War of the Princes 02: Dragoon (23 page)

C
hapter 37: My Mother

“She's here!” I was clawing uselessly at the door, my nails dragging through the rust and grime that caked its surface. “Rune, she's here!” Tiptoeing, I tried to peer into the tiny uniform holes. No light seeped through them. They were too small anyway. My eyes couldn't focus tightly enough to see inside. “Mama, I'm here. I'm getting you out.”

A daze settled over me as I heard my own words, desperate for reassurance. I was a girl of six again, reaching up to fold my arms around her neck and fish through her raven curls for the dangly earrings that she would wear. She'd never hold me like that for long, but when she did, I was content. How had that slipped away from me?

There was no way in. No doorknob, no handle, just an inlaid lock mechanism the size of a dinner plate. The circles of gears and joints, all connected for a single function, were of no use to me. I had no key. The Pull did me no more good. I couldn't walk through walls. The Spark was of no use either. Electricity could be carried through metal, but couldn’t destroy it.

What was the point in getting all the way here if I couldn't reach her?

Rune was my only option. “Can you melt it?”

He frowned
. “This door could be up to three inches of solid iron. I could make a small hole but it'd take hours to cool and I might be too fatigued to move.”

“Can't we do anything to open it?” I asked, frantic.

“Of course we can,” Kyle said, pushing past Sterling and Rune. Reaching into his coat, he fished something out of one of the inner pockets. It was a thin, sealed case, battered by scratches and wear. I'd seen it a thousand times before. It was his portable tool kit.

Snapping it open, Kyle plucked
out a pair of long, thin, steel spikes with pinhead points and flat handles. He gently pushed me away from the lock with one arm, and crouched down to get a good look at it.

Kyle's lean, nimble fingers went to work on the mechanism, each hand deftly wielding a pointy tool. He lowered his ear to the thing, poking and prodding at the holes in the lock while watching his work with one eye.

A long, slow breath escaped between his lips. I was nearly shaking. More Dragoons could arrive at any moment. If we were caught trespassing now, there'd be no arguing our way out of it. We'd all be killed. Each and every one of us.

So close.

I wondered if he could manage it at all, and what else I could do to get it open, when a resounding click reverberated through the iron door. It was a heavy sound, deep and satisfying.

“
I guess it was a good thing I came along after all.” Kyle got up off of his knees and made room for me.

Sterling gave him a long look and Kyle shoved his hands in his pockets, unable to maintain eye contact.

“Thank you,” I thought I said, but I wasn't quite sure if I'd made a sound.

My breath came fast and shallow, almost the way it had when I felt like the walls were closing in on me. This was different. There was no time to waste on reflection.

I pressed the heel of my boot firmly onto the flagstone and shouldered the door, forcing its heavy bulk open. The hinges made three cracking noises. Above me, Rune, Kyle and Sterling each had a hand on the door, helping me press it open.

The only light in the cell came from the poorly lit room behind us. It reeked of the round and sour stench of sweat and human waste. There were rusty buckets filled to the brim with thick liquids I didn't want to identify, and in the middle of them were rags, piled in the shape of a human body.

I flew into the room without regard for my cleanliness, and dropped to my knees beside the shape. The Pull led me straight to her. Tears brimmed in my eyes. I'd been angry with her for so many years, but all this time I'd been just like her; always running away, always preoccupied with something outside of my home. I was ready to allow her to explain herself, to give me a reason to forgive her.

Just, please, let her still be alive!

I put my hands down atop what must have been her shoulder.

“
M--” I began to say, pressing down to roll her onto her back. The rest of the word was crushed by the lung-burning gasp that ripped from my chest. Half falling, half scrambling, I backed away from what I saw.

It's not possible.

C
hapter 38: Clarity And Other Curses

The person lying under the mountain of rags on the floor was not my mother. Not even close. This was a man. One of his eyes was purp
le and swollen shut, his hooked nose had a crusted gash across the bridge, and was clearly broken. Salt and pepper dusted his short matted hair and his ragged beard. His lips were cracked and one of them had split. The deep laugh lines at the corners of his middle aged face made him look tragic. It was difficult to imagine someone in such a state ever laughing again.

Despite the carnage of his face and my well founded shock, I recognized him.

“Professor Block?” I said hollowly. My tears retreated, leaving my disbelieving eyes to burn.

“
What?” Behind me, Sterling pushed past Rune to get a better look. “Professor Block!”

No, no, no. This is wrong!

“Where’s my mom?” I asked stupidly, casting about the room. There were no other occupants. “Where is she?”

Professor Block had begun to stir. He peeled open his good eye and tried to look at us, grunting and groaning as he pushed himself up onto one elbow. A spasm of violent coughs assaulted him, and Sterling rushed to his side before he could fall back down.

“Mister Mason? Is that really you? Can’t be. I can hardly see… I can hardly see,” Block said with a strained, wheezing voice. He was a crumbled, ruined version of the passionate history teacher I knew and respected.

Paperglass
To Be!

I followed the Pull and it lead me straight to him. I did it again, and again, the result was always the same. I paced around him in a circle while Rune watched me. I must have looked like a maniacal animal, driven out of its mind by the torments of captivity.

She had to be here. I knew she was. What were we missing? There was a clue here somewhere, a hidden door, something!

There was nothing.

Mother.

The Pull blazed to life, spinning me in a half circle. Excited to follow it, I took a step forward and nearly walked into one of the cell walls. I caught myself, bracing my weight on my palms, feeling the oily grime of the stone slabs on my skin.

Mother.

The tug persisted into the wall. My denial was beginning to fracture, allowing clear thought to leak in.

Father.

No change.

Haven.

It was exactly the same. The Pull was leading me in the same direction for each of them. Then, I was submerged in a sense of knowing, as crisp and clear and cold as frozen water. Stakes hadn’t broken my Abilities. When I’d used the Pull in Breakwater, I wasn’t mistaking my step mom for my birth mother. She was there all along, in Haven. She’d never left.

“Sterling,” I said desperately. “I need you to make me remember her.”

“He’s hurt, bad,” Sterling said to me and Rune both.

All of my fear and anguish poured into the word. My voice came out raw. “
Please,
” I begged, on the verge of a nervous break down.

Sympathy touched his face and he held a hand out, laying it on the inside of my outstretched forearm.

Driven with a speed and intensity I hadn’t anticipated, I was thrown backward, into my memories.

*   *   *

I remembered pages floating away on the wind. Rivermarch's weather tower was in ruins all around me. Kyle was with me, and we were surrounded by destruction. An arm of metal crashed down beside us and the tremor shook me to my bones. Seeing the violent ruin of a familiar and peaceful place was as wrong and jarring as it'd been the moment it happened. I passed the memory, flying farther back.

I was in Constable Mason's interrogation room. The agent came in to meet me. Sandra
Loring, cool, focused, severe, and proud, like an eagle. My mother's best friend. She and her people were taking a force to the Outside to recover the lost team. She asked if I'd sign the papers. Join them. I told her no. No one should go. It was too risky. I remembered holding her sleek quill pen in my hand. I remembered the stack of papers in the folder. A legal agreement so they'd face no repercussions from my father if I died. Papers that would later litter the wind, catching on the crushed body of Eddie Elm. Was it that very wind now that burned my eyes, and ripped me through my own mind, farther back still?

Hyper flashes of people and places lanced past me
with painful speed and clarity. Sixteen, having dinner with my family, and trying to start a fight with my dad just to see him crack his ever-supportive composure. Thirteen, Ruby stopping me from running away to Pinebrook on a train. Ten, sitting in a tree with Kyle, shooting people's hats off with sling shots and crumpled paper.

Six skidded to a halt, like I'd fallen from a galloping horse into gravel. Six years old. The sky was black, and then white. Thunder roared furiously over
Rivermarch's night sky. The rain mingled with my tears as I fought for my dad's arms to release me. She was leaving. That long curly mass of black hair, so much like mine now, was moving away from me forever. She was leaving. I could feel it now. The wild lightning was drawn to me even at such a young age. I was afraid then, but the thunder was calling out, like it was lending my pain its greater voice.

“
I'm finished wasting my time!” Her voice carried over the storm, over my father's pleas for her to come back inside, over the cries of her six-year-old daughter. Calling me onward, my memories pushed me farther back.

Still six. A fight. They thought I was asleep, but I wasn't.

“Stop trying to control me, Keller,” my mother shouted at him. I could see their legs through the keyhole of their bedroom door, but that was all.

“
Asking you to come home and have dinner with your little girl isn't being controlling,” he argued, snapping. Never in my life had I seen my dad angry. At least, I hadn't remembered. “She misses you. What's controlling about that?”

“
You! You are! If you ask me where I was one more time,” she threatened.

“
No one at the Research Society knew where you were.”

“
I will leave!” she ranted on like he hadn't spoken at all. “I was in Pinebrook. I had work to do!”

“
You always have work to do!” My father shouted. “Nothing should be more important than your family!”

“
You're wrong about that. The Still Well is more important than any of us and it's changed, I know it has. We're so close! I could make the greatest historical discovery of all time and you want to hold me back for the sake of mashed potatoes, a slice of pie, and a child that's going to forget that she was disappointed in the first place!”

“
You always twist my words! I never said she'd forget everything.”

“
Then when I am here, you smother me with questions.”

“
You disappear half the week! How am I not supposed to worry?”

“
Your worrying, your paranoid sense of protectiveness will drive every last person you love out of your life forever, Keller Kestrel, you mark my words.”

The memory melted and I slid
back farther still. I felt raw, burned from head to foot.

Four. I was sitting on her lap. I could feel her warmth, I could smell her. It wasn't specific, but it was Mama.

I was happy. Thrilled.

My dad was sitting across the coffee table, grinning at me. He held his arm out, palm facing downward, just over the table's surface. When he pulled his hand away, he had left behind a tiny gray cloud. In every respect it looked as though it should be much larger. It was the size of an orange, fluffy, dark and roiling with storm.

“Well, well,” Mama said and I could hear the smile in her voice. “Developed a rebellious streak have we? She's not supposed to know.”

“
Until she's of age. You found out, and it turned out okay.”

“That was an accident, and I paid for it with three extra years of private tutoring and psychological exams. I don’t want our little girl to go through what I did.” The topic was a serious one, but my mom sounded patient and warm.

“Yeah, I know, but look at that face,” he chuckled.

“
It's a storm cloud!” I said in my tiny voice. The little cloud began to rain a fine silvery mist onto the table.

“
Shh... Katie-bug, it's our secret, okay?”

“
Yes!” I agreed exuberantly. “Ouwr secwet!”

“
Don't worry, she'll forget,” Dad assured Mama.

I did.

Mama hugged me, spinning me around to face her. I put my arm around her neck, and touched one of her long copper earrings. She had my wavy black hair, and my freckles spilled over her nose and cheeks. The face I saw, happy in the moment, and regarding me lovingly, belonged to officer Sandra Loring.

*   *   *

I snapped back to reality. Only a few seconds had passed but half my lifetime of lost memories were churning in my head. I lost my breath.

I was on my knees, and my eyes were battling to focus in the dim light. Tears intruded on my vision but I refused to let them spill. I took in a shaky breath, sucking in my bottom lip a little as I inhaled.

My dad! He could create storms! How could I have forgotten that? Our Abilities were related! My poor dad. Now I knew why he never scolded me for being independent, never acted like he was worried. He thought I would leave him forever, like she did. It broke my heart, but the pain lanced even deeper.

Sandra
Loring was my mother. To what extent had she gone to cover her freckles with makeup, to straighten and color her hair, so that I had no chance of recognizing her? Had she rid our home of all of her pictures before she left? Kendra Kestrel was Sandra Loring. Kendra and Sandra. The names were reminiscent of one another, why couldn't I have figured it out while I was there?

The cold woman told me my mother had been her greatest friend, and she hadn't lied. Selfish people only have one friend, themselves.

She'd only told me that my mother had been the key member of the missing team after I'd already said no. She was using me, manipulating me, forcing me to go. She never bothered to meet me. She didn't know me. How could she have known I'd care whether she lived or died?

Because I'd been raised by my loving father who'd taught me that nothing was more important than family.

I slammed my hands on the wall so hard that it hurt all the way up my arms. I was angry with my father for being so kind to me, I was angry with myself for being anything like her, or that I hadn't figured it out sooner, yes, but I was
enraged
that she would do this to me. She'd sent her own daughter off to die.

I was here, in the belly of the largest
installment in the region, buried within the army of the Prince of Shadows, surrounded by a war that cared nothing for sparing the lives of my innocent friends or me. We were far from safety and farther from home. The world closed in over me, stacking brick upon boulder upon mountain atop me. If ever there was a time for one of my attacks of claustrophobia, it would have been then, but the panic never came. Fear gripped my gut so hard I couldn't feel it any more. There was shame, and hurt, and fury, though. There was plenty of that.