Between (26 page)

He exhales sharply, laughing but not really. “I don’t want you to trust me because Alexander does. I want you to trust me because you’re sure of
me.”

I don’t know how to tell him my capacity for trust is shrinking with every second I spend in the mystical realm. Nothing is as certain as I want it to be, and I can’t seem to get a handle on how I feel about anything anymore.

“How can you expect that of me?” I ask. “I’m not sure of who you are. I’m hardly sure of who
I
am.”

He shrugs. “It’s not an expectation. It’s a goal. I’ll keep working until you’re sure.”

I twist my hair around my finger. “I’m not giving up on you. I want to trust you,” I tell him. “Being Whalen’s son doesn’t make you inherently evil any more than being Marian’s daughter makes me exceptionally magical.”

He wrinkles his nose. “No, that’s probably the worst analogy you could make. Being Marian’s daughter actually does make you the most powerful thing in the mystical realm. Good effort, though.”

A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth as soon as I hear the teasing tone in his voice, and Keiran gives me the swoony grin that makes girls go stupid. There’s something about him that reminds me of Sam, and if there’s anything I’m sure of right now, it’s the comfort I find in my brother, and how much I need him to be here.

“Charlie,” he says, “if I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve by now.”

I’d thought about that very thing all night. He knew when we left my room for the lake that no one knew where I was going or who I was with. We were alone in that dark forest, and all he did was show me a gate, introduce me to petits, and keep me from falling.

“I don’t know if it means anything, but,” he takes a deep breath and settles his blue-gray eyes on me, “I swear I will never, ever hurt you. I’m not him.”

I search his eyes for any sign of deception, but all I see is softness. He wants me to believe him.

I want to believe him.

I want to trust him.

Keiran tips his head toward the path, and we head for the end of the willows.

On the far end of the forest, opposite the Meadow of Music, an old, crumbling stone staircase stretches upward into nothing. It stands right off a narrow dirt path that winds through and around the side of the forest, simply rising into mid-air and stopping. Keiran takes a seat on the steps, and I sit beside him.

“Okay.” He claps his hands together. “What’d you and Alexander work on yesterday?”

“I made some tree branches shake.”

He waits like I’m going to say more, and when I don’t, he snorts. “That’s it?”

My cheeks flush. Is his tone entirely necessary? “It’s harder than it looks. I’m new to this, you know.”

“All right.” He rubs his hand over his mouth and chin. “Let’s start with something basic. Air. We don’t have to worry so much about being seen with that one anyway. Nobody will know you’re the one making the wind blow. Alexander said you had some experience?”

I shrug. I wouldn’t exactly call accidentally moving a cloud “experience.” It’s not like I have any idea how to do it again. Keiran steps around me, and I circle, keeping my eyes on him while he talks.

“The thing to remember is that all of these elements,” he gestures to our surroundings, “they’re waiting for your word. You don’t need to force them to do anything. They want to.”

It’s a variation on what Alexander had said yesterday. Try hard, but not too hard. Command, but don’t force.

“My word?” I ask. “Do I talk to them?”

Keiran squints and rubs a finger over his eyebrow. “Maybe I should’ve said your ‘will.’ The point is, they’re yours. Each of them has a different dialect, but they all speak your language. Yesterday, Alexander had you focus on the tree to shake it, right?” I nod, and he continues. “Right. So for earth, you focus on the object you want to command. With air, you can’t really see it. So you focus on what the air is supposed to do. Focus on the object that will be affected by the air.”

Alexander said the wind pushed the cloud because I wanted the cloud out of the way. “Okay. I think I get it.”

“Let’s give it a shot.” He turns his head, surveying every direction, and shrugs. “Nobody’s around. You can pretty much do whatever you want.”

I think that’s the first time I’ve heard those words since I set foot in Ellauria.

I study every single thing around me, considering the impact air could make on each of them. Flutter the grass. Blow dust from the path. Rattle the leaves. Whip through my hair.

“What are you doing?” Keiran asks.

“I can’t decide.”

“Oh, good grief. You’re such a girl.”

It’s always bugged me when someone says that to me like it’s a bad thing. “Yes, I am a girl. Thank you for noticing,
flamethrower.”

The word slips out before I have time to wonder if it’s something I can tease him about. If he’s going to state the obvious about me, I don’t see why I can’t do the same about him.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m the flamethrower who saved your ass yesterday.”

I fold my arms and give him my most unimpressed look. “You’re also the guy who lied to me for two days before that.”

He lowers an eyebrow. “If I lied, so did you.”

He has a point. I roll my eyes.

“He wasn’t always like he is now, you know,” Keiran says quietly, keeping his eyes on the ground. I don’t have to ask which “he” Keiran’s referring to. “When I was little, I didn’t know anything about this. He was just Dad. He was strict, but he wasn’t a bad guy. We used to talk. He’d play with me, he’d laugh with me—he was almost like any dad should be.”

I chew on the inside of my lip. How can I respond to that? I know Whalen is his father, but it’s so strange to think of him as a dad. I picture a young tow-headed boy with gray eyes playing with the man I’d imagined as a monster.

“How’d you end up here?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Everything changed when I got my powers. At first he thought I wouldn’t have them at all. You never know how the powers will work out with hybrids. But when I was ten, the flames started.” He stares across the path and into the trees. “After that, he hated me more and more. He lost everything when he was stripped of his powers—his home, his family, his status—and he blames the Fellowship for that. To him, magic is the enemy. I became the enemy.”

Adele’s not my real mother and Marian didn’t trust she could keep me safe, but I’ve never felt unwanted. I can’t imagine being hated by someone who brought me into the world.

“So you left?”

Keiran studies his hands. When he speaks, his voice is so quiet that I struggle to hear. “He said he’d kill me. I left before he could.”

My mouth falls open. Whalen didn’t just want Keiran gone, he wanted Keiran dead. His own son. I place my hand over Keiran’s and squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”

“I guess I thought he’d come looking.” Keiran pauses every few words, like each sentence is a struggle to say out loud. “I miss having someone care about me. I miss having a dad.”

I close my eyes. He could’ve pulled the words straight from my head. I miss having a mom—someone to take on my joys and sorrows and love me unconditionally. I’m not sure if unconditional love is a thing Keiran’s ever known. Mom would never stop looking for me. I’m as sure of that as I am that I will never stop looking for her. I steel myself against my tears. They’re not going to help Keiran.

“I care about you,” I tell him. “You’re my friend.”

He is as lost as I am, struggling to cope with an unfair birthright. Mine makes me mystical royalty; his designates him as an adversary of the Fellowship. Like Seth said, I feel responsible for things beyond my control. I see that in Keiran, too. Neither of us asked for this, but here we are.

Keiran’s nose reddens and his head drops. If he cries right now, I will burst into tears right along with him. When he lifts his eyes to mine, I see my reflection glistening there. “Thank you. It’s nice to finally have someone to talk to.”

I smile at him. I know exactly how he feels. Seth knows what I’ve gone through, but Keiran knows how I
fee1
—not because he can sense my emotions, but because he’s lived them. We’re both trapped on paths that were set for us a long time ago.

He takes a deep breath, puffing up his chest, and releases it. “Okay. We need to get to work.”

Work. Right. I pull my hand from his.

Air.

My gaze lands on the tall grass lining the edge of the narrow path in front of us. I focus on it and will it to respond.

Sway.

Flutter.

Dance.

I picture the grass leaning with the wind, gradually bending to the ground as the current grows stronger. A tingle tickles my fingertips. In seconds, a slip of air breezes through, weaving around my ankles and sliding through the grass. Each blade succumbs to it, whipping one way and, when I ask it to, falling the other way as well.

I bite my lip, grinning. It’s nothing like the tree yesterday. Air is far easier. It seems so eager to please.

I look to Keiran, and the wind dies. “It worked.”

He chuckles. “Of course it worked. Want to do it again?”

We spend the next hour making our way through Ellauria, stopping when the coast is clear and calling upon the air.

I keep an eye out for anything that looks out of place—an elaborate stairway made of tree roots tucked in the Clearing’s far corner, a trio of red pine trees standing amid tall green ones, an arch of sunflowers growing behind the library—and make a mental note to check them out as possible gates later.

But mostly, I focus on the air. I want it to go in one direction, and it does. I call for it to switch, and it changes. It ebbs and flows at my will. For the first time, I feel like the powerful creature everyone keeps saying I am. This is nature, and I’m controlling it. At one point, I make air whistle through the trees, and Keiran applauds. It’s incredible.

Incredible, but not exactly useful.

“I love this,” I say, following him across the Clearing, “but is it really going to help? If something comes after me, air seems a little weak.”

“Well, first, you master each element,” he says, “then we’ll work on combining them. You can do a lot more than you think. They’re good on their own, but when you bring them together, you’re pretty unstoppable. Your power is only limited by your imagination.”

Unstoppable. There’s a word I like. “How?”

“Patience, Freckles. Like I said—you have to nail each one by itself before we can move on to the heavier stuff.”

We walk down the hill at the Clearing’s edge and through the copper-draped white trees. Past the trees lies a still rose-hued pond dappled with bright green lilies. Keiran stops and waits, watching and listening to be sure we’re alone. When he’s satisfied, he gestures toward the pond. “Now, water.”

I eye the pond.

“It’s more like earth,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “Focus on the water; command it.”

I walk around the perimeter like I’m planning my attack. I crouch beside it, studying its surface, memorizing its shape, just like Alexander had me do with the ginkgo. I imagine its movements as I study its details, picturing what it will do when I command it.

I stand up and take a deep breath to clear my head. All right, Water. Let’s do this.

I stare and wait for the tingle.

And wait.

And wait some more.

I grit my teeth and stare harder. Come on. Move.

“It’s not like air. It’s not so easy,” Keiran says. “Command, don’t demand.”

I press my fingers to my eyes. Command, don’t demand. That belongs on a T-shirt. I lay my neck to one side and then the other and roll my shoulders back, then try again.

Water has a completely different feel to it altogether—it’s heavier, and the tingle has a pulling sensation rather than a filling one. It drags across my skin, weighing me down, and I want it gone immediately.

A wave ripples across the water, and Keiran snorts. “Really?”

I wipe my hands down the front of my tank-top and shake everything out. “I don’t like that feeling.”

The look on his face is completely without compassion. “You’re just not used to it. Try again. Let it build, so you’ll have more force.”

The pull comes again, and I let it tug at me as long as I can stand it. The surface of the pond rolls, and its outer edges turn in a circle, faster and faster, until I feel like I’m being pulled to the ground, like the grass is metal and I’m a magnet, heavy with the water’s power.

I let it go, and my shoulders spring upward. It’s such a dramatic difference, I have to look at the ground to be sure I’m not floating.

Keiran puffs out his lips and nods. “Better. Again.”

My neck and shoulders are already starting to ache. I rest my hands on my hips and blow out a breath. I can do this. It’s not going to crush me. The pull is the power. Let it build.

This time, I stand my ground until the pull drowns every part of my body. I’m completely weighed down, heavy with power, and the pond begins to shift at my command.

The water’s current circles again, faster and faster, and Keiran calls, “You got it! Keep it going!” I hear his smile without seeing it.

The rotation builds until the outer edges lift from the ground and rise into the air. I feel power pouring through me, rushing from one end to the other and back, over and over. It refills as I hold focus, and the funnel of water grows higher.