Turning Tides (Elements, Book 3)

by Mia Marshall

  Lydia cast a grateful look her way.

  “That’s what I thought, too, until I asked some old friends to help me with a bit of research. Take it away, humans.”

  The FBI agents looked less than impressed with my introduction, but they didn’t miss their cue. Carmichael began. “Aidan inquired if there were ways to create an explosion that could be triggered with water.”

  As they spoke, I picked up the second item Grams had brought downstairs and displayed it like a game show hostess. When she caught sight of what I held in my hands, panic crossed Lydia’s face.

  Johnson took over. “There are, in fact, several ways one can create such an explosion.”

  I moved toward the fireplace. “You might want to move,” I told my aunts. They stood, moving as far away as possible without missing a single moment of my demonstration. “Also, if you can all let go of your water, that will increase our chances of surviving the next few minutes.”

  I opened the airtight metal container that claimed to hold baby powder and used my fingertips to spread a small amount of the substance onto a kitchen towel Grams had helpfully provided. Once I’d coated several square inches of the towel, I opened a second, smaller container. Its label said it was a face serum, but the jar didn’t hold a liquid. I sprinkled its contents on top of the the first one. Finally, I picked up the box Grams had brought from the kitchen and added several white granules to the mixture.

  I backed away the second I was done. The rain was picking up outside, fierce drops lashing the windows, and if Carmichael’s notes were accurate, this mixture was far from stable in the presence of water.

  The agents looked nervous, which was the appropriate expression when watching me handle explosives. Carmichael hurried to finish their explanation. “A solution of ammonium nitrate, zinc, and table salt could have been sewn into pockets and hems, hidden in a locket, all sorts of places on a person. Like, for example, the oversized collar on the cardigan Edith was wearing the day she died. Get enough of the mixture, and it causes one hell of an explosion. Terrorists have used several ammonium nitrate mixtures in the past, and the chemicals have caused no shortage of industrial accidents.”

  Sera’s eyes widened, and I gave her an imperceptible nod. She’d found a clue, after all. We just hadn’t known it at the time.

  “Then,” I finished, “all it takes is a bit of water. It can come from the air, so if it had been a rainy day, the mixture would have worked instantly. If Edith’s upper body had absorbed more of the ocean water, she would have exploded earlier. Perhaps she was supposed to. It wasn’t until the last minute, when Lydia realized Edith was still in one piece and about to announce the sentence that would earmark the drugs for me rather than her nephew, that she called on her magic and added water to the chemical mixture.”

  The entire room held its breath. I still had some of my magic connected to the outside fountain, and I dragged it through the house. It was only a few drops, but I directed them onto the towel and stood back.

  One loud boom later, and small pieces of a white kitchen towel fluttered to the ground. My mother grabbed the metal container from me and vanished for several minutes to put it in a safe location.

  I plucked the largest bit of cloth from the fireplace and turned in a circle, letting everyone see the damage. I was on a roll now. “I don’t think I need to say that the baby powder was really ammonium nitrate, and it was found in Lydia’s room. It was only a small amount. She’d used most of it when she tried to blow up Josiah and, of course, when she killed Edith. There was too much to keep in Grams’ house, and it was far too dangerous, so she stored it in Robin’s shed until she needed it.”

  Everyone spoke at once, accusations and denials, a swell of noise that was felt more than heard. It took a full minute, but one voice rose above the others.

  “That is not proof.” Lydia’s chin lifted, and her eyes blazed. “Those items could have been planted. People have been in and out of this house since we arrived, including you and Josiah. It isn’t proof,” she repeated.

  She might claim innocence, but I noticed Michael was inching away from her, his eyes scanning the room for an exit.

  “It also doesn’t explain why she would want to kill Josiah.” Lana’s eyes were even rounder than usual, giving her a decidedly owl-like quality, though with less wisdom.

  “It really was a neat little plan. Kill Edith and get the drug that might help Trent’s sanity. Of course, that’s a terrible reason to murder someone, especially when a good pickpocket could have retrieved the vials with fewer exploding body parts. But then she heard Sera Blais was accompanying me. The daughter of a man with a history of doing anything to protect his offspring. A man Lydia wanted dead. If Sera was accused of murder, Josiah would appear soon after. Lydia counted on this. She arranged for the explosives to be delivered, the ones used to turn the cottage into a beachfront scrapyard. Robin must have grown suspicious about the delivery and was coming to tell me. Lydia didn’t have the time to plant explosives on Robin, which explains why her death was different. Based on my examination of the body, I’d say she was struck twice at the base of her skull, and then Lydia burned her, probably with some good old-fashioned gasoline and a match. Do you all see it? Edith, Robin, and the house explosion can be laid at that woman’s feet.”

  When I finished, I expected at least a few dramatic gasps. There was only silence. “It was Lydia, on the beach, with ammonium nitrate,” I added, worried my explanation hadn’t been clear enough.

  Everyone stared at Lydia. Many eyes held accusation, but some awaited her denial. She said nothing.

  “Why would she want Josiah dead? Did he kill one of her family members, too?” David sounded almost sympathetic.

  Sera blinked, distracted. David’s story was one we needed to hear, perhaps after we dealt with the other psychotic murderer in the library.

  “Not yet.” Lydia’s voice was barely a whisper. “But he would have.”

  The room waited. No one seemed to breathe, but Lydia said nothing more. There was only one way I’d convince the room of her guilt. I had to share the piece of information I’d dearly hoped to avoid.

  I couldn’t act to save my life. However, if denial was an Olympic sport, I’d be a gold medal contender, so I called on that skill. I took the knowledge of who I was, of my own dual magic heritage, and I buried it so deep archaeologists would struggle to find it. I let myself believe, absolutely, that I was a water and a water only, before I raised the one topic I never wished to discuss.

  The words I was about to speak would give Lydia a motive and exonerate Josiah.

  And they would doom a man who deserved better. I took one last breath, and I made my choice.

  “Trent Pond is a dual magic,” I told the room. “He is both ice and water. Josiah has been researching dual magics, attempting to uncover their locations.”

  For me. He’d done it all for me, trying to find any way a dual magic could remain sane, but Lydia could never know that. No one could.

  “I found a couple of them, actually,” Josiah said. “We can discuss my findings later. Once I’m declared innocent of all crimes, that is.”

  Michael and Deborah and even my aunts all turned pale upon hearing that the unmentionable still existed, that the forgotten elementals capable of razing entire cities still lived among us. I suspected they’d happily take Josiah up on his offer if it meant he’d lead them to the closest thing elementals had to a boogeyman.

  I had to believe he was bluffing. If he gave that information, the others would die. The council would not hesitate to issue an automatic death sentence.

  The same sentence I’d just forced upon Trent.

  It was too late to change course now. “Lydia learned of his investigations and feared for her nephew’s life. She tried to stop him. She is responsible for it all.”

  Lydia didn’t say a word. Instead, she stood and walked toward the library door. Her steps weren’t hurried, but they were intent.

  The doorwa
y erupted in flames.

  “You can’t leave that way,” said Sera. Her face held as much rage as I’d ever seen. It didn’t matter how complicated her own relationship with Josiah was. He was her father, and Lydia had tried to kill him.

  He was my father, too. A man whose unrelenting desire to protect me had caused him to kill at least two women. Lydia was attempting to do the same thing, to protect her own family.

  The irony was so rich I could choke on it.

  She returned to her seat, and Sera extinguished the flames.

  “How could you, Lydia?” Michael Bay stared at her with equal parts horror and sadness. “How could you kill all those people?”

  Lydia avoided Michael’s gaze and didn’t answer him. She didn’t look like a murderer, or even like a desperate woman with an elaborate plan to cure her nephew. She just looked small and scared. “What happens now?”

  Michael and Deborah glanced about the room, hoping anyone else had the answer. It was their job to manage misbehaving elementals, but Lydia hadn’t just acted a bit naughty. This was far beyond their comfort level.

  It was Grams who answered Lydia’s question. She was the only council member prepared to give voice to the words that needed saying. “You know what happens. There is only one sentence available to an elemental who commits premeditated murder.”

  Lydia did not argue. “Death, then?”

  “It is our only option. You have proven yourself both dangerous and cruel. You have placed your needs above the needs of all elementals, and in so doing committed unforgivable crimes. You have tonight to prepare yourself. The sentence will be carried out at dawn.”

  I’d expected a raging elemental, trapped and unpredictable. Instead, Lydia accepted her sentence without protest. “That is fair. Am I allowed one last request?”

  “Of course.” Grams gave a gracious nod.

  “Please, inject one of those vials into Trent before you kill him. Don’t punish him for my crimes. I know it’s not the best solution, but we have to try. If there’s any hope of a cure, you must try. Maybe no magic at all is still better than the wrong kind of magic.”

  Grams only hesitated for a moment, and her stiff neck told me she was working hard not to glance in my direction. “We will do as you ask.”

  Lydia’s shoulders slumped. She’d given Trent a chance. It was all she’d ever wanted.

  I’d almost feel bad for her, if the memory of Robin’s burnt body wasn’t still fresh in my mind.

  The doorbell rang, the sound overloud in the quiet room. We were still processing the news. I wondered to what extent Lydia’s actions were based on cruelty and how much on a genuine belief that she needed to do this. I was beginning to think anyone could snap, given reason enough.

  Grams opened the front door, and though I couldn’t see who it was from my current position, the familiar deep voice reached me, and for that moment all my worries and fears vanished. “We were told to meet them at the plane fifteen minutes ago. Is everything okay?”

  Everything was fine. For that moment, everything really was.

  “We’re just wrapping up,” I called. “Be right there.” The tension in the room rose noticeably with the arrival of the oversized bear shifter, and I didn’t want to linger. “Do you need me for anything else?”

  Though I asked the room, I looked at Josiah. I felt an unexpected stab of guilt. Even with extenuating circumstances, I was leaving him to face a murder trial for a death I forced him to commit.

  He looked at me, and at that moment I saw Sera in his eyes. For the first time, they held softness, perhaps even understanding. “You know I’ll be fine, Ms. Brook. I always am. You did a wonderful job today. You should be proud.”

  I didn’t cry. I just thought about it for a moment or two.

  “We’ve got this, dear,” said my mother. “You need to be home now. If the council is determined to see you in person to deliver the sentence, they can always travel to you.” She stared at Michael and Deborah, daring them to contradict her.

  It felt strange to accuse and run, but my job was complete. There was nothing else for me to do.

  I stood, knowing this could be the last time I ever saw my grandmother’s house. Already, it felt foreign, a place I might wish to visit but would never call home. It was bittersweet to leave, but the emphasis remained on the sweet.

  “How can you just go?” Lana asked. Her eyes darted around the room, and I was reminded of a china doll, beautiful to look at but so easy to destroy. One good hit, and it would smash into thousands of pieces. David clutched her hand, but for once she didn’t seem to notice his presence. “Everything’s just wrong. It’s all wrong. You say my aunt is a crazed killer and blew up the cottage and my brother is something that isn’t even supposed to exist but you want to take away his magic and it’s just all wrong. Stop it. The world doesn’t make sense. Stop it.” She pleaded with me, begging to be returned to a time when everything wasn’t awful.

  I wished I could. I longed for that myself, for a world that made sense. I held out one tentative hand, not even sure if I was trying to touch her or hug her or just shake her hand.

  It didn’t matter. Lana wasn’t even looking at me. As her tears broke forth, she called to the water just outside, pulling it to her for comfort. Thin waves ran through the room, heading straight for her. One of the waves passed over my outstretched hand—a hand I’d used to spread the chemical mixture on the towel.

  There wasn’t much, just a few grains on each finger. My hand didn’t explode.

  It just caught fire, flames dancing along the skin.

  I didn’t think. I let the fire magic loose, grabbed hold of the flames and pulled them through my skin, absorbing them into my body. In a matter of seconds, the fire was extinguished.

  I don’t know what I expected to see when I looked around the room. Concern or surprise, perhaps. Instead, no one met my eyes. They were too busy staring at my hand.

  My perfectly smooth, unburnt hand.

  Chapter 26

  Once, while walking through a park in Tahoe, I passed a group of children playing a game. They called it freeze tag, and I watched for several minutes, fascinated by the way they would cease motion the moment someone yelled “Freeze!” and then burst into action once the game resumed.

  That was how the room reacted. No one moved for what felt like a small eternity, during which I had time to appreciate that, after days of fearing Lana’s words would unmask me, she’d managed to do the unthinkable with a single stream of poorly directed magic. I turned my head, catching my mother’s eyes, Josiah’s, my grandmother’s, hoping one of them would offer a lead I could follow, but there was nothing. They were as frozen as the others, unable to think of a way to explain the impossible.

  And then, just as quickly, the room burst into action.

  Deborah grabbed a large cushion, holding it before her as a shield.

  My aunts started shrieking, one question after another falling from their lips, filling the room with uncertainty and fear.

  Mac, sensing something had gone terribly wrong, barged through the front door and joined me in the library, Simon and Miriam right behind him. The elementals were so fixed on me, no one cared that the hated shifters were in their midst.

  Lana stared, baffled, and David looked at me as if I’d grown a second head—one I’d borrowed from Medusa, perhaps.

  Lydia hissed, an inhuman sound. “You. All this time, you.”

  “It’s not what you think,” I sputtered, sure that if I could just delay long enough, I’d find a believable explanation.

  “No?”

  I felt it then, water controlled by Lydia brushing my other hand. Flames ignited where the chemicals still clung to my fingertips. “No one put it out,” she ordered, voice thick with rage. The passive elemental prepared to accept her fate was nowhere in sight. Perhaps it had never been anything but an act to buy herself time.

  I felt Sera grab hold of the flames and pull them toward her. She wasn’t in the habi
t of taking orders from anyone, let alone recently unmasked murderers.

  I looked at her, grateful, but my expression froze somewhere around horror, instead.

  If I could feel her magic, it was because my own had risen to the surface.

  I knew it was there, angry and gleeful in equal measure. It had waited years for this, maybe decades. Even before I knew it was a part of me, this was what it wanted. Freedom.

  The secret was out. My fire side was done hiding.

  “She doesn’t burn.” Lydia raised her voice, ensuring no one missed her words. I supposed, if there was one way to take the focus off her murderous deeds, it was to point out the other person in the room in need of a death sentence.

  My fire crackled, full of energy and desire.

  “Aidan.” It was a single word, spoken in a low voice, but my magic responded. It knew that voice intimately. It had climbed inside his skin.

  But it wasn’t just the magic that answered. He’d called to the woman, and his voice found her, hidden somewhere beneath the panic and the pure blind fear and the fire’s slow-building rage.

  “This isn’t good, Mac.” I met his eyes, that dark melting brown I knew so well, no matter where my magic tried to take me. “We need to go.”

  “You cannot leave.” Deborah blinked at us, and the haze over her eyes lifted, revealing a sharp intelligence only a fool would miss. “What you did, we all saw. You are a dual. You have fire.”

  Grams recovered first. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know they’re practically impossible. It requires two full elementals, both fertile. The odds are staggeringly slim. I’m still struggling to believe this Trent Pond is one. You think to unmask two in an hour when we haven’t seen one in a century? I’m sure there’s another explanation.” Grams turned expectant eyes to my mother. Grams had only had a day to work up a cover story. My mother had been concocting lies for me since the day I was born.

  Of course, she hadn’t expected me to demonstrate my ill-fated abilities before the council. That was a little more difficult to cover up.