Elemental Earth (Paranormal Public) (24 page)

I glared at Lisabelle, and my
friend shrugged. If Keller’s parents wanted to make amends for not wanting to
have anything to do with me, I had to give them that chance.

I guessed I was going to have
interesting plans for spring break, assuming we could get off campus, but
Keller probably had a plan for that. Like, his parents would threaten Sectar
and he would let us go because the Eriksons were such powerful fallen angels.

Keller didn’t stay the night. He
hadn’t once all semester, and it was probably the main reason I was in such a
bad mood when I woke up in the morning. I liked waking up with him next to me.
Golden Falls didn’t approve of fraternizing, though, and since we lived in
suites he would have been missed if he hadn’t slept in his own bed. Well,
someone ended up missing him either way. This way, that someone was me.

I was the first one up the next
morning. When I stumbled out into the living room I saw something white on one
of the couches.

To my surprise, Bartholem wasn’t
with Lisabelle, he was curled up on the chair near what was left of the embers
from the fire. It was comforting that he had apparently decided to stay with
us, so that Dacer could continue to communicate as needed. I wondered if we
would witness a conversation between him and his mother. That would be
interesting.

I got up and went over to give
him a pat and he opened his purple eyes at me. He tolerated me, but he paid by
far the most attention to Lisabelle. When he wasn’t doing that or running after
pretend mice, he entertained himself by tormenting Lough.

I had just finished patting the
cat when I saw that there was a plain white envelope stuck between his paws. I
pulled it free, winning a glare.

“Sorry,” I murmured, “but where
did this come from?” I examined the envelope, but there was no writing on the
outside. It wasn’t sealed, so I opened it carefully. I wasn’t sure what I was
expecting, maybe a threatening letter, or a note from Zervos, or a mysterious
hint about who had killed our friends, but it was none of those things. It was
two pieces of paper, one new with a very short message on it, the other torn
and very old. It was clear that I had to handle it with care.

I looked at the torn piece of
paper first. It appeared to have come from a very old notebook. I wondered at
who would ruin such an important piece of history by ripping it to bits. The
paper said this:

Queen
Ashray loved a man named Ladd when she was very young. Her parents didn’t
approve, because he wasn’t a suitable companion for a princess and he lacked
the lineage to marry a future queen. But love cares nothing for such trivial
things as birth.

No one
knows what happened to Ladd, but there is a story that tells of Queen Ashray
disappearing with him for a year. She made a deal with her parents, you see,
and they let her have two years with him. Her father was a young man yet. Maybe
by the end of that time period, both their minds would have changed.

Unfortunately
for the future queen, she didn’t have that much time to spend. Her father died
of illness after only one year, forcing her to return and assume the throne at
a very young age. She tried to refuse, but she was loyal to her people. Ladd is
rumored to have encouraged her to come back.

She did
so reluctantly, but her mother insisted. Ashray wanted to marry Ladd, but her
mother said no. She had to make alliances that would strengthen the elementals’
position in the world paranormal order.

Queen
Ashray and Ladd were trapped.

No one
knows what happened to Ladd.

But it
was very clear to everyone close to the Queen that she lived her life missing
someone. It was also clear that she had been gone a year, and that Ladd’s
disappearance might signify other things, for instance that Queen Ashray might
have been missing more than one someone. She might have missed two.

It was a lot for me to take in,
and I had no idea why anyone was telling me such things as that Queen Ashray
had had a love that she couldn’t be with. The books said that she had married
for love and advocated cross-paranormal marriage. In her effort to bring the
types together, Sip had done lots of research about it, and we’d had several
conversations about how impressed she was with the elemental queen.

It wasn’t something I wanted to
hear, given that I was about to meet my boyfriend’s parents for the first time.
Modern times were supposedly more progressive, but no one had told that to the
Eriksons. Professor Erikson’s treatment of me since she had become a professor
at Public made that clear.

It didn’t matter. This weekend I
was meeting Mr. and Mrs. Erikson. Whether Keller liked it or not.

I didn’t show the notebook paper
to my friends. I saw no point. Someone was trying to mess with me and I wasn’t
going to allow it.

When I got up the next morning,
the air felt colder. Glancing around, I saw nothing out of place. I was reluctant
to get out of bed, but I made myself throw off the covers and relight it. When
that task was accomplished I grabbed one of the blankets off my bed, fetched my
mother’s box, and moved into the living room. No use being cold when there was
a roaring fire.

All semester I had thought about
what my mother might have kept in the box. I had thought that I had most of her
possessions, and when I went off to Paranormal Public I had taken what I could
with me. Most of it was stored in Astra, but I had looked through that stuff a
million times. There was nothing that was magical, or at least not in any way
that I could see.

I tried to remember what she used
to keep in the box, but my memory was fuzzy. Part of me, at least, hoped that
it held papers or a diary explaining who my father was, and what she was afraid
of.

I sighed and put the box back
under my bed. I still didn’t know how to open it. Both Sip and Lisabelle had
tried as well, and neither had been successful.

I stayed by the fire all morning,
reading. This early morning hour was my only quiet time during the day, and I
was now more determined than ever to read about Queen Ashray. Bartholem curled
comfortably in my lap, alternating between sleeping, swatting at the corner of
my book, and insisting on being petted.

The latest Tabble had arrived,
and this time it had a message from Mound. Lisabelle read it aloud:

Battles
should be fought on the battlefield, that’s what my dad always taught me. He
was a smart man, my father. He was a university professor who instilled in his
children a sense of duty, to be demonstrated first of all through recognizing
the importance of education. I cannot stress enough how important it is to
reason through one’s decisions, and not do anything rash.

Therefore,
I must question the logic of President Caid, who was, after all, elected by the
thinnest of majorities. Not only does he hem and haw until he’s blue in the
face and we’re all sick of listening to him blather (excuse me, Mr. President,
but it’s true), but now we’re expected to support his wisdom in sending the
only elemental we have left, a girl of meager talents and less intelligence, to
Golden Falls University to be “trained” for a semester.

I’m not
sure such a creature is capable of actual improvement. She has so very far to
go from where she started, but still, it is a concern. She has a target on her
back, head, and limbs. She could die at any moment.

We should
be using her for all she is worth. Yes, yes, I know it is crass of me to say
out loud what everyone else is only thinking. I know that as a paranormal she
has rights. But as a whole, we must find a way to stop the Nocturns, and as I
believe we have discovered only too painfully, no paranormal with the powers of
the elementals will survive. It is a sad truth that they themselves discovered
it first.

Here is
my list of problems, and solutions:

Cynthia
Malle: head of the demon council and any other organization of darkness that is
merely a name for the mobile killing squads the demons and the hellhounds have
become.

Ricky
Rollins: the younger brother of Charlotte Rollins, the only known elemental.
Both are of questionable parentage, and I do not just mean on the mother’s
side. Mr. Rollins should be found and tested. Under no circumstances should he
be allowed to have anything like a “normal” life.

Charlotte
Rollins: an even bigger problem than her sibling. She must be taken under
control. There is no justification for allowing her anywhere near the darkness
mage known as Lisabelle Verlans.

Lisabelle
Verlans: so full of darkness that I’m surprised she isn’t bursting. Have we
forgotten, my brethren, the age-old wisdom? Darkness calls to darkness. Ms.
Verlans will, at some point, be called home.

Keller
Erikson: an embarrassment to his family. His fraternization with a lower
paranormal type, specifically Ms. Rollins, is a horror to us all. His family,
especially his dear mother and father, should be most ashamed.

Professor
Dacer: where to begin and end? It’s a complete disgrace that he is still a
professor at Paranormal Public.

President
Caid: who should resign. We are at war with the demons, a catastrophe that has
not occurred since the glorified and utterly misrepresented rule of Queen
Ashray. I say directly to the President: Resign! For the good of all
paranormals.

The last
problem is not a person, but a thing. The Wheel. The Globe White is missing.
The Fang First is with the Rapier Vampires. The Mirror Arcane, since it is an
heirloom of Queen Ashray, is undoubtedly still at Astra House at Paranormal
Public, unless of course Charlotte Rollins has ruined that too. The last two
objects, the Pinion Wings and the Scepter Silver, are both supposedly with
Cynthia Malle, but I believe at least one of those objects is still at large.

Here are
the solutions I propose:

Cynthia Malle
should be given a position in the new president’s cabinet. We must make the
president a paranormal other than a fallen angel, for the Aurums are too kind,
and we do not need kindness now. We need a steady hand and a willingness to do
what is necessary. Ricky Rollins should be arrested. The powers protecting him
(which of course Professor Dacer refuses to disclose - more on him in a minute)
should be brought in and made to understand his role in the paranormal
undertaking against the Nocturns, an undertaking that should be made
considerably easier with the reinstatement of the incomparable Cynthia Malle.

Charlotte
Rollins should be confined to Paranormal Public upon her return from Golden
Falls. My spies there tell me that she is making a horrible mess of everything.
Surprise surprise. Keller Erikson should be sent away. He is about to graduate,
and instead of being allowed to stay at Public any longer he should be sent to
the furthest reaches of the globe, not to return until his illustrious family
has knocked some sense into him.

In
conclusion, my dear friends, we can be alright. It requires changes, a new way
of thinking, but if we work as we should, if none of us acts as if we are above
our designated paranormal station, I have every faith that we will prevail.

One last
thing: the Nocturns are not necessarily bad. They simply do not believe we as
paranormals are doing our jobs, and in that they are right. I hereby declare
that we should work with them, too. I would be the first to open my doors to
them.

“No mention of me?” Sip muttered.

“You just need to be more
flamboyantly obnoxious,” said Lisabelle. “If that’s possible. Get his
attention.”

Sip tapped her finger to her
bottom lip. “Yeah, I mean, it’s an idea.”

“What about your brother?” she
asked me, her eyes worried.

I’d been clenching my jaw the
whole time Lisabelle was reading the article to us. Releasing it made my teeth
ache.

“He better not go anywhere near
Ricky,” I said.

“Are you going to tell him he’s
elemental?” Lisabelle asked quietly. “He might not be able live in peace your
stepdad while he finishes school, at this rate.”

“I don’t see how I can tell him,”
I said. “He might not even be elemental. It’s not a conversation I know how to
have with him, but I did promise I’d talk to him this summer.”

“Even if he’s just Airlee, he
deserves to know,” said Lisabelle. “He might have only a few basic powers, like
your mom, but he still deserves to know about them.”

“I barely knew about them at his
age,” I said stubbornly. “I mean, Mom told me, but I thought she was telling me
some silly fairy tale. She never showed me. She never elaborated.”

“She lived in fear,” said Sip.
“You don’t.”

“Don’t I?” I asked. “I feel like
I do. Every day we think demons or hellhounds are coming for us. Every day we
wonder what the Nocturns will do next. Here we are at another paranormal
school, the self-styled haven of peace, and even here we have no peace.”

“Are the Pinion Wings really with
Malle?” Lisabelle asked. “She told you they were, and Mound confirms it, but
how would he know? More importantly, how does he know Uncle Risper has the Map
Silver?”