by K. J. McPike
“What’s this?” Lali asked.
“Directions.” Solstice pulled a gold marker from her pocket, bit off the cap, and circled a group of white dots among the plethora that covered the black paper. “This is Cassiopeia,” she mumbled around the cap.
Lali stared at her. “You want me to find the portal based on star positions?”
“Last time I checked, that was the only way to find it,” Solstice snapped. “So pay attention.” She started drawing lines to connect a group of stars, and I took that moment to check on Lali’s brothers and sisters. Again, I knew they would be fine, but I had every intention of honoring my promise to keep an eye on them. At least that was something I could contribute.
I previewed each of them within seconds. When I’d finished, I opened my eyes just as Solstice stabbed the marker toward a star that she’d circled. “See this one at the tip of the sharpest angle?” she asked Lali, both of them seeming oblivious to my astral intermission. “You want to aim for that.”
Aim for a specific star? I hadn’t realized how complicated it was to get to the portal. Cade never mentioned any of this before. Probably because he knew there was no way I’d be able to make it. After all, that was the reason we were in this situation in the first place.
“How am I supposed to project to a star?” Lali asked, her face falling.
Solstice ripped the plastic cap from between her lips and shoved it back into place on the marker like she wished it was Lali’s head. “It’s not like you’re going to outer space. You just have to move toward it until you see the portal.”
Lali gulped as she eyed the map.
“All you have to do is travel to the center of the Golden Gate Bridge and go straight up from there until you’re past all the fog and city lights so you can see the stars,” Solstice explained, speaking as if it were child’s play. “From directly above the bridge, aim for this point.” She used the marker to point at the star she had circled. “Try to travel at a forty-five degree angle from just above the fog.”
Lali blinked at her, clearly as dumbfounded by the instructions as I was.
“Look, if you’re not up for this—”
“I am,” Lali interrupted before Solstice could get the sentence out. “I’m just trying to wrap my brain around this whole thing.”
“Don’t be intimidated.” I took Lali’s hand and squeezed, determined to keep her positive. She couldn’t give up now. We were way too close. “This’ll be a cakewalk compared to finding a hidden tunnel under a rock.”
“Yeah.” Her lack of enthusiasm told me she wasn’t buying it.
“Well, now you know why I didn’t want to tell you how to get there until now,” Solstice muttered. “You get far too dramatic.” I glared at her over Lali’s shoulder, but she avoided looking at me.
“When you’re in the right place, you’ll know it,” Solstice went on. “There will be a pulsating circle of green light about the size of an inner tube. It’s activated by astral energy, so you should see it once you’re within a few yards of the right area. When you touch it, it’ll pull you into Alea. Right away you’ll see a steel dome, which houses the realm’s main transposer. It works the same as the one here. Understand?”
“Yes.” Lali sounded like a squirrel facing down a growling wolf.
“It’s light out now, so you’ll have to wait until later,” Solstice said. I knew she was just trying to rush us out of here so she could get back to Delta, but she was right. There was nothing we could do now but wait. “I suggest you save up your strength. You’re going to need it to stay in your astral form while you’re looking for the portal.”
“Okay.” Lali ran a palm over her face. “Kai, can you take me home? It’s been a while since you checked on my family.”
“I previewed them while Solstice was playing connect-the-dots with the star map,” I informed her. “They’re still sleeping.” Scanning Lali from head to toe, I realized how exhausted she looked and added, “You should probably do the same. You’ve hardly slept at all for the last three weeks.”
“Well, not all of us have the luxury of blowing off school.” She raised a brow at me, and I knew she was trying to call me out for never showing up to class.
“High school is overrated.” I shrugged. “Besides, I only enrolled so I could recruit you to help. Mission accomplished.”
She just shook her head.
I looked back at Solstice, who was scowling for some reason. “We’ll get out of your hair for now,” I said. “I’ll bring Lali back as soon as it gets dark.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Solstice replied, not an ounce of eagerness in her expression.
Not that I cared. Whether she liked it or not, Lali was going to get us to Alea. I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of that.
I squeezed Lali’s hand again, but she hardly reacted. It was obvious she was still frazzled, and I silently vowed I’d find a way back to the giddy girl I’d hugged in the transposer tunnel. I wished there was a way I could help take some of the burden, but she knew as well as I did that I couldn’t do any of this on my own. I needed her.
I left Lali in her room with some encouraging words and took Solstice back to her car. She ran into Wal-Mart to pick up the feminine supplies that would help her stick to the story she’d fed Delta back at the motel.
Deciding I didn’t need to stick around for that, I went back to my house with the hope of getting some sleep myself. I had a feeling it was going to be a late night.
I had just started to doze off when my phone buzzed. I accepted the call, and Solstice’s voice came through before I could speak.
“Thanks a lot,” she spat. “Delta knows.”
Chapter 42
Explanations
My stomach dropped. How could Delta possibly know? She couldn’t have seen Solstice and me disappear—we’d vanished from the empty end of a parking lot. “What are you talking about?” I asked, kicking off my blanket and climbing out of bed. “What does she know?”
“She looked out the window after I ducked out on her, and she saw you in the car.” The profanities that played through my head were nothing compared to the ones I could tell Solstice wanted to shout into the phone. “I had to be honest with her about trying to help you undo the sink without Cade. She knows we’re trying to go to Alea without risking him getting his ability back.”
Her words threw me off until I realized Delta must’ve been within earshot.
“Now,” Solstice continued. “Meet me back in the car, and I’ll bring you to the room so you can talk to Delta yourself.”
A minute later, I was in the passenger seat of Solstice’s car. Scooting up to look out the window, I saw her come outside. Thankfully, no one else was in the parking lot. I pushed open the door and climbed out as Solstice stormed over.
“You’re going to have to lay on the pitiful act, and thick,” she hissed. “Apologize to Delta for tricking her, and I know she’ll forgive you. She’s always had a soft spot for you and Kala, so play up how desperate you are to find your sister.”
I nodded, following Solstice through the lot and up the staircase. “That won’t be hard. It’s true.”
“It’s still your fault we’re in this mess. I have a feeling Delta knows more than she’s letting on. I would’ve had a much easier time getting information out of her if she didn’t know you were involved, especially since she already knows you were working with your uncle.”
The guilt for keeping another secret from Cade bubbled in my gut, hot and unsettling. I told myself it was for the better, but believing it was another story.
We reached the last door along the upper corridor, and Solstice swiped a card into the electronic reader.
Delta looked up from where she sat on the bed as soon as we stepped into the room. “Hello, Kai,” she whispered.
Solstice jabbed me with her elbow, and I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry,” I said, taking a tentative step forward on the cheap, patterned carpet. “About all this sneaking a
round and everything.” As the words came out, I couldn’t help but think that I should be saying them to Cade and Lali, too. They were the ones on the receiving end of all my lies lately.
Delta waved her hand, as if dismissing my statement and my unwelcome thought. “Sol already explained. I know how badly you want to find your sister. And if anyone can understand what Kala must be going through, it’s me, right?” She offered a weak smile, and my heart constricted. Delta had been kidnapped by the same Astralii, subjected to the same experiments they were probably running on Kala.
I dropped my head, suddenly filled with remorse for adding additional stress to this poor woman’s life. She’d already gone through more than her share of struggles.
“Sit down.” Delta gestured to the small table with matching chairs, and Solstice and I moved to claim the seats. Solstice’s face was tight as she sat across from me, but she didn’t speak.
“Kai, I would love to help you,” Delta claimed, though the horrified look on her face made it hard to believe her. “Really, I would. But it’s not safe. If Cade’s not around when we undo the sink, we risk his astral energy finding a home in someone who can’t handle it. I’ve seen what happens to people when they’re forced to accept astral energy their bodies aren’t equipped to handle. I could never do that to someone.”
Her face darkened. “We also risk being tracked by the Eyes and Ears,” she went on. “Who do you think taught me how to trace astral energy?”
Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. It wouldn’t make a difference for me, though—if I had astral energy, I was already traceable. And Delta had no reason to be worried about them finding her again.
“You have a block,” I reminded her. “You’ll be safe no matter what.”
She shook her head. “It’s not foolproof. Some of the higher Astralii have stones that can penetrate blocks.”
I heaved a sigh. I understood why Delta was paranoid, but if she claimed to care about Kala, why didn’t she want to make saving her a priority?
“But Kai,” Delta said, “you can still get to your sister.” At that, my ears perked up. “And, Sol, you can still get your ability back.”
Solstice sat up a little straighter, too. “How?”
“It sounds like Lali has mastered permeating, right Kai?”
“Yeah,” I replied, not sure where Delta was going with this.
“So all she has to do is find the portal. Then you’ll have access to Alea, and you can drop off Solstice at the transposer.” She turned to her old friend. “Sol, if you explain who you are, they’ll take you to the lab. By now, I’m sure they’ve figured out how to restore abilities. If not, they can inject you with something similar to what they used on me. You won’t react badly because you were born ready to deal with astral energy.”
Solstice wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to be turned into a semmie.”
I couldn’t help but bristle at her tone. What was wrong with being a semmie?
“And there’s no telling what they’ll do to me if I come back without being able to project,” she continued with a huff. “I’ll be worse than just a regular human in their eyes. Then if they know I played a part in losing my ability…” She shuddered. “It will be bad enough trying to explain why I left. You know they have no tolerance for leaving without clearance. I’d have to come up with a lie about that, too, and we both know there’s a very good chance they’ll see through it.”
Her words hit me like a bus. I hadn’t realized how serious the repercussions could be for her going back when she couldn’t project. No wonder she was so desperate to get answers from Delta. Would Cade run into those same problems?
No. He had a legitimate story. The members of XODUS stole his ability and stranded him here. Surely the other Astralii would sympathize with him. And Solstice, well, she had brought it on herself, whether she meant to or not. I couldn’t let myself feel bad for her.
“So how am I supposed to find Kala once Solstice is back in the lab?” I asked.
Delta shrugged. “You’d just coordinate with Solstice.” It wasn’t a bad idea—except the part that involved my depending on Solstice. But I could simply substitute Cade in and go from there.
Solstice shook her head. “That’s a horrible plan, and it puts me at risk.”
“You won’t be at risk if you explain that someone trapped your astral energy,” Delta insisted. “That much is true.”
“Well, why don’t we make sure Lali can even get to the portal before we start coming up with plans for after she does?” Solstice grumbled, tossing her braid over one shoulder. “Then we can figure out our next steps from there.”
Delta sighed, her eyes flicking to me before settling on the carpet. “Okay. Before we try anything else, let’s see what Lali can do.”
Chapter 43
Discouragement
Solstice scowled at me from the loveseat in her living room. “This is a waste of time. She’s never going to find it.”
“Well, she doesn’t need you discouraging her at every turn,” I shot back, glancing at Lali. She sat next to me on Solstice’s couch, breathing like she was in a deep slumber while she attempted to find the portal. It was almost eight-thirty in the evening—on the West Coast, anyway—and Lali had barely been here for fifteen minutes. In that short time, Solstice had already found multiple ways to imply that we should reconsider our plan.
“What?” Solstice sneered. “She can’t hear us.”
“Yeah, well she heard everything else you said to try and bring down her spirits before she went up there.” I was sure Solstice was acting this way because she knew Delta was listening from the opposite side of the wall. Delta was so eager to see how things progressed that she finally took off her block and agreed to wait in the bedroom. Lali didn’t know about her involvement, and I was still convinced it was better that way.
“I swear, you Orian men are all the same,” Solstice muttered.
I scoffed. “My last name is Awana.”
“Just because your father didn’t want to mark you for the Eyes and Ears doesn’t mean you don’t have the same blood. And apparently, you have the same weakness for Vauhn women, too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how Cade was pathetically in love with Xiomara, just like you’re pathetically in love with Lali.”
Whoa. What? She must have been making that up. My uncle wasn’t in love with Xiomara. He hated her. And I wasn’t in love with Lali, either. Sure, I enjoyed her company, and I respected that she was strong and kind and tried to do the right thing, but I’d been lying to her since we met. That wasn’t exactly a solid foundation for that type of feeling.
“I’m not in love with anyone,” I grumbled.
Solstice preened her hair. “Right.”
“What do you care, anyway?”
Her eyes practically rolled behind her brain. “We’re never going to get anywhere if you’re too busy drooling over Lali to see that this isn’t going to work.”
“Give me a break. We weren’t getting anywhere before, either.”
“We were until you screwed everything up with Delta. I swear, sometimes I think you like holding Xiomara hostage.”
Lali gasped as she sat up, and I could have sworn my heart stopped. Had she heard us? I didn’t know which was more horrifying: her hearing that I had her mother, or her hearing Solstice’s accusations of me of being in love with her. Because I wasn’t. I was way too damaged to love anyone.
“It’s not there.” Lali leaned forward on the sofa, struggling to breathe.
I held in the relieved sigh that tried to burst out of me. If that was all she said, she must not have heard us. Thank God.
“You probably just didn’t get the angle right,” Solstice replied, shaking her head. “Semmies.”
“So far, this semmie is the best shot you’ve got at getting back to Alea,” Lali retorted. “So I suggest you try working with me for a change.”
I felt myself nod in a
pproval. I didn’t have the feelings for Lali that Solstice claimed, but I liked that she was strong enough to stand her ground.
The two of them stared each other down for a long moment before Lali said she wanted to go again.
“Don’t you want to rest?” I asked. Solstice gave me a look, and I knew my concern had just made her think I’d confirmed her accusation. “I mean, it seems like it’s going to take some serious energy to get up there again. I don’t want you passing out and having to wait hours before you can recover.”
“I’m fine,” Lali said. Without another word, she projected again.
Solstice and I sat watching her, neither of us speaking as Lali projected and came back frustrated and out of breath four more times. My hope started to wither when she opened her eyes another time with failure written all over her face.
“Do we need to go over it again?” Solstice grumbled.
Lali huffed. “I did exactly what you said. I’m telling you, something’s wrong. The portal isn’t there.”
“What are you saying?” Solstice’s tone was mocking. “It just disappeared?”
“Or I need better directions.”
They started arguing again, and I heaved a sigh. “Can we give it a rest with the arguing?” I begged. “This is ridiculous.”
“This is a waste of time.” Solstice fell back against the sofa. “Cade was right. We should be focusing on—”
“On what?” I interrupted, praying Delta hadn’t overheard that. Did Solstice forget she was in the other room? “Sitting around hoping to trace energy? That’s the waste of time.”
I eyed Lali, hoping she didn’t pick up on the lie. Cade was much more concerned with stalking Delta than tracing astral energy, but Lali was still in the dark about the whole XODUS thing. I planned to keep it that way.
Solstice’s features scrunched. “Well, listening to Lali throw a fit about bad directions isn’t exactly efficient. I knew she wouldn’t be able to handle this.”