by Kat Adams
I decided to test the waters. “You know, I love what you’ve done with the place. It’s been, what, like a couple of months you’ve been trapped here?”
“Time has lost its meaning to me.” She glanced out the opening, staring at the water.
Nice way to dodge the question. What happened to counting the days by the setting of the sun? I needed to ask her something only Cressida would know. “I never asked you. Do you like the new roof? Do you remember why we rebuilt it?”
She lifted her gaze. “The Ides of March. There was a great battle. Many died.”
“Uh, no. Well, aside from some body parts and a few future aspirations.” I thought of Julie Bailey and her future with Alec. Nothing good could come from joining forces with the wrong side. I thought of how I’d shattered Alec’s hand before sending him over the cliff. I thought of how we’d all nearly died that night, how we thought we’d lost Rob, and we would have had Cressida not been there to save him. “You were there. You know what happened.”
“I know what happened,” she repeated.
I studied her closely, looking for anything off. Could Cressida have possessed my mom? Or vice versa? Could that be why this woman standing before me resembled one person but acted like the other?
“You saved Rob’s life.”
She jerked her attention to me as she lost what little smile she had. “I did?” She quickly turned away. “I did.”
“Okay, what’s really going on? If this is you, Sammie, pretending to be Cressida, it’s not funny.”
She kept her head down for a very long pause. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, Katy. I’m forgetting who I am. Forgetting things I’ve done. I can’t remain in this form much longer.”
Okay, that sounded exactly like something Cressida would say. A tiny dash of relief washed over me. Maybe this was all in my fogged-up head. I’d been so stressed out these past few weeks that I finally snapped. That was a way better explanation than my mom dressing up in robes and pretending to be the academy’s founder.
I relaxed and took a seat on one of the giant square stones half imbedded into the ground. “Do you know how to make a ward?”
“I do.”
“Can you teach me?”
“Why? You’ve already created one,” she pointed out.
I stiffened, keeping my expression hidden behind a shroud of red hair. If I looked at her right now, I’d give myself away. I never told Cressida about the ward. The only people who knew I’d created one were the guys…
And my mom.
This wasn’t Cressida Clearwater. This was my own mother trying to trick me into thinking she was the academy’s founder. Why? What purpose could she possibly have by doing this? She couldn’t visit with me as my mom? She had to pretend to be the one person I confided in more than the guys?
“I have to go.” I jumped to my feet.
“Now? You just got here.” She moved forward, blocking me from leaving.
My heart rate spiked. Was she trying to stop me? To what lengths would she go to keep me here? Would I have to battle my own mom to escape? Maybe I should just teleport out, but knowing my luck and how upset I still was over her attacking me at the jetty, I’d probably land somewhere inside the void.
I’d have to leave the Nelem way and stepped around her. “I have to finish homework.”
She blocked me again, her hands up. “When will you be back?”
I dropped my gaze to her palms. They were covered in filth. That was when I noticed the scratches on her arms. “What happened? Why are you so dirty? What’s with the cuts?”
“You can’t leave.”
“Why not?” I slapped her hands away.
She didn’t like that and hit me with a blast of air that sent me rolling. Cressida would never assault me, so that convinced me. This was definitely my mom.
And she’d just attacked me. Again.
“What are you doing?” I rose to my feet, my hands at the ready. My palm began to throb, which was never a good sign. It only acted up when my darkness tried to break free.
She hit me with more air, sending me flying to the other side of the ruins, close to the opening by the cliff. I threw a burst of air right back at her, slamming her against a wall. “Stop it! Mom!”
She ignored me and lifted her arms into the air. The giant square stones imbedded in the ground all began to tremble. Two of the bigger ones broke free and moved toward me, pushing me that much closer to the ledge.
“Time for you to go, quint.” She threw her arms forward and sent earth debris barreling toward me. Sharp rocks sliced at my exposed skin. Leaves caked over my face, covering my eyes and mouth. I fought against my own primary now attacking me, calling earth to steal her call.
It didn’t work. The throbbing in my palm increased, sending the cold up my arm. I didn’t fight it, instead allowing it to consume me. Since my primary element wasn’t strong enough to counter hers, I’d have to resort to the one element inside me that would.
More rocks joined the fight, hitting me in the chest and forcing me to the ledge.
My mom spoke from somewhere in the chaos, and I heard her as if she delivered the message in her icy tone right in my ear. “I am the prophecy. The one and only. The supreme elemental. Only one stands in my way.”
I went flying over the cliff and plummeted hard, the rocks weighing me down. The deafening wind rushed by as I fell and blew the leaves from my face. Oh, shit. The rocks at the bottom of the cliff were coming up fast.
Calling on the darkness inside me, centering the cold energy at my core, I used it to power a blast of air that slowed my descent. I stopped inches from being impaled on a rock.
Panting in fear and disbelief, I hovered there for several seconds as I processed what the hell happened. My mom had just tried to kill me. Holy shit show. My mom. The woman who’d given me life had just tried to end it.
I carefully lowered myself to the ground and lifted my gaze to the top of the cliff. It was too far away too see if she stood up there, peeking over the side. Which meant she couldn’t see me either.
I had two choices. I could lift myself back up to the ruins and continue to battle my mom. Or I could teleport to Stace and tell her my mom had gone dark. She’d know what to do. I definitely liked my second option better than the first.
My mind made up, I popped out to find Stace.
20
I hated her. I literally hated my own mother. There, I said it. Well, thought it. She’d caused me nothing but angst since she’d returned. I’d forgotten all the crazy things she used to do as I grew up, crazy mean things that used to confuse the hell out of me and made me and my dad walk on eggshells around her. We never knew which Samantha Reed we’d get day by day. One day, she’d want to spend the afternoon gardening together. The next day, she’d scream at me for touching her garden and lock me in my room. That time she’d taken me to the park and left me there. The few times she’d convinced me that monsters were real, and one lived under my bed. All the times she’d made me feel like I would have been better off if I’d leave and never come back.
Since I didn’t, she did.
Until now, when she’d returned, endlessly torturing me, and had just tried to kill me.
You’re definitely not winning Mom of the Fucking Year, woman.
Stace didn’t answer my text, so I dialed her and brought the phone to my ear. It was about to go to voicemail when she answered. “Katy? Where are you?” She sounded frantic, her response clipped, tight.
“I’m looking for you. I need to tell you something.”
“Oh, Katy.” Did she just choke as she said my name? “I wish you would have come to me first.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know what happened.”
“You do? So, you know my mom is dark?”
“Oh, Katy.”
I wished she’d stop saying that. “Stace, tell me what’s going on.”
“Sweetie, when the Council comes for you—”<
br />
“What?” I cried and glanced around, easily spotting the wall of men in black four-deep marching toward me. “Why would the Council come for me?”
“Don’t fight them, Katy. Don’t make this any worse. I’ll come to see you as soon as I can.” She ended the call.
I turned to run and spotted more Council members approaching from the opposite direction. I’d have to teleport. That was my only chance to escape.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Rob popped in behind me and hooked me by the waist. As much as I tried to teleport, his call blocked mine, forcing me to stay. “Calm down, Reed. Running is only going to confirm their suspicions.” He leaned closer, whispering in my ear. “I told you telling Stace about that ward was a bad idea.”
“What are you talking about? What’s going on?” I punched at his hands and elbowed him in the ribs, earning an oof as the air whistled out of his lungs. “Let me go. I didn’t do anything.”
“Katy Reed!” Albert Stephens bellowed as he led the pack to my left. The pack to my right, led by Unibrow, didn’t look any happier to see me. Stephens nodded at Unibrow, who stepped forward and slipped something cold and hard around my neck, snapping it in place with a triumphant smile on her pixie bitch face.
My strength immediately drained, and I collapsed in Rob’s arms, unable to hold myself up. What the hell did that bitch just do to me? I reached for the metal ring, yanking at it, but it wasn’t going anywhere. The light radiating off it sank into me, robbing me of energy. My whole body turned to rubber as if the contraption removed my bones.
“Thank you, Mr. Emmett. You may go.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” Rob argued and held me tighter. “I stop her from escaping, you let me sit in on the hearing.”
“Step aside or be tried with her.”
“I’m not leaving her.” He squared his shoulders.
“Then so be it.”
“Let him stay,” a familiar female voice stated above the crowd. The men in black parted, and out walked my mom, her cool gaze focused on me. She had bruises on her face that weren’t there when she’d attacked me, and she now walked with a limp. She’d changed from the robes into a fancy black suit and had her chestnut hair pulled back, revealing more bruises on her neck. “She needs help. Maybe he’ll get through to her. I tried, and she attacked me. My own daughter attacked me.” She buried her face in her hands.
Oh, pahleez.
“You’ve got that backward, Sammie. It wasn’t ten minutes ago you tossed me off the cliff at the ruins.”
“I was trying to get through to you. You kept calling me Cressida.”
“As in Cressida Clearwater?” Stephens butted in. “The founder of the academy? She died back in the 1600s.”
Telling them I could see her, talk to her, and confided in her on a regular basis would only make me seem even crazier, so I remained silent.
“Do you see her now?” Sammie—I’d never refer to her as my mom again after today—asked gently, like the question itself needed special handling.
I narrowed my glare with burning precision and pushed out of Rob’s arms. My knees wobbled but held me. “Don’t patronize me. You and I both know what really happened. I didn’t attack you. I defended myself.”
“You kept saying that,” she said through a sob and covered her mouth with her hand as her eyes swelled with tears. “That you just wanted your title back and would stop at nothing to get it.”
“I never said that!”
“You’re just so angry.”
Oh, she had no idea. “When someone’s trying to kill me, yeah. I tend to get a little pissed off. It was you who attacked me down at the jetty, wasn’t it? Didn’t kill me there, so you thought you’d come to the ruins to finish the job?”
“Would you listen to yourself? You’re being paranoid. No one is trying to kill you. We’re trying to help you.”
“I’m sure a few years in Carcerem will calm her down,” Unibrow offered. If I didn’t have this weird metal ring around my neck emitting a light that drained me, I would have already set her on fire.
“No,” Sammie and I said at the same time. She went on. “She just needs some help. The attacks on the students. The attack on me. The counter ward.” She fake sobbed into her hand.
Wait. So, the counter ward…really was a counter ward? Hell to the fuck no would she pin that on me. “You mean the ward you created by my hand while I had my eyes closed?”
“You’re just confused.”
“I’m not confused. I’m pissed off. There’s a difference.”
“It’s a cry for help. Please, baby. Please let us help you.” She extended her arm. I backed into Rob.
“Accept the help,” he whispered in my ear, keeping his lips immobile. “We’ll get this figured out, Reed. I promise. Just let them think you’re accepting their help.”
Sammie eyed the way Rob had his arm around my midsection and hardened her expression. There was something about him she definitely didn’t like. Maybe it was the way he’d protect me to the death instead of try and cause it, unlike her. I had to trust he and the other guys had a plan to get me out of this shithole I’d dug for myself.
“My brain is all fuzzy.” At least that wasn’t a total lie. I was sure the contraption around my freakin’ neck didn’t help.
“I was afraid the pressure of being the prophecy would be too much to put on a child,” Stephens stated.
Who was he calling a child? I was almost twenty-two, for Christ’s sake. I drew in a breath to tell him where to stick his comment when Rob tightened his hold around my waist.
“Now that our rightful prophecy has hunted down and destroyed the counter ward, the professors can create new wards and return the barrier to full strength.”
Rightful prophecy? Was he kidding with that statement? The only rightful thing I’d seen her do was beat the snot out of herself to really sell her lie.
Sammie approached. I stepped out of Rob’s hold and met her halfway. We were close to the same height, her only being an inch or so taller, and locked gazes. She went first. “This is the only way.”
“I agree.”
Her smile faltered. Mine didn’t.
“Katy, please understand. Sometimes you have to make tough choices when you’re in a position of power.”
I continued to stare.
“Well, Sammie?” Stephens said. “What do you suggest?”
She returned her attention to me and studied me for an uncomfortable pause. I kept my glare nailed to her. No way was I letting her win this staring contest. “Let’s have the healer look at her. Maybe muting her powers will help stabilize her mind. Once we determine the right medication, we’ll remove the elemutus.”
Wait. She wanted to put me back on medication? Because that had worked out so well the last time when she’d convinced me I had some rare disease and kept me stoned for a decade.
“I’ll take her to the infirmary,” Rob offered and took my arm.
Sammie took my other arm. “I’ll go with you. We can’t have one of her boyfriends letting her go, now can we?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He forced a hard grin and popped us out. We landed in the waiting room of the infirmary, where Syd was already waiting with Stace.
As soon as the two women spotted each other, I swear I heard the hissing and low growls announcing the beginning of a cat fight. Sammie released my arm and retreated several feet as Stace stepped forward, her arm outstretched.
“This way.” She went for Sammie, who shuffled out of her reach.
“I, uh… I need to confirm the barrier has been restored.”
“You need to be examined,” Stace countered. “Those are some nasty bruises. How did you get them, exactly?”
She eyed me. I dropped my jaw and drew in a breath to deny her silent accusation, but Stace beat me to it.
“Katy did that to you? She beat you with her bare hands?” She grasped my wrists and held up my hands, examining them, paying extra attention to my right palm. She the
n moved my arms this way and that. “How’d you get all these scratches?”
I glared at Sammie, who shrugged as if to say go ahead. Telling them what happened would only confirm we’d battled, which wouldn’t help my situation. “I fell.” A couple hundred feet.
“Into a thornbush?”
“I’m fine,” I grumbled and took my hands back.
“It’s interesting,” Stace went on as she brought her attention back to Sammie. “She doesn’t have any matching bruises on her hands.”
“Now you’re a healer?”
She forced a smile. “As the 3C professor here at the academy, it’s my job to keep watch over our students. When I see something, I say something.”
The condescending expression on Sammie’s face sent her eyebrows up. “Your job as the 3C professor does not give you the right to question me.”
“Perhaps not.” She waited until Sammie grinned triumphantly before delivering the final blow I knew was coming. “My job as the assistant headmistress does.”
The smile slid from her face. “You’re second-in-command here?”
“I am. Dean Carter felt it prudent to have more than one person in a position of authority at Clearwater as additional protection over our students.”
I so wanted to fist bump Stace right now.
“Well, I’ll just leave you to it.” Sammie hurried to the door before regarding Syd. “Healer, make sure to leave the elemutus on until I say otherwise.”
Syd nodded in acknowledgment. She left.
“Healer?” He shook his head and removed his glasses to clean them on his shirt. “She lived in my infirmary. We talked multiple times. She knows my name.”
Stace stepped forward. “There’s not much time. Rob, you stay here and keep watch. Any Council members show up, you stall them.” She ushered me through Syd’s office and into the same examination room I’d been in after returning from the warehouse.