by Kat Adams
Four sets of hands found me, resting on my shoulders, my arms, hands, and hips. My guys pulled me into a group hug. They didn’t push their control to me. They didn’t have to. Just their touch was enough to center me.
“You’re never alone, babe.”
“Montana, you know better than to think we’d let you have all the fun.”
“I should take you over my knee for saying something like that, Reed.”
“Katy?” Bryan squeezed my shoulder. “We are all here. That includes Cressida. I feel her. She’s not going to let you do this alone. None of us are.”
I nodded and pulled in a cleansing breath. I could do this. I could confront my mother, out her as the dark elemental she was, and get her sent to prison—or worse—and still be able to sleep at night.
“This way.” Clay, dressed surprisingly nice in a tie and slacks, led us to the entrance of the tent party. He waved for us to enter first. “If you’d like me to announce you, you’re out of luck. I may be stuck working the party, but I draw the line at presenting guests. What are we, royalty? Wait, we are royalty, so maybe…”
Grateful he still had a sense of humor in all this, I leaned against him. “I love you, you crazy air elemental.”
He beamed, grinning so wide, his back teeth showed as he regarded the other guys. His brilliant green gaze danced. “She loves me. You all heard that, right? You heard her say it. You totally heard that, right?” He laughed and kissed my cheek. “Go get ’em, Montana.”
“Here we go.”
As soon as I stepped into the tent, every set of eyes riveted to me. The entire scene went deafeningly still as even the soft music suddenly fell silent. My heart shot to my throat, and I tightened my grip on Rob’s arm.
He tightened his right back. “You got this, Reed.”
I got this. I got this. I got this. I chanted that as we walked deeper into the tent, not stopping until Rob delivered me to the one currently holding the title of prophecy. I kept my head down, hiding my eyes and submitting—well, pretending to submit—to her.
“Katy,” Sammie stated softly. “I’m so glad you came. Let me look at you.”
I lifted my head and regarded her, taking my time memorizing everything about her. She had on a gold gown with countless pleats in the long skirt, a strap over the right shoulder with a large flower on the shoulder made of the same shimmery material. Her hair, high in a beehive do accented by a gorgeous tiara—yes, an actual diamond crown—made her look far more elegant and sophisticated than I’d ever be.
“My daughter. How are you feeling?”
Like I want to throat punch you, you traitorous witch. I swallowed down what I really wanted to say. “Better.”
“Oh, my baby. You’ve been through so much. It’s no wonder you attacked me. I represent everything you’re not.”
You got that right. I dropped my gaze again before she caught the hatred burning in my eyes. “I’m definitely not you,” I muttered.
“What was that?”
Dial it back. “I just mean I can’t compete.” I nodded at her ball gown. “You make the prophecy look…” like a joke “…glamorous.”
“Oh, this.” She lit up at the compliment. “The Council insisted I dress the part. They said it was nice to have a prophecy take it seriously for a change.” She widened her eyes as if realizing what she’d just said. “Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry. I completely forgot they meant you.”
Yeah, that’s the exact opposite of how I took it. “I understand. This sort of life suits you way better than me.” I left it there, letting her pick the meaning. I knew what I meant. Judging by the forced smile on her face, she knew what I meant as well.
“Why don’t we get something to drink?”
“I’m good.” I stepped back when she attempted to touch me.
It made her pause, studying me. “What’s gotten into you? Isn’t the elemutus working?”
“It mutes my powers, not my emotions.” Those were all over the map at the moment.
“Katybug—”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped.
She stiffened. As she drew in a breath to say something, probably to have the guards seize me or something to that effect, Leo suddenly appeared by my side, as per our plan. “There you are.” Although he put his arm around my waist, he addressed Sammie. “I was hoping to find you.”
“Leo.” Sammie pulled him into a wildly inappropriate hug, her hands wandering up and down his back. If one of those hands dipped any lower than his waistline, she’d lose it at the wrist. “How are you feeling?”
“A little hot,” he mused and offered a shaky grin. Dear God, he was cute as hell, and Sammie lapped it up. I heated on the inside and had to curl my hands into fists, digging my short nails into my palms to stop myself from setting them both on fire.
“I’ll say,” she purred.
Gross. My mother just hit on my boyfriend. And grosser than gross, Leo responded with a coy grin and a quick glance my way. “Maybe we should, you know, take this somewhere else.”
Sammie lit up. “I thought you’d never ask.”
This was excruciating. And nauseating. Having to stand here and witness my mom flirt with Leo and him flirt right back was more torturous than any battle with the dark side. Dear God, please let this work.
Showtime.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I shouted as Leo and Sammie walked away. I can do this. “I said, where do you think you’re going?”
“Katy?” Leo pushed Sammie behind him, bringing his arm up. “Hold on. It’s not what you think.”
“What? That I haven’t even been out of the picture a week and you sneak off with my replacement? She’s not me, Leo.”
Just as we’d expected, she pushed him out of the way and faced me. “No, Katy. I’m not. I’m better than you.”
I can do this. I can do this. “Not from where I stand.”
“Do you really think this is the smart move? Challenging me challenges the prophecy.”
“That’s exactly what I hoped you’d say.” I lifted into the air, courtesy of my element.
Sammie’s jaw dropped as she pointed. “How are you doing that? You’re wearing an elemutus.”
“Some powers are greater than a contraption created to mute an elemental.”
She hit me with a bolt of lightning so energized, it caused me to fall to the ground from the surge of electricity. Oh, the pain. So, so much pain. I’d just been electrocuted and smelled singed…well…me.
At once, half a dozen men in black surrounded me. They parted to allow Sammie to approach and kneel next to me. I couldn’t move as someone held me down with an invisible airfield.
Dammit. The plan didn’t work. She was supposed to attack me and monologue, giving away her grand scheme in front of everyone. Maybe that only happened in the comics.
My guys closed in, our backup plan in case the original plan didn’t work. Which, clearly since I was now on the ground and trapped under an airfield, Sammie remaining silent, had failed.
She reached down and unfastened the elemutus to examine it. After several seconds, she stated loudly enough for the crowd’s benefit, “Guess we need to be more selective on who we trust.” She held up the metal ring. “Who removed the real elemutus and replaced it with this?”
Her gaze traced the crowd. “Find the 3C professor. She’s behind this.”
“No need,” Stace said as she appeared at the entrance, her dark hair pulled back tight in a bun, her fancy black suit a reminder she was also a member of the Council. “I’m right here.”
“And here,” she said as another one of her appeared on the opposite side of the tent.
“And over here,” she said again, this time to the left.
“Don’t forget me,” another one of her said, this one to the right.
Four Stacey Laydens? How’d she do that?
“What sort of sorcery is this?” Albert Stephens asked, his voice shaking as he backed away.
“Dark magic
,” Sammie declared and addressed the crowd. “She’s dark. Just as I suspected.”
“Astral projection is simply a form of magic,” Stace explained in four-part harmony. They all moved in unison, which was a little creepy, I wasn’t going to lie. “You should know, Samantha. You’re the one who taught me how to tap into the magic inside me. You were a great teacher. Perhaps you’d be willing to take a position here at the academy and teach others.”
What the actual what? How did I not know that? And why did she choose now of all times to drop that monumental bomb? I caught Rob coming up on my left, Bryan on my right. That meant Clay was about to drop in right behind her. On cue, he did exactly that, unannounced. We all exchanged the same shocked glances. None of them knew the connection between my mom and Stacey Layden until now.
“Teaching is for those who cannot do,” Sammie spouted in a tone puffed with attitude.
Several professors shouted out in protest. I completely agreed. Teaching wasn’t a backup. It was an art form. The ones who knew how to lead the next generation, those were the real heroes, if you asked me. I hated the woman even more for discounting such a noble profession.
Stace brought up her hands to quiet the crowd and broadcast just as if she were on the training field holding a tribunal, all four of her voices echoing off the walls of the large tent. “The prophecy has spoken. Professors, for those of you who agree that teaching is for those who cannot do, please resign your post immediately.”
Not one of them moved.
Sammie glanced around, frowning when not one professor stepped forward to side with her. “Challenging me directly challenges the Council.”
“Then I’m directly challenging the Council.” Professor Dobbs, the Advanced Elemental instructor in a bow tie, his eyes hidden behind bottle-bottom glasses, broke free from the crowd.
“As am I.” Professor Anderson, the fire primary instructor with the terrible dye job, soon followed.
Professor Geoff Gallen—GG—joined her. “Ditto.”
Professor after professor combined forces, standing against the prophecy. This…I hadn’t anticipated. Had Stace done this? Had she rallied the troops in case our plan to take down Samantha Reed failed?
Sammie rolled her eyes and addressed the crowd, turning in a circle, the jewels in her crown catching the light as she moved. “Oh, please. Do any of you think you’re a match for the prophecy?”
“No.” Professor Fowler, the rotund shop instructor who’d taught me how to control my light elemental as well as serving as my very first faculty advisor, stepped forward.
She smiled triumphantly.
“But you’re not the real prophecy,” he added.
“What did you just say?” She glared at him and slowly approached. He thrust out his chin as she stopped in front of him. “Are you challenging me?”
“I suppose I am.”
“Stand down. This is your one and only warning.”
“Sammie, perhaps—” Stephens stopped abruptly when she brought up her hand, her attention never leaving Fowler.
She tilted her head as she studied the professor, who refused to back down.
Damn, I didn’t know he had it in him.
“I won’t stand down to the likes of you.”
“Well, then.” She turned from him. But then she whipped around, her arm extended, and hit him with a blast of air, knocking him to the ground. She opened the ground beneath him, dropping him into a deep hole. It swallowed him and closed up again as if it’d never appeared.
“Professor Fowler!” I raced to the spot and called the earth to open up and release him. It wouldn’t listen. “Bryan!”
He appeared at my side. We joined hands, combining our powers. The professors with the power to call earth circled the spot and did the same. Even then, it wasn’t enough to call the earth to spit him back out. Her call was too strong. How was that possible with this many elementals calling on earth to answer? I swallowed my panic and kept trying. I swear centuries ticked by, and still, the earth wouldn’t release him.
“Stand back.” Professor Groote pushed us aside and created a shovel out of roots, using it to dig him out. When the top of Professor Fowler’s head appeared, Groote and another professor reached in and pulled Fowler out of the hole. Dirt clogged his nose, mouth, covered his eyes. A thin layer clung to his ashen skin.
Syd rushed forward and checked for a pulse. He then placed his hands on Fowler’s chest and called light. I dropped to my knees next to him and did the same.
Nothing happened.
I increased my call. The professors surrounding us all backed away, some staggering as the power of our combined element hit them. Still, nothing happened.
“Syd?” I whimpered.
He rested his hand on my arm and lowered his head. “He’s gone.”
No. No! Not Professor Fowler. He did nothing wrong. He didn’t deserve to die for standing up for what’s right.
I whipped around to face her, this woman I now realized I never knew. I now realized I was nothing like. “You killed him.”
She straightened, perfectly poised, as if on stage in the middle of a performance. “He turned against the Council. You all saw that. This is what happens when you make the wrong choice. We can’t have that sort of dissention, especially among the professors of the academy.” She met each and every gaze of the remaining professors. It was a clear warning, one they all took seriously as they stood down.
All but Stacey Layden.
The three projected Stace’s disappeared, leaving the real 3C professor addressing the prophecy. “You could have locked him inside a cage of roots or trapped him in an airfield. Instead, you chose to kill him. How…interesting. And illegal. Being the prophecy doesn’t excuse you from breaking the law.”
Sammie jerked her attention to several Council members as they faced her.
“Wait.” She brought up her hands. “I’m making this world a better place by ridding it of the doubters. The tainted.”
“The dilutes?” I asked as I stood.
“Exactly.” She nodded enthusiastically. “Dilutes are unnatural. Abominations to our kind.”
“I’m a dilute. You chose to marry a Nelem and have a kid.” I motioned to myself. “That’s not the kid’s fault.”
She smiled, which was…unsettling. “Ask the ones in Carcerem whose fault it is.”
Wait. What? I’d never put it together until now. Here I’d thought those magically enhanced all had magic in them. I never thought it had anything to do with their lineage. “You convinced the Council to call out any elemental not a pure.”
“Who do you think has been magically enhancing all the dilutes? It’s surprising, really, that you never put that together.”
Oh my God. Oh my God! My mother was pure, unadulterated evil. And batshit crazy. “Why would you do that? They’re just innocent kids.”
She shrugged. “I did what I had to do to keep our world pure.”
“Include destroying your own bloodline? That’s why you were so disappointed that I passed my tribunal. I’m your daughter!”
She shrugged again. “You are only one.” She rolled her eyes. “You aren’t the only one.”
Holy fartnarking shit mammas. Did she just admit to having other kids? Did I have siblings?
“I can’t believe…” I didn’t know what else to say.
“What? That I had a life outside of the Nelem world with you and your Nelem father?” She laughed, the sound shrill and unsettling. “Yes, I do. I have a family, one that doesn’t include an undisciplined dilute. A daughter I can actually be proud of, one who doesn’t talk to someone who’s been dead for centuries. One who’d know not to use light when trapped inside a stone barrier.”
Now she monologued.
I was about to collapse in on myself, giving in to the pity party building inside me, until she’d said that. Only those inside the ruins knew I’d called light and had shorted out everyone else that night. Since I knew for a fact she hadn’t been th
ere, there was only one other explanation.
She had to have known someone who’d been there.
Busted.
“How’d you know that?” I asked, suddenly keen and totally tuned in to her reaction.
She laughed off my question. When I didn’t share in her jubilee, she dropped the act. “It’s not a secret what happened at the ruins the last Ides of March.”
“Actually,” Albert Stephens said as he moved in. “It is. The Council has never made that information public.”
“I…” She trailed off and backed away from the men in black advancing. “I…” She suddenly stopped and completely changed her demeanor from defensive to calm and collected. Completely in control, as if she’d expected this to happen all along, or at least had a backup plan in case it did. “I guess it’s time. Boys?”
In a belch of black smoke, no doubt for dramatic effect, Alec von Leer and Spencer Dalton popped it. Not only that, the comb-over dude from the first day of tribunals suddenly popped in next to Alec, and then Unibrow popped in next to Spencer. What the holy hell was going on?
Alec squared in on me. “I told you I could take you to your mother.”
“Still a hard pass, mother fu—”
“And you clearly know what I am,” Spencer added. “No bother hiding it. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.” He bowed. “I am what you’ve believed to be extinct.”
“A dinofuckasaurus?” I snorted at my own joke.
“A leecher,” he answered, glaring at me. “There are several of us remaining.”
I darted a glance at the guys, confirming they’d all picked up that interesting little tidbit.
“Well, that’s just peachy,” I finally answered. “You guys want to line up single file to Carcerem? Or would you rather have a personal invite? We have options.”
“I’d rather we coexist with the side willing to accept us for who we are.”
I laughed long and hard. And then laughed again, wiping tears from my eyes. I attributed the waterworks to my completely misplaced humor and not any of the other unsettling alternatives, like my own mother running point on the dark side’s attempt to take over the world. Like her trying to completely destroy me to elevate her to the top.