Seasons of Chaos

by Elle Cosimano

  With shocking speed, Doug reaches into my cell and pulls me by my collar. His hands are rough, the skin cracked and scratchy where it touches my throat. I grab the bars to steady myself as he hauls me up on my toes, forcing me to meet his eye. I swallow hard against the frost and violence glittering inside it.

  His whisper is cold against my cheek. “Consider yourself lucky I didn’t bring the scythe.”

  He releases me with a shove, but I catch the wince he tries to hide, the barely perceptible shudder as he turns away from me. The smell of iron grows thicker in the air, and he touches his nose, avoiding the gazes of his Guards. “Bring her to the Control Room,” he orders them over his shoulder.

  An enormous Guard gestures to Chill’s cell. “What about the other one, sir?”

  Doug’s voice is thick when he says, “Let him rot.”

  17

  Coil and Hissed

  DOUG

  The click of my heels on the worn stone treads echoes through the spiral stairwell. The leather dress shoes are stiff, tight in the toe and loose around the ankles, rubbing blisters into my heels, and the orb containing Gaia’s magic is awkward under my arm. I wrench a finger under my tie and unfasten the top button of my shirt, drawing a deep breath of damp, stale air that does nothing to relieve the pressure in my chest.

  Mossy condensation glistens on the walls, catching the torchlight. It reeks down here, and I’ll be glad when we finally have the power restored to all the wings, the halls cleared of debris, and the damn elevators running.

  The stairwell breaks at a stone landing, and I throw open the door. The corridor to the Control Room is pitch dark, except for a dull red glow from an emergency exit sign above me and the shine of the hissing magic in the orb. A sconce has fallen loose, dangling by its wires, and a pile of rubble has formed a dam, blocking the flow of the fountain where it spills onto the floor. I step over the dark puddles, angrier with every step I take. Every broken bulb and flooded pipe is just a reminder of my inability to control this and fix it.

  When I saw Fleur in her cell, I told her she was lucky I wasn’t carrying the scythe. But luck had nothing to do with it. I chose to leave the staff in my office, partly because it’s too fucking painful to carry, but mostly to avoid slitting her throat with it. As tempting as it was to reach through those bars and strangle her, I wouldn’t dare deprive Jack Sommers of the torture of watching her die.

  But there’s something I need from her first.

  I push open the double doors to the Control Room. They slam into the wall, the sound echoing off the polished wood pews as I storm past them to the dais. I set the orb on the scarred surface of the desk. Gaia’s magic hurls itself against the far side of the glass like a glowing swarm of pissed-off hornets. There has to be a way to harness and control it. I can’t entrust it to anybody else.

  The wall of screens behind the dais is shattered and dark. I lean my weight against Gaia’s desk, the wood creaking under me as I look out among the rubble-covered pews where she and Michael used to hold court. This is the room where I was promoted in my first ranking ceremony. Where I was inducted into Michael’s Guard.

  There had been order and rules here. Everything had made sense.

  The emptiness of this room—the wreckage of it—burrows under my skin. If I can’t take that magic inside me and learn to create new Seasons, then the Observatory, the world, and everything in it is doomed. I will be Michael’s biggest failure. Ruler of nothing. It won’t matter what happens to Jack or Fleur, because no one here will live long enough to see it.

  I stiffen at the approach of footsteps from the hall. A cloying, sweet scent grows stronger, like lily of the valley under a sheen of nervous sweat. I push off Gaia’s desk, moving to the center of the dais as the doors open and Fleur Attwell is pushed through them.

  She staggers, her toe slipping on a piece of broken glass as she sucks in a breath. Her wild gaze darts over the fallen plaster, shattered terrariums, and broken TV screens. Tears gather in her eyes when they land on the orb. The magic settles almost instantly, its light softening as it drifts toward her, bumping gently against the side of its enclosure. I tip my head, watching their odd exchange.

  The Guards nudge Fleur forward, breaking the spell. Static crackles around her as she snaps to a halt in front of me.

  I hold my hands behind my back, hiding my burns as I study her. “You want to kill me, but you won’t. Not today.”

  “Did your staff tell you that?”

  “Yes.” I smile around the lie. I can’t afford to expose any weakness. Not to my Guards. And especially not to her.

  She clenches a fist. “It’s been wrong before.”

  “The walls in here are already weak,” I say, pacing the dais. “Unless you want to take down the entire Observatory, I wouldn’t recommend any more impulsive displays. I’ve seen that ending, too, and it’s not pretty.”

  Her eyes dart toward the fissures in the ceiling. “Why did you bring me here, then?”

  “To make Jack pay for what he’s done. He’s going to come looking for you, and when he does, he’s going to suffer.” I descend the dais toward her. A muscle clenches in her jaw. “I want him to sit in Lyon’s empty office and mourn him the way I mourned for Michael. I want him to see his best friend murdered and watch his magic float away. I want him to know what it feels like to die at his girlfriend’s hand.”

  Her dark eyes pierce me. “That won’t ever happen.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  The air goes earthy and pungent as she sets her power loose. I can’t see it, but I feel it. I tense as fingers of her magic reach down into the ground, creeping toward me. I back up as it speeds closer. The floor under my foot crumbles, throwing me off-balance, knocking me into the steps of the dais. Lixue strikes Fleur hard in the side of her head.

  Fleur’s hand flies to her temple as her magic shrinks back from me. Her knees hit the stone hard enough to make her yelp.

  “Enough!” I shout. Pain and humiliation flare in my chest. I’m not sure who I’m angrier with—Fleur for trying to kill me or Lixue for acting without my order. I stand up and dust off my slacks, loosening my tie with a hard wrench of a finger.

  “That!” I pant, pointing to Fleur’s head. “That’s why you’re still alive. That’s what I want from you.”

  “What?” she snaps. “You want me to strangle you with a root? I’m glad we agree on something. I can definitely arrange that. Ow!” She grabs the back of her head as Lixue cuffs her again.

  “I said enough!” I shout at Lixue. I turn my glare on Fleur. Unlike Lixue, there isn’t an ounce of remorse on her face. “You’re going to teach me how to use the earth magic.” I press the heel of my hand against my sternum as the pain subsides to a dull ache.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because your very human boyfriend is on his way here.”

  Her smile is cutting. “He’s not here yet.”

  “No, but your Winter friend is. And I will make Chill’s last hours a living hell if you don’t cooperate.”

  “I thought you were saving him for some grand theatrical revenge scheme.” The words drip with sarcasm, like this is some kind of joke.

  My voice drops dangerously low as I get up in her face. “Jack has plenty of friends I can use for that purpose. Amber, Julio, Poppy, Marie . . . they’re all on their way here. So let’s get something straight. You’re going to be a good little Spring and show me how to wield the earth magic. You’re going to teach me to control it—the plants, the quakes, all of it—or I will cut your friends down one by one in front of you.”

  A spark of fear lights in her eyes. Flashes of her memories flicker inside them, the vicious, violent ways she’s used that magic to protect the people she loves. It only makes me hungrier for it. Her mouth hardens into a thin line. “You aren’t human enough to wield that kind of magic.”

  “There’s nothing human in Gaia’s magic.”

  Fleur’s face tips up with a puzzled expr
ession. Her eyes dart to the glowing orb on the desk, then back to me. A curious smile touches them. “You can’t hold it, can you?” Blood rushes to my cheeks and she barks out a laugh. “You tried to take it from her, and her magic rejected you.”

  I lunge, taking Fleur by the throat, shaking with the urge to snuff out her life. Gaia’s magic riots against the glass, beams of light shooting from the orb like daggers.

  Frost crackles up my arms, over Fleur’s chin. The ground shudders, dirt popping along the floor as she claws at my hands, starved for air. Magic glows inside her, threatening to break through her skin. I could stop time, right now. I could hold her on the brink of death indefinitely. I could watch it over and over, the way Noelle’s death plays out in my dreams every time I close my eyes.

  A burning pain cinches my chest, stealing my breath.

  Lixue’s eyes widen as a spill of warmth leaks from my nose. “Chronos, you’re bleeding.”

  The smell of it is suddenly thick in the room. I double over, and Fleur crashes to the floor.

  18

  By the Highway Home

  JACK

  Kai fidgets with the pink wig we grabbed at a costume shop on our way to the airport. The flight attendant scans her boarding pass and takes another glance at Fleur’s ID. I hold my breath through what feels like an eternity, waiting to see if she’ll notice that Kai’s olive skin tone doesn’t match the fair freckled face in the tiny picture, or that the shape of Kai’s eyes is slightly more angular than Fleur’s. She hands Kai the passport and returns her boarding pass, and I hurry to catch up to Kai as she takes fast strides down the jet bridge onto the plane.

  “Could you have been any more obvious?” I hiss in her ear as we maneuver down the aisle.

  “I can’t help it. It itches. How does anyone deal with having so much hair?”

  I push her toward our row. The sooner we’re in the air, the better.

  She wedges herself into the window seat and I leave an empty seat between us. Arms crossed, I stare at the headrest in front of me. The flight’s already delayed thirty minutes, and I’m crawling out of my skin to get to Fleur.

  “I don’t have cooties,” she says bitterly.

  “Forgive me if I don’t relish the idea of spending the next twelve hours sharing pretzels with the girl who attempted to murder me.”

  “I wasn’t trying to murder you. I was—”

  I turn, following the direction of her gaze. A man’s standing in the aisle beside me, listening to our conversation.

  “I think I’m in C,” he says weakly.

  Kai turns to the window as I slide into the empty middle seat. We sit in terse silence through takeoff, my leg bobbing impatiently as the plane ascends.

  “So what’s the plan?” Kai’s tucked up in the corner, her legs drawn tightly to her chest as she flips mindlessly through a magazine. The man in the aisle seat snores softly, his head tipped away from me. No one else seems to be listening.

  “I get us into the Observatory,” I say in a low voice. “I find Fleur and Chill, and then I get them out.”

  “Wow,” she says dryly, snapping a page, “sounds like you’ve got this whole thing figured out. I’ve gotta admit, I’m not sure I can handle the pressure. I mean, you may have overestimated my ability to contribute anything to the rescue mission.”

  “I don’t need a spotter. I never asked for your help, or your protection. You came to me, remember?”

  Kai slides her feet to the floor. She closes her magazine and leans close enough for me to see the sleepless shadows under her eyes. “I hate to break it to you, but this isn’t Doug, Captain of the Guard, we’re talking about. We’re talking about Time, Inevitability, and the elemental power of all four seasons at the fingertips of a bully with a god complex. Doug’s entire life goal is to use that power against you, so you’d better come up with something better than ‘Relax, I’ve got this.’”

  “I forgot you’re an expert when it comes to plotting murder and acts of treason.”

  “I didn’t murder anyone!” The person in front of me turns to peer at us through the gap between the seats. Kai glares at her until she turns away. “And I didn’t commit treason,” she whispers.

  “No? Then why don’t you tell me how Doug managed to slaughter Gaia and Lyon, take all their power, and trash the Observatory all on his own?” Back at the villa, Kai said it wasn’t too late to make the right choice. Killing me might have been her first bad choice, but I’m guessing it wasn’t her last. She was there in the room when Lyon and Gaia were murdered. And Doug confided at least part of his plan to her, which makes her an accomplice. Lyon might have been willing to give her a shot at redemption, but that doesn’t mean I have to trust her.

  She presses back against the side of the plane. “I didn’t know he would kill them. I never would have helped him if I did. He told me he wanted to steal Ananke’s magic so we could fight our way out and escape. He didn’t tell me the rest of his plan.”

  “And neither will I. I’m not stupid enough to trust the girl who turned me into a walking kabob.”

  “You don’t want my protection? Fine,” she says, “face him yourself. But you shouldn’t go in there without a weapon. I know someone in London who can—”

  “I have a weapon. It’s waiting for me in a glass cage in Lyon’s office. And the first thing I plan to do when I get there is let it out.” The only concrete goal I have is to find my smaze before Doug catches up to me. Painful, toxic, tainted . . . I don’t care. I’ll take it all back if it means saving—

  My stomach drops. I grab the armrests, pressing back in my seat as the plane lurches through a patch of turbulence. Kai’s hand clamps down on mine. I shoot her a look as the cabin shakes, and she jerks it away.

  “Attention, everyone. This is the captain speaking.” The passengers quiet at the garbled voice coming over the staticky PA system. “We’re passing through some unexpected weather. We’re going to ask everyone to please remain in their seats at this time. Please check to make sure your seat belts are fastened and secure any loose articles under the seat in front of you.”

  Lightning flashes outside the window. Kai shuts her eyes, her mouth moving in a silent prayer as raindrops spatter against the glass and the nose of the plain lifts.

  “Is it Doug?” My knuckles tighten on the armrest, my stomach clenching as I realize how easy it would be for him to track us to this flight.

  Kai shakes her head. “He hates you far too much for that. He’d never let you die that easily.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think he can find us with the staff. I saw it after he took it from Lyon. The eye was missing.”

  “Missing?”

  She nods, her skin turning sallow as the cabin shudders. “The head of the scythe was wrapped with a sash when I met with Lyon last week. I couldn’t figure out why. But after Doug took it, the sash was gone and so was the eye.”

  Strange. Why would Lyon cover the staff, unless he didn’t want anyone to know the eye was missing? Whatever his reasons, I should probably feel relieved that it’s gone—one less weapon Doug can use against us—but considering all the other power he’s managed to amass, it hardly seems important.

  “If Doug has Ananke’s magic, he doesn’t need the staff to find us. How are we supposed to infiltrate the Observatory if Doug knows our every move before we do?”

  “I’m not convinced he does. After Doug took Lyon’s magic, it burned out one of his eyes,” she says with a disgusted shiver. “It was probably the curse.”

  “Curse?”

  “You know, stolen magic is cursed magic.” Kai gapes at my puzzled expression. “Doug stole the magic, and the magic took his eye. See? Cursed,” she says, as if our problems are solved.

  “Lyon never lost an eye,” I say cynically.

  “Lyon never took anything from Ananke.”

  Another round of turbulence rocks the plane. We both press back in our seats as the plane dip
s violently. Lightning forks through the clouds and raindrops streak across the window.

  “The storms are getting worse,” Kai says. “The weather will probably kill us all before Doug gets a chance.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Storms mean power outages. And if power is down, then so are the connections to the ley lines. If Seasons are locked out and end up in the wind, there’s no one to create new ones to restore the balance.”

  “Why can’t Doug do it?”

  She turns to me and raises an eyebrow. “Did you ever see Michael make a Season? No. Because that’s not his power. That’s Gaia’s. And if her magic is loose, the entire world is in trouble.”

  The plane climbs and the cabin settles. When the captain turns off the seat belt sign, I lean on my elbows and rub my eyes, exhaustion crashing over me as I realize how much more is at stake than Chill’s and Fleur’s lives.

  How long do we have to stop Doug before he destroys the whole damn planet?

  “I’m sorry,” Kai whispers. I lift my head and find her staring out the window, gnawing her lip. “It was supposed to be one clean shot,” she confesses. “One clean arrow in your back so I wouldn’t have to see your face when you died. But you were so determined to keep getting up, no matter how many times I shot you.” She shudders. “I’ve never seen anyone fight like that. That’s why.”

  My mouth goes dry as I remember it. “Why what?”

  She turns to me. “That’s why I decided to come, after everything that happened with Doug. Because I think I understand why Lyon believed in you.” She settles against the wall of the plane, her head resting in the nest of pink hair. I don’t say a word as her eyes drift closed.

  Instead, I stay awake the whole flight worrying, wondering how many shots one person can endure, and if I’ll have the strength to keep getting up.

  19

  Patch of Old Snow