our home. They wanted answers. Too bad there was no way I was going to let Lacey slip away. Valuable to society or not, she was my little sister, my only sibling. She wasn’t going anywhere.
I peered out the window and wondered if any of our neighbors were aware of what was happening in their seemingly safe neighborhood. Did they have any idea that we were harboring a potential color alchemist?
“Jessa Loxley.” The royal officer turned her gaze on me. “We have reason to believe that either you or your sister may have performed unauthorized color alchemy. One of you, or someone you know, tampered with Lacey’s blood and failed to report the incident to the proper authorities.”
So it was true…
Lacey was a color alchemist. Her own blood betrayed her.
Lacey was still confused. I was grateful she didn’t remember the accident. She had likely been so traumatized that she’d blocked the whole memory. Lacey needed to stay here, with us. Her family. The truth would only get in the way of that. I had to come up with a plausible story and cover for Lacey, to convince this woman that there wasn’t an alchemist here.
“Why is her blood gray?” I prodded. “What does that mean for Lacey?”
“That information is classified.”
“Okay,” I said. “And who are you again?”
I had to be bold. I had to do something to get the attention away from Lacey.
“As I already told your parents, I’m Royal Officer Faulk, I preside over the Guardians of Color.”
Her official-sounding title wouldn’t stop me.
Dad reached out, resting his hand on my knee. “Jessa, please behave yourself.” His tone didn’t scold, but it was stern. Could he know I was lying? And if he did, would he want me to continue?
Mom and Dad were accustomed to me being on my best behavior around “important” people. I was walking a thin line.
“Are you an alchemist, then?” I asked.
“No. Royal officers are never alchemists. I’m here as part of our Illegal Color Alchemy Task Force,” Faulk spoke slowly.
“Yes, I get that,” I said. “Which is why it makes no sense that you’re here.”
“Jessa!” My mother’s sharp elbow jutted against my arm. I caught her wide eyes, but quickly looked the other way. She might’ve disliked my attitude now, but she’d thank me later.
“We’ve been alerted about unusual properties in Lacey’s blood work.” Faulk narrowed her eyes. “You are aware that she recently underwent a physical examination?”
I stared at her dead on. Bring it, lady, let’s see what you’ve got.
Dad was the first to respond. “Lacey had a bad accident about six months ago on the playground. She went to the hospital recently for a follow-up. But what does any of this have to do with Jessa?” His brow furrowed as he exchanged a quick look with Mom.
“You were the only one with Lacey during her accident.” Faulk watched me as she spoke. “There were no other reported witnesses, except the person who heard the cry and called the police. After going to the hospital, Lacey was stitched up and sent home. If it hadn’t have been for the follow-up, no one would have known that she had a small amount of gray blood flowing through her system. The doctor immediately
extracted it. She’s lucky there wasn’t more of it…very lucky.”
“I didn’t see anything unusual during her accident,” I said pointing to the vial still in Faulk’s grip. “How was I supposed to know she had gray blood? Was I supposed to be watching out for something specific? No one told me.”
Once again, Faulk ignored my question.
She held my gaze. “As you know, any unauthorized color alchemy is illegal. If you or someone you know has failed to report their abilities, now is your chance to speak up before we start a full-scale investigation. This is a very serious offense that could result in jail time and many citizen privileges revoked.”
“Citizen privileges?” my mother asked.
“Surely, Mrs. Loxley, you already know what I am speaking of.” Royal Officer Faulk peered closely at my mother.