Maya searched the image on the tiny screen before her. Her mother spoke, midnight hair pulled up in a severe bun, her father at her shoulder, emerald eyes so bright they cut like a knife. They would see her hesitation unless she fixed this.
“Just Toby’s stupid cat. It nearly knocked the laptop over. My apologies.” She grinned and watched satisfied as her mother’s face fell in response to her lack of decorum.
“Report on the status of your quest, please,” the woman said.
Maya cleared her throat. “I am down to two names on my list. I predict the Fire Elemental will be eliminated by our next meeting.” The camera couldn’t show her hand clenched behind her back.
“Time runs short.” This time it was her father’s deep voice that answered. She understood that he was bitter. That he’d missed hunting an Elemental himself by one short generation. But did that really mean he couldn’t be proud of his daughter?
“I know that, Father.” His eyes narrowed. “I mean, Noble One. Things are moving along precisely as anticipated.”
“And your training?” her mother asked.
“Has continued uninterrupted along with the search.” She nudged Toby in the arm, and his head snapped around. What was he looking at?
“Uh, yes. We have been training hard, Noble Ones. And I am furnishing Maya with several new weapons for the imminent battle.”
Her parents shifted uneasily. “And have you tested these weapons?” her mother asked, voice a bit more like a real parent. Filled with concern. Probably just worried about the mission though.
“Of course he has. Toby is a professional Circle Operative,” Maya snapped. She wished they’d just hang up already. All of this formality was more tiring than training. And far less fun.
“Very well,” her father said. “Once the Elemental is eliminated you will contact us immediately. Otherwise, we will speak again in one week.”
Maya and Toby both tipped their heads down, and the screen went blank. Maya released her fist from behind her back and flexed her fingers. Tiny nail marks indented the flesh of her palm like little crescent moons.
She turned to retreat to her room, but Toby’s hand caught her arm. She spun around completely stunned. Usually, he’d already dived back into his work by this point. What could have distracted him?
“What?” she asked.
“Copernicus was nowhere near the table.”
Maya shrugged her arm away. “I’m already a big enough loser in their eyes. They don’t need to think I’m distracted.”
“But you are. And it’s dangerous.”
“I’m tired! Okay? I get a few hours of down time. I’m not out in the field right now. I’m at home. So just chill.”
Toby’s normally steady fingers fumbled as he worked off the thick bronze ring he always wore. In a flash, Maya held it in her fist, sandwiched between Toby’s hands. The ring was warmer than Toby’s flesh, and Maya could only stare into his eyes, shocked.
“What’s this for? Another weapon? I thought it was just jewelry.”
Toby licked his lips and pressed harder on her hand. “It’s not a weapon. It’s an heirloom. It’s been passed down through my family for generations. It belonged to Arthur, but some say it was a gift from Merlin himself.”
Merlin. Toby’s childhood hero. The alchemist, magician, and scientist. The guy who started all this.
“I’m not taking your ring, Tob.” Maya didn’t know what else to say. This was weird. The way he was looking at her was weird.
“Please. It’s supposed to protect the wearer. I… I need you to wear it. Just until this is all over. Okay?”
“You wear it. You’re an Operative too.” Maya tried to pry herself loose to return it. She wasn’t much of a jewelry person anyway. Too constrictive.
“You’re the one that’s going to find him, or maybe the one who already has.”
Maya felt the heat flood her face. The anger bubbled up along with forty different ways to defend herself from that accusation, but all she managed was a snort.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters to me is that you’re safe. Take it.” Toby squeezed her hand once more and before she could blink was back at his worktable, goggles in place, like none of it had ever happened.
“I do not need protecting. I do not need pep talks. I do not need help.” She finally stammered, trying to crush the object still clutched in her hand.
She waited while her chest pumped oxygen in and out. Toby’s face rose from his work, showing more pain and concern than her father’s ever had, and that was the last straw. With a frustrated cry, she stormed off to her room and slammed the door.
Part Two
Choosing Sides
Chapter Twenty-One
Aedan
“So when do you think the Circle guy will show up?” Aedan spun around on his desk chair and finally voiced the question that had been weighing on his mind more and more in the last weeks. So much so in fact, that he’d had a lot of trouble sleeping, and was now guzzling coffee from a thermos, and using drugstore concealer to hide the dark circles under his eyes from Edy’s perceptive gaze. He didn’t like having to buy girl’s makeup, but it was better than the alternative.
Kari just shrugged, swinging her leg a little as she leaned back on his mattress.
“I can’t live like this. I wish he would just get it over with already.”
“It’ll be a girl,” Kari said.
“What?”
“The Circle Operative that attacks will be a girl. That’s how it usually works, we know from the last several times. It’s always the opposite gender of the Elemental.”
“So a girl is coming after me? And how do they know what we are? Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Aedan’s voice got higher with each question. The fire in his stomach ignited like someone put a flame to a gas stove, and he hastily pushed it away.
“What difference does it make?” Kari’s shrewd gaze held him for a moment, and he waffled. What difference did it make really? In some way, it was actually poetic. Like an avenging angel for the V’s.
“None I guess,” he said, and his shoulders wilted.
“They aren’t so tough,” Kari said. Her tone was softer, and when Aedan looked up, she was stalking toward him. “I already took out two of them. I guess they come in pairs. The helper is the other gender if that means anything to you. Probably in case we swing the other way.”
“You killed two people?” he asked, sitting a bit straighter.
Kari slid onto his lap and swung an arm around his shoulder. Her wild hair tickled his nose. He was familiar with her now that they’d kissed, but less and less comfortable with touching her. At first, it was such a relief to learn to control the fire, he hadn’t really considered all the… ramifications. Now he felt guilty every time he met with Maya, even though he technically wasn’t cheating. He just couldn’t explain to Keri that it was more than his concern that he might set her on fire. He was afraid she’d blow the whole house away in a tantrum.
He wasn’t even sure Kari felt that way about him, just that she didn’t like to be dissed. It was hard to tell what Kari felt. She was kind of all over the place, just like her hair. And he really didn’t want to piss her off because she was the only thing that grounded him enough to be sure he wasn’t completely insane. If she was real – everything had to be real. Though right now, he wasn’t sure real was the best alternative either.
“The guy pretended to be interested in me,” she said. “Big surprise I know. Who isn’t? Not to be vain or anything, but it’s one of our qualities.” She bit her lip, looking off into space like she was remembering something funny.
“How’d you know who he was?” Aedan asked.
“Well when he pulled a sword on me in the shower, I kind of got a clue.”
“No shit?” Aedan swallowed hard.
“Yeah, it was pretty messy. I kept finding bits of him in the bathroom for days.” She stroked Aedan’s chest, burying her face in his neck. He stiffened. Thi
s was the perfect example. She was talking about tearing a man to shreds, and expected him to be all hot and bothered at the same time.
He caught her hands in his. “Then what happened?”
“Oh. Well, I reported it of course. Then I went to his place – a hotel room he’d been renting, and found his little partner.” She wrinkled her nose up. “She was a petite little thing. No bigger than your redheaded friend. Not much of a challenge, especially since I took her by surprise.”
Aedan was speechless. The girl in his lap was a cold-blooded killer. It must have shown on his face because Kari threw her head back and laughed, then took his head in her hands, and tossed her forehead forward until it connected with his.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered. “They wouldn’t have hesitated to kill me. It’s what they live for. In fact, one of them tried his best. Lucky for me it wasn’t good enough.”
Before Aedan could respond, or even sift through the conflicting thoughts tumbling through his mind, she was kissing him. There was no doubt she was practiced. She knew exactly what to do, and how to do it. Her hands circled around his shoulders, and she dipped her mouth to his neck once again.
“You don’t think Maya…” his voice trailed off.
“I doubt it. You’ve been seeing her for a while now, right?”
“Well, she showed up in school a few months ago, and I’ve been tutoring her this summer for a while now.”
“You’d already be dead if she was the Operative. Well, one of you would.”
Aedan’s chest relaxed. He couldn’t stomach the thought that Maya’s affections were fake. Then his stomach twisted into a knot, forcing bile up toward his throat. He pushed Kari off his lap and ran for the bathroom.
What the hell was he doing? Was he actually that big of hypocrite that he could sit there doing that with one girl while he worried that another didn’t have feelings for him? Shit. He had to break off this thing – whatever it was – with Kari.
Except that he couldn’t really be with Maya. Because in two months’ time, he was destined to destroy the world, become a slave to Morgana Le Fay, or end up dead. Not one of those three possibilities included a safe, happy spot for a girlfriend by his side. Not unless it was another Elemental. Like Kari.
But he didn’t have those kind of feelings for Kari. Well, he had those kind of feelings. He was a guy. But not the other kind. The kind where his heart did flip-flops just because Maya grinned at him. Or where he found himself staring at the palm tree in the backyard because its fronds reminded him of the color of her eyes.
Aedan groaned and gripped the sides of the counter tighter. He just wanted it all to be over already. Kari kept insisting they should make every moment count. But he felt the increasingly heavy weight of the world pressing down on him with every tick of the clock. He could barely breathe. Every time a door opened, or the second to last stair creaked as it always had, his vision clouded with fear. How could he continue to live this way?
A knock made him start, nearly banging his head on the medicine cabinet.
“Aedan, are you in there?” It was Edy’s worried voice.
“Yeah. I’ll be right out.” Aedan straightened up, ran a little cool water over his hands, and splashed it over his face. Pulled it back through his hair. Then he yanked the door open to find Edy wringing her hands on the other side.
He forced a smile. “What’s up?”
“You are,” she said, searching his face. “You barely come out of your room anymore unless you’re meeting Maya.”
“I’m fine,” he said. But Edy had always been able to read him like – well, forget the open book, more like flashing neon sign.
“Aedan, we can’t help you if you don’t talk to us.” She reached out a hand, and he shied away. He regretted it immediately. The hurt on her face. He wasn’t even sure why he did it. Maybe because he didn’t want to contaminate her with the dark magic in his soul.
Whoever you are, he thought, I hope you hurry up and find me. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.
Because as callous as Kari was about killing those two Circle Operatives, he knew he could never laugh about it later. He knew it from experience.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Aedan
“Where are we going?” Aedan asked. He let Maya drag him through the library to a distant corner where no one else seemed to have strayed in quite some time judging by the thin veil of white collected on the spines of all the books. He squinted at the title of one of the closest volumes. It looked a lot like Old English. Like something you’d see in Shakespeare.
“History,” Maya said. “The absolute most devastatingly boring section I could find.” Her smile was contagious.
“History isn’t always boring,” was all he could think to say. The dust tickled his nose, and he fought the urge to sneeze.
Maya laughed. Her hair was lit up like fire with the muted sunlight from some high windows stretched across the top of the shelves. Aedan shivered.
“I don’t understand you,” Maya said, pulling him to the back of the last row. She pushed him into the wall below the windows and kept an outstretched hand against his chest.
“What’s to get?” he asked, trying to look anywhere but at those eyes. The ones that had invaded his dreams for months now. The ones that made it all hurt worse whenever he thought about his destiny.
“Something is keeping you from being here. With me. Right now. And it isn’t a missing girlfriend.”
Aedan flinched. That was below the belt. She must have realized it because she bit her lip and let go of his chest. He wished she hadn’t. For some reason when she touched him he felt calmer. More confident.
“What are you talking about? I’m right here.” He tried to laugh it off.
“Yeah? Then kiss me.”
Aedan faltered. He’d wanted to do nothing else for the past hour. He kept catching mistakes in his own proofs because he was so distracted. He wanted to feel like he had that first day in the parking lot when she’d ambushed him. Before he’d ever met Kari or heard about Elementals, or Morgana Le Fay.
Maya sighed and leaned against one of the shelves, pouting. “Aren’t you attracted to me?” she asked. “I mean you sure seemed to like it before. And we have a great time together. It can’t all be in my head.”
“It isn’t,” he said. It came out a little louder than he’d intended, and Maya’s mouth snapped closed. She played absentmindedly with the bottom of her braid. He knew she’d been wearing it like that because he’d said he liked it.
“Then what?” she prompted.
“I might… we might be moving in a couple of months.” Aedan reached for the cord wrapped around Maya’s neck, tugging a ring loose from beneath her shirt. His knuckles grazed her smooth skin as he held it up to examine so he didn’t have to look in her eyes while he continued. “I don’t want to have to miss you even more than I already will.”
He wanted so badly to tell her the truth. To confide in a normal human. But she’d think he was certifiable. And if she did give him the chance to prove it she’d either be scared off or worse, end up hurt because of him. It always came back to that possibility. That probability really.
Maya considered him a minute. “You’re lying.”
“Excuse me?” He blanched, the ring held forgotten in his fingers.
“When you lie, your right eyebrow twitches.” She folded her arms. “So try again.”
“I-” he was completely flustered as always with her. “I just-” he was angry with the whole situation. He could feel the flush in his cheeks. The fire igniting in his gut, as she stepped up to face him, expression as unyielding as stone.
Oh to hell with it.
Aedan dropped the necklace and gathered her to him in one arm, pressing his mouth to hers. He started slow, but couldn’t hold back all the passion he’d shoved deep inside. This was Maya. The girl he wanted more than any girl. Ever. And she wanted him too. Maybe he’d take a page from Kari’s book and live
in the moment for once.
Maya’s body relaxed against his, and he drew her closer until the only thing between them was their thin summer clothes and the heat of their bodies. Her lips parted, and he slid his tongue inside, grazing her teeth. Her hands gripped his shoulder and neck, urging him closer. They stayed tangled together in the back of the library until the sun moved beyond the windows, and the tiny white bits floating in the shaft of light were no longer visible. Until Maya pulled away, chest heaving beneath her bright red tank. Hair spraying free from her braid.
Aedan collapsed back against the wall and closed his eyes, fighting for control in several ways. When he opened them again, Maya was smiling at him in a way that made him want to pull her in all over again.
“You told me to kiss you,” he said.
“You follow directions well. That’s probably why you’re so good at Trigonometry,” she said.
Aedan shook his head. “You really are a handful, Maya.”
Maya considered him, pressing her lips together in a maddening way. Then she reached around her neck, and standing on tiptoe, flung the cord over his head. “This is for luck. Also so you know you can’t get rid of me that easily.”
Aedan grinned as she pulled at his shirt, letting the ring fall beneath where it seared against the flesh of his chest in a strangely comforting way. It was heavier than Aedan expected, and maybe it was just because it was from Maya, but it already felt natural.
“I didn’t do it all from the goodness of my heart, you know,” Maya said.
“Oh?” The fire in his belly flared again at the look in her eye.
“Now you owe me, Sparks. So pucker up.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maya
Aedan’s body language had changed. It was like that make out session in the library sucked some of the doom and gloom away. He was actually laughing now. Teasing her, and not tensing up just because they were at the mall. He even bought the smoothies this time.
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