Between (27 page)

Keiran circles around to the other side and whistles. “That is the sexiest waterspout I have ever seen!”

He even flirts with water.

My legs start to tremble, and the ache in my neck grows sharper. Uh oh. The waterspout twists and turns, faster and harder. My knees are about to buckle beneath the pressure.

“I have to let it go!”

“No!” Keiran demands. “Push through!”

Everything hurts, like I’m being stretched in all directions. I’m acutely aware of every joint in my body. “Keiran! I can’t!”

“Lame!” he responds.

It happens before I realize what I’ve done. The funnel bends and topples, crashing into Keiran and dumping a pond’s worth of water on his head.

I cover my mouth with both hands and clamp my lips together.

Oh. Sheet.

This is the best and worst thing ever.

“I’m so sorry!” I exclaim, but the giggle beneath my words takes some of the strength out of my apology. His blond hair lays flat against his head and everything on his face is slanted downward, from his eyes to his mouth. He looks like a drowned puppy.

Keiran wipes his face with his hands and pushes his hair straight back. “You look sorry.”

“Your hair,” I tell him, “is amazing.”

He wrings water from his shirt and smirkles. “My hair is always amazing.”

“Well,” I say, “I guess that ends the water training for the day.” I don’t even try to pretend I’m sad about it. Water sucks.

Keiran shakes his head. “Not quite. I’m not dry yet.”

Psh. Easy. It hardly takes a thought to bring air, and a burst of wind begins weaving around Keiran’s body.

“Stop!” he says, pointing a finger in the air. “Not air. Use the water. Return it to the pond.”

Ugh. I drop my head back and glare at the sky. Air is so much easier.

My fingers dig into my palms as I focus on the sheen of water coating Keiran’s arms. Streams of droplets cling to each other, swirling and lifting from his skin. His green shirt lightens as puddles separate, pulling together and upward. There’s a tingling, tugging sensation all over my body. Tiny droplets of water gather and take flight, then fall with a splash into the pond. Within seconds, Keiran is dry.

My hair is going to be so much easier to blow-dry now.

Keiran smoothes his shirt and scratches his fingers through his hair. “Nice! All right. Next up, fire.”

“Ha!” He must be kidding. His blank expression assures me he isn’t. “Wait, are you serious?”

“Earth. Air. Water. Fire.” He drops his chin. “What’s the problem?”

I exhale sharply. “The problem is, if I lose control of air or water, all of Ellauria doesn’t burn in the process.”

Keiran’s eyebrows draw together. “You can do it. It’s not that hard.”

“Not for you. It’s part of you.”

He shakes his head. “That’s what you’re not getting, Charlie. It’s part of you, too.”

I wrinkle my nose. I don’t want to do fire. Controlling water was difficult enough. Fire can only be worse.

Keiran pats me on the back, one hard slap between my shoulders. “How about this? I’ll skip fire today, but that means you need to impress me with something earth-related.”

I squint at him. “Like what?”

“You make a tree drop a branch, and we’ll stop for the day.”

“Any tree?”

He nods toward a line of trees to the left. They’re tall but slender, and their branches aren’t very thick.

I tug on the ends of my hair, studying the trees. “It won’t harm them, right?”

He chuckles. “No, Charlie. The tree will be fine.”

“Deal,” I tell him.

I study the trees for a moment, then close my eyes and focus on one of the branches until I feel the power pulsing through my hands.

It takes three tries before I get the slightest movement out of the branch, and even then it’s so little I’m not entirely certain it happens at all.

“I think you’re forcing it,” Keiran says.

I roll my eyes. Of course I’m forcing it. Trees don’t move around and shake on their own. Any movement is from my force.

“You need to think of it as a conversation between you and earth. Push a little, then let it push back. Try to get a feeling for how much power it needs. Give a little, wait, and give a little more.”

Converse with the tree. I shrug. It’s worth a shot.

I lace my fingers together and press my hands outward, stretching my arms. I close my eyes and find the calm, quiet spot in my brain where I can relax to call on my powers. I see the branch in my mind and feel the tingle slide up my hands and over my elbows. I picture the limb bending and open my eyes. I keep pressing it with my power, and then I back off. The tingle drips from my fingers.

“Ugh. I lost it.”

“Try again. When I say give a little and wait, you have to find a way to wait without losing your focus. Keep your power engaged without pressuring the tree.”

I close my eyes and focus until I feel power climb my arms, then picture the branch bending again. I open my eyes to watch, and this time, I let my gaze slip down the trunk as I draw my power back a bit. I look to the branch again and push some more before backing off. As my eyes travel up and down the tree, I see movement in the top. The branch begins to quiver. I keep my breathing steady and start to work with it again. I bend the branch one way and another in my mind, then release it, giving the tree time to respond. We go back and forth for several minutes, until finally, there’s a loud
crack
.

The branch falls, crashing through and landing on a web of branches below.

Keiran hoots, and I throw my arms up in a V. He grabs me and swings me in a circle. “You did it!”

And in this moment, I’m sure of him. The joy in his voice, the pride in his face—this is Keiran, my friend.

He is more than his bloodline, just like me.

“I did it!” I squeal, and my cheeks ache from smiling so big.

I can’t wait to tell Seth.

“All right. Do it twice more, and then we’ll be finished,” Keiran orders, clapping his hands together two times.

My smile vanishes. “That wasn’t the deal at all.”

“The world’s an unfair place. Get going.”

It’s after two before Keiran and I drag ourselves up to Mesmer. The patio is mostly empty, and I spot Seth leaning against an empty picnic table. He jumps up when he sees us. “You’re late.”

“A-ha!” Keiran sticks a finger in the air. “But we’re here!”

Seth is not amused. Imagine my surprise.

What was awkward yesterday is downright annoying today. The fun, fluttery feeling that keeps showing up when Seth’s around is back, but now it’s just a thrilling anticipation for something that’s never going to happen. It’s beyond frustrating, and I have to find a way to make it stop before I lose my mind.

It’d help if he didn’t wear shirts that fit him so perfectly. Or maybe stop with the dark, soulful eyes.

Sunglasses. I don’t want to see his eyes anymore. He definitely needs sunglasses.

I make a show of how much attention I’m not paying to Seth and head to Mesmer’s counter with Keiran. We rest our arms across it and wait. Just like the tables, it takes a second before the whole thing shimmies and two white baskets appear. Keiran grabs them both and hands one to me.

BLT and chips with a cherry Coke—exactly what I wanted.

“Good work today,” Keiran says. “Same time tomorrow?”

“Sure!” I smile, plucking a chip from my plate. It’s the plan we’d decided on last night. I spend my mornings with Keiran, and Seth takes up my afternoons. He nods and takes off toward Mesmer’s exit.

When Keiran’s gone, Seth motions toward the tables and I shake my head. I’d rather be in a crowd of Aegises in Central Hall than alone with him right now. “It’s fine. I’ll eat on the way.”

He’s already walking toward one of the tables and stops. He waits for a lone pixie to pass before asking, “Why? Eat here.”

“No, really.” I nod toward the stairs. “I’d rather get going.”

“We’ve got plenty of time,” he argues. “Let’s sit and talk for a few minutes before we get to work.”

Sitting and talking and flirting and feeling. Exactly the kind of things I have to stop doing with Seth. “I don’t want to.”

Seth sets his lips in a line and stares over my head. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Round One: Charlie.

By the time we make it to the ground my chips are gone, and I’ve picked most of the bacon from my sandwich.

“I guess you worked up a pretty big appetite,” Seth comments.

“Guess so.” I take a sip from my straw. I need to go back to the days when Seth acted like smiling too much would break his face. Less joking, less teasing, more of the annoying overbearing, entirely too opinionated stuff.

Distance. I need distance.

“Working with your powers can take a lot out of you.”

“Yep.”

He sighs. “Are you going to be like this all afternoon?”

“Probably.”

He stares at me a moment and then shakes his head, returning his attention to our walk. “I don’t have much of an update on Adele and Sam. There’s no sign of them anywhere in the mortal realm, and Alexander has suggested focusing more on the mystical realm.”

“He thinks they’re here somewhere?”

“Well, not here in Ellauria. But since we know banished creatures have been making it past the gates, it’s not completely beyond the realm of possibility that Whalen’s gotten past them, too.”

There’s something comforting in the idea that Mom, Sam, and I are all in the same realm. Like they’re closer, without the infinity of the Between dividing us.

On the other hand, I’d like several Betweens to separate me from Whalen.

I study the leaves and branches of the trees as we pass beneath them, searching for lines of a face. Alexander had warned Seth that no one could know that I saw Marian’s face in the tree that night, but I still keep an eye out for her.

We approach the library, and Seth reaches around to open the door. I step out of the way. “Go ahead. You don’t need to get the door for me.”

He squints at me. “Just go inside.”

“We’re not on a date. I can get my own door.”

Seth shakes his head and releases a harsh burst of air, something between a laugh and a sigh. “Suit yourself.”

The door closes behind him. I wait a moment, then pull it open for myself. I drop what’s left of my lunch in the trash and admire PRU on my way to meet Seth by the stairs. When we reach Central Hall, he doesn’t even try to get the door for me.

Round Two: Charlie.

Central Hall is mostly empty, aside from a group of five or six Aegises clustered around a desk on the far side of the room, and of course Justin, sitting at his overflowing desk in the middle. Seth heads toward his table in the opposite corner and hands me a notebook and pencil. “I figured you’d want to take notes. I mean, if that’s all right with you.” He raises his eyebrows. “Would you rather, you know, find your own notebook and whittle yourself a pencil out of one of the trees or something?”

I take the notebook and pencil and purse my lips.

“Shut up.”

“Just trying to understand your rules,” Seth says lightly, sitting down in his chair. He pulls a page from one of the stacks scattered across his desk and hands it to me. “So here’s what’s going on today. More spell problems. The elves are having trouble keeping their designs in order, the fairy rings still aren’t operating properly, and apparently there were some random issues at Mesmer this morning. The enchantments were off. Some gnomes ended up with vegetable soup for breakfast.”

Soup for breakfast? That’s all kinds of wrong. I lean against the desk, reading the list of failed spells and weakened powers. I jot them down in my notebook and read over the list. “Still no idea what’s messing with the magic?”

He shakes his head. “We’re not ruling anything out.”

I draw circles next to each item on the list and fill them in, digging my pencil into the paper a little too hard. “If the spells aren’t working, could that be why we’re having a hard time finding Mom and Sam? Maybe something Whalen’s doing to block us is messing up magic.”

“It’s possible, but all this started a day or two before the Mothman showed up at your house. Right now, it looks like a coincidence,” Seth says.

I study the notes I’ve made, looking for connections and finding none. I tilt my head back to the ceiling while I fan myself with the notebook. My reflection scatters across the wall of mirrors, and I walk toward them.

Oval. Square. Round. Tall. Short. So many different views to choose from. I step toward a silver-framed square mirror on the end, moving forward until my face takes up the entire thing.

Come on. Mom or Sam.

Show me.

But the mirrors aren’t going to show an Apprentice anything. I step back and pace across the wall, watching all the reflections at once. Of course, I guess the magic of the mirrors is as prone to weakness as everything else right now.

“Hi, Charlie.” Justin’s face appears next to mine in the long, oval mirror in front of me. “Are you and Seth doing mirror work again today?”

I smile at his reflection. “Yeah. I’m just waiting for Seth to finish what he’s doing.”

He smiles back. “We haven’t had much action from them today,” he says. “Not much going on out there.”