A Matter of Heart (6 page)

My
heart drops straight to the floor, even though I tell it it shouldn’t.

That night, Jonah takes me
out to dinner. We’re sitting outside at one of our favorite cafés, and the
stars, so bright in the sky, compete with thousands of twinkle lights lining
the umbrellas over our tables. I wait and wait for him to say something about
his brother, but he doesn’t. He tells me about some committee he was asked to
join, just this day, and of how the first meeting was infinitely more
interesting than our standard Council sessions. He tells me about this great
jogging trail he discovered in the Central Park-like park near the University,
where the trees are like any other plane’s except apparently the Elvin and make
a nice place to hang out in while still in the city. He tells me about this
paper he’s supposed to write, where he’s to look into the importance in finding
the exact moments to implement either anti-war sentiments into communities or
dissonance best suited for uprisings. Through all these things, I listen with a
smile on my face, but I only hear one thing.

I hear the absence of what I
really want to know.

Why hasn’t he told me? I
realize that we haven’t spoken of his brother in months, but that doesn’t seem
like a good enough excuse for Jonah not telling me.

“What’s going on in that
pretty head of yours?” Jonah asks, snapping my focus back to attention. He taps
my forehead, a grin tempered with a fair share of questioning. Of course he
senses my distraction.

Have I mentioned it can
royally suck to have a boyfriend who is an Emotional?

My best line of attack is
the truth. “I’m thinking about my upcoming mission. You know, the portal on the
Elvin plane in some desert forest?”

His hand retreats as he
drops back in his chair. Then, without missing a beat, “He asked me not to tell
you he was back.”

I blink at this abruptness.

Jonah’s gaze is steady. He
waits for me to say something. And a million words swirl around my head, ones
that range from one end of my spectrum to the other, but in the end, I am the
one to look away. And my words remain unsaid.

I do my best to make no eye
contact, to pretend Kellan is nothing more than another random Guard assigned
to me with a carefully constructed veil of indifference towards everything he
does. Only, in my efforts to make myself as aloof as possible, even though I
know he knows better, I end up interacting with the other three Guard more than
I normally would, babbling like a shut-in suddenly freed. It’s truly a
grotesque and petty
I’ll show you what you’ve been missing,
and I’m well
aware of it.

Of course, if this bothers
Kellan in the slightest, he doesn’t have the grace to show it. He is also at
ease with everyone, but then, they’re his coworkers, part of his niche in
Magical society. And that reminds me of how I’m the outsider in this group of
five. They aren’t here to build a portal. They’re here to guard the Creator
who’ll build a portal.

I’ll show you
,
indeed. If anyone is showing anybody anything, it’s Kellan who is letting me
know, loud and clear, that he’s the indifferent one. And that burns.

“So, Chloe,” one of the
Guard says to me. I turn to find a lanky Elf a few feet back. Other than Kellan
and me, they’re all Elves. “Do you mind if I ask some questions about your
craft?”

I wrack my mind for his
name. Caleb reluctantly throws out Earle Locust-tree, reminding me of the need
to hold onto names, especially of those that I work with. “Sure.”

Earle jogs ahead to hold
back a skinny tree branch for me. Up close, I can see that it resembles
something more akin to scrub or manzanita than the kinds of trees I’m used to.
As I pass by Earle, he says, “This portal you’re to make today, how will you do
it?”

I shift the straps on my
backpack; they’re biting into my shoulders. Why do snacks and water bottles
have to weigh so much? And while I’m at it, why does the portal have to be so
far away from any conveniences of civilization? Aren’t they more useful when
they’re close to cities or something? I’m already beat and we’ve only been
hiking for three hours. There are still a good three to go. “You mean, how do I
create things in general?”

He nods with a hint of a shy
smile. It’s sort of goofy and charming at the same time, especially on this
guy, who must be a good twenty years older and radiates some pretty serious
amounts of sophistication. But then, it seems most Elves do. Astrid Lotus is a
prime example of that. “It’s going to sound a bit nutty,” I tell him, “but it’s
like I can ask atoms and molecules to group together.” He appears puzzled, so I
add, “I can feel them, like they’re waiting for instructions. Sometimes they do
what they need to do themselves, like they’re pre-programmed. Other times, I
can make them do what I want.”

He kicks back an overgrown
bush, scraggly and rough in texture and appearance. “I guess I can see that.
It’s a little like what I can do, too, only I control air molecules.”

That’s right. He’s a
Cyclone. Jonah pointed him out to me once, telling me that Earle Locust-tree
was good, but he was no Raul Mesaverde. Still, it’s somewhat comforting to know
that I have somebody around who can pretty much drive busybodies away by simply
targeting a tornado at them.

It must be a hundred degrees
where we are when we finally stop to rest. I peel off my button down, despite
the rolled up sleeves, grateful I had the foresight to wear a tank top since
I’m sweating like a pig on a spit.

“Do you have enough water?”
Earle asks. He perches next to me on a petrified log, rooting through his
backpack for bottles.

I hold up my own drink and
shake the little bit left. “Got three more. My fiancé went a little overboard
this morning, insisting I bring so many.”

“No, that’s good.” Earle
smiles. His teeth are crooked, which makes it all the nicer. “It’s definitely
better to have more than you need than not enough.” He takes a swig. “You’re
engaged to Jonah Whitecomb, right?” After I nod, he’s the one to look over at
Kellan, brow scrunching. It doesn’t take a mind reader to know he’s wondering
why, if I’m engaged to Kellan’s twin brother, there hasn’t been a single word
between us during the entire trip so far.

And that’s really just a
whole lot of salt in my still raw wound, which I cannot allow. Time to take the
focus off of me. “What about you?” I motion to his hand, like the ring on his
finger doesn’t already tell me. “Married?”

Earle’s face falls. I’m
about to apologize for words I had no idea were painful when he says quietly,
“Was.” My lips go as round as my eyes, so he holds out a hand. “It’s okay. You
didn’t know.” Tears build in his eyes, so he closes them, blowing out a hard
breath.

I scramble to find something
appropriate. “I am so, so sorry,” I tell him. I can’t help but place a hand on
his arm. He’s too young to have found love and then lost it forever.

Earle’s smile is no longer
charming. It’s now painfully brittle. “Can you promise me something, Chloe?”

Okay . . . um . . . he wants
something from
me
? Not that I’m opposed to helping him, but what in the
worlds could I do to help him with grief? I can barely manage my own at any
given moment. Even still, I nod.

He stares at the dirt below
our feet. “I know what you’ve done with the Elders in the past, how you were
able to trap some in Annar. I wasn’t there when you did it, I was on a mission,
but the Guard still talks about it.”

My heart sinks. No, no, no.
Please,
Earle, do not tell me that you lost someone to the Elders, too.

His Adam’s apple bobs when
he swallows. When he looks up, his eyes are fierce. “Don’t give up on getting
them. Swear you’ll do whatever it takes to stop the killings.”

There’s no hesitation, even
though it scares the crap out of me to say it. “Of course.”

“They killed him.” His eyes
hold so much sadness and anger. “Like he was nothing. Took every last bit of
soul out of him and left behind a shell. What does one do with that? How does
one go on?” He laughs; it’s a gurgle that borders on a sob. “I haven’t figured
it out yet. Work, they tell me. And time. And you know what?”

I don’t even know what to
say. My own eyes are wet.

“It’s
bullshit,” he whispers. And Kellan appears in front of us, kneeling down in
front of his broken colleague, saying gentle things, no doubt working his mojo,
so I take my hand back, off of Earle’s arm, and leave them alone.

I am consumed by what
Earle’s revealed to me for the next hour. Whatever Kellan did to him must’ve
worked, because the Cyclone is no longer the damaged man I sat next to. He’s
not smiling and laughing—not by a long shot—but he’s focused and back on task.

He’s also taken lead, which
means he’s scouting and nowhere near me and my careless words. I beat myself up
mentally, especially in light of Caleb’s constant reminders over the last
couple months to get to know the people that I work with.
Know more than
just their name
, he’s always telling me.
Being a Magical on a mission
isn’t like working in some non’s office, where you stand around the water
cooler and gossip about last night’s big game. Magicals are different. We’re a
special, small group—it’s important to know and protect those around us. You
never know when it’ll count the most
.

And, honestly, he’s right. Had
I even spent five minutes going over the team’s bios, I might’ve known ahead of
time that Earle had lost somebody—fairly recently, if I’m not mistaken—and
questions like mine weren’t the best of ideas. So now I feel like a total heel.

I want to ask Kellan how
Earle is doing, but that would mean I’d be the first one to break radio silence
and I’m not down with that, as immature as that makes me. I turn, instead, to
one of the other Guard. This one is a woman. She’s got silver streaked black
hair that’s truly beautiful. Caleb lets me know, without too much censure after
my last gaffe, that her name is Nivedita. Since the pull is pretty strong, and
I figure Kellan is close by, I end up whispering, “Is Earle okay?”

Her features soften—they are
less Amazonian now and more sympathetic. “Oh, to be sure, no. Not even
remotely.” I like her voice, how her Elvin accent, so British-like, wraps
around her words. “And that’s to be expected, isn’t it?”

I nod. “Just what hap—”

Before I can get the word
out, the very person I was about to ask about literally comes flying through
the air and crashes, hard, against a nearby tree.

Nivedita screams his name
and charges forward at the same time as hands drag me back against a hard
chest. And then, like a nightmare vividly springing to life, a piercing keening
fills the woods surrounding us, a sound I haven’t heard in nearly a year. My
bones ache in terror.

Kellan lets go of my upper
arms and grabs one of my hands instead. And then we’re running back in the
direction we first came from, but not before I see flames exploding from
Nivedita’s fingertips.

The Elders are here.

“Kellan!” the Guard whose
name I don’t know—why don’t I know it?—calls out, and my Connection barks out a
series of orders to delay the Elders.
Protect the Creator
, he says, and
it’s surreal, because he means
me
,
I
am to be protected, and it
makes no sense, not with Earle lying in a crumpled heap against a tree.

Earle’s husband died because
of the Elders. Please, oh please, do not let him have died, too, at the hands
of the same beings. I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around that horrible
irony.

“We need to go back,” I
yell, my hand crushed beneath his vise grip, but Kellan doesn’t respond. He’s
running through the woods, practically dragging me, and I’m flashing back to
the time I raced across the Bay Bridge with Elders hot on my trail. Instinct
took over then—survival is such a strong motivator—and it’s here, now. But even
so, I can’t leave Earle, and Nivedita, and that other guy. What’s his name? I
should know his name.

Walls of water rip from the
ground, churning sheets that curve into an arc that reaches above our heads.
“Harou!” Kellan shouts, and he angles us to the right. “Get them off us NOW!”