Turning Tides (3 page)

Chapter 3

In college, I’d done one
or two walks of shame, returning to my dorm room in the previous night’s clothes after a night with a guy I’d been seeing. I’d keep my head low, hoping no one I knew recognized me, and I’d swipe my finger under my eyes over and over, trying to remove the residual mascara. On those mornings, I felt tired and stretched and embarrassed, but I also felt glee, the sort of buoyant happiness that came from pushing the boundaries on my formerly narrow life.

Those days were long behind me, but the memory of the contradictory feelings had nothing on the torrent of emotions that crashed through me as I walked across the island that had once been my home.

It was, still and always, one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen, as striking in its own way as Lake Tahoe.

It rested on the outer ring of the San Juan Islands, far from the more popular tourist spots, and elementals went to great lengths to ensure our small piece of land appeared on no map. Our only pier was well hidden, so any boaters who happened past would find landing difficult. There was enough room for small seaplanes to land, which remained our primary way on and off the island. Boat and plane travel were monitored, and all incoming and outgoing visitors were painstakingly logged.

Our caution was necessary. From above, the wealth of firs and maples helped disguise the network of canals cut into the entire island, but they’d be visible the moment someone stepped foot on our shores. While one or two waterfalls or fountains might be expected, we had them in every garden. There were even a few houses with moats.

In short, it was an island custom made for water elementals, and it called to that part of my soul like few other places could. Everywhere I looked, water flowed and bubbled, looking for someone to play with it. I tentatively reached out my magic and greeted it as it coursed through the canal on my left side. It responded instantly, the water exploding in an ecstatic spray. I was a daughter of the island, and it recognized me.

I’d been raised here. As the island’s only child, I’d been adored and pampered by my family for the first twenty years of my life. Things changed when I came of age. I’d wanted to see the world. My mother wanted to hide me from it. Before long, the island I loved felt as much like a prison as a home, one I longed to escape.

It appeared I’d come full circle.

“How long has it been?” Sera asked.

I was doing my best to pretend half the island wasn’t following us to confirm that the dangerous fire was truly locking herself away. Sera remained focused on me, as she had been since we learned I was a half fire who would likely go crazy some day. I hated it, but I hadn’t figured out a way to change our dynamic yet.

“Senior year of college. I came home on Christmas vacation. Then…” I stopped. We both knew what happened after that. We’d gotten involved in a series of murders, and the fire magic I’d not known I possessed helped cause the deaths of several innocent people. I’d gone into hiding for ten years and hadn’t seen anyone. Not my mother, not Sera, not the island. It hadn’t been my finest decade.

With a head tilt, Sera indicated those who followed us at a careful distance, always remaining outside the reach of Sera’s magic. “I’m thinking there’s something to that whole ‘you can’t go home again’ thing.”

The words were irreverent, but tension marked her body. Her spine was straight, her shoulders set, her eyes fixed on the path before us. “I didn’t blow her up, either,” I whispered, too low for anyone else to hear. It seemed a point worth clarifying. “I didn’t even know fires could do that.”

Her gaze flicked to me. “I never thought you did.”

Half a mile later, we arrived at the western edge of the island. It was less sheltered and prone to higher winds than the rest of the island. It was therefore less populated, with only a handful of stilt houses at the high tide mark. No permanent residents lived in these cottages, and the few visitors were already evacuating the nearby homes, bound for guest quarters where they didn’t need to worry about their neighbor incinerating them in a fit of pique. They cast nervous glances in our direction. I waved cheerfully.

The gathered crowd stopped behind an invisible line, always keeping their distance. It didn’t matter how close they were, or whether I could still hear their quiet murmurs. In the end, it was just me and Sera. We’d fought plenty of battles already and come out on top, and I had no doubt we’d do it again. I wouldn’t consider any other option.

I marched up the stairs to the cottage and opened the front door. It wasn’t locked. None of our homes ever were. It was a guest cottage, and so held little in the way of personality, but it was clean and comfortable. For a jail cell, we’d both seen worse.

I threw my bag on the sofa and performed a quick study of the house, calling back to Sera.

“You can take the room on the right. Accused murderers get the pastel bedspread. I’m sure I read that somewhere.” I turned to discover I was talking to myself. Sera stood on the threshold, frozen. Her eyes held the closest thing to fear I’d ever seen on her face. “What is it?”

“Once I go in…” She didn’t finish. Elementals weren’t meant to be trapped inside. She needed constant access to nature, and more specifically to her element. This small cottage perched on the edge of the ocean would soon feel as much a prison as any county facility ever could.

“I know. It won’t be long, I promise. And there’s a fireplace.”

She nodded, but the tension I’d noticed earlier ratcheted up several notches. She looked like she wanted to sprint back to the seaplane and learn to fly the damn thing herself, if that’s what it took to get off this island. This wasn’t her natural habitat. She’d only come with me to offer moral support. It’s what she always did.

Now, it was my turn to do it for her.

“Come on. I’m better company than those behind you.” I reached out a hand, and she only hesitated a moment before taking it. With a gentle tug, I pulled her into the house and closed the door on the gathered crowd.

Sera turned in a slow circle, studying her prison. The cottage looked like an issue of
Coastal Living
had exploded all over the room. The color scheme was primarily blue and white, and far too many of the decorations had a starfish theme. It was as comfortable and bland as any luxury hotel, with any hint of personality deliberately removed.

“It’s only temporary.”

Sera’s face was drawn and tight, and she ignored me in favor of loading up the fireplace with wood, despite the fact that it was seventy-two degrees outside. A flash of her magic, and a fire blazed. She sat before it, absorbing its power, and I sat next to her.

Though I didn’t consciously stretch my forbidden magic toward the flames, the proximity was enough to feel renewed, and for the despair of the day to ebb slightly. Sera’s shoulders relaxed, as well.

“Hungry?” I asked. Neither of us had eaten anything since a plastic-tasting breakfast in the Reno airport.

She shook her head.

“Thirsty?”

“Anything stronger than water around here?”

“Please.” I jumped up and headed toward the small kitchen. “It’s an island full of near immortals who never have to work or worry about their livers. What are they going to do but drink? Plus, I think my aunts technically own this cottage, and they always kept booze stashed around the island.”

I rummaged through the cupboards, calling to Sera across the breakfast bar. “Lots of dried soup mixes, some pasta, pancake mix, of course.” I bent and opened the last cabinet. It was a temperature controlled wine cellar, fully stocked. We wouldn’t need to be sober for the next month, if that was our wish.

“Good news is I found the booze. The bad news is it’s all wine.”

“And so my punishment begins. Is there a cab, at least?”

I pulled out several bottles until I found a big Australian cabernet sauvignon. I uncorked it, grabbed two glasses, and returned to my spot by the fire. Sera grabbed the bottle from me and took a hefty swig. She grimaced, finding the high-end wine vastly inferior to cheap tequila, but she still filled her glass.

“So, you want to talk about what happened or do you want to get drunk?”

“I can multitask.” She took another long gulp. “What the hell happened out there?”

I shook my head, helpless to offer any plausible explanation.

“Could this place be bugged?”

I had no idea. I knew nothing about how the island was run these days. I supposed anything was possible. “Doubtful, but I can’t say for sure.”

She nodded, and our eyes met in silent understanding. We could talk about the murder, about Sera’s involvement, about possible explanations, but we couldn’t say a word about my fire side. It wouldn’t take much for someone to put the pieces together—a single throwaway comment, a flash of rage darkening my eyes—and I wouldn’t even be given the time to defend myself. I’d be too busy being dead.

Sera took another hefty swig of wine and topped up her glass. The bottle was already half empty, but that meant nothing. Fires can burn off any excess booze, meaning Sera could maintain the perfect level of intoxication as long as she wanted to. “So, I narrowed it down to three possibilities, each less likely than the last.”

I took a sip of my own glass, much smaller than Sera’s. “You’re ahead of me. I’m leaning toward the island housing an invisible dragon at the moment.”

“One, I lost control for the first time in my life and somehow failed to notice it happening.”

I wrinkled my nose. An invisible dragon was more plausible than Sera losing control.

“Two, there’s another fire hidden somewhere on the island. There were several buildings within magic range of the council. Someone could have hidden there.”

“Someone who snuck on the island without anyone noticing them, who will need to continue to hide now that all transport off the island is shut down?”

“I didn’t say these were good theories,” she reminded me.

“And the last?”

She lowered her voice. “There’s another fire somewhere on the island, hiding in plain sight.”

Our eyes met in silent understanding. In the sea of blonds on the island, there was no chance one of them was a fire—unless they were, like me, a dual magic. Neither of us wanted to even speak the words, lest anyone overhear, but we were both aware of the possibility.

It was unlikely. Dual magics were extremely rare. They only resulted from the pairing of two different full-blooded elementals. Full-bloods were uncommon enough, and they weren’t especially fertile. Plus, any full was well aware of the risk of bearing a dual magic. Immediate death to the child, and a century of imprisonment to any parent who concealed the abomination.

Once, there’d been many more dual magics. However, when elementals are capable of producing floods, tsunamis, ice storms, earthquakes, avalanches, rock slides, and forest fires, it really helps if they’re in their right mind. The previous dual magics weren’t, and one after another they were slaughtered. Now, there was just me, and a sad man locked in a mental hospital on the California coast, and the two others Josiah found after a long search.

And yet, another dual magic was the most plausible explanation for Lake’s death.

It also meant, if someone else was using fire on the island, I had a way to find them. It wasn’t a method Sera would approve of, I knew, and I tried to school my thoughts into a neutral expression before I gave anything away. Her eyes narrowed, letting me know I hadn’t been that successful.

Before she could say anything, the doorbell rang. I barely had time to stand before it rang again several times in short succession.

I opened the door to see several familiar faces crammed in the doorway. My three aunts rushed in, followed by my much calmer mother. Before I could even speak, I found myself in the middle of a group hug, my aunts wrapped around me while they alternately cried about how unfair it all was and scolded me for staying away so long.

“I missed you, too,” I said. They were nuts, every last one of them, but they were family. “Sera has a bottle open.”

Their faces instantly brightened. Marie, the middle aunt, shook her head. “Just one? That will never do.” She bustled into the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of white from the wine cellar. Georgina, the oldest, followed and grabbed a light red.

It was strangely comforting to see that there was no occasion, even a gruesome murder and their niece’s best friend standing accused of the crime, that didn’t call for copious amounts of wine. These days, I felt like my life was constantly changing, the ground shifting beneath my very feet, and I was glad to see a few things remained constant.

Tina was the youngest of my aunts, only a century old. She joined the others and began filling glasses.

I offered my mother a tentative smile. Her brows drew together, revealing a crease on her forehead that hadn’t been there when I left for college. I raised my index finger to her face, smoothing out the line. “We’ve been through worse,” I reminded her. “We’ll figure this out.”

She blinked, just once, but with that simple move her face transformed. She was the oldest of her sisters, the first born of my unusually fecund grandmother, and she carried the air of responsibility seen on older siblings the world over. But she was still a water, and she rarely stayed in a bad mood for long—particularly when there was wine nearby.

I turned from her to the last people who’d stepped through my door. “Lana?” My voice rose sharply on the single word. If Santa Claus had ridden through the door on a reindeer with a technicolor nose, I wouldn’t have been much more surprised.

Lana Pond was a half-water who lived less than an hour from our cabin in Truckee. I’d only met her once, when I’d still believed I was, like her, half-human. She’d pointed me toward her brother, Trent Pond, the institution-bound dual magic who helped show me what I was. As far as I knew, she had no idea dual magics even existed.

Lana was loopy and odd but mostly harmless. Unfortunately, she was also one of the few who’d seen me lose control of my water magic. If she started telling stories to those who understood what that loss of control could mean, she’d quickly go from mostly harmless to a woman capable of ruining my life, if not ending it entirely.