Rivulet (31 page)

“Wrong ones?” I said with heavy sarcasm.

Gavin held his out. On one side of the blade I saw an extremely detailed wing. He then turned the blade, showing me the image of the girl in the triangle breaking free, the woman before one bird with two at each side, the seven stars offering a halo.

Mason was breaking into one of the cases on the wall so he could get a sheath for the blades they had. I didn’t blame him; they looked dangerously sharp.

“Here’s the thing,” I said to Gavin, “she’s got Wilder. She has one of us, the one the triangle needs. We have to set him free before we can kill her. That’s why she took him.”

“We are setting the seven free first. Your uncle, too. They bind you with grief, they bind your power. Even if we saved Wilder first, we would still die without that power to raise us.” Gavin put his hands on my shoulders so I would have to look at the intensity in his eyes. “You have to commit a selfless act in order to sacrifice your mortality to become immortal. We shield your power, but we are not your power. You are. Your soul. Your empathy. Your
compassion. You have to set our seven demons free so you can move on to save others. No action can come from us without your demand, and it has to be one that we both agree on. I remember that clearly. You need to focus. Play this the right way, or not at all.”

I felt anxiety building in my gut. I felt sick. I didn’t know if I could do this. I had been so bold, so focused on this moment, and now that it was here I almost wished I would have let go, but then I remembered the images of my family that I saw in the hall, the flames around them, the agony in their eyes. No matter what, I had to set them free. After that point, I could debate if I was the girl they all thought I was.

Gavin shook my shoulders, trying to get me out of my obvious stage fright. “Listen to me: when you were weak a second ago, I saw hope in Cadence’s eyes. I know you did, too, and when you were strong she let fear emerge for a second. There is no doubt they know what you are, what you will be. Own it. Become it. Play the part like it is the last role you will ever play.”

“I don’t...” I said with a gasp as I felt my gut clench and the nausea come back. “I don’t think I can.”

The intensity in Gavin’s eyes grew. “You are going to act like you can. That is our advantage. You are going to play this role. You are going to hold your head high and make them think you have already transitioned, that you are already everything they fear.”

“When I see them, my family, I’m going to be destroyed. I will freeze us into the next Ice Age. No acting can cover that up.”

“You’ve made it go away twice since we have been awake. I know you can do it again. Whatever you thought of, hold that image in your mind. Use it as a weapon. You’re right. If they see the ice, they will know you have
no
control, they will know you are still weak. The transformation gives you control. They’re desperately trying to stop that.”

“They know we are weak because they have Wilder,” I argued.

“For all they know, he’s playing the part, too,” Mason said as he walked over and handed Gavin a sheath for his blade. “Listen, we know each other all too well. We don’t even need words. You just look us in the eye when you get weak, when you need direction. We have to trust each other. You’re going to have to trust us. Gavin is right, we have to follow your demands, and we all have to agree. You will not be alone for one second. I swear.”

Mason tucked his blade behind him as Gavin did the same.

“We are going on stage, Indie,” Gavin said as calmly as he could. “Play this part, and at the very least, we’ll give them something to fear when we return.”

I swallowed my nerves and tried to find adrenaline to hide behind once I thought I was close enough. I turned and went to the doorway. Just outside of it, I was standing where I was in my dream, looking down on the elegant dome room.

“I was there,” Gavin said, nodding to the other staircase.

“I was there,” Mason said, pointing to the opposite one.

“When?” I asked as I struggled with my nerves.

“When we moved the house. This room spun at the speed of light with our energy, and the floor opened and grasped our roots,” Gavin said as he clenched the rail—you’d have thought he was holding on, like the memories were too real to him right now.

“I really think someone would have noticed a house appearing two hundred years ago,” I said, almost to myself. I think I had decided to see this all as some big dream. That soon I would wake up, move through my day, my arguments with Rasure, school, walking through the North Wing, hanging out at the bar, and dream of my two beats.

“It was here before then. I have no doubt. I remember…” Mason said in a whisper that seemed painful. “You had a vision or something. We started plotting to leave as soon as…as soon as Sebastian and Guardian left.”

I looked up at him sharply. As far as I knew, I had never told him Phoenix’s real name, never told him about Guardian.

“We followed them,” Mason said. “We have been here a while. We landed here long before this country was even discovered.”

“One thing is for sure: Sebastian sure knows how to build a house,” I joked darkly. I couldn’t take in anymore of what they were saying. It was too much, and they were making it seem real. The only way I was going to get through this was by thinking it was a dream, or a really extravagant play.

“God, I wish Skylynn had opened our minds before last night,” Gavin said as he stared forward, clearly agreeing with Mason.

“Where have we been all this time?” I asked timidly.

“Trapped, lost. Something stopped us before,” Mason said as anger consumed him, as I felt fire come from his side. “And I’ll be damned if I let it stop us again.”

“Game face on, Indie,” Gavin said to me as we saw Cadence standing at one of the thresholds that led into this room floors below us. It was salted, as were the others. One thing was for sure, Rasure didn’t want us in here. In obvious anger, Cadence kicked the salt line as she rushed past it, still gasping with tears, a wrought iron bar in her hand. I couldn’t tell whether the tears were an act or not, she was just too good at playing roles.

I started to descend the spiral staircase with Mason and Gavin just behind me.

Cadence began to pry out the marble in the center of the floor, and for some reason that made me furious, like I knew she was stabbing a living, breathing thing.

“Cadence,” I said with all the dominance my role called for.

She looked up in shock, maybe relief. “You are going to help him,” she said with a tearful gasp.

“Tell me why the well-being of Wilder has brought so many tears to you?” I said as I continued my elegant descent. I mean, she wasn’t even making eye contact with Gavin, the one boy she did have a relationship with.

“She made me fool him,” she said as she moved her head from side to side in despair. She sucked in a deep breath. “She had me serve him up on a platter to be feasted on and did that because I was terrified, and now they will feast on him for an eternity if you do not stop this. It’s not his fault that he fell for you, that our family drama sucked him in. This is my demon. I killed him.”

“You killed us,” Mason said with scorn.

“Not in the same way. If I had, I would be fighting for you, too.” Her eyes moved to Gavin. “I tried to tell you I was sorry in my own way, to hold you once more, let you know that I was a victim, that she played me from the moment she arrived. She told me she knew my file had been moved, that I was really a runaway and that I had a family that was searching for me.” She locked eyes with me. “I couldn’t go back, Indie, not to that house, not after what my family did to me. I chose the lesser of two fears. The fact that Rasure was less scary than my family has to tell you that I had no choice. I was scared, and now I’m fighting back. I can’t save you, but I can set you free, all of you.”

“Put the iron down,” I demanded.

She let it fall as if my words were a command that she could not disobey.

“Why did you struggle for that key? Why did you take their lives?” I asked with a quick nod to my side. “Why did you take Sophia’s? What did she do to you?”

“How was I supposed to know we would crash?” she yelled in tearful agony. “This was your fault, not mine. They fell for you, so deep and so blindly that they could not see anyone or anything else. They were obsessed with ending Rasure, just as obsessed as you—so much so that weeks before your battle was to be won they helped you stoke the fire of her wrath. You moved the clocks, you threw that in her face. It’s your fault they had the key in the first place, that Rasure tried to kill us all.” She looked down as she raised her arms to her side, like she was being crucified. “I just wanted them to leave it be, for you to leave it be. Stick with the plan. Win your money and kick her out. The human way. The peaceful way.”

“Dear sister. I have never been human. We both know that.” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. It was powerful, confident—everything that I wasn’t.

She let her hands fall as she shamefully raised her eyes to meet mine.

“I thought you saved me, that my divine sister had spared me, but you didn’t. Fate did. I told myself that you would have if you could, that you were not moving on because you didn’t want me to be alone. Rasure told me I was a fool, that you didn’t care about me. I was disposable, damaged goods as far as you were concerned. I didn’t believe her until you proved her right.”

“Exactly how did I do that, Sister?”

Tears welled in her eyes. “You pulled them to you and pushed me away. You wouldn’t let me help you—you planned to let me go and live forever with your ‘almosts,’ the boys that will never know the real you.”

“I pushed you to safety, to peace. That is my purpose. If you knew the real me, that should not be news to you.”

“That is why I’m here. That is why I told you she had him, she had them all, and where. You may never forgive me, but I will fight for my redemption until my last breath,” she said as she balled her fists.

I glanced back to the guys. Neither of them seemed convinced, and I was divided. I didn’t have time to debate my emotions. For the first time in my existence, a clock was ticking. Counting down to my end.

I gripped the key in my hand and gracefully knelt down, thrusting the star point into the center circle.

When metal met marble and powerful volts of energy weaved through my arm, in that instance in my mind I saw this room, the staircases on fire, wind tunneling around at warp speed, the floor opening to the depths of the Earth. I felt a raw power, it was the power of desperate love, a love that had been divided and would not rest until it was rejoined.

It was a remarkable feeling, one I wanted to relish in so I could understand it, so what I felt for Phoenix would be justified, so I would know that I loved him enough to move universes to find him, that I was strong enough to bring our home to him.

But time was short. Once the energy left, the floor did not open beneath us. Instead, the three spiral staircases began to turn. As they did, the floor underneath them fell, opening the way to more stairs.

Without hesitation, I ran to the one closest to me. When I began to descend the stairs that were still appearing, I had no idea how deep I would follow them or where I was going. We turned and turned, chasing the appearing stairs, finally finding the floor.

When I raised my head and stepped forward, I quickly realized I was overwhelmed. “You have got to be
freaking
kidding me!”

This was a vast room, as vast as the manor itself, maybe even bigger—and in this room, all within a few feet of each other were thousands upon thousands of grandfather clocks.

In the echo of the room, I heard a bellow. I heard Wilder scream in agony. Cadence grabbed my arm and began to pull me in the direction of it, but Mason stopped her, all but jerking my arm away from her.

“Indie! Come on!” Cadence yelled.

“Not going that way,” Gavin said to her as he nodded toward the way he wanted us to go.

I listened to him, but as I walked away I heard Cadence scream, “You are everything she said you were and worse!”

I turned sharply to face her. “Choose you words carefully, Sister. My compassion is in limited supply tonight.”

“Wilder. You have to help me! I’m not strong enough,” she begged as tears spilled down her cheeks.

“I’m setting more than Wilder free tonight.”

She let a look of disgust fill her innocent image just before she turned and ran toward Wilder’s screams.

Mason turned me and began to pull me through the clocks as Gavin led us.

“Tell me you guys know what the freak you are doing,” I said through clenched teeth. The clocks around us began to creak with ice that was forming on them. I could not handle the idea that Wilder was suffering and his only crime was that he knew me, that he tried to love me.

“We are going to the memorial garden. There has to be a reason she wanted to keep us out of it,” Mason stated sternly.

“What if she was just using it as a decoy?” I argued as I looked over my shoulder at the sound of a new scream.

Gavin stopped and pointed to the key that was clenched in my hand. Now with the missing part, it clearly read ‘Falcon M Observatory.’ “I’m not focusing on her, only the signs. Now suck in those emotions and touch these clocks, as many as you can. Tell me if you see anything—any memory at all.”