Elemental Fire

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter
Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter
Seven

Chapter
Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter
Eleven

Chapter
Twelve

Chapter
Thirteen

Chapter
Fourteen

Chapter
Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter
Seventeen

Chapter
Eighteen

Chapter
Nineteen

Chapter
Twenty

Chapter
Twenty-One

Chapter
Twenty-Two

Chapter
Twenty-Three

Chapter
Twenty-Four

Chapter
Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter One

Lisabelle wheeled around and
stomped away. Sip and I stood, staring at the thick, heavy gates that had
grated shut in our faces. Lough watched Lisabelle’s back, his eyes worried.

“Should we go after her?” His
voice was filled with concern.

“Yeah, definitely,” said Sip, not
moving. “You first.”

“Umm,” said Lough, appearing to
think better of his question. “Maybe I’ll let her cool down?” He shifted. Lough
couldn’t sit still when he was nervous.

Sip nodded, folding her arms
across her chest. “She probably doesn’t want to chat as long as she’s
sparking.”

“As opposed to other times,” I
murmured, “when she’s more than happy to chat.”

“This is bad,” said Lough,
looking mournfully at the gates. They were dark and forbidding, not at all how
I thought of Public. My university had always been a place of refuge for me.
Now I couldn’t even get onto the grounds.

In the early morning dew there
was the scent of wet stone and something that smelled remarkably like fire.
“We’re out here all by ourselves,” Lough observed morosely. His stomach rumbled
and Sip raised one of her nearly white eyebrows at him. “They shouldn’t leave
Charlotte unprotected like this. There might be demons.”

We both stared at him.

“What? Just because the
paranormal world is falling apart doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be hungry,” Lough
grumbled, rubbing his stomach as his cheeks stained red. “Guy’s gotta eat.”

“You’re going to be eating while
the demons attack,” said Sip, shaking her head. “I don’t think they’ll listen
if you say, ‘Hey, can you just wait a minute to try and kill us? I want to
finish this chicken leg.’”

“If the demon attacks keep
increasing in frequency, then yes, that’s likely,” said Lough hotly.

As my friends bantered back and
forth, my eyes trailed along the closed gates and the high walls. I wondered
what I hoped to see. Maybe the committee will have changed their minds? Maybe
Risper will come through the gates and cry, “Just kidding! Only did it to piss
Lisabelle off and boy did it work!”

My eyes darted to my darkness
friend. She was standing at the edge of the clearing, holding something dark
and shiny in her hand.

“Who do you suppose she’s
Contacting?” Sip asked, seeing that our friend held a Contact Stone.

“Hopefully someone who can talk
some sense into Dove,” said Lough, his eyes like steel.

“And who do you suppose is that
extraordinary person?” I demanded.

“It looks so barren,” said Sip,
following my eyes up the walls of Public. “I can’t believe they just closed the
gates on us. I have stuff in my room!”

“OUR room,” Lisabelle yelled from
across the grassy lawn. “It’s not just your room.”

Sip rolled her eyes. “So she
thinks.” A grin raked across my werewolf friend’s face. Lough shook his head
and set his pack down. “What do you two want? I have sandwiches.”

“So, sandwiches then?” I said.

“Good,” said Lough, unzipping the
pack and rummaging through compartments. “Why couldn’t they have shut the
school down in the fall semester instead of the winter?” he grumbled, pulling
his jacket more tightly around his neck and glaring into his bag. “It’s cold.”

“They really should have
considered your feelings more,” said Lisabelle, striding over. Her cheeks were
red and her black eyes were blazing. I wondered if she was cold or just angry.

“Who did you call?” Sip said.

“Risper,” said Lisabelle. “I
thought since he’s another committee member he might know what’s going on. The
trouble is, I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing.”

“So, you couldn’t reach him?” Sip
said. “Is he busy being. . . .” She didn’t say Elam. Lisabelle’s Uncle Risper
was a famed bounty hunter, who, we had discovered last semester, doubled as the
paranormal world’s renowned thief, Elam. He was after the six objects on the
Paranormal Wheel, just as we were, and when we had discovered his double life
last semester he had immediately disappeared, probably to continue his quest to
find them. He had even skipped Queen Lanca’s coronation, which only a handful
of paranormals had done.

Sip sighed and sat down next to
Lough. He handed her a sandwich and she bit into it thoughtfully. Lough offered
Lisabelle one too, but she shook her head. I took one and sat down next to
Lough, folding in on myself to keep out the winter chill.

“What now?” I said. “We need to
get into Public. Mrs. Swan might be able to help.”

“Wasn’t she at the coronation?”
Lough asked, frowning. “There was so much going on I don’t remember.”

“No,” I said. “She stayed behind
to keep Public safe. Every dorm needed a chaperone to stick around, just in
case, and obviously Astra. . . .”

Astra was the elemental dorm, and
since there was only one elemental student, there was only one elemental
chaperone, Mrs. Swan.

“We need a plan,” said Sip,
scraping her fingers through her spikey blond hair.

“A plan for what?” Lough asked
between large bites of his sandwich. Lisabelle looked at him with complete
disdain. She still held the Contact Stone, which she tossed idly in her hand.

“To get into Public,” she said
casually, eyeing Sip with amusement.

“For once we’re of like mind,”
said Sip, grinning broadly. She shaded her purple eyes as she looked toward our
university.

“I don’t know,” said Lough
skeptically. He took another bite of his sandwich, and then another. “Sounds
dangerous.”

Stretching her arms as if she
were preparing for a fight, Lisabelle glared at the dream giver. “Don’t know
about what?” she asked. The cool morning breeze, sweeping across what was left
of the last bits of snow and twirling around us, gently lifted individual
strands of hair off Lisabelle’s shoulders. She wore her customary black dress,
which brushed the tops of her black boots.

“Sneaking into Public,” said
Lough, his eyes filled with worry. “Don’t you think we’ve been through enough?
I’m sure this will all work itself out. In the meantime, let’s go on vacation.
We have a free semester, or at least a couple of weeks. Let’s take advantage of
it and relax.”

“Re . . . huh?” Sip looked
aghast, her purple eyes staring in wonder at Lough, who looked back,
unflinching.

“I’m serious about my R and R,
Sip,” said Lough, his voice light. “Stress isn’t good for the skin, and demons
and hellhounds or Nocturns, or whatever I’m supposed to call them this week,
are the most stressful thing of all.”

“They just SHUT the door in our
faces,” Sip sputtered. “They just shut the only elemental away from her dorm.
Do you have any idea how insane that is?”

“No,” said Lough, picking a bit
of lettuce out of his teeth. “At this moment I am having a hard time picturing
insanity.”

“Hardy har har,” said Sip,
without a trace of humor. “We have to get into Public and get our stuff. They
can’t separate Lisabelle from her dead rats and such.”

“How’d you know I keep dead
rats?” Lisabelle demanded, indignant. “Oh, because I hide them under your bed?”

Sip, who had clearly been joking,
paled, while Lisabelle grinned.

“Shouldn’t mess with me, Sip, you
will lose.”

“All part of the plan,
Lisabelle,” said Sip, waving her off. “Anyway, we wait until the cover of
darkness and then we sneak in. We should figure out what we want to get before
we go.”

“It’s not a good idea,” said
Lough. “How many of the students are back at Public, anyway?”

“Most of them,” said Lisabelle
grimly. “Trafton, Keller, some of the others who were at Locke are still out,
but almost everyone left Locke and headed back to Public the moment Dirr died
at the coronation.” She swallowed hard. Dirr’s death was still not something we
had talked about. Lanca had only mentioned it once, before we captured Faci.
She hadn’t wanted to talk about it otherwise, which was probably good, since
she had her hands full consolidating her position as the Rapiers’ queen, not to
mention the responsibilities of actually ruling.

“What about Daisy and Dobrov?” I
asked, paying almost no attention to the sandwich I was still working on. They
had left Locke together with their father. I had been slightly worried about
Dobrov’s well-being, considering that his sister was insane, but he told me not
to worry and I had no choice but to listen to him.

“I think they came back to
Public,” said Lough, shrugging. “They should be around somewhere.”

“Wait, are there students on
campus or aren’t there?” Lisabelle asked harshly. “They turned us away, after
all.”

We turned in unison to look at
the walls of Public. It was a good question. We hadn’t passed any other students
who had been kicked out as we had come up the road to the gate.

“It’s strange,” said Sip, chewing
on her lower lip. “They probably all went on vacation the second they heard,
just as Lough suggested.”

“So lazy,” said Lisabelle,
shaking her head. “We should be working toward future classes.”

“But if all the students left,
why are the committee members still there?” Lough said, frowning.

“Who cares,” said Lisabelle.
“They can’t lock me out of Airlee.”

“I think you have issues with
authority,” said Lough, polishing off his sandwich and happily licking his
fingers.

“I have issues,” said Lisabelle,
pulling her hair back and sitting down next to him. “Why bother specifying what
kind?”