Seasons of Chaos

by Elle Cosimano

  “But sir, I can—”

  “I said I’ll hunt her myself!”

  40

  A Careful Voice

  JACK

  Every hour that passes squeezes the fear closer to my heart. Kai was reluctant to leave the Winter wing. If it wasn’t for the problem of Lixue and March, she would have thrown caution to the wind and knocked on every door in that hall, intent on finding her sister. But she knew as well as I did that it was only a matter of time before the Guards came looking for their missing commander. Soon, they would swarm the Winter dorm hunting for us, leaving us no choice but to retreat back into the catacombs.

  Lyon’s map is burning a hole in my pocket. My need to find Fleur and Chill and make sure they’re alive is so intense, I’m ready to explode.

  “Your friend Chill?” Kai asks as we near the holding cells. “He’s good with computers?”

  “The best.” I’m seized by a fierce longing. I haven’t seen Chill in person since we all parted ways after the battle in Cuernavaca, when Lyon and Gaia escorted him and Poppy to Fairbanks and settled them in their new home. Every time he called, I promised I’d visit. I kept coming up with lame excuses not to—Fleur had class, contractors were booked to install new security systems in the villa, the weather wasn’t right to leave Fleur alone—but the truth was, it pained me to look at Chill. It hurt to look in his eyes and see the magic glittering in them—magic that could have been mine if I’d accepted it when Gaia offered it to me rather than letting Chill take it. In moments I’m not proud of, sometimes I resent the choice I made at the lake. But ever since Poppy told me Chill disappeared, I’d give anything—make the same choice all over again—to see that magic alive in him right now. “Chill’s the only person I know who’s capable of hacking the Control Room servers. He’s your best chance at finding out which room belonged to your sister.” I press my lips tight, realizing my mistake after the words are already out.

  “You think they’ve moved everyone?” she asks curiously.

  “Don’t know,” I mutter. I don’t like lying to her, but talking about her sister in the past tense is a quick way to end up with an arrow in my back. Our partnership feels fragile at best, and I can’t risk losing the only ally I have right now. I try to shrug off the guilt, but it clings, and the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels. “Lyon and Gaia were making a lot of changes down here,” I explain. “They were desegregating the dorms, but I don’t know how far they got.”

  “As soon as we figure out which room is Névé’s, I’m going to find her.”

  I nod. Wishing her luck feels like a shitty thing to say, so I don’t say anything at all.

  The tunnel widens ahead. Torchlight flickers through an archway at the end. I pause and hold up a hand, listening. Kai switches off her flashlight. I don’t see any Guards standing sentry at the entrance to the holding cells.

  I toss a small pebble through the archway. It clatters across the stone floor and pings off one of the cells. Kai stands ready with her bow as someone stirs. A cool breeze brushes over us.

  “There’s a camera to your left, above the door to the first cell.” Chill’s hoarse voice finds me like an answered prayer. I glance back at Kai. She ducks low, peering around the corner, her eyes roving the length of the wall until she spots the blinking red target. She lines up her shot. Her arrow flies true, slicing through the wires. The red light winks out.

  I throw myself past Kai into the corridor, rushing past the empty cells, searching for Fleur, my pulse climbing when I don’t see her. A set of bloodied knuckles grips the iron bars at the end of the hall. I reach into Chill’s cell, dragging his face toward the bars until our foreheads are touching.

  “Took you long enough.” He smiles, his chapped lips cracked from thirst. I want to rip Doug to pieces for keeping my best friend in a cage.

  “Where’s Fleur?”

  “I overheard one of the Guards on his radio. Sounds like she got loose and slipped off their radar a few hours ago.”

  My held breath rushes out of me. “You okay?” His skin’s clammy but cold. He looks too pale, too thin. If it weren’t for the temperatures down here, I doubt Chill would be able to stand. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine. Have you talked to Poppy? Is she okay?”

  “She’s safe.” I kneel in front of the lock on his cell, tucking two picks between my teeth. “She’s with Julio, Amber, and Marie,” I say around them, hoping it’s the truth.

  He sags with relief. “Where are they?”

  “We split up,” I mutter. “Amber and Julio were going to look for you and Fleur. The Handlers should be hiding out in Amber’s old room.”

  As I wedge a brace into the keyhole, the temperature plummets. Frost crackles over the lock, sticking my skin to the metal. I yank my hands back and shake out my fingers. Chill’s eyes are white, swirling with magic. “Get down, Jack,” he says in an icy voice.

  I spin on my knees, expecting to face off with a team of Guards, but it’s only Kai, her bow half raised behind me.

  “Relax, she’s with me.” My heart rate slows as I frown over the lock.

  Chill looks like he’s ready to hurl an icicle into her eye. “What the hell is she doing here?”

  “Helping me.”

  “A little less chatting and a little more lockpicking, please?” she growls.

  “I’m trying, but these locks are older than . . .” Lyon’s name jams in my throat, and I push that thought away. “The locks are old. It may take me a while.” I fight back a shiver. “Lighten up, Chill. This is going to take a lot longer if my hands are cold.”

  He glares at Kai over my head. “No one’s coming. The Guards tore out of here a while ago. They’re all out looking for Fleur. She can’t have gone far. As soon as you get this cell open, we can go find her and the others and get the hell out of—”

  The ground heaves under me, throwing me backward and tossing my picks. Chill’s grip on the bars is the only thing holding him upright as the cavern shakes. Dust billows through the corridor as the walls splinter around us. Kai wobbles left, then right, staggering into a cell door and holding herself up against the bars. I rush to recover my spilled picks, bracing myself against another wave of tremors.

  “That doesn’t bode well,” Chill says when the ground finally stills. “They must have found her. Doug’s probably taking her back.”

  “Back here?” My heart leaps as I realize how close she is. How soon I might see her.

  Chill’s eyes meet mine, apologies swirling inside them.

  “Back where? Where’s he keeping her, Chill?”

  “In his suite in the north wing.”

  His suite. Michael’s apartment.

  I plunge a pick back into the lock, surprised frost isn’t crackling over my fingers. “When I open this door, you’re going to take Kai to the Winter wing and find a computer. Hack the Control Room servers and find the number of Névé Onding’s room—”

  “Névé Onding?” Chill asks. “But Névé Onding is—”

  “Kai’s sister.” I glance up sharply from the lock. His mouth falls open and his eyebrows rise. “Kai helped me get down here on the condition that we help her find her sister,” I explain. “After you find Névé’s room number, you’ll split up. She’ll go looking for her sister while you go to the Autumn wing to find Poppy and the others. I’ll meet you by the incinerator under the Winter wing in three hours. That should give us both plenty of time.” I pop the lock and press Lyon’s map and my flashlight into Chill’s hands.

  “Where are you going?” he asks.

  “I’m going to find Fleur.”

  Kai doesn’t argue. If anything, she seems as eager as I am to get out of here and start hunting. I turn and start running down the hall, back toward the Winter wing.

  “Are you crazy?” Chill hisses, catching up with me as we pass the rows of empty cells. “You can’t go to that suite alone. You’ll be walking into a trap.”

  “I’ve walked into worse.”

>   He grabs my elbow and drags me to a stop. “You can’t go after Doug like this. Not while you’re . . .”

  I round on Chill. “Not while I’m what? While I’m her Handler? Because last time I checked, keeping her alive was my job.”

  Chill backs off. He’d be a hypocrite to argue, and he knows it.

  “I screwed up once. I won’t do it again.” My teeth clench around the memory of the night I last saw her. “I’m going to find her. And I’m going to bring her back.”

  Chill nods. His eyes skip to Kai, where she waits at the mouth of the tunnel. He takes me by the ear—the same ear where my transmitter used to sit, where his voice kept me company, watching over me through every winter, every hunt—and shakes it gently. “Don’t do anything stupid. Stay low. Keep your back to the wall and keep your exits in sight. If anything feels wrong, get out of there. Three hours. Then I’m coming after you.”

  He holds out his knuckles. I bump them gently with mine.

  “Three hours,” I promise.

  “Jack!” Kai’s voice stops me as I turn for the north tunnel. “Thank you. For everything,” she says quietly. “I hope you find Fleur.”

  I nod. Guilt thickens my throat. I can’t wish her the same. But she deserves to know the truth. I pull a set of lockpicks from the case she gave me and hold them out between us. “I’m sorry for anything I might have done to hurt you before.”

  A sad smile touches her lips as she takes them. “Water under the bridge, right? Be safe, Jack.”

  I watch until she and Chill disappear from sight.

  41

  A Few Might Tangle

  FLEUR

  The smaze zips around me, agitated and urgent as it circles my leg. The key card I swiped from Doug’s pocket in the shower slips from my hand. I bend to pick it up, shaking so badly it takes me two more tries to slide it over the sensor. A huge unit of Guards tore through the catacombs as I was sneaking out, their boots thundering through the walls of an adjacent tunnel, searching for me. Doug’s voice had boomed over their radios, confirming that he was down there, too. It won’t take them long to pick up my scent and track it here. This office used to be Michael’s. Then it had been Lyon’s. I can only assume it’s Doug’s now, and I hope it wasn’t a mistake to follow the smaze here.

  I slide the key card over the sensor again.

  Please let this work. Please let this work. Please let this work.

  The locks snap free. The door creaks on its hinges as I scurry inside. Suddenly, the room floods with light, and I press back against the door as the smaze drifts around the perimeter of the room.

  The office is empty. Just motion sensors. I release a held breath.

  Sitting on top of the huge ironwood desk, propped between the spines of a few leather-bound books, is an orb.

  Gaia’s magic casts a warm glow over the wood. As I approach the desk, a soft hum penetrates the glass. Tiny sparks hover like fireflies inside it, drifting up to meet my fingers when they graze the lid.

  The plant from Doug’s suite rests in its broken pot beside it. Its long stems lean toward Gaia’s light. One bright, waxy leaf seems to be caught on something. I untangle it, gasping as I pull a loop of red satin free of the vine and a small silver angel comes away with it.

  I hold the tarnished ornament out in front of me, the inscription on the back becoming visible as it spins.

  This is my angel. The one I left for Jack in the woods.

  A footlocker lies open beside the desk, loaded with ornaments. Twenty-nine of them . . . a number I know without having to count. I withdraw a tiny snow globe. Cherry blossoms drift around the tree inside.

  “How did these get here?” I murmur through a shaky breath.

  “I could ask the same about you.”

  I spin toward the door, clutching the snow globe in my fist. Doug looks smug as the door closes behind him. He rests the staff against the wall. It’s the first time I’ve seen him carry it. It’s exactly the way I remember it, cold and glittering sharp, with the exception of the strange black sash around its head.

  He steps closer, blocking my view of it as he strips off a pair of gloves. “I spent all night looking for you.”

  “Isn’t that a little hyperbolic? I only left your room a few hours ago.”

  “Oh, that’s funny,” he says, shaking his head and dropping his gloves on the desk. His hair’s matted to his forehead with sweat. There’s a streak of dirt on his cheek and cavern filth on his dress shoes. A trickle of dried blood trails over his lip. “Nice trick, using the exhaust from the generators to mask your scent.” My hand clenches around the snow globe as he stalks closer. I move away from the desk, but he only backs me deeper into his office. “It was dumb luck when I caught you coming up the back stairs to the gallery.”

  “You followed me here?” How? I’d been so careful. I was sure no one was behind me as I followed the smaze.

  Doug pries the ornament from my fingers, tossing it in the air and catching it in his palm before pitching it at the bookshelf. I flinch as it shatters and a shard of glass skims my arm.

  “I’ve been following you for an hour, waiting to see if your boyfriend would show up. He’s been making a hell of a mess looking for you.” He reaches into the box for another ornament. Then another. Smashing them against the wall, raining glass and porcelain over me.

  “Stop it! Those are mine!”

  He reaches for another ornament. It’s the first one I ever left for Jack.

  My mind lunges for the plant. The leaves shudder as I slide into its roots. I grab hold, surprised when the plant draws back from me. Not as if it’s resisting, but as if it’s being pulled by someone else. With a violent jerk, the plant is yanked from my thoughts.

  My eyes snap to Doug’s.

  A smile curls his lips as a vine surges toward me. I grab my temples, forcing my mind back in, pushing up against Doug’s as we wrestle for control of the plant. Doug and I circle each other beside the desk, our minds feinting and lunging at each other. The ceramic pot rattles on the desk. Soil and shards explode over us as the roots burst free and the vines extend. His mind grabs hold of mine. My thoughts push his back. A sickening sense of déjà vu washes over me, like we’ve done this before.

  A sharp pain shoots through my temple, and I kick out with my thoughts in one final push, gasping as Doug’s mind is thrown from the plant.

  My body flies backward, slamming onto the carpet with bruising force as Doug crashes into the desk.

  “You’re an asshole,” I groan, my thoughts scattered.

  “And you’re a good teacher,” he says through a pant.

  I feel Doug’s mind rush for a root at the same time mine does, but I’m faster. I push my mind inside it, taking control and staking my claim to it. Doug reaches behind him, groping for the remains of the shattered pot. With a savage grin, he digs his fingers into the soil. My ribs clench with a suffocating pain as his fist closes around the plant’s root ball.

  Panic seizes me. I try to withdraw my mind from the plant, but it’s stuck, as if Doug’s holding me there. He squeezes the roots harder. My lungs contract. I can’t get any air.

  Doug grabs his chest, a sudden pain streaking over his face. He drops the plant with a startled cry, and I reel back, sucking in a starved breath.

  “How did you do that?” he rasps, his hand pressed to his sternum, mirroring mine.

  We’re both bent over our knees, pale and shaking. I don’t know what’s happening. I’ve never felt so out of control of my magic. It feels like it’s fighting itself. Like it’s fighting me.

  Static crackles as I stand upright. The room begins to shake. Doug maneuvers closer to his staff.

  “Are you insane?” His eyes jump to the ceiling, where the brass candelabra is starting to sway. “Stop it, before you kill everyone in this place, including your friends!”

  He stumbles as the ground heaves.

  My heart slams against my ribs, the rising pressure inside me too wild to control. “I can’
t. Something’s wrong.”

  Magic swells inside me. It’s like there’s suddenly too much. I can’t wrap my arms around it. I breathe deep, reaching out with my mind, following the hot, electrified ends of it. I try to take hold of them, but they’re flailing. Fighting me. Digging deeper into the earth.

  A map in a thick glass frame lurches off the wall. Leather-bound books wobble off the ends of their shelves. The scythe slides from its corner and smacks against the carpet. Lightbulbs pop and the room goes dark.

  “Get this under control, Fleur!”

  There’s a violent rattle behind me. Glass shatters as something heavy hits the floor. I shield my eyes from a flare of light. Like a swarm of angry fireflies, Gaia’s magic is loose.

  Wind hurls papers, blowing books open and whipping broken glass around the room. Doug swears as the magic begins to organize into a funnel, raining plaster on our heads.

  Our eyes catch under it. He shoves me, throwing me backward into the bookcase and positioning himself between me and the magic. His head tips back as if he’s drawing a breath.

  “No!” I scrabble upright and kick out the backs of his knees. My only chance of getting free is to beat him to the magic.

  Doug pushes onto all fours, reaching for the head of his staff. His fingers catch the sash, the knot coming loose as he pulls it closer.

  The blunt handle of the staff sings through the air, striking me across the chest. The force of it sends me flying. Doug kneels over me, pinning my arms at my sides with his knees, his hand pressed to my mouth, the lights swirling behind him.

  “It’s mine,” he says. “All of it.”

  I can’t breathe. Can’t open my mouth to warn him that he’s making a mistake. Doug throws his head back and his lips part. I thrash as the magic descends toward him. My throat stings with the heat of a thousand suns as he breathes in the sparks. I cry out into his hand, certain we’re both dying, as he takes the magic completely inside him.

  His chest glows like amber fire as he collapses. Lightning flashes. Ice and snow whip my skin. I cover my ears against a deafening roar. Then everything goes black.