Chapter Fifty-Five #2
I find Maureen still struggling on the floor and breathe a small sigh of relief that she’s still alive.
I’m going to save you, I think.
“Don’t touch her!” Malachi growls.
I lean past him. “What is wrong with you?!” I snarl, snapping in Lucas’s face. The boredom vanishes. In its place is something malignant.
He reaches for me again, and Malachi shifts, his hand flinging out, the butt of his palm connecting with Lucas’s mouth.
Lucas spits bright red against the chapel floor and wipes the excess blood away with his thumb.
I take a step back.
“Y-you’re a monster!” I stutter.
His lips pull into a lopsided grin, crystal-blue eyes leaving Malachi’s face and settling on my own.
“Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say.”
I scoff, looking around the room. At the people stationed at every exit. At Alastair, who watches us curiously.
Lucas laughs, but it’s humorless. “You have no idea what it’s like. Living in another person’s shadow.”
I shake my head. He can’t be serious.
“All my life, I lived beneath Kai’s boot.
Everywhere we went, I begged for people to see me.
But they never did. My own father resented me because I’m not a Guardian.
He hated that I wouldn’t be the one by his side when he became the imperial sergeant.
I thought maybe you would understand how that feels.
Never quite being enough of something. Except for me. You were always enough for me.”
Alastair doesn’t interrupt Lucas but instead looks on with amusement.
“When you showed up this year, you were sizzling with power. You didn’t even need to be a Guardian to feel it.
And finally, finally you saw me as I was.
Finally you saw me the way I saw you. But it still wasn’t enough.
Can’t you see it? How we’re the same? I’m tired of being powerless.
I’m sick of feeling like I’m never enough!
Power isn’t just a manifestation of magic.
It’s a mindset.” He tilts his head, eyebrow quirking as he leans back on his right foot, taking on a defensive stance.
“I—I hate you,” I whisper, backing away until Alastair clears his throat. I freeze.
Regret flashes across Lucas’s eyes, but he narrows them just the same. “That’s not fair.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Alastair interrupts, annoyance lacing his tone.
“Lucas is right. I never envisioned him as my successor. But what Kai lacks in courage, in devotion, Lucas makes up for in passion and drive. My own son of different blood…” He glances at his companions. “I have a plan for him yet.”
His arms stretch out wide as he continues. “To have control of the Air and the Water…,” he says, his smile sinister and all teeth. “This curse is no match for the Midnight Guard!”
Lucas nods, pushing past Malachi to come to my side, his voice low as his father continues to yell out his grandiose proclamations.
“Harper, please,” he whispers, sending chills to my very core.
When his hand grazes my lower back, I suck in a breath, dizzy at the way I’m instantly quieted, even if it’s only for a moment.
His whole body is trembling. This close I can see the sweat beading his brow.
His eyes are bright and shining, his lips parted and red.
Where I have been slowly wilting like an over-watered flower, he’s grown radiant.
But beneath that is something starving and raving mad. Thirsty.
The longer his hand is on my back, the dizzier I feel. The emptiness is disorienting. So much so, I swear I can see something wicked shifting in his face. His breathing slows.
“You lied to me… about everything,” I hiss.
He shakes his head. “That’s not true.”
“What do you mean, that’s not true?! You told me you loved me—”
Malachi sucks his teeth.
“—and yet you tried to kill me? In the hedge maze… that was you, wasn’t it? After everything that happened between us…” He must have used the tunnels beneath the school as a shortcut. I feel sick.
“No, Harps, you’ve got it all wrong. I wasn’t trying—it’s not like—we just, your blood… we needed it for tonight. To make sure you wouldn’t hurt us.”
I recoil against his words. “Do you hear yourself right now?” I guess that’s how they were able to dampen my magic… they can bind my blood to the iron chains, though I have no idea how that would even work.
He runs his hands through his hair, his eyes wide and pleading. “Just listen to what he has to say, okay? There’s more to this. There’s so much more to this. You’ll see. I promise. We don’t want to hurt you, right? I know he told you that. We don’t want to do it.”
I bristle at his words, glancing at Malachi. He looks like he wants to blow something up. “You said Kai was brainwashed, but you’re a liar. You’re the one that’s brainwashed! Stop fucking talking to me.”
Alastair is still going. “With the Water and the Air under our control, we’ll be well on our way to yielding the Four.
The Holy River, it begs. And we will be there to fulfill our righteous duty!
Fiona was no match against our power, and Harper will be no different.
” An even more menacing look crosses his face.
He turns to his companions as he raises his arms to the sky. “No longer will the abominations of the world hoard this holy power for themselves. The Guardians will rise above!”
“Rise above!” the others say in solidarity. Well, everyone except Kai.
Wait.
Fiona.
My nails dig into my palms.
The fated Air? Not heir?
Fiona is the Air… but her body…
“Is Fiona still alive?” I ask Malachi.
“Of course she is!” Alastair snaps. “What is so confusing about all this? You were doing too much! Sneaking around my office, snooping through the meeting house—though I’ll never understand how you even found it in the first place!”
Beside me Lucas shifts the smallest bit.
“So we called in a favor. Staged the scene a little bit. I couldn’t risk you learning the truth before tonight, when the campus is nearly empty thanks to the school-wide outing down to the Village. Now any display of your power will go unnoticed.”
My heartbeat whooshes in my ears.
I look between the boys.
Have they known this whole time? The both of them? Pretended to be oblivious as people searched for Fiona? As the campus mourned a death that never even happened?
I am the Water.
If Fiona is the Air, where is she?
Where are the others?
Who are the others?
“Lucas, you know what to do,” Alastair says, as though he’s getting a little bored of this whole situation.
Lucas grabs me once again, but Kai shoves his way between us. He turns to me, his eyes a swirling forest of emotion. I cut my gaze from his and focus on my magic, dredging up what little remains. I will not let them take me. I will not suffer the same fate as the Air.
I glance around the room as I try to form some kind of plan.
“Don’t do it, Harper!” Lucas shouts as I begin to move.
Alastair jerks in my direction and yells, “Stop her!”
Lucas rushes forward, shouldering Kai out of the way. I pump my legs, splaying my fingers as I cut through a row of pews. Behind me, the sound of a fight breaking out.