Hidden Worlds

by Kristie Cook

  Rationally, I can understand why he doesn’t want to hurt this girl. He’s a good person, and at the time they’d dated, he hadn’t known I really existed. But jealousy is an irrational, cruel creature who doesn’t like to be reasoned with. And I really don’t care if this Callie’s feeling hurt or not. “You didn’t steal me away.”

  “But that’s how he sees it, and, you know what? I totally get that, because I felt the exact same thing during those months you two were dating. I was eaten alive with jealousy and anger every day. It was pretty hard to control myself at times.”

  Goodbye, jealousy. Hello, guilt! It’s been a whopping two hours without you, and I was beginning to worry you’d forgotten me. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t want us to have to keep going over and over this, feeling like we have to apologize for all the mistakes we’ve made. It serves no purpose. What’s done is done. We can only move forward, and that’s what I want to do. But at the same time, I can’t let Kellan drag Callie into this. He can be as pissed off at me as he wants and I know I’ve just got to take it, but she has nothing to do with what’s going on between the three of us.”

  A horrible idea rears its head. “Is that what he’s doing? Trying to bring her back around to … I don’t know … tempt you away?”

  “No. Kellan knows better than that, after I explained how you’re my Connection. He knows there’s nothing, and no one, who will ever be able to tempt me away from you again. I think, though, he sees it like stabbing me in a place that isn’t fatal, just one that’ll hurt like hell.” Jonah’s quiet for a long moment. “He’s right, you know. I dated Callie, knowing I didn’t love her the way she loved me. It wasn’t fair to her, and I felt like a jerk for a long time for never being what she deserved. I think part of me used to hope I’d learn to love her, but the harder I tried, the harder I failed. So when Callie called, crying and accusing me of using her for years … I think it hit home a little too hard.” He rubs at his forehead. “You’re not the only one who’s hurt somebody, Chloe.”

  I’m instantly contrite, babbling yet another round of apologies.

  But he cuts me off. “I’m going to be honest here—I do love Callie; she’s been a part of my life and a good friend for a very long time. I do miss her, but Chloe, I’m not in love with her. I’ve only ever been, only ever will be, in love with you.”

  Admitting you love someone else is not the best way to reassure a jealous girlfriend. So I snap, “Nice, Jonah. Any other girls you loved you want to tell me about?”

  He lets me go and takes a step back. “Don’t you think I felt—feel—that way about you and Kellan?”

  What did you expect him to do, just roll over and let you throw your hypocrisy around with no ramifications? the little voice offers in regards to my inner outrage.

  “The difference is,” he says in a low voice bordering on anger, “that I actually had to watch it happen, not just hear about it. It was excruciating, Chloe. Every time he kissed you, I thought I was going to throw up. Every time he held you, it took every ounce of control I had—and by the end, there was very little left—to not beat the crap out of my own twin brother. So yeah, I understand jealousy, too.”

  The little voice murmurs, Don’t even bother trying to argue against this one. And it’s right. There’s nothing I can say to excuse what I’ve done.

  Zthane comes by later that evening, bringing with him bittersweet news. Cora’s been found, but our worst fears are realized: she’d been attacked by the Elders.

  “She’s alive,” Zthane is telling us, but I’m only catching some of his words. Is Cora in pain? Is she awake? “Karl and Kellan found her blahblah, roughly a mile blahblahblah. Blahblah way to school.”

  I let Jonah ask the questions as I stare down at my hands—they’re shaking, and all I can do is wonder if her hands are okay. I can’t focus. Why can’t I focus? Oh, gods, is she all right?

  “The car blahblahblah,” Zthane is murmuring. “She tried escaping, but they blahblahblah …”

  Can a Shaman heal herself?

  “Blabblahblah hospital here in Annar—”

  I jerk my head up. “She’s here?”

  “Yes,” Zthane says gently, as if he isn’t acutely aware I’ve been out of the conversation. “She’s in very good hands, Chloe. The best in all the worlds.”

  “When can I see her?”

  “Maybe tomorrow.” His phone is ringing again—but then, in the short time I’ve known him, it seems to ring constantly. “Maybe the day after that. She needs her rest.” And then the conversation between Zthane and Jonah falls back into the familiar buzzing of words that are just out of comprehension’s reach.

  Cora is in a hospital, and it’s because of me.

  Karl warned us early on that sometimes people close to powerful Magicals are targeted. Cora and I had laughed this off, saying just because she was my best friend, no one would want to go after her, because she’s not Council bound. We didn’t give his warnings credence, not even after I’d been attacked twice.

  She’d been attacked, all alone. Had she tried to fight back? Defend herself with any of the multitude of diseases in her arsenal? It’s unbearable to imagine my Cousin going through this—Cora, who always tries to be so strong and flippant when it’s really a mask to hide her confused and sensitive soul.

  I want to smash something, destroy it in ugly, permanent ways.

  I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.

  chapter 38

  Karl and Iolani are sitting at the dining-room table, talking quietly while drinking tea. I join them, asking Karl, “When did you get here?”

  He pours me a cup. “About a half-hour ago.” He looks me up and down. “You’re up early. Jonah still sleeping?”

  I nod, taking the cup from him. “Any word on Cora?”

  “Do you want me to sugarcoat it, or give it to you real?” I roll my eyes despite the seriousness of the situation. He knows better than to ask that. “The Elders took quite a bit of Cora’s life force from her. By the time we found her, she had very little left.”

  I swallow hard. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning it’s a damn good thing we found her when we did. She’s still at the hospital, and they’re still working on her. Truth be told, we don’t find a lot of survivors, especially at this level of …” He struggles to find the correct word. “Depravity, I suppose. Most survivors are usually only superficially hurt, like your father. Things Shamans can fix easily. But even the best don’t have a lot of experience regenerating someone who is barely existing. I’m sorry to have to put it that way, Chloe.”

  She’s strong, and she’s a fighter, the little voice murmurs. She’ll pull through—just you wait and see.

  Tears flood my eyes. “Are they hopeful, though?”

  He reaches out to squeeze my hand. “I think so.”

  Jonah wasn’t joking when he said he wasn’t a morning person. It’s already after ten in the morning and he’s still blissfully sleeping in the room we commandeered together. I don’t bother waking him, as there’s no reason to. I spend my time, instead, getting to know Iolani and listening to all the fun stories about the Guard she and Karl have to share in an effort to keep my mind off of Cora.

  “Are you looking forward to moving here?” she asks me as she lounges on the floor, feet propped up on the coffee table.

  When I say, “I think I finally am,” Karl laughs.

  “You must be excited that you get to Ascend so early,” Iolani continues, picking at nonexistent split ends in her dark, lush hair. “That’s already got a bunch of the Guard jealous as all hell.”

  Huh? “Ascend early?”

  Karl groans. “She doesn’t know yet, Lani.”

  “What don’t I know now?” I demand, throwing visual daggers at Karl.

  He holds his hands up. “Look. It wasn’t my call. Your parents were informed and they specifically asked me not to tell you. They said they’d let you know when it was appropriate
.”

  “And you believed them?” I yell.

  “Here’s the deal,” he says, completely nonplussed. “The Council has decided you need to Ascend early, considering the threat against you. They know you’re already powerful, but feel it will be prudent to allow you all your powers at the earliest convenience.”

  This is so typical of my parents! “And just when is my earliest convenience?”

  “No Magical has ever Ascended before eighteen. Most have to wait a number of months afterwards, due to stability factors and whatnot, but they figure you’ll be fine if you do it at the time of your birth.”

  The little voice and I both choke out, “Fine?” at the same time.

  “Well,” he clarifies, “sometimes people who are still unstable with their powers, or immature, have some trouble during Ascension …” He pauses. “How would you put it, Lani?”

  She rolls over and sits up. “They crack like an egg. They can’t deal with the influx of power.” She holds her hands on the side of her head and makes an explosion noise as her fingers expand.

  Actually, that’s a good way to describe how my head feels with this piece of information. “Is this common?!”

  She considers this. “Maybe ten percent.”

  “Maybe less,” Karl argues.

  I wheeze, “Could this happen to me?” The little voice urges me to calm down.

  “No, no, of course not,” they both say, as if in league with one another.

  “And I’ve got to do this early?”

  “You won’t be alone,” Iolani says in a soothing voice I imagine she’d use for a psycho she found on the street and was trying to get under control. “Jonah and Kellan will be Ascending early, too, for the same reasons.”

  I jab a finger at Karl. “Do they know?”

  He scoots away from my finger. “I believe so, yes. But I don’t think they know you will be. Frankly, I can’t see Jonah approving of it, what with the odds and all … I mean, I think I’d have gone nuts if I knew Moira would’ve—”

  “What odds?” I ask through clenched teeth.

  Karl sighs. “This is why your parents should’ve been the ones telling you. See, it’s like this: Ascending early increases the odds from ten to about forty percent.”

  I sort of choke as I draw my knees up to my chest. “I have a … forty-percent chance of … ?”

  Iolani puts her hands by her head again and makes the same explosion sound.

  “But you won’t,” Karl says quickly. “I have faith in you.”

  I sag back against the couch. “At least one of us does.”

  Iolani sits down in between me and Karl. “Enough talk of doom and gloom. Let’s gossip instead. I hear you and Jonah have a Connection, Chloe. Spill.”

  I crane my neck so I can throw more daggers at Karl on the other side of her. “Look,” he says, putting his hands up again. “The Guard is a vicious pit of gossip. Everyone knows everything about everyone. To be fair, I wasn’t the one who spilled this bit of information.”

  “It doesn’t matter who squealed,” Iolani says. “I’m just looking for confirmation. Is it true? Did you snag yourself one of the über-hotties?”

  I feel blindsided. “I … well … yes?”

  “I could have sworn,” she says to Karl, “that I remember hearing she was dating Kellan. Isn’t that funny?”

  “Hilarious,” he says flatly.

  “Jonah’s so awesome,” Iolani says, leaning back so she can stretch her feet out on the coffee table. I notice, as she wiggles her toes, that her nails have flowers on them. She sighs loudly. “I wish I had a Connection. Fricking Fate. But no—I have to schlep through bad date after bad date in my eternal quest to find Mr. Right.”

  “She does date a lot,” Karl tells me.

  “I mean,” Iolani continues, “how fabulous is a Connection? You’re guaranteed to always be loved, always be accepted. It’ll never break, so heartbreak is totally avoidable. Who wouldn’t want one of those?”

  “Some people who have Connections never find each other. It does happen sometimes,” Karl offers.

  “If I had a Connection,” she orates, holding out a finger, “I would never rest until I found him. I would move heaven and earth to be with the person I was meant for.” She sighs again. “Karl here is so lucky. He and Moira had their little doorway and never had to work at finding each other. Bastards.”

  “Go ahead and send some of that bitterness Chloe’s way,” Karl grins. “She and Jonah did the whole dream thing, too.”

  “Seriously?” Iolani asks, eyes wide. Then she looks me up and down. “Bee-yatch.”

  Should I be flattered or insulted? “Er … thanks?”

  “Tell me you two have already merged together, and I may puke,” she says bitterly.

  “Uh … okay?”

  Karl jerks forward. “What?”

  “Is this bad?” I ask, confused, because I’m pretty sure there’s no way such a thing could be bad. In fact, it’s pretty awesome, if I may say so myself, and something I really look forward to doing with Jonah when we’re alone.

  “Was it good?” Iolani asks, practically salivating over this bit of gossip. “I hear it’s amazing. Better than sex—well, almost, I suppose. I hear that if it happens at the same time you’re having sex, then it’s mind blowing, but in a good way, not like what we were talking about earlier, and man … with Jonah? It’s got to be—”

  “When was this?” Karl booms, cutting her off.

  “Dude, calm down,” Iolani laughs. “Like you have a leg to stand on, what with you and Moira getting caught doing nookie all over Guard Headquarters.”

  “ARE YOU SAYING THEY’RE HAVING SEX, TOO?” he roars as he stands up.

  “Whoa,” I say nervously. “No one is talking about sex. At least, I’m not talking about it. She said you are having sex—”

  “I’M MARRIED AND OLDER THAN YOU.”

  “Yeah, by like three years!”

  Karl’s eyes are bugging out so far I worry they might hit me when they explode. But then, after grinding his teeth for a good five seconds and balling his fists up over and over, he takes a deep breath and sits back down. “Leave it to Jonah to go and do that right away.”

  “Hel-lo,” Iolani says. “If it’d been me, I’d have done it two seconds after finding my Connection. And according to Moira—”

  “We’re not talking about me and Moira,” Karl snaps, and then Iolani and I laugh, because he plays the role of angry protector so well.

  Jonah appears in the doorway, still sleepy and utterly adorable with rumpled hair. “What’s all the yelling about?”

  Iolani grins slyly. “Yes, Karl. What were you yelling about?”

  He mutters something under his breath and stands back up, pointing a finger at Jonah. “You’re lucky I like you so much.”

  Jonah blinks. “Huh?”

  Karl looks back down at me and Iolani and then back to Jonah. “I’m going to go call my wife now.” And then he exits the room swiftly, prompting me and Iolani to burst into laughter once more, and Jonah to watch his friend retreat in confusion.

  Lizzie, Alex, and Meg show up later that night, along with Kellan, who appears completely at ease with being in the same room as me and Jonah. I am not at ease, though. I am grossly uncomfortable to the point my palms sweat at the same time my mouth goes dry. It always amazes me when that happens—it’s like all the moisture in my mouth leeches out through my palms.

  I listen to Lizzie’s recollections of what happened back home before they came here—how, admittedly, she and Meg both flew off the handle and how they’d freaked out when Kellan left them at Graham’s house so he could go look for Cora. Graham is still in California, worried sick about Lizzie, making her wonder how she can get around the whole “Don’t tell” rule so he can come to Annar, too. She ends up calling him twice during our conversation.

  Bored, Alex flips through television channels while Meg squeals at every other stop, declaring her love of each show and lamenting
each time he skips past her choices. “I love these two,” Lizzie says quietly, “but they are driving me bonkers. Thank gods I had Kellan to talk to for part of the day, when he wasn’t off doing Guard stuff.”

  I slide my eyes over to where Kellan and Jonah are talking with Karl and Iolani. They seem completely comfortable around each other, as if nothing has happened at all over the last few months.

  I wonder if I ought to go over there, too. I want to, because I want to be in the loop. But I also don’t want to highlight my awkwardness for all to see—or rather, feel. I wish I could control my emotions as easily as they do, that I could pretend everything is peachy and manage to do what’s needed without obsessing over the smallest details. But I can’t. So I stay where I am, sitting with my equally clueless Cousin, watching our two even more clueless Cousins squabble about what to watch on TV. This goes on for at least twenty more minutes before Zthane comes crashing through the door.

  Everyone stops talking as he surveys the room. His eyes settle on me. “Lilywhite. Good. Still here.”

  It’s Raul’s turn to burst into the room. “They’re five minutes out,” he yells, charging to the windows.

  “Who’s five minutes out?” Karl demands.

  Zthane joins Raul at the windows. “Annar’s boundaries have finally been breached, my friend. The Elders are here, and they’re on the warpath!”

  Chaos breaks out in the room. Meg goes hysterical. Lizzie is shaking in her boots. Everyone begins yelling, even Alex—everyone but me. There are a thousand questions floating above us, but the only answer that really matters is that the Elders are here, and it’s believed they are specifically here for me.

  This declaration from Zthane has Jonah by my side in a split second. “Come with me,” he says, and while everyone else is arguing, I’m taken down the hallway into a windowless room. Within two seconds, the Cousins run in, all three exhibiting terror in different stages. Finally, Kellan saunters in, locking the door behind him.