CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Hey, there,” Bergam said with forced friendliness as I opened the door. “You look like you’re feeling a lot better!”
I stepped into the hallway. I was wearing a tank top, a pair of form-fitting athletic pants, and boots. My hair was still tied back in a braid. My book bag was slung over my shoulder, stuffed to capacity. Tucked beneath the collar of my shirt, hanging on its chain, was the larimar stone.
“I need to see Kieran,” I said simply.
The Enforcer didn’t miss a beat. “I’m afraid that’s not an option right now.”
His response was as I figured. It was all I needed to hear.
I had wanted to give him at least one chance.
I extended my right hand. Nothing happened, and Bergam raised a brow at me. I focused on my hand, centering my will, my energy, my focus. Every ounce of intention that existed in me.
“Maila, are you okay?” he asked, his confusion beginning to morph into concern.
Damnit. This was not how Larimar had said it would go.
I took a deep breath, flexed my fingers. Imagined relaxing the intensity of my focus, then reestablishing it. Refocusing.
I felt it the moment everything snapped into place.
Like a spark under my skin.
A moment later, the symphony of dozens of crackling and crunching noises filled the air as ice encased Bergam on all sides.
Heat had formed in my palm. Prickly. Tingling.
In alternating moments, bearable and unbearable.
It snaked down and around my wrist. I took another deep breath and let it flow through me.
Imagined the air traveling through my veins, reaching every corner of my body.
Imagined it fueling the fire that burned under my skin.
I didn’t stop until Bergam was completely incapacitated. His head exposed, the rest of him a pyramid of thick ice. Larimar had been right—releasing their magic, which was rooted in the various forms of water, as ice had been the perfect way to disable without hurting.
Bergam opened his mouth wide as if to shout for help. But just as the first syllable was forming in his throat, I yanked a shirt out of my bag and stuffed it in his mouth.
“I’m sorry about this,” I said. “But this is important. Are you listening to me?”
I felt like Nya that first night that she and Kieran visited my apartment.
He nodded.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I continued.
“But I will if I have to. I need to know where The Council is keeping Kieran. I’m going to remove the shirt so that you can tell me, and I need you to understand that if you don’t, I will hurt you.
And if you call for help”—I swallowed reflexively—“I will hurt you, plus whoever comes to help you.”
I was grateful once again that that the hallway was empty, quiet.
Bergam exhaled through his nose. He blinked in what I hoped was understanding.
“I’m going to pull the shirt out now. And when I do, the only words I want to hear are where they are keeping Kieran.” I paused for emphasis. Then I removed the shirt from his mouth.
“Before you do this,” he said in a rush of breath. “There’s something you need to—”
Without missing a beat, I shoved the shirt back in his mouth.
“I’m not very good at this,” I said, holding up my right hand again. “But I did try to leave you some room to breathe. I can change that.”
I had no idea if I could change that. Increasing the thickness of the ice, tightening its grip around his chest, seemed like something that would require a ridiculous amount of precision. With my luck, I would accidentally spear him through the lung. But he didn’t need to know that.
“Let’s try this again. Where is Kieran?”
Bergam was already talking the second the shirt cleared his mouth. “I’monyourside!”
I blinked. “What?”
“I’m on your side,” he said, more slowly this time.
He dropped his voice to a whisper. “If you’re doing this, if you’re rescuing Kieran and siding with the people from Ersa Estates—you do know that’s what rescuing him means, right?
How The Council is going to take it? Anyway, I’m on your side, Maila.
” I opened my mouth, and he immediately cut me off, “No time for questions. Go ahead, continue like I never said anything.”
And then he was growling and cursing and calling me every profane name under the sun, while struggling against the barrier of the ice.
“Um,” I began, trying to collect myself. He nodded imperceptibly, as if urging me on. “Be quiet and tell me where Kieran is?”
He sighed heavily, as if resigning himself to his fate.
“He’s being held in a storage room on the first floor,” he said.
“It’s not ideal, but Leon felt it would be too risky to try to move him to Headquarters until we had a better idea what to expect.
Moving him sooner would’ve invited too many questions and created too many opportunities for onlookers to become collateral damage. ”
“Where is the storage room?” My hands began to shake. Not from the magic, but from adrenaline.
“It’s right across the hall from where we were before. The others were moving like they were going to take him out the exit on the opposite side of the room, but that was just to throw you off. They left out the same door we did.”
I steeled myself to ask the question that terrified me the most. “Are they…torturing him?”
“I don’t know.” Those were the words he spoke, but he was subtly nodding his head yes.
My heart sank. “You’re making a mistake.
Kieran is extremely dangerous. Even before the incident the other night, we were told never to engage with him one-to-one.
You don’t know what you’re getting yourself mixed up in. ”
I knew I could have kept pumping him for information, but time was of the essence. I needed to get to Kieran as soon as possible.
“Thank you,” I said simply. I held the shirt back up to his mouth, hesitating slightly, and he gave another subtle nod.
I replaced the shirt, but left it loose, making sure he could breathe easily enough around it.
Then I turned to run for the emergency staircase at the end of the hall, the same one we had taken the previous day.
But I halted abruptly as a flash of yellow caught my eye, beyond Bergam’s shoulder.
Someone was standing at the other end of the hall, near the central staircase.
Her billowy shirt was a pale yellow, her hair pulled into a low side ponytail that was draped gracefully over a shoulder.
Her hazel eyes were wide, mouth hanging open.
One hand still clutched the handle of a thermos, but her arms were limp at her sides.
“Brielle.”
Even from where she was standing, I could see her throat spasm involuntarily. She blinked at me. Then she slowly, shakily held up the thermos. It was pink, and something about that made a lump form in my throat.
“I-I made you soup.” Her voice was small. “You weren’t at—so I thought, maybe, you were sick, and…what’s happening, Maila? What is this?”
“Brielle,” I began. “I don’t have time to explain what’s going on.
But I need you to trust me. And I need you not to tell anyone.
At least not yet, not until I’ve had time to finish…
what it is that I’m doing. This is hard to explain, but I need you to remember who I am and trust that there’s a good reason behind what I’m doing. ”
Earlier I had felt my words reflecting Nya’s. Now they were reflecting Kieran’s yesterday with The Council.
“Please trust me,” I begged again. My voice faltered on the last word.
Brielle didn’t say that she would. But she also didn’t say that she wouldn’t. She didn’t scream or yell or take off running. And that was something.
I refused to look back again as I sprinted for the stairs.
Leaving Brielle as frozen to where she stood as Bergam, tears streaming down her face.