Chapter One
I sat in the back seat, staring out my window as the car rumbled over the debris strewn roads. I stretched my mind toward the sun. My lips formed the ancient invocation, pulling down the energy, the strength that I’d need. Soon, we’d reach our destination. Soon, I’d be trying to pull off a “magic act,” in the Mundane sense of the word. My success would depend on my body and training more than my ability to manipulate the energies around me.
But a little sun wouldn’t hurt.
A little sun almost never hurt.
Gareth broke into my thoughts. “Ember, is everything okay?” His voice was deep and resonant. His face chiseled, masculine, made moody by the scruff of whiskers painted over his jawline. He wore the whisper of bad-boy like a heady cologne. It made women sway their hips when they walked by him, blushing at their secret thoughts.
“I’m daydreaming.” I offered him a smile. It didn’t come easily to my lips. Perhaps he’d interpret my expression as wistful, or preoccupied. If I was going to pull this off, he couldn’t be suspicious in the least. I reached out a hand and rubbed his arm, hoping the contact would make him feel warm inside, relieving any apprehensions I might have sparked.
I turned back to the window, using it as a mirror to watch his reaction. He seemed preoccupied, as well.
I reviewed my mission steps in my mind. Gareth’s movements were as important to this dance as mine were. Perhaps more. He had to end up on the mark at the exact right time, or I would fail.
That was my job.
One of my jobs.
Get him in place. The right time and the right place.
Our car swerved from the right side of the road to the left, down the center, over to the left again as our driver avoided the chunks of building that still lay in the roadway, the debris from the latest tornado that ripped through the city. The latest angry swat that Father Sky took at the humans who had made such a mess of things. “My turn,” Father Sky seemed to say, as he made his humans scramble to survive his fury.
But today, he was tranquil. Not a single puff of clouds marred the azure blue expanse overhead.
Above, it was clean and pure. A stark contrast to the filth and destruction all around us.
Our driver turned the corner.
The engine choked and sputtered but functioned well enough. The cars that did exist were held together with a wish and a prayer. Coddled and prodded into use. It had been about thirty years since the last car had rolled off an assembly line.
Today, ours was the only car on the road.
Most vehicles that could be powered by eco energy had been seized for emergency use by the defenders, as ambulances, or were used for transportation inside the part the city that was held by the Significants of the Proprietors—the haves in a world of have-nots.
We had use of this car and driver because Gareth was a liaison between the two largest Proprietors enclaves.
Gareth threaded the needle that sewed the interior world of the Enclave populated by the consumers to the exterior world left to the Productors— those who produced the foods and other goods—and fought for survival outside the walls of the enclaves.
Besides the elites’ mansions lived the others at the top of the modern caste system. The Intelligencia. The Seers. The artists and musicians. All coddled by and catered to by the Productors.
Out here—beyond the walls protecting the upper caste—it was a hard-scrabble existence.
The outcasts suffered the greatest in this modern age of misery. The lowest of the low in the human pyramid, the outcasts—or untouchables as some called them—had always borne the worst conditions in any age.
As I thought this, we passed a skeletal man sitting naked and vacant eyed with his begging bowl resting in his lap. He was probably hoping someone would drop him a crust of bread.
But bread right now…
This last storm had blown through just as the harvest was about to come in. The people had run into the fields saving what they could, until survival tomorrow was not as precarious as survival in the moment. They had sought shelter from the onslaught, mourning the loss of the food, terrified by what that would mean to their future. To weather this never-ending storm.
I shifted uneasily in my seat. I didn’t like that there were so may eyes on us. I sensed them behind the curtained windows and blinds as we motored by. They hid in the shadows of the ruins that dappled either side of the road.
This car made us stand out.
It made people look at us with curiosity.
I pulled my hood up over my auburn hair and hid my silhouette in its depths. I didn’t want anyone to be able to describe me later.
There wasn’t a choice but to take a car out on this mission, I reminded myself, trying to quell the apprehension that danced in my stomach like the flames of a bonfire.
Still, this scenario made me uneasy.
Those who sought an extra ration of rice or a pair of shoes might be documenting our movements. Writing down our license plate on a scrap of paper. Running the information into the police station. Finding a willing ear.
I breathed slowly in, expanding my lungs, imagining that I could gather my nervousness and release it with my exhale. I did it again. And again.
On the fourth time, I felt more settled.
This step that Gareth and I were about to take should be over before the authorities could get here to ask questions. And should they ask, Gareth had the necessary papers in his coat pocket. But with Fortune’s smile, we wouldn’t need to produce them.
This morning when I pulled my card from the Tarot deck, I was offered the Chariot as my day’s foretelling – it was the fastest card in the deck when it came to change and movement. I wondered, knowing what my task was to be, if Fortune hadn’t offered it to me today in a bid at humor. I didn’t find it very funny. Terrifying might be a better word.
Our car pulled up alongside an iron gate. A decrepit building dating back hundreds of years stood like an old man in a too-worn coat. Haphazardly patched and looking like it just didn’t care anymore, this building was living out its life until the inevitable collapse into its foundation.
“We’ve stopped,” I said, edging a question mark into my voice. I sent Gareth a confused glance.
Gareth patted my knee. “I have a quick business stop before we head to the meet up.” He swept his fingers through his raven hair. It was cut close on the sides, leaving the top a little long and unruly. Soft. Touchable. The kind of hair that a woman liked to tangle her fingers into.
He used his attributes to get what he wanted.
He thought he wanted me, so he upped his subtle qualities of seduction.
And I pretended to succumb.
I slipped my hand into his, giving him a little squeeze. Magically, I sent a bit of warmth down my arm to ensure that he’d interpret the gesture as one of affection.
His eyes told me he got the message.
Good.
“You don’t mind waiting for me in the car, do you?” Gareth asked, stroking his finger across my cheek.
I offered him a little frown and a sad huff of air before I pulled my hand away, pulling all the warmth with me. I folded my hands and looked down at my lap. “No,” I said, making sure it sounded like a lie. Letting him know that I most certainly did mind.
He smiled with the tolerance of an adult dealing with a child. Bemused, at their antics even if they were mildly irritating. He dragged my hand back into his, popped open his door and pulled me along with him. “You can come. This will only take a moment.”
I sent the warmth back along my arm, over my hand, and into his fingers. A reward. I wondered if he knew what I was doing, manipulating him this way. I wondered if he felt it on a conscious level or whether it was information picked up on a deeper plane. I had never been without the power of the elements. I was hard pressed to understand how the Mundane functioned with the few senses they had. Not enough information. It must be awful. Those kinds of thoughts were for another time, I reprimanded myself.
Now, I needed to be focused. Every little thing could make this mission a success or could bring death.
Gareth and I held hands as we moved under the stone archway into the building.
The stairs that we took to the first level were littered with random objects of human life. Battered, ripped, and useless, they were coated in the powdery filth that had been whipped up by the gusts, grinding their way into any little opening, and settling as the winds blew themselves out.
My gaze took in the whole of the space, as I plotted my future moves. It looked like whoever had lived here had abandoned the location. It was more likely, though, that they cringed in fear behind barricaded apartment doors.
I could taste anxiety in the air, bitter and salty. It made saliva pool in my mouth.
“Wait here,” Gareth said as we reached the landing.
The air here was damp and smelled of mildew. Particulates danced in a stream of light coming from a tall window.
I sneezed violently. And that made Gareth chuckle with a “well you wanted to come” gleam in his eye.
I did as I was told and waited as he moved off, but I widened my aura, expanding at the same pace as Gareth’s strides. He reached a door, letting a key scrape into the hole. I felt the temperature of the metal grow warmer as he wrapped the knob with his hand and twisted to the left.
Sleeping hinges screeched their disapproval as they were wrenched open.
Men’s voices conferred.
There was the hard sound of fist to flesh.
A yelp and moan of pain.
The door banged shut and hurried footsteps followed as Gareth moved his way back to me, sliding the door key into his pocket. A smile on his face. Victory in his eyes.
As he approached, I sent my awareness snaking along the opposite corridor, counting hotspots that indicated people. Two guards outside. No idea how many might be in that room that Gareth had locked behind himself. I’d assume there were two. Two outside, two inside would make sense to me. “Good?” I asked, sliding my ring of keys down my leg, to my foot, to the ground, and leaving them there as I stepped forward.
“Excellent.” He kissed me with an exuberant smack then wrapped his hand around my arm just above the elbow. Propelling me forward, skipping us lightly down the steps, he whistled a happy tune. Out the door, under the arch, and back beneath the glorious November-blue sky, we made our way toward the chauffer who stood at attention.
Gallantly, Gareth walked me to my door on the street-side of the car and opened it with a flourish. I laughed at his antics, because I knew he wanted me to, then my eyes lit with horror as the blur of a black vehicle took the corner at high velocity.
Gareth jerked toward the screech of tires rounding the curve.
I reached out and shoved him with all my strength. Gareth flew backwards, collapsing over a rock, swirling his arms through the air to regain balance.
In the split second I perceived he was clear of danger, I took another step forward into the path of the barreling car. I gathered my energy and bent my knees. The cage protecting the grill and lights was next to me. And just as we had practiced in the meadow, I grabbed the top and middle bars, and pushed as I vaulted upward. I uncurled my clamped fingers, letting my body touch down on the hood as my teammate kept his foot down on the gas pedal. Pulling my limbs into a tight ball, I slammed into the windshield, bounced up to the roof.
He kept driving at breakneck speed.
I had no time for thought. No time to register pain. I lengthened my body, yanked my arms in tight to my chest—a buffer of protection for my ribs—tucked my chin, and crossed my legs at the ankle as I rolled over the top, down over the trunk, then slammed onto the dirt-covered pavement.
I fought against the scream that wanted to erupt from my throat, that wanted to give me away. I kept it caged behind my clenched teeth.
That hurt a lot more than in my practice runs.
I rolled a few more times to distribute the energy I had gathered in these theatrics but loosened my limbs, so I’d seem unconscious. And now that my forward momentum had stopped, I held myself perfectly still in the middle of the street.
It took immense concentration and trust not to flinch, as the rampaging car spun three-sixty and headed back my way. It took enormous self-discipline not to at least peek to see how Gareth was receiving this turn of events. I curled deep inside myself. Deep. Deep, into the meditative abyss where I didn’t need air to circulate through my system, didn’t need my heart to pump. I was barely aware of Gareth’s fingers pressing into my neck, checking for signs of life.
Gareth grabbed my collar and gave me a hurried and graceless tug, which at least moved me out of the path of the racing tires.
Gareth yelled to his driver. “Go. Go. Go!”
Doors banged.
And Gareth’s car was chased down the street, leaving me behind like more rubble to accumulate amongst the destruction.
Still, I didn’t move.
I did allow myself a breath.
My heartbeat picked up its pace as it worked to disperse air through my system.
A siren advanced on my position. Thank the Fates, my team had staged so closely.
Some part of me thought that perhaps a benevolent soul hiding in one of the buildings might rush into the street and try to save me, when saving was the very last thing I needed or wanted.
My friends from the Resistance, who had “borrowed” an ambulance for this event, weren’t very gentle as they put me on the gurney and covered me with the sheet that served as a shroud. They shoved the stretcher into the back, slammed the door, and drove around the block. They pulled into the alleyway and along its length until they were positioned by the front door of Gareth’s building for a quick getaway, yet still shielded from sight.
Piper yanked the sheet from my face and peered down at me. Her hair was a glittering shade of blond somewhere between platinum and grey that confused people about her age—though, she was nineteen, just like me. We had been in the same village school back home on Haven, even if we were in different classes—her elemental affinity was air, and mine was flame. Still, that confusion about her age had served the Resistance well. Piper was a true chameleon with her disguises. “Did you get it?” she whispered.
I held up the key that I had grabbed from Gareth’s pocket as I pushed him away.
“Amazing,” she said, clapping her hands together.
“Yes.” I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “I’m doing perfectly fine after the gymnastics act with the runaway car. Thanks for asking.”
She waved her hand in the air. “We’ll have time for that later. How many guards are inside?”
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