Elemental Fire (29 page)

“Isn’t that an English thing?”
Lough asked. “I’ve never been,” he said by way of explanation.

“One of these breaks, when we aren’t
being held hostage any more, we can totally go,” said Sip over her shoulder as
she got the teakettle ready. “It will be wonderful.”

“Yes, about that,” said Caid.
“I’m sorry for what’s happening. The Congress does seem to think it’s better to
appease Vale than to challenge her at this point.”

“At our expense, not theirs,”
said Lisabelle coldly. She helped Sip get the tea things together and, as
usual, remained standing.

“Now, that’s just not true,” Caid
protested as he sat around the large island in the center of the kitchen. “Many
of the members of the paranormal Congress have children here.”

“Probably all pixies,” I said
darkly.

Caid chuckled. He had a great
belly laugh, where he threw his head back and everything shook. “Back in my day
it was more the vampires who were on the outs with the rest of campus, right,
Dacer?”

The curator of the Museum of
Masks chuckled. He seemed younger and his eyes were bright. He was happy in a
way I’d never seen.
I’ve
never seen him around his friends before
,
I thought. He was at ease in a way I had never seen when he was working at
Public.

“Exactly,” he said. “There were
certain paranormals who had given us a bad reputation before graduating.”

“Any we’d know?” I asked.

Dacer turned to me and grinned.
“I believe you’re familiar with Professor Zervos?”

I groaned along with my three
friends. “Of course he’d be causing trouble,” said Lough. “Horrible professor,”
he explained when Caid raised his eyebrows. The President of the Paranormals
glanced quickly at Dacer, but didn’t say anything.

I found Caid jolly but
inscrutable. I guess as a president he had to be.

“Did you all go to school
together?” Sip said.

“Oh no, but a lot of us
overlapped somewhat,” said Dacer comfortably, waving his hand.

“Did any of you overlap with my
mother?” I asked. It was like a silent explosion had been set off in the room.
Lough coughed, Sip looked uncomfortable, and Caid looked anywhere but at me.

“I don’t think any of us did, do
you?” Dacer asked Caid.

The president puckered his brow.
“No,” he said, meeting my eyes. “But my brother did. He was much older. I’ll
ask him whether he remembers her.” The way he said it made me think that he had
already discussed my mother with his brother. She had been the caretaker of the
last elemental, after all. At least until she had been murdered.

“Now, we’re doing our best to
make sure you have a comfortable and happy semester,” Caid continued. “There is
no immediate threat to your lives.”

Tell that to the ring of
fire we just had to row through
,
I thought.

“Other than that there’s not much
we can do. The best thing would be to keep your head down.”

That’s all adults ever
tell us to do. Just take orders and like it. Never question. Never think for
yourself. Always just stay with the herd.

Caid could tell I was skeptical;
his eyes didn’t appear to miss much. But all he said was, “It’s really easier
this way.”

“By all means let’s do what’s
easy,” said Lisabelle, scowling. “Why try hard at something great when
something terrible can be handed to us for free?”

“Lisabelle,” said Dacer
warningly, but Caid didn’t seem to take offense. “You must understand,” he
said, spreading his hands out wide, “my hands are tied.”

“Yes,” said Lisabelle, arching
one brow. “You look very uncomfortable.”

“Lisabelle,” Dacer barked, but
Lisabelle wasn’t done. She walked up to the island and braced her hands on the
countertop, glaring.

“Look,” she said. We’ve known
each other for a long time. You’ve known Dacer for even longer. We don’t joke.
I mean, Dacer does, but they’re like Sip’s jokes. Only funny until you’ve heard
them.”

Sip and Dacer exchanged head
shakes.

“The point is,” said Lisabelle,
“this is serious. We expect you to take it seriously or get out of our way.
Think about it.”

Without another word she pushed
off from the counter and stormed out of the kitchen. An awkward silence
followed her departure.

“She’s probably going to the
study,” said Sip, taking another gulp of tea. “I’ll go after her in a minute.”

Caid looked relieved that someone
had spoken. “I heard she liked to speak her mind. Nice to see it in action,” he
murmured. He took another sip of tea. He didn’t look the least bit ruffled,
instead he looked quite relaxed, sitting there with his forearms crossed in
front of him. But I had a feeling that behind that placid exterior his mind was
racing.

“She’s just a sweetheart,” said
Lough dryly. “Now, what about the artifacts on the Wheel?”

Caid’s eyes widened in surprise.
“What about them? Officially they don’t exist. I only deal in the realm of the
official.”

I was so shocked I couldn’t move.
He had just discredited everything I was fighting to protect.

“Of course they exist,” I argued.
“The Mirror Arcane, The Map Silver. They are real.”

The president pursed his lips.
“Maybe they are and maybe they aren’t,” said Caid, getting testy. “The point is
that I have never seen them. No government has ever seen them. If they really
were created, they were created without sanctions, which means they are
dangerous.” His eyes flashed. “There are all sorts of rumors about the Mirror
Arcane being in Astra. Can you tell me that it is, at this moment, in Astra?”

I stared at Caid. He was not as
nice as I had hoped he’d be, and as my first impression of him had implied. But
I had to be honest. “No,” I croaked out. “It’s not, to my knowledge in Astra at
this moment.”

Both Dacer and Lough looked at me
in shock, but neither of them said anything. They were going to let me handle
this, for better or worse.

“You need to believe us,” I said.
“The artifacts are real. Malle is going after them, and once they are
destroyed, the last way of uniting the Powers will be destroyed.”

“No,” Caid interrupted. His hand
tightened around his teacup. “You are the last way to unite the powers. She has
to destroy you. The artifacts are secondary.”

“She’d have a lot harder time
destroying Charlotte if Charlotte was better protected,” said Lough angrily. He
had refused tea, instead going for hot chocolate. Now he had a little brown
milk mustache on his upper lip.

“She has plenty of protection,”
said Caid, eyes flashing. “Even her brother has protection, even when there’s
no proof that he’s a paranormal.”

“For which she is grateful,” said
Dacer in a clipped voice.

I was about to keep arguing, but
Dacer motioned for me to stop. That made me remember that Caid was right;
strong protections had been placed on me and Ricky because I was elemental.
Ricky was still too young for anyone to be able to tell, and since he was only
eleven, he had several more years before any powers he might posses would
manifest themselves, especially if his dad wasn’t paranormal. There was a good
chance he wouldn’t have any powers at all. Caid was watching me closely as I
thought all this through, and I shifted uncomfortably.

“Fine,” I said. “What do you need
for proof that the artifacts exist?”

“All six artifacts,” said Caid.
“Even the ones Elam supposedly has.”

“You know enough to know that
Elam has the Map Silver, but still don’t believe they exist?”

“Like I said,” Caid replied,
starting to rise, “I deal with what the law recognizes.”

“What about the heart?” Sip
asked, glaring. “What about loyalty?”

“Young werewolf, I am the most
loyal paranormal you will ever meet. I’ve been offered the world to sell out my
friends and far worse to sell out myself. Never once have I done it. I am proud
to say I never even entertained the thought. It was not tempting. Now, Dacer, I
do believe it’s time we returned through the passages?”

Dacer nodded. “We are trying for
an easing of restrictions, so that we can visit you on the up and up,” he said,
winking at me. I was glad Dacer was amused, but I still was not.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,”
said Caid, offering his large hand for me to shake.

In that moment, I made a
decision. “I’ll tell you the same once you support the protection of the
artifacts,” I said, and shook his hand. Dacer’s face was turning a mottled
shade of purple, and as he and Caid disappeared down the tunnel he turned
around and gave me a scathing look.

“Does he remind you more and more
of Lisabelle?” I asked, once the two were out of view.

Lough grinned. “Yeah, but in a
more . . . stylish way.”

“Who are you calling not
stylish?” Lisabelle yelled from the study.

Once the four of us were together
again I realized how late it was. “This whole fighting darkness thing is
keeping me from sleeping,” said Sip, yawning. “We just stay up and talk and
then talk some more.”

“We have to talk,” I said. “The
Mirror is gone and we need to get it back.”

“What do you think of Caid?” I
said to Lough. “You’ve spent more time with him than we have.”

“He’s alright for a real adult,”
said Lough, shrugging.

“A lot of laws say
we’re
real adults,” Lisabelle pointed
out.

“Well, that’s just proof that
laws can be funny and not always entirely logical,” said Lough. “Besides, some
of us are more mature than others. I plan on never being mature. If no one
expects anything of me, they can’t get mad when I don’t deliver.”

“Excellent logic,” Sip drawled.

“Lough, are you still staying
outside the walls?” I asked, putting my hands palm forward toward the warmth of
the fire. “Shouldn’t you go to Locke or home or something?”

“I’ve been home a couple of
times,” he said. “My parents support me supporting my friends.”

“It’s called loyalty,” said Sip.
“It’s what separates us from the Nocturns.”

“I prefer not to think of
everything in terns of the Nocturns,” said Lough. He settled further into the
couch. Unlike Sip and me, he was sitting as far away from the roaring fireplace
as possible. “They are merely a passing fancy. We are forever.”

“You think the Nocturns will
pass?” I said. It was hard to imagine a life without the Nocturns.

“Of course,” said Lough. “We will
win. Just you wait and see.”

“I’m going to start searching for
the Mirror tomorrow,” I said briskly. “I’m not going to let the elementals
down.”

“That’s hard,” said Lisabelle.
“Living up to ghosts.” Then she grinned. “Well, maybe not Sigil.”

“I wish he were an elemental
ghost,” I said. “It would be awesome to talk with him about his life as an
elemental.”

“Did he act a little funny when
you asked about your mom?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to look
into that too. My mom was definitely married before she married my stepfather.
It must have been to my real father. . . .”

I showed my friends out. Lough
went after Dacer and Caid, while Sip and Lisabelle snuck out the front. They’d
become adept at sneaking around campus, they told me, but Trafton was getting
jealous because he was never invited.

I had laughed and pointed out
that Lough wouldn’t like it.

“Not one little bit,” said Sip.
“Just because they’re the only members of the Dream Giver’s Association - what
does that group do again? - doesn’t mean they get along.”

“Next time I’ll come to Airlee,”
I promised. “I can sneak around as well as the rest of you.”

“No,” said Lisabelle, “you really
can’t. But it would be amusing to see you try.”

The next week was the slowest I’d
ever experienced at Public. I got a talking to from Trafton, for one thing. He
was still keeping tabs on my dreams, and when he found out that I had opened
myself up to them he’d had a fit like only a gorgeous surfer boy type could. He
had grown a little bit of facial scruff over the semester and it made him look
more mature and distinguished. I still had a hard time not laughing when he
finished lecturing me.

School was terrible. Decorating
101 made no sense whatsoever and was clearly there just to waste our time. The
other classes were meant to turn us on each other.

“Hey, did you know that
disgruntled students, for example Lisabelle Verlans, who are quiet and sullen,
are more likely to be traitors? Don’t you feel better knowing that?” We had
just left a Zervos class and she was mocking him. Or, “Paranormals who exhibit
an unusual amount of independence and interest in the Nocturns are likely to be
in cahoots with them. See? The only one of us who hasn’t gone over to the dark
side is Sip, and that’s just because the dark side’s wall is too high for her
to see over.” Lisabelle got up on her tiptoes and pretended to try and look
over something until Sip started chasing her around campus.