The wind dies and the curtains fall still.
The smell of blood hits me.
“Fleur!” I blink, struggling to make out her shape in the dark as I scramble toward her.
Black beads trickle down the frost on her arms, smearing the pale sleeves of the Guard’s uniform as she slides down the wall. One of the Guards jerks me back by my hair.
Another Guard taps her transmitter. “Target secured,” she says thickly, frowning as she wipes blood from her nose. “Ready for transport. Bring us home.” A spark ignites on another Guard’s palm, the hot white flame carving her features out of the dark.
“Lixue?” We were Winters together once, years ago, before she became one of Michael’s Guards. I narrow my eyes, unable to understand why she’s here, in my house. Why they’re hurting Fleur. Lyon was supposed to have disbanded the old Guard. He was supposed to have stripped them of their magic already. Something must have gone wrong.
Goose bumps that have nothing to do with the cold rise over my flesh as I remember the storms over London. How Lyon missed our meeting. “We’re under protective order,” I say through clenched teeth. “Daniel Lyon will skin you alive when he finds out about this.”
Lixue smothers her flame, her face inscrutable in the dark. “Sorry, Jack. It didn’t have to end like this.”
Light flickers across the room. I shield my eyes against the glare as it grows. Fleur’s chin rests against her chest. A red light flashes in her ear and her body begins to glow.
“No!” I shout. “No! You can’t take her!” I thrash, desperate to reach her, but Lixue and her Guards only force me back down. Force me to watch as the halo around Fleur threatens to blind me. Force me to live out my worst nightmare as her light flares and burns out. And she’s gone.
13
And Left No Trace
JACK
The bedroom is dark, the curtains still.
I blink against the afterimage, choking on Fleur’s name. She’s gone. They took her.
The Guards loosen their grip as my arms go limp. I’m too stunned to fight. Lixue backs away from me as her body begins to shimmer, the halo around her brightening by the second. I hurl myself at her, soaring through the empty air where she just stood, then colliding with the dresser and crashing to the floor.
“Come back, you assholes! Bring her back!” My scream echoes off the walls of the empty villa. Not so much as a leaf stirs in Fleur’s garden below.
I tear through the moonlit hall, tripping down the stairs as I take them two at a time.
My bare feet skid around corners, dodging furniture in the dark. I burst into the utility room and throw all the switches in the circuit breaker box. They snap into place, restoring power to the house room by room in gridline patterns: upper decks, main level, veranda, courtyard. . . .
The rear sconces flood the courtyard with light, trapping a dark figure against the aquamarine glow of the swimming pool. The girl’s not wearing a uniform or a patch, but she stands like a fighter. Like a hunter. Odds are better than good that she’s one of them.
The girl stumbles back when she spots me through the patio doors. With a burst of speed, she sprints toward the trees. I race after her, tackling her at the edge of the pool and sending us both tumbling over the lip.
Water crashes over us, the weight of my jeans and her shoes pulling us toward the bottom. She kicks my shins, scrabbling for the edge as I drag her toward me. Our heads break the surface, both of us gasping for air. Grabbing her by the collar of her sweatshirt, I twist her around, nearly dropping her when I get a look at her face.
Kai Sampson’s mouth forms the same shocked expression it did when I stabbed her with the shaft of her own arrow—the one she’d shot into my leg.
I shake water from my eyes and tighten my grip. Her black hair’s shorter, dripping pool water down her forehead, the chopped ends plastered in sodden spikes around her ears. There’s no red light. No transmitter in either one of them. It must have come loose when we hit the water. I risk a quick glance at the bottom of the pool, then at the deck around it, still holding her above the surface by the neck of her sweatshirt.
“Where is it?” I shake her. Her eyes are wide, her nails digging into my skin. “We’re leaving now! You’re taking me with you!”
Her jaw clenches. She slams her foot into the scar on my thigh. I swear through my teeth as I dunk her head under the water, then let her up just long enough for her to suck in a thin breath. “Where’s your transmitter?”
She coughs, eyes flaring wide with panic. “I can’t take you that way,” she sputters. “I’m not—”
I shove her head under again. She bucks and thrashes, but I hold her until a stream of bubbles burst from her lips. All I hear is the twang of her crossbow, the whistle of the arrows that sailed past my ear. All I see is my own blood swirling around me as the ice cracked and I sank into the lake. It was Kai’s fault. She’s the reason I’m human. The reason I couldn’t protect Fleur. And now Kai Sampson’s going to be the reason I get Fleur back.
I wrench her head up. She sucks in a desperate breath.
Her transmitter must be in a pocket, somewhere in her clothes.
“If you’re planning to kill me,” I warn her, “you’d better do it now.” I push her back under the water, waiting for her to use her magic and fight back. But nothing happens. Her movements slow, then her thrashing stops.
The last of the bubbles rise around the floating ends of her hair. I hold on tighter, braced for what’s coming. No one can play dead for this long. Her magic will either rise up and fight me, or it will fight to free itself from her dying body and her Handler will bring her home. Any minute now, it will sparkle to the surface, and I’ll hitch a ride through the ley lines with her, the same way they took Fleur.
Kai’s arms go limp in the water.
Her neck is loose where I hold her under. Something’s wrong.
I yank her head up. Water pours from her nose and mouth, and she hangs motionless from my hand. I drag her to the edge of the pool, fighting my wet jeans and her dead weight, the rough concrete scraping my arms as I haul her over the lip. The force of her body hitting the ground knocks the water from her lungs. She rolls onto her side, coughing up the contents of my pool.
I grab the life ring from the wall and use the rope to tie her wrists and ankles behind her as she chokes. My eyes burn with chlorine as I stand over her. “Where’s your transmitter?”
She coughs, sucking in ragged breaths. “I don’t have one. I’m not one of them.”
“Bullshit. I was here. I saw everything! Where did they take her?”
“Back to the Observatory. To Doug.” She winces as the rope chafes her wrists. “They work for Doug now.”
“That’s not even possible. That’s . . .” My protests trail away as a chill prickles my bare skin. Last week, Lyon said he’d been planning to dismantle the old Guard. To relieve them of their magic.
I’m not sure he can be swayed into conceding his magic peacefully. . . .
Doug. He must have escaped. He, Lixue, and the others who were here tonight . . . they must have fled while they still had their magic. But if Kai still has hers, why didn’t she fight me?
I scrape water from my face and rake my hair back to look at her. Not a flicker of magic stirs around her. Not a flutter of wind.
“Holy shit. You’re human.” Lyon must have stripped her of her magic before the others escaped. But if they all made it out of the Observatory, then why are they using the ley lines to go back to it? Why not slip off the grid where Lyon can’t track them? Why bother taking Fleur back to Lyon’s den?
Unless they have no reason to fear Lyon anymore.
They work for Doug now.
I stumble back, remembering the professor’s unanswered phone, ringing over and over again.
14
In His Footsteps Stray
DOUG
I slide the key card over the sensor. An emerald-green flash precedes the release of the locks to
the suite.
My suite.
I cross the threshold, scanning the room for motion sensors and cameras, ears attuned for the telltale beeps before the blare of an alarm, but the room is silent. As lifeless as the body it formerly belonged to. I move through it, my fingers trailing over the velvety back of the sofa, then the sleek, glossy surface of the credenza. The sprawling lair is tucked deep in a corner under the Winter wing, far from the Control Room. Most of the campus sustained damage from the quake, but this room seems untouched by the chaos that went down in the east wing yesterday.
I wipe the blood and dust from my hands. They leave a stain on my jumpsuit, and I glance back at the filthy tracks my shoes have left in the plush cream-colored carpeting. I haven’t slept or showered since the Dismantling yesterday. Every waking hour has been spent putting out fires as one small crisis bled into the next. The lightning storms over London started late last night, power outages and trees falling down like dominoes across the UK. By this morning, high winds had ravaged the coast of France, and the tidal surges had reached Portugal by noon. Meanwhile, some freak sandstorms buried an entire city in Tunisia. I’m too exhausted to see straight and everything hurts. I don’t know what the hell to do.
An hour ago, I locked myself in my office and stopped time, just so I could steal a few hours of sleep in my desk chair, but the minute I dozed off, my grip on the magic was broken, and Lixue knocked on the door with more bad news.
We lost nine Seasons in less than twenty-four hours. Two were in the wind when their seasons ended and we couldn’t get their stasis chambers back online in time to bring them home. Two others ditched their transmitters and deserted together. Another was swept off the ley lines when the power grid flickered. The sooner we can start tracking down the freed Seasons and deserters, the better. We need every region accounted for to get these storms under control.
The aftershocks of Gaia’s quake have the whole Observatory rattled. We had to shut down the Wi-Fi in the dorms to keep the panic from spreading after a handful of Summers got it into their heads to bust out of their rooms. March’s team got carried away when they went to quash the riot, and now I’ll have to replace four dead Summers before June.
I pour myself a glass of water from a decanter on the credenza. It’s warm and stagnant and does nothing to cool the burn in my chest. I sink down into the sofa. Cupping one hand, I summon a small flame, just to remind myself that I can. I’ve mastered new magic before. Learned to wield it without pain. I can do it again.
The flame grows, awakening the burn of the frostbite on my palm. With a hiss, I close my fist.
The cold . . . that was Michael’s weapon—his affinity—and the staff had belonged to him. According to the old legends, the gods each gifted an element to Gaia. Chronos gave her the coldness of space. Ananke gave her the inevitability of the ocean and its tides. Chaos brought fire. And from those gifts, the earth was born. I can only guess that the cold magic in Michael’s staff is freezing me because it’s fighting Ananke’s power. The staff is even colder today—almost too painful to hold. I left it leaning on the desk in my office just so I wouldn’t have to carry it here with me.
A wilted plant taunts me from its pot on the end table. I stand over it, commanding it to move, but the sagging leaves don’t even stir. I smack the table.
Gaia had power over all four elements. She could give them, take them, or use them herself, but earth magic was her essence—her strongest affinity. It was earth magic that caused that quake, and if I’m right, the key to controlling Gaia’s power is in mastering that single element. I’m certain the magic in that orb will never submit to living inside me until I learn how to tame it.
As I pour the dregs of my water over the plant, something spatters against the table. Another dark drop plunks down, and I drag my sleeve across my nose, swearing when it comes away red. I set down my glass and head deeper into the suite in search of a bathroom.
I pause inside the wide double doors of the bedroom. The main living room is spare, all white walls and glass and crisp, clean lines—a place to work, to get things done.
But the bedroom feels like it belonged to someone else. The room is softly lit by incandescent lamps. Two faux windows give the illusion of being surrounded by a snow-capped forest, and a breeze from the ventilation duct overhead ruffles my hair. I swear I catch a hint of pine in the forced air. I turn from the windows toward a mahogany four-poster bed with curled, clawed feet.
I draw in a breath, surprised when I don’t catch Lyon’s scent on my tongue. But none of Lyon’s books are on the nightstands, no ordered piles of papers or interlocking coffee rings left behind, like the ones I’d always seen in his office back when I was a Winter. A layer of dust collects on my finger as I drag it over the nightstand. Not plaster dust from the quake, but the kind that comes from abandonment, as if the room hasn’t been serviced in months.
Curious, I draw open the doors to the walk-in closet, parting a sea of carefully pressed suits. Silk ties are meticulously hung. Rows of dress shoes line the shelves. I pause in front of a velvet rack displaying a collection of eye patches, neatly laid out in rows and sorted by color. I gravitate to one with a black satin band—the same one Michael wore the day he inducted me into his Guard—and feel reassured that this was, and has only ever been, my Chronos’s room.
Lyon must have moved into Gaia’s suite, hiding in his girlfriend’s bed like a coward, too ashamed of what he’d done to sleep in the room that had belonged to the man he’d murdered. The same way he hid from Ananke’s eye, covering it so he wouldn’t have to face the ending he deserved.
I snatch a shirt off a hanger, claiming it. Grabbing a pair of slacks and a tie, I carry the suit into a vast marble bathroom. The threads of my prison jumpsuit pop, seams tearing in my hurry to strip the thing off. I avoid my reflection in the mirror as I sling open the shower door and wrench on the faucet, stepping under the spray without waiting for it to steam. Filth and blood color the water. I lather and scrub my skin raw, until the blisters on my hands soften and peel away and the last of the blood and ash swirl down the drain.
After, I stand naked in front of the mirror, my hands braced on either side of the wide marble sink. A drop of blood seeps stubbornly from my nose, and my chest feels tight. That same pain from yesterday pushes against my ribs. My gaze lifts to my reflection in the mirror. To the blackened eye socket. A memory flickers, shining back at me from my remaining eye. . . .
There’s still time to make the right choice.
I start as my cell phone vibrates on the vanity. Turning from the mirror, I swipe the screen with shaking hands.
“Chronos?” Lixue asks when I don’t speak. Her voice is thick, groggy, as if she’s just come to.
“This had better be good news.”
“We have Fleur.”
“Where is she?”
“A holding cell in the catacombs. She was injured. Not badly. But she’s still sleeping it off.”
“Call me when she’s awake.” I disconnect, one hand braced on the rim of the sink. Michael’s black patch rests on the fresh clothes piled beside me. I slip it over my head, brushing back my wet hair and adjusting it to cover the empty socket.
“You are Chronos now,” I say, daring to look at myself again. A lump forms in my throat when I swallow. It’s like I’m staring at Michael’s face. I raise my voice until the facets of my eye blaze. “You are Chronos now.”
I snap open the pants and step into them. Jam my arms into the shirtsleeves and cinch a knot in the tie. My jaw hardens at my reflection in the mirror. “You are Chronos now,” I say, louder still, shrugging into Michael’s jacket and buttoning it over my chest, surprised to find that it fits, “and you have the power to control everything.”
15
Chill and Shiver
JACK
Kai wriggles in the heavy wooden chair on the closed-circuit security feed from the kitchen cameras. She’s been trying to slip her bindings since I left the room, but the
ropes are tight enough to hold.
The hard drive in my office hums back to life as my soaked jeans drip pool water onto the floor. I wrestle my phone from my front pocket, thankful for its waterproof case as I swipe it on. Five unanswered calls and a voice mail from Poppy.
I swear, remembering the persistent buzzing in my pocket as Fleur and I were foolishly shutting out the world. This was my fault. I should never have let my guard down.
I tap on Poppy’s message. There’s a panicked hitch in her voice.
“Jack? It’s Poppy. Something’s happened. Everything was fine. Chill had handed off his season to Jarek and he texted that he was ready to transport. I locked onto his GPS, but he never made it home. I think . . .” Her voice wavers. “I think his route was hijacked. His ley line signal dead-ended in London. Jack, I have a bad feeling. No one at the Observatory is answering my calls. Not Gaia, not Lyon. I got a strange package from them a few days ago. There was a travel voucher in it. I’ve booked a seat on the next flight to Heathrow. I’m going to find him. When you get this message, call me.”
A cold fear clamps around my chest. I dial Marie.
She picks up on the first ring.
“Jack, I’ve been trying to reach you.” Her chewing gum snaps between her teeth. “Did you get a weird message from Poppy? I mean, Poppy’s always a little weird, but this was—”
“Listen,” I tell her, my voice so tight it threatens to break, “four of Michael’s Guards just broke into our house under Doug Lausks’s orders. They took Fleur. You need to get Amber and Julio someplace safe. Now.”
Her gum quiets. “What do you mean, they took Fleur? Took her where?”
“Through the ley lines. Back to the Observatory. Chill’s disappearance was no accident. I need you to track Poppy down before she gets to London. Tell her not to step foot inside the Observatory until I get there.”
Seasons of Chaos Page 11