Between (23 page)

“I hope not. It’s important that the two of you maintain a professional distance. Understood?”

Professional distance. “Got it,” I reply, resisting the urge to salute.

Alexander nods and sits back in his chair. “The appearance of the harpy in Ellauria is concerning. The spells preventing banished creatures from entering our gates should be fail-proof, but over the last week it appears that the strength of the magic has been compromised.” He rests his giant elbows on the arms of the chair and clasps his hands together. “There have been a few slips—your interaction with the wind and cloud being one of them—and until we figure out what’s behind the disruption, you need to be particularly cautious.”

I nod again, remembering the list of magical issues Seth had mentioned earlier. A mix-up with my art supplies seems much less threatening than a malfunction in the mystical realm’s borders, and yet they’re all connected.

Max had marked several of the banished creatures in his book. I wonder if others besides the harpies and the bogmen are involved. I don’t know what Whalen has to offer, but if it’s enough to gain a few creatures’ cooperation, it could be enough to attract others, as well.

Alexander stands and stretches, then approaches the window. “Now more than ever, it’s important that you learn to defend yourself. Muralet blood can be the Fellowship’s strongest asset,” he continues, “or our worst enemy, depending on who’s in control of it.”

I clench my teeth. Everyone talks about my blood like it’s separate from me, like it’s this abstract thing to possess rather than the actual substance that keeps me alive. “Aren’t I in control of it?”

Alexander turns, frowning. “Hmm?”

“It’s my blood.” I pause to let that sink in. “In me.”

“Yes, of course. And we need to make sure it stays with the Fellowship.”

He’s clearly not understanding my point. I get up from my seat. “Me. We need to make sure it stays with
me
. The two are inseparable.” I point while I speak, because come on. Understand what I’m saying.

Alexander studies me for a moment before nodding. “We are in agreement.”

“Are we?” I raise my voice. “Because it feels like you see me as a source of muralet blood, and I see myself as Charlie Page, who did not ask to be put in this position.”

“You are of no use to anyone dead,” he scoffs, as if I’m the one who doesn’t seem to get it. “Now let’s get started.”

I rock back on my heels, confused by his abrupt dismissal of the conversation. That’s it? I don’t like the way he refers to my use, like I’m a resource rather than a living, breathing person. Is it me they wish to keep safe? Or my blood? At what point does my blood become more important to them than I am?

Alexander marches toward the door and I follow, picking apart his words. He’s several feet ahead of me when he stops in the grass in front of his house and turns, surveying the area. He looks at me intently and points to a spot on the ground beside him. I hurry to his side.

“Do not move,” he orders. He closes his eyes and lifts an arm toward the sky. His voice is low as he recites words I don’t understand.

With a sweep of his arm, a translucent veil appears and descends upon us, covering his home and gardens as well as the open space around them. I am, to say the least, amazed. I take a few steps, turning around.

“Complete privacy,” Alexander says. “No one can see or hear anything that happens under the shroud.”

Everything outside the covering is a bit murky, like I’m looking through water. “Now what?”

He tilts his head to the side. “Look around you. You need to get in the habit of being acutely aware of your surroundings. Your powers are useless if you don’t know which elements are at your disposal.”

I turn in a complete circle, examining everything. High, low, one way, and then another.

“We’ll start with earth,” he says, “which includes anything that grows out of it. See the tree growing by the edge of my porch? Study it.”

I look to the bright yellow ginkgo tree to the left of Alexander’s home. “Okay.”

“Now close your eyes and picture it.”

The short, ash-colored branches and yellow fan-shaped leaves of the tree appear vividly behind my eyelids. “Got it,” I tell him, keeping my eyes closed.

“I want you to pour yourself into that image. Fixate on it. Maintain your focus.”

Pour myself into that image? Who talks like that?

My hands curl into fists at my sides, and I rise up on my tiptoes. My muscles are so tense they begin to ache.

“You look like you’re in pain,” Alexander says.

“I am.” I teeter to the side as I open my eyes. “How long am I supposed to do this?” “As long as it takes.”

I certainly hope I’m going to learn the Fellowship’s skill of answering questions without answering questions. “I don’t understand. With the cloud, I literally had no idea I was doing it. I wasn’t focusing. There was no pouring myself into anything.”

“Wind is different. You focus on what you want the wind to affect. Your attention was on the cloud blocking your light, and the wind solved the problem.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Try again.”

I take a deep breath and close my eyes. The rounded ginkgo appears once more, and I concentrate with all I have.

“Good, good,” Alexander murmurs, his voice steady. “Continue.”

The rich yellow foliage rustles in my head. I picture the tree at different angles. Above, below, left, right. Mentally, I gaze at the leaves until I almost feel their texture beneath my fingers. Suddenly, a tingling sensation drips onto my fingertips and climbs to my elbows. I open my eyes with a jerk, turning my hands over and staring at them.

“You felt it?” he asks. Alexander’s head lifts with the question.

“Yes,” I tell him, rubbing my hands together.

Up until this very moment, a tiny part of me clung to the idea that this was all a big mistake. The cloud thing was a coincidence and what I saw at the Source was a trick of the light. They had the wrong person. Marian’s daughter was someone else, and my life still had a shot at returning to blissful normalcy.

But now? It worked. I purposely harnessed this power everyone keeps telling me I have—Marian’s power, straight from Mother Nature herself.

I spread my fingers over my chest, just below my neck.

I’m the last muralet.

“Again,” Alexander says.

I take a breath and clear my head. It doesn’t take as long to feel the tingle the second time. I retain the mental image as long as I can stand it, until the tingle turns to a burn, like several tiny bee stings prickling across my hands and wrists.

“Ow!” I jump backward, shaking my hands and scraping them down my sides until the feeling goes away.

“You’re trying too hard.”

“Your face is trying too hard,” I mutter to myself.

Alexander folds his arms across his chest. “As a muralet, you’re soaking up magic from your surroundings all the time. There’s no need to strain yourself to make use of it.”

“Fine,” I huff, readying myself again. I close my eyes and pour myself all over that blasted tree. The muscles in my neck begin to ache. I inhale slowly, keeping the tree in my mind’s eye, trying to relax.

Nothing.

“Now you’re not trying hard enough,” Alexander states.

I groan. “I
am
trying.”

“Try harder.”

“But not too hard.”

“Exactly.”

I hate him.

He circles around, standing between me and the tree. “There must be balance, Charlotte. Push too hard and the power becomes toxic.”

I shake everything out, rolling my neck from one side to the other and straightening my shoulders. I focus, but not too hard. The tingle sweeps through my fingers, and I try to ignore it, concentrating on not concentrating.

The tingle turns to burning, and I clench my fists.

Ugh.

We go through several more rounds, and by the time he decides to break for lunch, I’m hitting the painful stinging tingle only about once every four or five tries.

I still haven’t done a single thing with it, but at least I’m figuring out how to control the magic. I feel an enormous amount of pressure to live up to the reputation of the muralets before me. I’m certain they had no idea their legacy would be carried on by a newbie with no magical experience whatsoever.

I’m equally certain the mystical realm wouldn’t choose such a person as its defense against a supernatural maniac and his lunatic army.

“I have something for you,” Alexander says, and then reaches into the folds of his tunic and retrieves a knife. Its handle is covered in smooth leather, long enough to fit in my fist, and the pointed blade isn’t much longer. He lays it across his palm and lifts it toward me.

“It will take practice to gain enough control over your power for it to be useful to you. Given what happened at the lake this morning, I’d like you to keep this with you at all times.”

I take it from him, turning it one way and then the other. From end to end, the knife can’t be more than ten inches long. “Kinda small, isn’t it?”

“It’s charmed,” he says. “It is exactly as powerful as it needs to be.”

I examine the blade more closely. “You think I’ll need this?”

“I don’t want to take any risks when it comes to you, Charlotte,” he says. Alexander positions himself beside me and moves his arm in an upward diagonal motion across his body. The transparent shield above our heads shrivels away.

I tuck the knife in my back pocket. “Now what?”

“Seth should be here any minute,” he says. “You’ll be working with him for the remainder of the day.”

The grass twitches, and Alexander swiftly turns his head. A tiny animal with unmistakable ears rests outside the area where the veil had been. Alexander darts toward the fejib, triggering the animal to dash off into the dense forest.

Seth appears near the yellow ginkgo. I watch his posture go from casual to alert as he processes Alexander’s rigid stance and my confusion. He jogs toward us. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I think someone is trying to listen in.” Alexander’s tone is dark as he tells Seth about the fejib. “It’s the second one I’ve seen this week.”

“But why?”

“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” a melodic voice answers behind me, and I spin around to see a slender figure floating several inches above the ground.

Long auburn hair drapes loosely over her shoulders and cascades downward in gorgeous waves. The deep blue of her eyes is so brilliant they practically glow. Her long, shimmering gray gown stops at her ankles.

“Marian,” Alexander breathes.

T
HIRTEEN

M
arian.

My voice leaves me at the sight of my mother. I can’t take my eyes off her face.

“You.” The words spill from my mouth before I know what they mean, and Seth’s head swivels toward me.

The eyes, the full lips, the soft lines of her cheeks. It’s the face I saw in the tree the night of my birthday. The one I’d convinced myself was never there.

“Charlotte,” she says warmly.

I close my eyes and breathe it in, savoring the sound of my name on her lips.

This is my mother. My chest lightens. I don’t have to do this alone. She’s here. She’s come back for me. This all started with her. All the questions I’ve had about who I am and where I came from, what’s real and what isn’t—she’s the only one with all the answers.

And here she is. Alive.

“Marian?” Alexander repeats, louder, more questioning than before. The expression of awe that had filled his face earlier is gone, and his lips are set in a hard line.

Something seems off. The trees behind her are visible through her body. There’s no indication that she hears him at all. She smiles at me. “I knew it was you,” she says. Her eyes are kind, but her voice takes on a somewhat threatening edge.

I glance sideways, confused. She knew it was me? Seth is instantly at my side. He grasps my elbow and moves in front of me. Marian laughs merrily, and then her face goes dead. The loving gleam in her eye vanishes. When she speaks, dozens of voices ooze from her mouth. “You won’t be able to protect her forever.”

“Seth?” I press my nose into his shoulder and stare at Marian from behind him. This can’t be right. This can’t be the woman who sacrificed everything to keep me hidden. My stomach flutters.

“It’s not her,” Seth murmurs, keeping his eyes on the floating figure before us. “It’s a parallel. See how she’s translucent? It’s not her.”

Worry by worry, question after question, everything piles back on my shoulders and the heaviness returns. I want it to be her. Torn between disappointment and anger, my hands become fists at my sides. I hadn’t gotten to parallels in Max’s book yet.

“Leave, parallel,” Alexander warns. “You are not welcome here.”

“I’m not leaving without the muralet.” Not-Marian leans forward, and her voice becomes as thick as gravel. “You can’t hide her anymore, Alexander. Whalen has promised her to us.”

Seth’s hand is wrapped around my waist, holding me against his back. Inch by inch, we move farther and farther from the floating creature with my mother’s face.

Alexander raises his arms. “You will never have her.” He pumps his fists and a blast of energy booms forward, a round ball of pulsing blue light.