Seasons of Chaos

by Elle Cosimano

  His mind trails me as I go, but he seems more interested in snooping through Gaia’s office than following me. Gaia’s bedroom door is cracked, and I push it open, feeling like an intruder as I step inside. A long fissure streaks across the drywall over a four-poster bed, probably a remnant of my breakdown earlier. A trickle of water seeps through the crack, soaking the floral pillow shams.

  I move quickly through the room, scanning the walls and peering behind furniture, searching for the secret panel Jack mentioned.

  When I don’t see it, I throw open the closet door, shoving hangers across the rack hard enough to make them screech. My hand stills as a rectangular panel appears in the wall. I grab the ornament from my pocket and the pen from my sleeve, using the open closet door to shield myself from view as I scratch out a note to Jack.

  KAI IS HERE.

  SHE KNOWS.

  BE CAREFUL.

  —F

  The ballpoint pen cuts into the soft wood, clumsy and barely legible, but it’s the best I can do. I dress hurriedly, stripping off the torn, bloody jumpsuit. The cut in my leg stings as I free the fabric from the healing wound. I layer on warm clothes and choose a long, heavy coat from the closet. Slipping the ornament over the hanger in its place, I position it just over the opening, where Jack’s certain to find it. I leave the pen on the floor, tucked between a pair of shoes.

  Doug’s mind scratches impatiently against mine. I take a pair of gloves, a scarf, and a hat from the shelf and slam the closet shut, then meet him at the threshold as he reaches for the door. He gives me a distrusting once-over. I try not to think about Jack.

  “What?” I snap, sliding my arms into Gaia’s coat. “So it doesn’t match. What do you expect? You told me to hurry.”

  His thoughts circle suspiciously around mine. I look him straight in his eye as I remember him on his knees, trapped in the arms of a tree, shouting as I ran from him when I dispatched his Guards in Greenwich Park.

  Doug snags me by the collar and shoves me out the door.

  47

  “Come Out! Come Out!”

  JACK

  I sit in the tunnel beside the panel to Gaia’s room, the walls of this place closing in around me as I read the message from Fleur.

  This is all I have, the only information Fleur left me. She used her one shot to communicate with me to warn me about Kai. But how did Fleur figure out Kai is here? And more importantly, what does Kai know?

  I tuck the ornament in my pocket. I can’t worry about Kai right now. It was only a matter of time before she learned the truth about Névé anyway. She’s probably got an arrow nocked with my name on it already. And if she knows the secrets I kept from her, I guess I really can’t blame her.

  Ananke’s eye is heavy in my pocket. I pull it out and study it under the torchlight, but no matter how many times I’ve looked into it for an answer, all I see are the lines on my palm through the glass.

  A piece of each of us lives on here in the Observatory. . . . Find those missing pieces.

  Pieces. Plural. I found Lyon’s missing piece, but my smaze is still roaming loose in this place. In the hands of a human, the eye is just a useless chunk of crystal. If Lyon’s plan is ever going to work, I’ll have to reclaim my magic first.

  Exhausted and sore, I force myself up, ducking to avoid the low ceiling of the tunnel as I head back toward the catacombs. The tunnels are eerily quiet, creepier now that I’m navigating them alone.

  The torchlight jumps, jostled by a sudden breeze. A chill crawls over me, and I pause, listening. This deep in the belly of the north wing, there shouldn’t be any wind.

  “Come on,” I say in a low voice, certain my smaze is close. “I’m sorry about what happened before. But we can try again. Right?”

  Pain pitches me forward, blinding and white-hot. I cry out, dropping the torch as my knees smack down on the stone. My left arm burns, refusing to move. I twist to see over my shoulder. An arrow is buried deep in the muscle.

  A warning shot.

  I throw myself forward on my torch, using my jacket to smother it. Darkness floods the tunnel and I crawl forward, trying not to shuffle as I squeeze into a recess in the wall. The arrow’s shaft brushes the stone, sending a lightning bolt of pain through me. I grit my teeth, stifling the urge to scream.

  A flashlight beam clicks on. Pale yellow light streams past me.

  “You should have told me.” Kai’s voice shakes. Her foot splashes softly through shallow water. “I know what you did to my sister. I know what you took from her. Doug told me everything.”

  Arm clutched to my side, I will myself to stay upright. I don’t want to speak, don’t want to risk giving my location away, but she deserves an answer. “You have to believe me,” I say through an exhalation of pure pain. “We had no choice.”

  Her flashlight swings toward the sound of my voice. “If we have no choice, then the war you started was based on a lie. That’s what your stupid rebellion was all about, wasn’t it? Choices?” The cone of her light grows brighter. A loose stone crunches under her shoe. “Amber made a choice when she broke my sister’s neck. You made one when you stole her magic for yourself.”

  “I didn’t do it for myself. I did it to save my friends. Whatever Doug told you, it wasn’t the whole story.”

  “Part of the story is better than none of it.” Her light snaps off, the sudden darkness disorienting.

  “I know you’re angry,” I call out. “And you have every right to be. I’m not proud of what happened.”

  “Then you should have no problems giving it back.”

  “Giving what back? What do you mean?”

  “My sister’s magic.” Her voice is close, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. “I came here for Ruby, and I’m not leaving without her.”

  “You can’t take the smaze. It’s mine. It’s part of me.”

  “And my sister was part of me.”

  The tunnel goes deathly quiet, the silence only broken by my rasping breaths and the soft spatter of blood dripping from my arm.

  A fist slams into my leg. Pain explodes through my thigh as Kai jams the head of an arrow into the skin. Her breath is hot against my face as she pushes it deeper.

  “Call it!” she says, grabbing me by the hair as I scream. “Call my sister’s smaze. Make it come to you!” She knees me in the ribs. I double over, unable to breathe. With a ruthless jerk, Kai tears the arrow from my shoulder. A roar of pain rips through me. She knots her fingers in the front of my shirt, slamming me backward into the wall. “Do it!”

  “I can’t!” I gasp. “I don’t know how—”

  “It came for you before!”

  I can’t think. In the pitch blackness, all I see is the mountain in Cuernavaca, the blinding pain as I tumbled over ledges, her arrows buried in my back. All I taste is blood and dirt. All I hear is the thwack of her bowstring releasing and the ice cracking, the roar of bloody water in my ears as the lake swallows me.

  Cold. Suddenly, I’m cold all over.

  A draft stirs the air between us and Kai goes still, her breath heavy with condensation as the temperature in the tunnel plummets.

  My smaze. It’s here.

  Kai eases her grip. I feel her retreat a step. Hear the rustle of her arrows in their quiver as her head whips around, searching for the smaze.

  I bolt, staggering through the dark, left arm pressed tightly to my side, certain she’s right behind me. I throw my right elbow back. Cartilage snaps. She gasps, and I hear her shoes skidding, followed by a thump. Her arrows rattle as they scatter.

  My leg screams with every lurching step, my right arm braced against the darkness as I run. Kai’s flashlight clicks on. The beam jumps off the walls, skipping over me, then doubling back as her feet pound the ground. Air rushes from my lungs as she slams into my back and my body hits the stone.

  I buck under her, throwing her into the tunnel wall. Her flashlight rolls, the weak beam glowing a few feet away. I scrabble forward on hands and knees toward it
as she gropes for the shaft of the arrow in my leg. A scream shreds my throat as she rips it out of me.

  Before I open my eyes, she’s on top of me. Blood drips off her chin, her flashlight casting shadows over her red-smeared teeth.

  A frigid wind gusts between us, ruffling her hair.

  We both freeze, breathing hard, each of us trying to catch sight of the smaze as it swoops over us.

  One of us. Only one of us can take the magic.

  I empty my lungs. Draw in a deep breath. Kai’s hand clamps over my mouth, her head whipping to keep sight of the smaze as it dashes around us.

  “Ruby?” she whispers. “Ruby! Is it you?”

  The smaze tumbles in the air, dark and frantic. I don’t know whose magic it is. Mine? Névé’s? Both of ours, tangled up like Doug’s and Fleur’s? All I know is that if Kai takes it, there’s only one way I’ll ever get it back. And I need that smaze to rescue Fleur.

  I bite down hard on her fingers. With a swear, she jerks her hand from my mouth. I kick out with my good leg and roll out from under her. Using the wall, I pull myself to my feet.

  A cold gust of wind rushes between us. I suck in another breath, willing the smaze to come to me. Kai leaps at me, throwing me into the wall. She punches my injured shoulder. Kicks the wound in my thigh. I drop and cry out, unable to stay upright, as she draws in a breath and I watch my smaze disappear into her mouth.

  Electricity crackles in the air. The temperature drops as the wind builds, spinning dirt devils through the tunnel. I shield my eyes from the flying dust, listening to the familiar snap of frost as it crackles over the walls. With a final violent gust, the air goes still.

  I lower my arm. Through the thick white clouds of my breath, I see Kai kneeling, staring at her hands. Frost covers her forearms in lacelike patterns. Her short dark hair shimmers with ice, the frozen strands clinking softly in the silence. A tear slides free, freezing halfway down her cheek, and a hysterical laugh bursts out of her.

  She looks up at me, her eyes swirling white.

  She walks toward me and bends to pick up her flashlight. Then with a sudden whiplike crack, she backhands it across my jaw. I fall facedown in the dirt. She leans close, and her cold hand pats my side. “You don’t deserve my forgiveness. Or my trust.”

  I wait for another arrow to sink in its claws. Instead, the temperature in the cave warms. I lift my head as the crunch of her retreating steps grows softer, moving farther and farther east. The direction we came from.

  The direction I was headed when she shot me.

  Toward the incinerator, where Chill and the others are waiting for me.

  I stumble through the dark, no idea how far I’ve gone. My pulse pounds painfully against the swath of torn shirt I’ve tied into a tourniquet around my thigh. I focus on the roughness of the walls, on the sound of the tunnels, every other sense heightened by the absence of light. I have to find Amber before Kai hunts her down.

  A dim light shines around a bend in the tunnel ahead of me. I stagger toward it, tripping through a familiar arched opening. Voices trail softly from the other side. Julio and Chill bickering. Poppy’s half-hearted admonishments. Marie’s dry laughter.

  The cavern swims around me, their faces coming in and out of focus as I grab the edge of the archway to hold myself up.

  “Jack!” Poppy cries out.

  Three other sets of eyes swing my way. Chill rushes toward me. “Jack! What happened?”

  “Where’s Amber?” I manage between breaths.

  Julio and the others exchange an odd look. “She smelled someone coming—a Winter. She said it smelled like you—that you must have found your magic. She was too excited to wait, so she went to find you.” He pales. Like a shot, Julio grabs a torch from the wall and sprints down an adjacent tunnel. I stumble after him through the narrow opening. Behind me, I hear Chill and the others following.

  I chase the torchlight. The glow expands as the tunnel widens, illuminating a cavern ahead. Amber’s on her knees in the middle of it, her body limp and her chin sagging against her chest. Kai stands behind her, holding her upright by an arrow in her back. Kai’s white eyes swirl with frost as she lets go.

  Amber collapses facedown.

  Julio’s scream echoes through the cavern. Kai’s bow snaps under her weight as he tackles her to the ground. She holds him back with icy hands as he reaches for her throat.

  Too late. I was too late to stop her. Too late to save Amber.

  A faint glow bleeds from the center of the cavern. Chill rushes to Amber’s side as needles of light pierce her skin. Pulling her into his lap, he rolls her on her side, sharing his energy as he yanks the arrow from her back. She gasps awake. Marie and Poppy run to help him keep pressure on the wound.

  Julio is a storm of rage. His arms shake as he holds Kai by her throat. A faint light flickers under her skin.

  “Take it, Jack,” Julio says through gritted teeth. “Take the magic!”

  Kai’s eyes fly wide. Her knee slams into his thigh, throwing him off-balance. She scrambles away from him, her chest heaving as Julio grabs her from behind. He takes her in a choke hold and turns her toward me like an offering. “Take it now, Jack!”

  My magic brightens inside her, dangerously close to the surface.

  I reach for the last knife in my holster. Kai struggles in Julio’s grip. My leg throbs under the tourniquet and the ground wavers beneath me. I could take my magic back. It would heal me. I’d be strong again. I could go after Doug and try to save Fleur. But I can’t do it. Not this way.

  Breathe deeply and remember the lion that you are.

  My hand pauses inside my jacket, the fabric heavy where the last smoke grenade and the transmitters we stole from Lixue and March are still tucked inside the pocket. Kai’s frost-obscured eyes find mine. Her hand slides into her own pocket as if she’s reaching for a weapon.

  My fingers slip from the knife. Before I can talk myself out of it, I reach for the grenade, pulling the pin as I toss it at Julio’s feet. If he sees what I’m about to do, he’ll only try to stop me.

  Julio leaps back as it rolls toward him. I dart for Kai before I lose sight of her in the thick white cloud of smoke. Her head snaps up as my arms come around her and I press my knife to her side. With a firm push, the blade sinks between her ribs.

  Her back arches. My magic glows through her skin.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, slipping March’s transmitter around her ear. The red light blinks as Kai goes limp in my arms. Then she’s gone.

  I drop to my knees, nothing left to hold me up as her magic—my magic—coalesces into a ball of light and soars away through the tunnels, hopefully making its way to March’s chamber, somewhere safe.

  As the smoke settles, I see everyone hovering over Amber. Julio’s hands are on her face, his lips pressed to her forehead. She stirs, her eyelids heavy, but her wound is already healing.

  Julio lifts his head, gaping at my bloody tourniquet and the jagged edges of my red-soaked shirt as if I’ve lost my mind.

  “Anybody got a first-aid kit?” I ask raggedly, breaking the taut silence.

  Chill, Poppy, and Marie all look up at me, their foreheads crushed with worry lines, as if they’re mourning my loss. And maybe they are. Maybe part of me is, too. But I don’t have time for that. I’ve got a plan to get Fleur back, and it’s going to take more than magic to pull it off.

  48

  Send More Sparks Up

  DOUG

  The sleet sprays sideways, the sidewalks outside the portal covered in a thick layer of slush. Lightning flashes close. Thunder echoes off the brick buildings on either side of us as I direct Fleur toward Crowley’s Wharf. I can feel her rising discomfort as we near the shearing, icy wind coming off the Thames. She found a heavy wool coat and hat, a long cashmere scarf, and lined leather gloves in Gaia’s apartment. The base layers under her jeans and heavy sweater make her look stronger, more solid, but under it all, her magic is already shivering. I’ll have to be careful not t
o keep her out here too long.

  The storms have been getting worse as rumors of Lyon’s and Gaia’s deaths are spreading. According to Lixue, Seasons have been pairing off, forming small groups and fleeing their regions rather than risking a trip back through the ley lines. For every freed Season we manage to hunt down and bring home, two more disappear from our system, creating new storms. Power grids have collapsed in dozens of cities, making it even harder to bring the connected Seasons home. My Guards are putting out fires everywhere, but no matter what we do, the sparks keep jumping.

  There’s no more time for useless lessons with potted plants and battles of will in the park. No more time to waste searching for the eye. It’s time to come up with my own answers. I have control over Gaia’s magic; that’s all I need to create new Seasons—my own Seasons. If I can make enough of them, I can indoctrinate them myself and restore the balance Lyon ruined. Kai is certain to keep Jack occupied for a while, which means Fleur and I can get to the business of fixing this mess. If anyone is stubborn and altruistic enough to bring back the dead, it’s Fleur.

  The magic inside me stirs as I follow the Prime Meridian north, responding to the low thrum of the massive ley line’s power under my feet. Through it, I feel connected to the entire universe. If I close my eyes, I can almost see the mesh of the world—a map of time and space—every electromagnetically charged line glowing under the surface of the earth.

  The Trinity Hospital bell tolls from the chapel ahead, the low bong muted by the gusting wind. Somewhere close, a lock snaps open and the smell of trash blows from the next street. I cut east, following the scent into a parking lot near Highbridge Wharf. A teenage boy exits an apartment, hunched into his coat, sleet pelting his shaggy hair. A trash bag swings from his hand as he crosses the parking lot to a waste receptacle.

  Fleur bristles beside me. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m doing all of us a favor.” Fleur grabs my sleeve as I break stride with her to follow him, her grasp slipping as I lunge for the boy’s collar.