by India Arden
“It’s true,” I said. “I have no allegiance to anyone involved with the Arcane Masters…” other than my father. No way could he have known about Blaze’s ambitions—or the extractor. He’d dismissed me out of hand because he didn’t realize what was at stake. But once he realized it was Blaze behind Fathom’s death….
There was an awful lot of Arcanum in that decanter. What if Fathom wasn’t the only one who’d been drained?
For all I knew, my father was already dead. And if he wasn’t, he’d be in grave danger. Because what would Blaze rather have: a domineering father redundantly wearing the same sigil as him, or a fresh new troop of young Masters under his command?
“I need to make one thing clear,” I said, before Rain could see my vibe falter. I turned back to Ember. “My father is not behind any of this. He’s traditional, he’s pigheaded, and evidently, he’s pretty oblivious…but he’s no murderer. My brother, on the other hand, needs to be stopped. And I don’t think any of the authorities are in a position to stop him. It’s obvious all of you believe you’re doing what’s right, and the more that comes to light, the more I’m inclined to agree with you. You have my word—not as a member of the House of Fire, but as a human being—that anything I’ve seen here, anything you’ve told me, is as safe with me as it would be with one of you. With one condition. No harm comes to Torch. Lay a finger on him, and all bets are off.”
Ember looked so deeply into my eyes, my lips parted as if we were going to kiss. But he kept himself at arm’s length when he said, “If you’d agreed with me unconditionally, I wouldn’t have believed you.” And with that, he let go of me and turned to the others. “Everyone for bringing Aurora into the group?”
Zephyr, Rain, and Sterling each raised a hand. “Aye.”
“It’s unanimous,” Ember said. “You’re officially a Rebel.”
16
BLAZE
“Clean that up.” I gestured toward the smoking heap of bones and limbs that, mere moments ago, had been the top Aspirant.
Chasm ignored me…much like he had when he was just Chad, the wunderkind billionaire. “There’s no rhyme or reason to who fails, and who succeeds. If the Arcana was seeking balance, it wouldn’t have Transfigured you to Fire while your father was still in good health. Or it would’ve helped us fill out a second complete Tetrad. But it just seems random.”
Gust was pacing by the door. Even as Gus, he’d always been annoyingly fretful. But now that the Arcane sigil of air glowed beneath his tailored shirt, he seemed twice as fidgety. “And why can’t we find someone who’ll at least try to invoke Water? The three of us can’t Bond without a Water Master, and there’s no way we’re gonna talk Flood into ditching the established Tetrad.”
Chasm drawled, “There’s not much of a Tetrad left for him to ditch.”
“And you’d better hope no one figures it out before we get a handle on this,” I said. Flood’s Tetrad was as crippled as ours, since we’d harvested an impressive batch of Arcanum from Grove. Now, the old man’s drained husk was locked up tight in his quarters. I’d not only disposed of his wife, but all three of his mistresses—even the one he hadn’t spoken to in over a year—so it would be some time before anyone found him. And when they did, there was nothing to link us to his untimely demise.
Now, if only we could figure out why the Aspirants were failing. That senile old plant-whisperer had yielded a surprising volume of Arcanum. So much that I’d needed to swap in an empty decanter to capture it all while Chad and Gus held him down. Enough doses to Transfigure not only my closest confidants, but potentially, two more subservient Tetrads as well.
But not if we continued to waste it on these ingrates who insisted on dying.
Chasm stepped over the smoking corpse and picked up the TV remote. The news was playing in the background, and he unmuted it.
After a harrowing break-in at the Arcane Masters Estate, Rebel suspects are still at large. Sources claim their potential whereabouts have been narrowed down to a few likely locations, but authorities are withholding more specific information for fear of compromising the ongoing investigation.
The photo they’d been flashing over and over since the whole fiasco began appeared onscreen. Blurry, low resolution, yet unforgettable. A Rebel dashing off into the sunset, hand in hand with my own damn sister. They should have looked tawdry and unsavory, him in his clingy sleeveless tank top, her in a scorched red dress. But they didn’t. Not at all.
My sister was blessed with some cuteness gene that had skipped me entirely. Heart-shaped face and huge, innocent eyes. She could garner sympathy by merely breathing. And the thug alongside her was rough, but in a masculine way that only accentuated his looks. There was a movie star quality about him—a James Dean bad-boy appeal that had been titillating needy housewives much longer than I’d been on the sorry planet.
I was already regretting leaking that security shot to the press. Seeing it now on the huge TV, I wondered if it was generating more romantic longing than outrage in the public’s eye.
Even Gust was picturing them in bed, not that it was any big surprise. He was the youngest of us, and even though he was almost twenty, he still didn’t have a handle on his raging teenage hormones. “What do you think they’re doing?” he said breathlessly. “Some kind of gang-rape situation?”
“In your fertile imagination,” Chasm said dryly.
“Maybe a Rebel spit-roast….”
“Shut up,” I snapped. “And turn the damn TV down.”
Chasm complied, but only because they were moving on to the weather. He’d need to learn his place. Sooner rather than later. I eyed his profile as he brushed a fleck of Aspirant-ash off his sleeve with his lip slightly curled in disgust. It was tempting to see how much Arcanum he had inside him…but Gust was nowhere near strong enough to hold him down alone.
Besides, if my theory was correct, Arcanum took time to germinate. Chasm hadn’t been Transfigured long enough to generate any meaningful volume of the elixir. Harvesting him too soon would be such a waste.
I plucked a linen runner off the sideboard and dropped it over the corpse’s leering face. Free from its distraction, I considered our situation. “You both know Aurora as well as I do. If she’s taken up with these lowlives, she’s bound to lead them back here.”
“You really think so?” Gust said hopefully.
“I dunno,” Chasm said. “She’s out. Why not just run away—start over? If ever she had the chance, it’s now.”
“Because,” I informed him, “she’s spent her whole life skulking around the edges of our studies, staring at us longingly as if she deserved to be an Aspirant herself. Never mind that it was impossible for her to Transfigure. She still thought she was entitled to the chance—and she’d attached herself to The Great Machine in hopes that she could take some credit for our accomplishments. Now, she’s surrounded by a bunch of special snowflakes too delusional to understand a woman’s proper place. She’ll be dying to prove herself to those delinquents. And the best way to do that is to betray her own flesh and blood.”
17
AURORA
The Arcane Rebels might have been unanimous about voting me in…but none of them could agree with the best course of action going forward.
“We need to understand the Bonding,” Sterling said. “Without that, any Arcane abilities we develop are nothing more than party tricks.”
“If that’s the case,” Zephyr turned to me, “good thing we’ve got a font of firsthand knowledge on the team.”
I felt my cheeks burn. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never heard of any Bonding.”
Zephyr’s eyebrows shot up. “Hey—no secrets. You just claimed to be one of us.”
“And I’m telling you the truth. I was trained to maintain the distiller. Not to wield the Arcanum itself.”
Rain tried to look into my eyes as if he was searching for a lie, and I turned away.
“Let her be,” Ember said. “The Bonding is one
of their most closely-guarded rituals. Our sources couldn’t get hold of the intel, so it’s reasonable to believe that neither could she.”
“There is that one historic text,” Sterling suggested.
Zephyr said, “The one we gave up trying to read?”
“A little Photoshop might go a long way in restoring some legibility. Just saying, it’s one potential avenue.”
Ember planted his hands on his hips and shook his head. “We need to get our hands on that extractor. Blaze put a magical ward on it—and that was to keep it from his own people, so it’s clearly important. Aurora disabled the thing, but it’s only a matter of time before they piece it back together. And once they do, we’re not dealing with just one bonded group, but multiple Tetrads.”
“Time’s ticking,” Zephyr said, “and we can debate until we’re blue in the face. We need to choose. Figure out the Bonding—or get the extractor.”
“Why choose?” Rain asked, pulling his loose hair into a bun. “There’s four of us, too many to break into the compound again with any reasonable chance of flying under the radar. Half of us go, half of us stay.”
Sterling picked his nail polish. “As much as it pains me to miss out on the action, the rest of you are hopeless at Photoshop. So, I guess I’m staying. And Ember’s face is plastered all over the newswires—yeah, guy, I know it’ll kill you to sit this one out—but it’s just not worth the risk.”
Ember looked like he wanted to grumble about it, but Sterling was clearly right. He turned toward the door while Rain and Zephyr grabbed some coats off the wall, heads bent together, strategizing their way in. I was left standing there, useless.
“There’s five of us,” I announced. Everyone turned to me as if they’d forgotten my existence the moment Super Important Rebel Duties came up. “I know my way around the estate. You don’t.”
Rain said, “Sorry, Princess, the pallet jack would only slow us down.”
“My foot is fine. What do you think I’m standing on right now?”
Zephyr came to the immediate defense of his buddy. “You barely made it out of there alive and now you want to charge back in? Stop and think for a second.”
“I am thinking. Are you? Because if you were, you’d realize that security will have figured out Ember crawled in through the heating ducts, and they’ll be guarded now. All the doors will have eyes on them, too. So, you’re going to need a new way in. And once you’re inside, you’ll need someone who knows their way around. Me.”
Zephyr sketched something in the air as if he was writing himself a note, then turned to Rain and said, “She’s right. Tapping her knowledge of the layout on the fly is the most logical use of her experience. And we absolutely do need another way in.”
Rain stroked the overgrown stubble on his chin. With a few strands of his chestnut hair falling loose around his face, he looked like one of those grungy models you see everywhere these days, guys who are purposely styled to look rough around the edges, but classically pretty under all that stubble and hair. Except Rain’s rough edges weren’t manufactured for the glossy magazines, and the scintillating depths of his tidal blue eyes were definitely not the product of Photoshop. He glanced back at the sink, where the unprocessed load in the garbage disposal lay, forgotten. “Actually, I think I’ve got a way.”
I turned to follow the two of them out of the break room, but Ember caught me by the wrist. His eyes were still smoldering with that fiery intensity that had been in his heart all along but was now made plain for the world to see in the flickering amber depths of his eyes. “I know this is your family,” he told me. “Your home. You’re inured to the danger there. But, please, whatever you do, don’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“So they can’t torture your location out of me?”
He looked at me like we were trying to communicate in two entirely different languages. “So they don’t kill you.”
I felt that pull again—like he might bend down and capture my lips in a scorching kiss—but instead he just gave my forearm a gentle squeeze, turned, and followed Sterling out the door.
“C’mon, Princess,” Rain called from the hallway. “Let’s gear up. We won’t exactly be traveling first class.”
I followed him into the vast, dim warehouse. In the returns room, Zephyr was digging through a waist-high bin marked FOOTWEAR. “Finding your size in this mess isn’t usually an issue,” he called over his shoulder. “But locating a matching pair is.”
“You want me to wear two different shoes,” I said in disbelief.
“I want the mission to succeed. And if the best way to accomplish that is with a slightly irregular pair of boots, so be it.”
Rain toed off his worn skate shoes and shoved his foot into a random rubber boot. “I pitied the man with no shoes until I encountered a man with no feet.”
I supposed unmatched shoes were better than none.
“Keep in mind,” Zephyr said, “the whole point is for no one to see us—it’s not as if we’ll be on parade. So, if I were you, I’d go for function over fashion.” I half-expected him to add “Princess” to the admonition, but he didn’t. The way his gray eyes were sparkling as he challenged me to join in on the mis-matched boot party, he didn’t need to.
I peered into the bin. It was wider than the span of my arms and twice as long, over half full with returned shoes. None like I’d ever actually worn. Sneakers with velcro closures. Work boots. Purple children’s shoes with sparkle butterflies. White nurses’ shoes…every sort of common and utilitarian shoe you could imagine. Most of them single. Of if they had a match, it was buried under a mound of pumps and wedges and loafers.
I found a pair of lace-up gladiator sandals tangled together, my size, and pulled them out. They’d do.
“No doubt they’d show off your pedicure,” Rain said, “but, trust me, you’ll want something more like this.” He tossed a yellow rubber gardening boot toward me.
“But….”
“You’ll thank me later.”
“There’s not a cloud in the sky.”
“Very true. We won’t be traveling aboveground, however, so gird thy toes accordingly, Your Highness.” With a little bark of triumph, he tossed the boot’s mate my way. I’ve always considered myself a practical person. But this? I felt foolish enough without canary-colored boots on my feet. I rummaged around looking for something remotely presentable, but it was useless. The only paired-off shoes were either too big, too small, or just as awful. I pulled on some socks from a nearby pile, then stepped into a yellow boot. It was stamped with daisies, as if any amount of decoration could make it less ugly. It fit. And as someone who’d recently been forced to navigate long marble hallways in pointy-toed pumps, I felt—sad to say—comfortable.
Not that I was about to admit to it.
Since the easiest shoes to match were the bright, ugly ones, the coordinated pair that Rain found for himself was just as bad, green camo hunting boots made for mucking through ankle-deep mud puddles.
I sat on a shipping crate feeling silly in my yoga pants and yellow rubber boots while Zephyr tipped into the bin, ass in the air. His faded, worn jeans were covered in patches and ballpoint pen doodles. They fit him like a second skin—and they drew the eye in such a way that it was impossible not to check out that butt.
It was a rounded ass. Tight. Muscular. Really nice. And I hated that I noticed it.
Of all the guys, he bothered me the most. I’m fine to look at. Symmetrical. Pleasing. This was a simple fact, albeit a thoroughly useless one that never meant anything. Back at the estate, my looks had been irrelevant. The dating pool was small. The techs wouldn’t speak to me, but the Aspirants? All they’d care about was marrying into the House of Fire. It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been the ugliest shoe in the shoe bin. Overhearing Zephyr talk about me like he was into me—like I was hot—well, for just a second there, I felt like a normal girl.
And then he went and ruined it by threatening to kill me. Not in an ominous way, eith
er, but totally matter-of-fact. Not like he might even regret it, in fact. Like it was amusing. Some kind of joke.
It wasn’t just his butt or the fact that he appreciated my looks that intrigued me, but the way his mind worked. He didn’t air-draw with his pointer finger just for show. He had a whole flowchart of possibilities scrolling through his head. Every team needs an idea man, and this team’s guy was Zephyr. Whatever we were about to embark on, the plan would’ve been hatched by him.
Hopefully, it would be some consolation to find fault with it.
I said, “If the doors and air ducts are guarded, then what’s your plan? We won’t pass for gardeners no matter how ugly our shoes are.”
“No need. There’s ductwork that runs underneath. Tunnels older than the compound where the Masters go down to purify the city’s water supply. At least they used to…before the Sanctions. We can access them through the sewers.”
He tossed me a shapeless beige raincoat. I pulled it on, then followed Rain and Zephyr down a dark, narrow hall and out a heavy steel door. I found myself facing an empty parking lot with crumbling asphalt and weed patches grown higher than my head. Not only was there no one to judge my outfit…it felt like we were the last few people on Earth.
Zephyr pulled on a pair of round mirrored shades and cocked his head toward a line of dumpsters. He hefted a backpack he was carrying to his shoulder and said, “C’mon, let’s grab some wheels.”
Turned out, I could move a lot quicker in those gardening boots than I would have in heels, and once we were halfway across the parking lot, I was able to stop blushing over the daisy print. We squeezed through a gap in the dumpsters and found a neglected field that backed onto some residential streets. It was midday and the sun was up, but even with blue skies all around, the neighborhood around the old Lerman’s store looked downtrodden and neglected and sad. The low-income housing was small and boxy to begin with. Add to that the fact that some were in shameful states of disrepair, and others were clearly abandoned.