by Ellie Margot
“Well, that was—” Guy started.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Riette. “We need another place.”
Corin touched her hand. “That was totally fucked, Riette. There’s nothing wrong with you. He was wrong for that.”
“I can’t fault him about how he feels, and I can’t change his mind, but we can decide what we want to do now.”
Riette looked at Cassian, whose brow was furrowed over words he wasn’t saying. She hoped he didn’t say anything, so she didn’t let him.
“Guy, where to?” she asked.
“I know a place,” he said, but even he sounded different.
“I’m fine,” said Riette. “What’s the place?”
“Okay, it’s not as nice as this place.”
“Oh, boy,” said Trinity at just above a whisper.
“Keepers?” asked Corin. “That place isn’t anywhere near nice.”
“You didn’t hate it last time,” said Guy.
Mekhi stepped forward, and Guy threw up his hands. “Woah, bro. I’m not saying it like that.”
“Watch how you say anything before you lose the ability,” Mekhi said to Guy.
Cassian and Trinity talked softly behind Riette as she followed Guy to the front door. Corin and Mekhi took up the rear.
“Is there anyone Guy hasn’t slept with?” Trinity asked Cassian at a micro-whisper.
Riette barely heard it, but she turned around, saying, “Oh, I’m a proud member of the ‘Hasn’t slept with Guy’ club.”
“Thank goodness,” Cassian mumbled, rolling his eyes.
“I knew you had some sense,” said Trinity, smirking.
“Are we going to move past this?” Guy asked Mekhi.
“Fuck, and get it over with if you ask me,” said Trinity. She looked at Corin. “No offense intended.”
Corin put her hand on her chin, considering. “No, it could help.”
Mekhi’s jaw dropped next to her.
“I’m kidding, obviously,” said Corin, throwing her hands up.
Guy looked him over, considering. “Well, that angel must have seen something in you, I guess.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” asked Mekhi as he watched Guy’s eyes look over him.
“Looking for what he saw in you.” Guy turned back toward Trinity. “Maybe I have a thing for redheads?”
Mekhi’s hair was a lot darker of a red, and Trinity’s was a strawberry-hinted blonde.
“The new place?” asked Riette.
“Yeah, it’s just a few blocks over,” said Guy, pulling his eyes away from Trinity.
Riette grabbed Guy by his arm and pushed him ahead of her. “Lead the way before someone fights you or you end up doing someone else.”
“Yes, oh angry leader,” said Guy, moving them ahead.
Chapter 3
The new place was a stone’s throw away. If the person throwing it was also a cyclops with the strength of thirty men.
Night had fallen by the time they arrived, and there was only a small sign on the door indicating any business took place there. “Keepers” was written in almost indiscernible letters on the wood in black and swirled lettering.
There was another candle in its window, illustrating they were open to board, but there was music coming from the inside to show no one would be getting good sleep there.
It would be nearly impossible. The bass that Riette could discern was a thumping, drumming thing that shook the ground beneath her feet.
“Follow me,” said Guy, and he walked up the scant amount of steps leading to a large set of black doors.
The sign shook when he moved it, and he squeezed himself in, holding the door open for Trinity behind him. By the time they all walked inside, Riette was the last of the group.
The irrational part of her was apprehensive. Would the place kick her out, too? Would no place have her?
Keepers was louder than she would have thought it could be, even with the music she heard before entering. No one was dancing, though. If Riette could have plugged her ears, she could imagine the scene as just a group of people eating and a band playing on a small stage to their left, but without plugging her ears, she didn’t know how anyone could talk to anyone else and expect to be heard.
“I’ll get the room,” Guy said, though Riette mostly relied on reading his lips to understand him.
“Did he say ‘room’, as in one room?” yelled Trinity.
“He likes to keep things close,” said Cassian. The low register of his voice, although elevated, seemed to cut through the noise better.
“Goody,” said Trinity. She rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her face as she wrapped her hands around Cassian’s arm.
Riette smiled next to them for a second before Guy returned to the group.
“Okay, so two rooms upstairs. They play for another hour or so before that part’s over, and I highly suggest we just stay down here and ride the wave instead of trying to plug our ears through it up there.”
“We’re crashing,” said Corin. “Keys, please?”
Guy’s head snapped back a little at the request, but then he smiled, looking at Mekhi. “Oh, I get it.”
“Keys, man,” said Mekhi with his hand out.
“Sure, okay, okay. I’m the last one to get in the way of two love birds, doing their—”
“I might kill myself if we have this conversation about my sister again,” said Cassian. “Let them go, and we’ll talk down here and figure things out for moving forward.”
Guy didn’t wipe the smile off his face. “Under and stood.”
Mekhi rolled his eyes. He grabbed one of the keys from Guy, and in a weird move that Riette didn’t expect, he clapped a hand on Guy’s shoulder before moving his way to the staircase that could be barely seen on the back right.
Cassian, Trinity, Guy, and Riette found a table as far away from the music as they could manage. Most tables only sat four, so it was better that Corin and Mekhi had taken their leave.
Cassian and Trinity sat to one side, leaving Guy and Riette on the other.
“What are we going to do?” asked Cassian.
“We need to do what matters. Find answers in the book and fix Vitan.”
Riette had felt the letter like a weight in her bag on their entire journey. Bart and Barry knew the importance of it after an elaborate lesson she’d given them when she had stolen moments alone with them and gotten them settled.
“And we know the letter can do this?” asked Cassian.
“My grandmother wouldn’t have coded it in magic if it wasn’t important.”
“And my grandmother wouldn’t have hidden it away unless it meant something,” said Trinity. “There’s something there.”
“And it’s not like Mommy is going to welcome us back home any time soon,” Guy said. “Might as well be productive.”
Riette’s stomach turned again. She couldn’t begin to think of what her mother was thinking right now, or how she felt being locked away like a criminal by her mother’s own orders.
“And Samantha is the linchpin to all of this?” asked Cassian. “She’s unstable. She tried to use Corin.”
“She’s fucked in the head,” Riette said. “We know this. I’m not arguing she’s not, but she’s the way we get to Zekariah.”
“It’s her,” said a man walking up to their table, interrupting them. He wasn’t ugly. Another Elf, though he was thicker, weathered, and taller than usual. He wore a thick coat, with buckles holding parts of it together, over layers of clothes that could get him through most weather.
He looked like he was either wearing more clothes than anyone needed to at one time or he was huge, and Riette couldn’t quite figure out which was correct.
She did know he was drunk, though.
Anyone with a nose that had similar proximity to him could have pegged that.
“Pauly, it’s really her,” the man said, slamming a hand down on the table.
Another man stood farther back. He was nursing
a brown bottle that he brought to his lips as he looked at Riette. The man in front of them didn’t give them the same breathing room. His focus was on Trinity.
She sat on the inside of the booth on the other side of Cassian, and Riette could tell she was uncomfortable. Her shoulders were tense, and though she had looked at the man only briefly, she hadn’t looked again.
“Can we help you?” asked Guy, who sat opposite Cassian.
“It’s Parlor Girl. I didn’t know they let you out of the house, sweet thing.”
“Excuse me?” asked Riette.
“And look at the friends you made.”
“Leave,” said Trinity, but her voice wasn’t heard over the ruckus the man was making.
“You’re looking good,” said the man.
“She wants you to leave,” said Cassian. He moved to position Trinity behind his shoulder. “I suggest you listen.”
“Oh, she got a boyfriend. You hear that, Pauly?” The man looked over his shoulder, and Riette watched the guy tear his eyes off of her and look at Trinity.
“Hey look, man, we don’t want any trouble,” said Guy, but his face looked like he meant anything but.
“And I didn’t want what she gave me until I had it, and now I’ve been thinking about her something fierce.”
“That’s enough,” said Trinity. “I’m not going to have you talk that shit in front of me and in front of the people I’m with. Fuck off.”
“You didn’t show those pretty claws before,” said the man, standing up.
Trinity nudged Cassian to the side, and although he hesitated, he moved to appease her.
She stood up and made herself stand inches from the man’s face as she spit words at him. She didn’t have his height, but he seemed to cower all the same.
“I don’t have to put up with your shit anymore or anyone like you, and I fucking won’t. I’m not that girl anymore.” With that, she shouldered past him and walked away without looking back at any of them.
“Get lost,” said Riette, and the man did, taking the other guy who hadn’t stopped staring at her.
“What in the actual fuck was that?” asked Riette. “Fucking perverts.”
“I should go after her,” said Cassian, looking in her direction.
“I’m probably a bit better suited for that, don’t you think?” asked Guy.
“On what planet?” asked Cassian. “I’m her—”
“Oh, this I have to hear,” said Guy. “You’re her what?”
Cassian looked at Riette, color on his cheeks.
“I’m going,” said Riette. She glared at both of them, more out of frustration than anything else. “Trinity doesn’t need a pissing contest. She needs someone to listen to her.”
“Hey, I listen,” Guy said.
“You all can argue about who listens better while I’m gone. Hold down the fort without killing each other, will you?”
Riette gestured for the need to move past Guy, and he got up to let her out. She grabbed her bag from the booth before heading in Trinity’s direction. She hoped she hadn’t gotten too far away.
She hadn’t.
Trinity was just outside the door. People stood around her, not talking with her but instead filling the air with a smoke that smelled sweet. It billowed around them and stretched its tendrils to reach the skies above.
Riette walked to Trinity and took in her appearance. She had her arms crossed over her chest, and her eyes looked upward.
She didn’t look over to acknowledge Riette had joined her, but she spoke when Riette got close enough.
“I left all of it behind.”
“I know you did,” said Riette.
“No, I really thought when I walked out of that house and away from her, I would really be away. Is that stupid?” Trinity looked at Riette, and there was moisture gathering in her eyes.
She didn’t sound like she was about to cry, and from the set of her jaw, Riette didn’t think she would.
“No, it’s not stupid,” said Riette. “You don’t have to think you’re stuck with it forever. The labels.”
Trinity let out a laugh. She looked toward the sky and touched the side of her face. “It’s their bullshit, right? Not mine. I wish it was that simple.”
“Make it that simple,” said Riette.
“You make it sound easy.”
“Can’t it be? Secrets and our past don’t have to define us. It’s what we decide to take forward with us.”
Trinity nodded. She swallowed before looking back up at Riette. “Can I ask you something?”
Riette nodded.
“How are you not going crazy being this close to the sea?”
Riette took a breath. The image of the siren she saw in the water was something that flashed when she closed her eyes, never more so than when she saw the sea again. Being that close pulled at her like strings attached to her bones.
“I don’t let myself think about it,” said Riette.
“But you are one, aren’t you?”
“Who knows what I am anymore?”
Chapter 4
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Trinity. “Shit. Sorry. You came out here to be nice, and I’m barking at you. Ignore me. Don’t answer that.”
“No,” said Riette. “It’s fine. I haven’t talked about it. Maybe I should.”
“I’m here if you want to.”
Riette looked at the people around them. They were far enough away for the average person to not be worried about it. Riette moved a few feet away until the glow of Keepers was a light that didn’t shine on them. Trinity followed.
“Okay, full disclosure. I went on the ship with Georgette and Jeffery. They went—”
“Wait, who are Georgette and Jeffery?” Trinity asked.
“Ship captain and another cyclops. Weird not-couple couple. I don’t know.”
“Okay, go on.”
“They said not to make eye contact with Sirens. I may have looked at a Siren guy who may or not be Georgette’s former lover—not sure about that part—and then I got sea sickness.”
“Sea sickness? Like Siren sick? Holy fuck.”
“Not officially. Maybe. I don’t know if it was a full imprint.”
Trinity went quiet. She seemed to freeze.
“What?” asked Riette.
“Nothing.”
“No, you don’t get to clam up when I confessed one part of my weirdness. What are you thinking about?”
“I’m just thinking about the one that Emma took that was in a tank. How haunted he was.”
Riette swallowed. She remembered Trinity telling them that story right after she took on some of Trinity’s power.
“It’s fucking madness taking anything from a Siren on,” Trinity said. “It’s a sickness you can’t shake out.”
Riette laughed. “Call me a power collector?”
Trinity didn’t join her.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“You were right before when you said you shared something and I should share something too.”
Riette shrugged. “I was just giving you a hard time.”
“No, but it’s true. You all have been so great to me. Even Guy. All of you, and you don’t even know what I am.”
“You don’t have to—”
“No, I do. Just, just look at me, okay?”
“I am,” said Riette.
“No,” Trinity said. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and turned around. “Look.”
Trinity slipped her shirt down to reveal the mark that every Elf had on their shoulder to indicate their elemental power. Trinity’s mark made the air leave Riette’s lungs.
Ragged marks sliced through what would have been the traditional markings. Riette couldn’t discern what type it was because the skin was so badly broken. The symbol was almost scratched out completely.
Riette raised her hand to touch it, but Trinity spoke. “Don’t.”
Her words were seconds too late as Riette’s fingertips made contact with the ski
n, and a spark of light was generated between them, lighting the street up and vanishing in an instant.
“Sorry,” Riette said softly.
The people around them looked confused, but Riette motioned for Trinity to be still. If they acted out of place, Riette knew that would tell everyone on the street that it had been them.
The confusion was still written on the people’s faces, but most moved quickly away from the street, and others were too drunk to be overly fazed.
Moments passed. When things had settled down, Trinity spoke. “I’ve been sealed.”
“What?”
“As punishment. My grandmother sealed my power inside of me. If I don’t expel it, it’ll kill me.”
“Why would she—”
“I didn’t play well with others.”
“Play well?”
“I didn’t let them drain me, so she made it so I had to have it happen.”
“Trinity.”
“They called me Parlor Girl because she made me do tricks for them. Entertain them in the parlor room. It was a game how sick I got if I didn’t let it happen. She didn’t even have to punish me anymore.”
“That’s sick.”
“It’s dangerous for me and for other people. If I get too sick, I die. If I get too sick and I channel too much into someone, I kill them.”
Riette swallowed. She took a step closer. “I can channel it.”
“What?”
“We did it before. You need it. We can help each other.”
“You’d go crazy.”
“Trin, look at me.”
“Exactly! A little of it already did damage.”
Riette swallowed. “So we figure it out. I can handle it.”
“You’re crazy.”
“As shit, most days. Maybe. But maybe this all happened on purpose. Maybe we need each other.”
Trinity smiled. She wiped her eye again. “Crazy girl.”
“Now can I ask you something that’s been bugging me?”
“I can’t exactly say no at this point, can I?”
They moved closer to the brick wall behind them, and Trinity leaned against it.
“What’s up with you and Guy?”
The smile left Trinity’s face. “What do you mean?”
“Is there something?” Riette asked. “I don’t care. I just thought there might have been something.”