Elemental Air (Paranormal Public Series) (26 page)

Glancing at the water, I sighed.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to wade into the water, then you hand me the Mirror,
okay?”

Keller nodded. I frowned.

“What is it?” Keller asked,
seeing the distress on my face.

“It’s just,” I said slowly, “you
probably shouldn’t touch me. I don’t know where I’m going, but I don’t want you
to be in danger.”

From the look on his face I knew
Keller didn’t like that one bit, but he didn’t argue with me. Instead, he just
nodded sharply once.

“Deal,” he said. “You just
promise not to do anything stupid.”

I gave him a lopsided grin.
“Whatever you say.”

The water was freezing and I
sucked air in through my teeth as I stepped in. Taking a deep breath every time
I took a step helped, looking at Keller helped even more. He smiled
encouragingly at me and I wondered, not for the first time, what I would do
without him. As usual I pushed that thought away. There was no reason to think
I would ever be without him.

When I was waist-deep and
dreaming of a hot bath or the desert, whichever was easier, I turned to face
Keller. He was standing at the water’s edge, bracing one foot so that it would
be easier to hand me the Mirror.

“Are you sure about this?” he
asked. His eyes looked black in the light and his voice was filled with worry.

“Do you n-n-not see my t-t-teeth,
chat-t-t-tering?” I demanded. “I better get something out of being this cold.”

“I thought it was heights you
didn’t like,” said Keller, grinning at me.

“It was,” I confirmed, “but the
mask is helping with that.”

“Okay,” said Keller, “here goes
nothing.”

Carefully, so that I wouldn’t
have to hold all its weight at once, Keller handed me the elemental heirloom.

The second my hands touched the
gilded sides of the Mirror, they blazed with power. I saw Keller shield his
eyes, but I didn’t shield mine. Instead I stared into the ancient magic that
was burning into me, and smiled. All around me I felt elemental magic surge,
and power rush to embrace me. I felt heat on my face, neck, shoulders, and
arms. The cold of the water was a distant memory. I was soaking in a hot bath,
I was racing across the desert, I was anywhere but breaking curfew with my
boyfriend so that I could try to talk to my dead mother.

Suddenly I felt myself spinning,
staggering. I gripped the Mirror tighter as my vision closed and the heat
seeped away.

There, in front of me, stood
Malle. I sighed in exasperation.

“Can’t you just leave me alone?”
She seemed far away, and I felt like I had to yell. We weren’t in any of the
places where I was used to seeing her. Instead, it just looked like she stood
on black darkness.

“Why would I do that when you
keep visiting me?” her raspy voice called out.

“I’m not visiting you,” I shot
back. “I’m not asleep and this is not a dream. Go away.”

“I will shortly,” said Malle. I
saw her lips part in what she probably thought passed for a smile. Instead I
just saw a gaping black hole where her teeth should have been.

“Don’t you have your monsters to
look after?” I demanded.

“They do not need my constant
supervision,” said Malle. She frowned at me. “Where are you? How did you get
here if you’re not dreaming?”

I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t
want to tell her about the Mirror Arcane and I was relieved that here, in this
black space, she couldn’t see me holding it.

“I don’t know,” I lied. “Must
just be lucky.”

Malle threw her head back and
laughed. “I’m sure lucky is the word I would use,” she said with amusement.

“What does that mean?” I said. I
couldn’t keep the harshness out of my voice. Keller and I had gone to all this
trouble so that I could talk to my mother and find out why elementals,
paranormals of my own heritage, had had her killed, and instead I had gotten
Malle. Calling it a poor trade didn’t come close.

Suddenly, instead of answering my
question, Malle grew ten times in size. I staggered back as her large form shot
forward, ringed by fire.

“It means you should be dead,”
she screamed.

“Time to go,” I said. There was
no way I was going to try and fight Malle again in some dreamscape or
Mirrorscape or wherever I was. Instead, I willed my mind back to my Mirror, and
even then the only way I managed it was by thinking of Keller, with his warm
eyes and smile waiting for me on the bank of the pond. What I found instead was
a rude awakening.

I felt my cold fingers let go of
the hot metal of the Mirror, felt it slip past my thighs and knees, and waited
to hear it splash into the water. My senses were back at Public, while my
vision of a fiery Malle was fading.

But I didn’t hear a splash.
Confused, I opened my eyes and staggered. It was now nighttime, but there were
torches burning in front of me. My eyes couldn’t handle the light so I closed
them again, but not before a stab of fear shot through me. I had seen more than
one shape waiting for me on the bank. Keller was not alone.

“Steady there, girl,” came a
man’s voice. I recognized it, but I couldn’t entirely place it.

“Let me help her.” That was
Keller, and he was really angry.

“I think you’ve helped enough,”
came the first man’s voice again.

Ignoring them, my hands weakly
searched the water. Where was the Mirror?

“It’s no use,” Keller’s tired
voice came again. “He took it.”

Fear stabbed into my heart and I
opened my eyes again to take a good look at my boyfriend’s new companion.

Standing on the bank next to
Keller was President Caid. His large shoulders worked to hold something up, and
now I could see what he was holding. I splashed forward, making a desperate
grab for the Mirror Arcane.

“No,” I croaked, my voice tired
from lack of use. I wondered how long I had stood in the water.

Caid shook his head at me. “You
had no right to bring this out here and use it,” he said, his eyes sparking
angrily. “What if a demon had come along and taken it?”

“Yes,” I said icily, “that is so
hard to picture.”

Caid’s eyes got a shade darker.
“What are you implying, little elemental?” His voice came out as a hiss.

“Nothing,” I muttered. “Just give
me my Mirror back.”

“Ah,” said Caid, hefting the
heavy mirror. “I don’t think so.”

Cold washed over me as if I had
stepped back into the icy water.

“You can’t take it,” I stammered.
“It doesn’t belong to you.”

“It doesn’t belong to you,
either,” said Caid. “Now get out of that water before you freeze to death.”

Without waiting for permission,
Keller hurried forward and took my arm. He ignored the fact that his legs were
getting wet as he helped me onto the grass. I would have collapsed if not for
Keller’s strong arm holding me up, but I wasn’t sure if that was from
exhaustion or rage.

“Don’t let me catch you out here
again, or I will not be so kind,” Caid cautioned. He still stood with my
Mirror, which was now safely tucked under one of his arms. I wanted to reach
for it, but I thought better than to try.

“Come on,” said Keller, when he
could see I was ready to argue.

I stared at Caid, who hadn’t
moved. The Mirror rested darkly in his grip. It did not light up for him.

“It belongs to my ancestors,” I
said desperately. “It should be at Astra.”

“If it should be anywhere, I
agree that it should be at Astra,” said Caid comfortably. “I was not the one,
however, who took it away from Astra.” In the depths of Caid’s eyes I saw
something that was horrifyingly like triumph. Shaking, I let Keller pull me
away.

Caid’s eyes watched us all the
way.

Leaving Keller staring worriedly
after me, I raced to Dacer and burst into his house, breathless with running
and pushed on by the fury that pounded through my temples and crawled over my
skin like lightning. It was now so far past curfew I didn’t care if Oliva
caught me out. He would just have to find another building for me to paint.

I braced my fists on my knees as
Dacer stared at me, wide-eyed.

“What is it?” he demanded. “Are
you alright?”

Dacer in his bedtime clothing was
a sight. I mean, he was always a sight, but I was used to his day to day wear,
even if the population of Harring was not.

The vampire professor wore a
white cap over his head and something that looked remarkably like a long
nightgown. It had sky blue buttons going down the front and a blue hem. He wore
white slippers with little blue bows.

“Caid took the Mirror Arcane!” I
nearly bellowed.

“Why did Caid take the Mirror?”
Dacer asked with maddening calm. I glared, trying to catch my breath. My cheeks
were flaming.

Dacer saw my discomfort and
raised his eyebrows.

I told him everything as quickly
as possible. The only movement he made was to fold his arms across his chest,
but his face remained unreadable. When I finished he sighed.

“You shouldn’t have taken it
outside,” he said tiredly. “Between demons and the Sign of Six, you didn’t have
much chance of hanging onto it.”

“I could have fought demons or
the Sign of Six, if that even exists,” I argued. “I couldn’t fight the
president of the Paranormals.”

“If you had tried, I’m afraid it
would not have gone well for you,” said Dacer, rubbing his forehead as if he
was deep in thought. After a while he asked, “Alright, well, what do you want
from me?”

“I want you to go to Caid and
demand that he return my property,” I said stoutly.

Dacer raised his eyebrows. “It is
not yours. It is Astra’s, and it might even be Public’s, but no one has left it
to you. Furthermore,” he continued, holding up a hand for silence, “you should
not have had it out of Astra to begin with. Caid was concerned that it would
fall into the wrong hands, and so he confiscated it, as is his right as the
president of the Paranormals. I see nothing wrong here.”

It’s already in the wrong
hands. Caid is the wrong hands,
I
wanted to yell desperately. Was it any coincidence that I had been talking to
Malle, and then Caid had just so happened to show up?

Dacer shook his head. “I’m sorry,”
he said quietly. “I just don’t think there’s anything I can do.”

I felt helpless. I stared at my
mentor, and before he could say another word I spun on my heel and raced away.

Meanwhile, Malle sat at a massive
black desk that filled the room. It was so high that it came up to her chest
when she sat, but she had always refused to replace the chair. The desk had
belonged to her father, who had given it to her brother when he graduated from
Paranormal Public with honors. Her brother, Grecko, had been a much bigger
paranormal than Malle.

The hooded figure who stood in
front of Malle’s desk had known her for a long time, maybe too long, Malle
thought derisively.

“Doesn’t all this” - the hooded
figured waved a hand around the room - “make you uncomfortable when you work in
this room?”

The voice grated on Malle’s
nerves, but she didn’t know if it was because of her own sensitivities, or
because the grating annoyed every paranormal who had to listen to it.

Malle shook her head, a slight smile
touching her cracked lips. The small motion sent the few tufts of gray hair she
had left shaking like brittle leaves in a cold breeze.

“I would have thought you didn’t
need reminding of that,” the grating voice continued dryly.

Malle knew she walked on a
knife's edge.

“The more motivation for the
cause, the better.”

“Not true,” grated the voice.
Malle decided that it sounded like a metal trapdoor slowly being pulled back.
“The little elemental lets her anger get the better of her. We should use that
to our advantage more often. If we squeezed on the open wound that is her
mother, we would crack her easily.”

“It was nice of the elementals to
do that for us,” Malle mused, sitting back in Grecko’s chair.

“It was good of you to remind her
of it.”

Malle shrugged. “She asked.
Couldn’t possibly keep information from her, now, could I?” Malle smiled at her
own cleverness. “What would be better,” she continued silkily, “would be if
Lisabelle Verlans did the same.”

“Used her powers in anger?”

“Yes,” said Malle thoughtfully,
her eyes distant.

The hooded figure’s eyes flashed.
Malle saw respect there, not for her, but for the Verlans girl. Respect, and
maybe something else, maybe just a little bit of fear.

“You aren’t afraid of her, are
you?” Malle purred.

But taunting was a mistake.
Grecko had always been furious when Malle had taunted him, and she saw much the
same reaction now.

Vise-like fingers made of air
closed around the former president of Public’s throat.

“Do not test me,” Malle’s boss
hissed. “Do not ever test me again.”

A sick light filled the dead eyes
as Malle fought to swallow. It was no use. Black spots appeared before her eyes
as her circulation was cut off.

Finally, just before she blacked
out, the fingers loosened just enough to allow her a tiny nod. Then the
vise-like hand loosened until Malle could gasp for breath.

“Ms. Verlans is too strong,”
Malle mused, rubbing her throat as she desperately tried to redeem herself. “We
need a way to deal with that.”

“Ms. Verlans is loyal only to the
elemental and the werewolf.”

“Surely there must be another
paranormal she trusts,” said Malle.

“Her Uncle Risper, yes. But he is
a dragon dressed as a man. It’s no use to try and turn him. I don’t care how
much darkness he already possesses. I have never seen a man with more of a
harness on his power, or more determination to waste his abilities by shining
light on the darkness. We’d have an easier time killing Verlans.”

“Oh no,” Malle cooed. “We can’t
waste all that darkness. After all, darkness calls to darkness.”

The former president of Public
sat back in her chair and steepled her fingers, a dreamy expression on her
face. “So much darkness,” she murmured.

In front of her, the boss started
to smile.

I didn’t sleep at all that night.
I couldn’t get the vision of the Mirror out of my head as it had looked when I
left it behind by the lake. Caid was most definitely evil, and without Dacer
there was nowhere else I could turn.

The next morning I lingered in
bed. I felt awful, as if I had failed the elementals and all the paranormals
fighting for their lives against the Nocturns. Eventually, though, I dragged
myself up and trudged to breakfast.

When I got to the dining hall Sip
and Lisabelle were happily talking to each other, and I was glad to see that they
had worked out their problems, or at least the one that had kept them aloof
from each other all semester. Whatever Sip had said to Lisabelle the night
before must have worked, and I wished I had gone to hang out in Airlee instead
of going to the lake. Now I had lost the Mirror Arcane, a turn of events that
seemed to portend further disasters to come.

I slumped into a seat between my
two friends.

“What’s with you?” Sip asked.
“You look tired.”

I told them what had happened.
Next to me Lisabelle stiffened. “I wondered where he had gone last night,” Sip
mused. “He arrived for the gala but retired early.”

“You were having a party without
us?” Lisabelle demanded. “How dare you?”

Sip rolled her eyes. “Of course I
was having a party without you. It’s the only way to have a party . . . without
you.”

Lisabelle grinned.

“Morning,” said Lough, putting
his tray down next to Sip’s. “How are things?”

“Good,” said Sip. “Well, not for
Charlotte, but Lisabelle and I are good.”

I shook my head. “Your dear
President Caid stole my mirror.”

Lough took a bite of eggs. “What
would he want with it?”

“Probably to turn it over to
Malle the first chance he gets.”

“Does that cat have to go
everywhere with you?” Lough demanded, glaring at Bartholem. The cat had taken
to following Lisabelle around campus whenever he wasn’t busy. None of us had
any idea what busy meant for a cat, but we each had a theory. Lisabelle thought
he might be off catching mice, while Sip and Lough had darker notions of what
he was up to when he was out of sight. They thought he went to visit someone
else, like Oliva, but Lisabelle scoffed at the notion.

“He likes me. Why is that so hard
to believe?” Lisabelle asked.

Lough instantly went scarlet.

After several beats Lisabelle
said, “I was actually hoping for an answer. . . .”

Lough’s red face deepened another
shade.

“So, how are your clothes coming
for the gala?” Sip asked us, changing the subject. 

“Mine’s ready,” said Lisabelle.
Before Sip could say anything, Lisabelle continued, “I think you’ll be
pleasantly surprised.”

“Is it some color other than
black?” Sip asked excitedly, sitting forward.

“No,” said Lisabelle.

Sip slumped back in her chair.
“What about you, Charlotte?”

“It’s supposed to come in today,”
I said.

One night, right after Sip had
joined the committee that was setting up the gala, she had gathered her friends
together, from me to Trafton and Rake, and informed everyone that they were
expected to buy pretty new clothing, that there would be no excuses, and that
if we didn’t do it she would know why, or else. Trafton had looked on
bemusedly, but no one had argued with her, and I had set to work right then
finding a gown suitable for the occasion. Luckily, I knew a paranormal who had
his hand on the pulse of the latest fashions. Dacer had been overjoyed to help
me find an outfit.

“Dacer,” I had told him, “you’re
wasted not having children.”

He scoffed. “I have lots of
children,” he explained, opening his arms wide to take in all of Public.

“What about the young men in your
life?” he had asked. “I’m sure Mr. Erikson has plenty of proper outfits, but
what about Mr. Loughphton?”

It struck me that important galas
with the most powerful paranormals were old hat for Keller, and that’s why
Dacer thought the fallen angel would have plenty of clothing to choose from for
the event.

“I’ll bring Lough by,” I had told
my mentor.

But it had taken some convincing
to get Lough to visit Dacer.

“What do I need new clothes for?”
Lough had complained. “I have a dinner jacket.”

“I have it on good authority that
your mother said you better get new clothes or else,” said Sip, taking a big
bite of her cinnamon toast.

“Who told you that?”

“Kair,” said Sip, beaming.

“I don’t know how I feel about
our siblings dating anymore,” Lough muttered. Sip just grinned at him.

“Besides,” I scoffed as we left
the dining hall, “I don’t believe the Sign of Six is real. It’s probably just
something Oliva dreamed up to keep us all in line.”

All we knew about the Sign of Six
was that they left black marks after some demon attacks, which really wasn’t
proof of anything.

“What do you mean?” Lough asked,
hefting his books. Since the library was still closed for repairs, thank you
demon attack, and we weren’t allowed outside our dorms except for classes
anyway, we spent a lot of time studying in Airlee. I had become adept at flying
in and out the window Sigil left open for me, so no prying eyes were the wiser
about my comings and goings. I was also getting better at flying with Alixar.

“Oliva can’t have anything
terrible happen this semester or he’ll be ousted too,” I said. “He just
manufactured rumors of the Sign of Six to keep us quiet.”

Lough rubbed his chin. “I guess
that could be true,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s a pretty tricky situation if
that’s actually what he did.”

“Oliva’s a pixie,” said
Lisabelle. “They’re nothing if not tricky.”

“But he’s lying,” I said, “and
Dacer’s taking the blame for it.”

I thought of Caid, and of Dacer’s
refusal to help me get the Mirror Arcane back. Dacer was trying to balance a
lot of forces while simultaneously staying out of trouble himself. He seemed to
be having a hard time of it.

That night when I got back to
Astra, Martha was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a large cup of steaming
tea. She offered me some, but I had just been at Airlee with Sip, which meant
that I had already had plenty of tea that day.

I bypassed her quickly, and then,
when I got near my room, I got an unpleasant surprise. Ever since Martha had
arrived at the beginning of the semester, Astra had been spotless. I didn’t
know when she cleaned, because I tried my best not to be around, but I had also
started to suspect that the woman never slept.

I was so accustomed to the place
being immaculate that the ugly black mark on the floor right outside my bedroom
door brought me to a halt. For a long moment I couldn’t do anything but stand
there and stare.

The mark was a circle. Inside it
was another circle, and then another, until they reached a bulls eye. In all
there were five circles, plus the center dot. I hadn’t seen the mark before, only
heard it described, but it was unmistakably the mark of the Sign of Six.

My mind raced. They had heard I
was skeptical and had come to leave me a message, that much was obvious. But
who could have told them I didn’t believe in them? On the one hand, I had
spoken to no one but my close friends about it. On the other hand, Lough
couldn’t keep a secret to save his life.

But then again, maybe they (and
who were “they,” I wondered, now that I was starting to be convinced that they
weren’t a figment of Oliva’s manipulations) had been planning on paying me a
visit regardless, and the warning implied by the sign had nothing to do with my
opinions about their existence. It had been drilled into my head endlessly that
I was special because I was the only elemental, and this was proof that even an
anonymous marauding group on campus thought that was about right.

I raced to the cabinet under the
kitchen sink and grabbed the strongest-looking soap I could find. I didn’t
waste any time before I calling water and hurrying back to the mark, where I
used the water I had called to scrub feverishly at the floor. The marker, or
whatever the Sign of Six had used, wasn’t very strong, and the mark disappeared
quickly. As soon as it was no longer visible, I ordered the water, now a little
muddied by black ink, to flow back into the ground. Then I sat back on the
floor with a sigh and stared at the freshly cleaned spot, my mind a total
blank. It didn’t feel likely that Oliva would sneak into Astra and put this
black mark on my floor. I might still suspect him of having used the Sign of
Six to serve his own ends, but I also knew him to be an honorable paranormal.
This kind of underhandedness was not his style.

Which meant that the Sign of Six
was real. And on campus.

But who were they? And what did
they want with me?

“They’ll just have to get in
line,” I muttered.

Keller joined me that night, and
I clung to him while he whispered soothingly in my ear. I didn’t even have the
heart to tell him about the Sign of Six. Ever since Caid had taken the Mirror,
I had felt like a part of me was missing. Having the Mirror in Astra had been
comforting, and knowing that it was gone was devastating.