Turning Tides (18 page)

Rachel’s eyes revealed no understanding, a child on the verge of blind panic when the world refuses to make sense. A voice whispered that I shouldn’t enjoy her fear so much, but it was a tiny voice and the rest of me scoffed at its weakness. Rachel felt fear because her illusions of power had been stripped. She was an old one, and a member of the council, and centuries had likely passed since the last time she didn’t feel in control.

I would take her control away, forever, and I would smile as I did so. I reached for the magic, and I let it burn.

“No!”

It wasn’t a scream, but it was close. The voice was firm and determined to the point of desperation, and as it rang through the room my magic was forced from Rachel’s body. When I tried to re-enter, there was no room. Someone else was already there.

“You cannot do this, Aidan.” Josiah stood at my side. He appeared agitated, his body almost vibrating, but his voice was measured and calm even as he began to burn Rachel’s life from her body. “It will be hard enough to keep you sane as is. If you murder this woman, it’ll be over. You’ll be a lost cause. You know this is the truth.”

I stared at him, a low growl emerging from my throat. The fire tried again to attack Rachel, and again it was swatted back.

“I will handle this. She must not live, not now. Go with your grandmother. And if you don’t mind a suggestion, please don’t kill her, either. You’d feel quite guilty about it once the fire receded.”

His calm voice penetrated my rage as shouts or fear never could. No, I did not want to kill Grams. That would be a bad idea.

That wasn’t the only bad idea. I looked at the councilwoman, at her face frozen in a permanent scream, and a distant part of me knew I should try harder to stop this. I shouldn’t let Josiah kill her.

I shouldn’t have forced him to kill her.

There was a hand on my waist, guiding me out of the room, and I was spared the sight of Rachel’s desperate face as she gasped her final breaths. It was a gentle hand, but insistent, and I suspected if I fought, I’d be thrown over Grams’ shoulder in a fireman’s hold. “Where are...?” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I wasn’t even sure what I was asking.

She urged me down the hall and into her private bathroom, where the tub was already filling with warm water. Without stopping to remove my clothes or shoes, she pushed me into the bath and sat on the edge, waiting.

“You’ll let me know when you’re you again, yes?”

The words circled my brain, and when they at last made sense, I gave a single nod.

It took a long time. The fire rose and fell, still insisting we return to the other room and finish what we’d begun. For a moment, I even sensed the water murmur in quiet agreement. Every time I struggled to rise from the tub, a deceptively strong hand pressed against my chest, urging me back into the bath. The fire hissed and spat, and I felt it turn to Grams with hate.

That was when I began to fight against it. I couldn’t be that person. I couldn’t lose myself, not yet. There was still too much I needed to do.

The water surrounded me, reminding me there was a way back.

I grabbed the fire, one slippery, angry tendril of magic after another. It took all my will to force it into submission. The rage grew quiet, and as it conceded defeat I reached for the water, tentatively at first and then with greedy certainty, using its power to heal myself, to cure the exhaustion that lingered long after the fire was corralled.

I’d almost killed someone. Again. I’d craved her death, longed for it with every part of my being. If not for Josiah, I’d have committed cold-blooded murder.

I may not have been the one to extinguish her life, but I’d sure as hell been complicit in her death. If I hadn’t lost control, if I hadn’t revealed what I was, Rachel Strait would still be alive.

Josiah said I’d be a lost cause if I murdered someone, but I thought maybe I already had. I hadn’t burned her myself, but only because I’d been denied the opportunity. Instead, I’d made my father kill for me.

I’d caused a woman’s death, and this time it hadn’t been an accident.

“Aidan?” My grandmother nudged me.

“I’m me,” I told Grams, though I was no longer certain that was true.

Josiah appeared in the doorway, and for once I felt no resentment or hatred for the man. He’d just tried to save me from myself, and unless I wasn’t seeing the whole picture, he’d done so at a terrible cost to himself.

“Will you dispose of her body?” I asked, my voice dull. Josiah could turn a body to ash and leave no evidence behind.

He shook his head. Normally, this man was energetic and perfectly presented, but I saw none of that now. His shirt was untucked and only half-buttoned, and he wore one brown loafer and one black dress shoe. Grams must have run for him immediately. Whatever she’d said or done when she found him, he hadn’t taken any unnecessary time to dress himself.

“How did you know to get him? How did you know what I was?”

Grams reached into the tub and pulled the plug, then handed me a thick towel to wrap around my wet clothes. “Other than he was the strongest fire on the island and the only one who might stop you? I guess I’ve seen the puzzle pieces my whole life, but somehow they never matched the picture on the box. It wasn’t until I got the last piece that I finally understood. It really was a doozy of a piece, Aidan.” I looked at her, expecting fear or revulsion, but all I saw was gentle chastisement, sadness she had to find out this way.

There were so many questions I wanted to ask that my brain tripped over them, and in the end we didn’t have time. I focused on the biggest one.

“What are we going to do about the body?”

Josiah leaned against a wall and ran one hand through his hair. Without the product he normally used, it sprang free, short but every bit as curly as Sera’s. “Well,” he said. “I killed her in an attempt to save one daughter. We might as well use her death to save the other.”

The three still-living
council members were stirring, the effects of Grams’ potion wearing off at last, when Josiah walked into the middle of the library and announced he’d killed Edith Lake and Rachel Strait. While the confounded council blinked and took a few moments for their brains to confirm they had, in fact, heard what they thought they’d heard, Josiah snagged a cookie from the tea tray and sat in one of the plush armchairs, thoroughly unconcerned with their response.

The council members exchanged alarmed glances, uncertain how to react to Josiah’s statement. They appeared more shocked than grief-stricken, and I doubted Rachel Strait was the sort of woman to inspire mourning. Though I was still horrified by what I’d done, even I wasn’t about to pretend I would miss the hate-filled woman.

Michael broke the silence first, clearing his throat several times in an attempt to force the words out. “Er, why?”

“Why am I confessing, or why did I do it?”

Michael’s head bobbed up and down like a nervous chicken. “Yes,” he said, grateful Josiah understood.

“I’m confessing because I no longer trust this council to see reason. Despite my daughter being innocent, you lot would have convicted her and sentenced her to death. As I have confessed and you no longer have a quorum, her trial is canceled. She will no longer be trapped in that house and will have access to the entire island. I’ll take her place so we can all pretend you have me under control while you arrange for a fourth council member to arrive and begin my own farce of a trial.” They looked uncertain about being given orders by a confessed murderer, but no one spoke against him, either. Even Deborah looked cowed by his utter certainty. “Unless you wish the elder Ms. Brook to be reinstated on the council for the trial and Aidan’s sentencing? I didn’t think so.”

Deborah found her voice at last. “Josiah, we have both walked this earth a long time and had, I thought, earned a certain degree of wisdom.” She focused briefly on his mismatched shoes before continuing. “I admit to being somewhat unsettled by your rash actions. Rachel was no friend of mine, but she was an old one, and this death is unacceptable. If elementals begin killing each other, what will our race become?”

“I’m not sure, Deborah. Will we even have a race if we start removing each other’s magic?”

He spoke lightly, but the words fell like a bomb on the room. A big, awkward bomb.

“Does that answer the question of why I did it? Good, good. I’m sure we can all come to some nice compromise in which no one else dies and no one is deprived of their magic in order to prove some ridiculous point. Though, really, the latter is no longer an issue. It seems I broke all the syringes. Such fragile things, they are.”

Waters weren’t especially prone to rage, but you’d never guess it to watch the faces of the three remaining council members. Deborah, Michael, even Lydia glared at Josiah. If they’d been capable of harming him at that moment, I don’t think they would have hesitated.

Josiah leaned back in his chair and nibbled the cookie.

Michael was either the bravest or the most foolish of the bunch. “But you weren’t even on the island when Edith died. How can your daughter be innocent?”

Josiah pinned him with a stare that would cause a weaker man to lose control of his bladder and possibly a few other bodily functions. “Of course she’s innocent. I just told you I did it. Are you calling me a liar?”

Michael blanched. I was accustomed to Josiah’s unpredictable moods, and even I was getting whiplash trying to follow along.

For all intents and purposes, the council was now toothless, and everyone in the room knew it.

Josiah inclined his head, the barest of nods. “I will head directly to the cottage, where you will find me until this is resolved. You have my word I won’t run. At least, not without giving you fair warning.” He smiled, believing he’d told a joke. The others looked less certain, but they all nodded. His proposal wasn’t ideal, but at least he wasn’t attempting to set any of them on fire. They had to be grateful for small favors.

Josiah stood. “Your lovely hostess and the young Ms. Brook will escort me to the cottage. The three of you can use the time to discuss what you believe my punishment should be for murdering a woman who planned to inflict torture upon one of your own.” The words were lightly spoken, but they were underscored by a current of rage. He walked away, only turning at the door to deliver a parting shot. “I suggest you remember why I was so angry with this particular council. The more extreme your decision regarding my sentence, the more inclined I’ll be to share your novel approach to law and order with our fellow elementals. I’m sure at least one or two of them will understand your choice. As for the rest...” He let the unspoken words hang in the air. The council knew, if their actions became common knowledge, they wouldn’t just have one powerful enemy on the island. They’d be hated by elementals across the world. It was one thing to quietly give me the drug, then ask for forgiveness once the effects were known. It was something else altogether to knowingly set a dangerous precedent.

He walked out of the library, and for the first time in my life, I willingly followed my father.

We walked along
the southern shoreline, trying to avoid the rest
of my family. There’d be time for explanations later, but right now I didn’t think I could handle a single innocent question from a well-meaning relative.

I walked between my grandmother and my father, both of whom had just saved my life in one way or another, and tried to think of a way to broach the enormous, flame-colored elephant in the room.

As usual, tact was powerless against my gift for babbling. It might be highly inappropriate, considering what I’d just done, but it was either that or start screaming, and I thought if I started screaming I might not stop for several weeks.

“So, I’m going crazy and nearly killed a woman, a father I disowned less than a month ago stopped me at no small cost to himself, and my grandmother has learned the biggest secret of my life. How are things with you?”

“Don’t be so modest, dear. This is likely the biggest secret among all elementals. Dual magics are the stuff of nightmares to us old ones. They wouldn’t take kindly to knowing there’s one among us.”

“Will you tell?”

She snorted, a most unladylike noise. “And condemn my granddaughter to an instant death sentence? Don’t be foolish. Did you kill Edith, by the way?”

I stopped walking and stared at her. “You’re ready to protect me, and you don’t even know if I’m innocent?”

She looked at me as if I’d gone a bit soft in the head. “You’re family, Aidan. Family protects each other.”

My throat tightened. Such faith was more than I deserved after staying away as long as I had. More to the point, it was more than I deserved after my part in Rachel’s death. I wasn’t sure I was worth protecting anymore, but I was glad she was willing to try.

Josiah threw his hands in the air. “That’s what I’ve been saying for months, but you tear up for her?”

I turned to study my father. He’d killed innocents to protect me, and he seemed to feel not the slightest shred of guilt for murdering Rachel. He was controlling and manipulative and, in general, possessed every single personality trait a good self-help book would tell you to avoid. I hated him.

At least, I was supposed to hate him, but right then I only remembered the way he’d forced my fire magic to return to me. If he hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have only triggered the death, I’d have been its direct cause. I knew I wouldn’t have stopped in time, just as I knew I couldn’t cross that line without my tenuous grip on sanity disintegrating.

I was full of regret and horror for what I’d done, and I was terrified of how fast I was changing. I could no longer pretend I wasn’t dangerous, but most of the time I was still sane.

Once I killed, I didn’t think that would be true.

I knew Rachel’s death was on my conscience, and I wouldn’t forget that. I’d be haunted by what I’d done for as long as my sanity held. But in the end, it hadn’t been my magic that killed her, and I thought that small detail might make a difference.

I was still me. I still had a chance.