by Laury Falter
By the fourth one, I knew the Vires were under attack, and so did they.
Immediately, they split, one faction encircling me and the other half farther away, encircling Jameson. Although, I knew this wasn’t for our protection…it was to contain us while they fought off their attackers.
One by one, they came around again, this time colliding with the wall the Vires had formed. Only then did I get a look at them.
The focused determination of Theleo’s face darted in and out of view, then Eli's, and then my mother’s. Following were a mass of defectors who I had seen and spoken to over the past months, each one bent on bring Jameson and me back. But they weren’t the only ones coming to our defense. It wasn’t until I caught the distinct purple hue of a scarf being used around the neck of a Vire that I knew the Weatherfords and Caldwells were up here as well.
Now…I was terrified.
They shouldn’t have come, my mind screamed. They’re too vulnerable. I began clawing my way out of the Vires from the center. Taking the collar of the one directly in front of me, I heaved him backward. The momentum sent him flying past, but his arm extended and braced his fall against my chest, violently knocking the air from my lungs.
My body didn’t seem to function for several seconds, not until I drew in a staggered breath. It sounded hoarse in my ears, which frightened me.
With a roar this time, I heaved back another one, but he shoved me off, making me feel like I was fighting the weight of two men instead of one.
I was finally able to see Jameson. He was on the outside, working his way in and Theleo was by his side, levitating them both.
“Jameson!” I screamed across the chaos, and briefly, our eyes met, the translucent, clear green of them filling me with hope.
And then he was gone.
His entire body became immersed in the midst of a squirming cluster of Vires.
A raw fury burst through me, igniting the dull energy that had been laying dormant inside. I felt it come to life again in an explosion of pure determination driven outward from my core.
Suddenly, Vires began propelling to the side, flailing into the ones next to them and shoving them aside. A corridor formed through them, made by their disappearing bodies.
It was then I realized my actions no longer required the use of my hands. My focus was doing the job just fine.
One by one, their bodies flew from my path, until I reached the most crucial one. He had peered back at me before, just enough to let me know that he was levitating us, delivering us to Sartorius. As I flung him aside, and his body disappeared into the distance, I was freed.
With his incapacitation, several others were freed from his grasp, too, I noted as half the Vires dropped from the sky. Some recovered, but not many.
Jameson, I thought instantly and spun around in search of him.
Below me, through the sea of plummeting black uniforms, one stood out, his cloak fluttering against the wind. I rushed downward, dodging Vires and the defectors fighting them, approaching earth at a speed that would leave nothing of Jameson or me after the collision.
By the time I was able to discern the shapes of the expansive cypress trees, I knew I'd reached him. His eyelids were closed, concealing the brilliant green of them, and his mouth was slack.
Slowing our freefall, I lowered the two of us to a raised mound protruding from the murky bayou water, laying Jameson gently in the very center. Immediately, I placed my hand on his and leaned forward, over his unconscious body.
“Incantatio sana," I recited, my voice wavering from emotion.
When he didn’t move, I repeated my incantation, this time with more persistence. “Incantatio sana."
Even so, he remained still. There was no rise of his chest, no flutter of his eyelids, no twitch of his muscles. Slowly, I comprehended what this meant.
“Don’t…,” I whispered, noticing my hands beginning to tremble. “Don’t do this…”
Dread engulfed me.
“Incantatio sana,” I tried again.
My hand moved to his leg. “Incantatio sana."
Then to his unmoving chest. “Incantatio sana."
And then to his face, where the slack of his mouth told me that I was making no progress. Regardless, I said it again. “Incantatio sana."
“No!” I shouted. “You can’t go. Not you. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It’s not - It can’t be - This…this can’t be the end. Jameson, I’m…I’m not ready to let you go." His name came out guttural, choking in my throat. I swallowed, hard, and said it with a far steadier tone. “Jameson, we have a future together, and children. That’s what the records say. That’s the prophecy.”
I felt a wave of anger rush over me, barreling through my body with a force of its own. It swept up the last of my will and carried it away as I collapsed across Jameson’s chest, where the roll of his muscles felt strong and defenseless at the same time.
My own body went limp, every bit of emotion gushing through me moments ago was now gone. Only my fingertips seemed to have any vitality.
They curled around the edges of his cloak, pulling him closer to me.
“Don’t go.” My whispered plea drifted away, unacknowledged, as alone as I felt. “Don’t go…”
How long I stayed there, I couldn’t be sure. Time no longer existed for me. I knew, deep down, that it was passing, but it had no meaning. It was an inconsequential factor of being alive, like breathing in and out, like having conscious thought, like deliberate movement. But those were things I no longer valued or strived to preserve.
I understood now what he meant by a hollow existence without me, because this very feeling was gradually making its way over me, consuming me, absorbing every emotion I once had. The soothing smell of the bayou was gone. I no longer felt the cloth beneath my fingers. The muddy ground slowly taking in my knees where I knelt had become undetectable.
And then his arms slid around me, slowly exploring their way across my back.
“Jocelyn,” he exhaled,
My head jerked up.
“Jameson!”
I leaned across him, my face hovering over his. He looked confused, like he was struggling to clear his thoughts.
His next question showed how much he put me before himself. “Are you safe, sweetheart?”
“Me?” I laughed, sighing in amazement. “Yes, we’re both safe.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I was yanked backward, hands gripping my forearms so tightly that if any more pressure were applied, the bones would crack.
I twisted my head around, searching for who was behind me, who held me, who was violently separating me from Jameson. The sight of the moldavite stone pinned to the lapel made my heart begin to beat faster.
“Jocelyn!” Jameson’s voice raged across the water.
I swung my head back toward him but he was growing smaller by the second.
As I was carried away, my arms reached for him, struggling against the growing distance. He had already sprung to his feet and charged across the small island, into the water. But I was too far and too high and being taken from him too fast.
Overhead, dark figures in the shape of bodies plunged through the trees like spiders descending from their webs. They would consume Jameson in the next few seconds.
He was the last one I saw. His lips were open, still calling out to me, when the force slammed into my head. My vision faltered; my body went limp; and I slid into murky darkness.
19 PRISONER
The pounding in my head began the moment I regained consciousness.
It was unrelenting, hard, and excruciating, but it was nothing compared to the terror I felt when the image of Jameson’s face returned to me.
My eyes snapped open and the bayou was gone. There was no moss-draped trees, no shadowy water, no Vires descending to surround the one I love. There were only rocks protruding with sharp edges, and light flickering at odd intervals against them. Somewhere water trickled, but I couldn’t identify the source.
There was a pressure against my back telling me that I was laying on it; and it was probably what had awakened me. Sitting up, I avoided the sharp contours of the ground and surveyed wherever it was I had ended up.
I was enclosed in a cavern with no windows and seemingly no doors. Three torches burned, their flames licking the wall, stretching for the ceiling a good three stories overhead. One was positioned above me; the other two were spaced equally, several feet apart.
My first cognizant thought came and when it did, my chest tightened in fear: Jameson is in trouble.
If I had just held on tighter to him; if I had been more alert to what was behind me; if I had placed us down in a safer, more secluded spot…he would still be…
No, I can’t think that. I won’t think it. He has to be alive. He must be.
The abhorrent reality was that I had left him as he was struggling to regain his awareness and strength, just as eighty…ninety…one hundred Vires surrounded him, and there had been no help in sight.
I closed my eyes again, attempting to rid myself of the wave of remorse washing over me.
No, no, no! Even as I repeated this idea of rejection in my mind, I knew the vile, revolting truth.
I may have just…Oh no…I may have just carried out my…Nooo.
My consciousness warred against itself, pulling in two different directions: one trying to convince me to accept the reality of what I had just caused and one refusing to believe it.
These thoughts, along with a jumbled mass of others, collided together until I scattered them with a shake of my head.
Only one resurfaced, the one I had been trying to subdue all along…
I may have just carried out my birthright.
A terrible force gripped me then, as if massive fingers had dug in and curled around my gut. Squirming against the pain, I didn’t try to end it. I deserved it, after what I had done. But the pain was fleeting and my thoughts returned.
I had been the one who dropped Jameson on the muddy island, the one who hadn’t brought him back to the village, the one who had left the area unsecured, the one who hadn’t held on tight enough when we were ripped apart.
If he was dead, I was certainly the reason.
Without thought, I rolled to my side and tucked into a ball, wrapping my legs around my knees and pulling them close.
Take me, I prayed to whoever was listening. Take me now. Take me. Take me. Please take me. Please. Please. Pleeeeeeease.
My throat closed shut, blocking the life force of air, and I welcomed it. But it turned out to be only a sob and disappointment overwhelmed me.
Then a voice came through the darkness. “Are you awake?”
It rattled me to my core.
“Hey,” it came again through the darkness, more persistently and demanding. “Are you awake yet?”
Jolted, I reopened my eyes. They were adjusting to the shadows now. I could make out cell bars closest to the torch flames. There were three in all…three torches for three cells.
“Yes,” I croaked, my voice sounding hoarse. Clearing my throat, I repeated it more firmly. “Yes.”
I wasn’t alone. Judging by the sound of it, there was a girl in here with me.
“Then get up,” she insisted.
I did, rubbing the back of my head where I had been hit, where the pain intensified after standing. I staggered to the bars and touched them. They were cold and solid but made of rock as well.
Through the shadows, I saw only her outline, her face remained indistinguishable. She was short, with wavy hair and squared, defiant shoulders.
“Yes, I thought so,” she mused. “It’s about time. You’ve been down here for days without moving. I was starting to wonder if you were dead.”
“Down here?” I muttered.
“Yes,” she replied. “Do you remember how you were brought? Do you recall any landmarks? Rivers, roads, cities, anything at all?”
I started shaking my head but stopped. The pain began to pulse harder. “No, I-I was knocked out.”
She sighed through her teeth in disappointment. “That seems to be the preferred delivery method.”
“Where are we?”
“Well, I was hoping you could tell us that. It’s why I was asking. If we knew, we could get out.”
“We could?”
“Yeah,” she muttered, but didn’t elaborate. I couldn’t figure out if she was joking or not, but she sounded sincere.
Wondering if I had an insane person in the cell next to me, I asked, “Who are you?”
“Maggie,” she replied, simply, and turned to sit down.
Hearing the name, I moved closer, squinting through the dark at her. “Maggie?” Her voice began to seem familiar to me. “Maggie Tanner?”
“Yes,” she said, curiously, turning back to face me.
“Do you go to The Academy of the Immaculate Heart, Maggie?”
She moved forward through the shadows and into the dim light of my torch. As she materialized, I first saw the wavy hair and then the wide eyes set against her petite features. They were weighed down right now by the furrowing of her eyebrows. Apparently, she was just as baffled to see me. “Jocelyn Weatherford?” she mumbled. “What are you doing here?”
“I was just wondering the same thing about you….”
She laughed under her breath. “I’d say I’m a prisoner, the same as you.”
“How long have you been in this place?”
“Days…weeks…,” she sighed, listlessly shrugging her shoulders. “Whenever the ministry was attacked.”
I blinked back my surprise. “I didn’t know you were from our world.” Thinking back, she’d never been in any evening classes at Ms. Veilleuxes school, and Jameson, the Caldwells, and my cousins never mentioned the connection.
“I’m not,” she clarified with a sigh, returning to take a seat against the bars and face the back wall. She laughed quietly at a secret joke she didn’t bother to share. “Not quite.”
“I don’t understand what that means,” I stated, honestly.
Taking time to consider her reply, she explained, “The Sevens are as much my enemy as they are yours.”
“I don't-I don’t understand.”
“The Sevens want me dead. I’m assuming they have some kind of ill intention with you, too, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“You assume correctly,” I said with disdain, although it wasn’t directed at her.
Time passed before we spoke again and I drew in a sharp breath, just as I began to piece together the details.
“You’re the ally Peregrine talked about at the truce.”
“They offered you a truce?” she asked, astounded, and then quickly recovered. “Don’t believe it.”
“We never did.”
“Smart.”
More fragments were assembling now that I understood who she was. “You said you have been here since the ministry was attacked. Were you involved?”
She hesitated and then disclosed the truth. “I was part of the assault.”
I gasped again. “That’s why you haven’t been in school?” It was more of a statement than a question.
“The perils of warfare,” she mumbled. “No school. No peace. No Eran.” The sound of her boyfriend’s name cut through the air, carrying an overwhelming sadness. She took a moment to recover before changing the subject. “Anyway, it hasn’t been nearly as long as Kalisha.”
I didn’t hear the name at first, my mind refusing to believe it. Then it worked its way in and the recognition literally froze me to the cell bars I still held.
“Kalisha?” I whispered, tentatively.
I expected Maggie to respond but another voice came across the cells. It was farther away, toward the one that held the third lit torch.
“I am here.”
Those three words pierced my heart, one sharp stab for each utterance.
She walked to the faded light along the edge of her confinement and my breath locked in my chest. She was tall, he
r movements graceful, and she had the look of an African princess. There was a gentleness to her, possibly in the way she carried herself or the in the gaze that hadn’t moved from me. She would have been innocent had The Sevens not taken her and converted her for their use. We might even have been friends…in another fictitious, and far simpler, life.
I stared back, finishing my appraisal of her, hoping I was correct. In conclusion, I realized just who this woman was to me and the rest of our world.
Here was the one who Jameson and I had been searching for, the one who eluded us – because she had never been available to us at all. She had been locked inside this rock prison – for far longer than Maggie by her estimation. Now, she was a few feet from me…the carrier of information on what was to come, the key to winning the coming war.
I had so many questions, holes to fill, links to piece together. I began to call out to her when a grating noise stopped me. A movement along the wall next to Kalisha’s cell caught our attention.
The torches flickered and then erupted into far greater flames, illuminating the entire tiny room where we were being kept. The only break in the stone ceiling, floor, or walls was the black gap from which Sartorius appeared.
Dressed in an elegant suit and carrying his walking stick topped with the massive moldavite stone, he strolled into the room, arrogant, snide, and at complete peace with the situation we all found ourselves in.
I wanted so badly to have taken possession of my final ability – the one used to control the elements – that it tasted metallic in my mouth, for I would set that suit on fire right now.
“Welcome, Jocelyn,” he said, making a wide berth around Maggie’s cell to reach mine. I paid particular attention to this because when the door opened, Maggie had nearly sprinted to the cell bars when she should have been retreating.
“Grandfather,” I replied tersely.
Both Maggie and Kalisha turned their heads in my direction but didn’t say anything. I could only imagine what they were thinking. Traitor, possibly on both sides of the line.
“I hope you’ll find everything to your liking,” he commented, sweeping his hand across the barren, rocky cell.