Elemental Shining (Paranormal Public Series) (34 page)

“I had something to discuss with my students,” said Jenkins frostily. “What’s it to you?”

“You were going to give them secrets of Tactical,” Zervos spat. “And as the professor in charge of running Tactical, I forbid it.”

Jenkins’s face split into a scowl as he glared at the vampire. “I was about to do no such thing. How dare you accuse me of such a breach of the rules?”

“These three are known troublemakers,” said Zervos, waving his hand to take in all of us.

Lisabelle feigned surprise, then broke into a grin. Sip rolled her eyes and muttered, “If you get us in trouble the day we come out of the woods I’ll turn your bedspread purple.” Lisabelle’s smile disappeared.

“You think because you’re lifelong friends with a dean you don’t have to follow the rules,” Zervos accused, his face turning red as he glared at Jenkins.

“I was doing no such thing,” repeated Jenkins, settling into a calm exterior while his eyes remained steely. “I was simply going to discuss next week’s final with several of my students who had questions.”

I didn’t move, but I could tell Jenkins was lying. All semester he had barely bothered to say anything to us about class, now suddenly he was going to?

Zervos folded his arms over his chest and waited, but Jenkins wasn’t having it.

“I’m very sorry,” said the History of Death teacher, “but I must insist that you allow me to speak to the students in private.”

For a second Zervos merely stood there, his eyes snapping in fury, then, with a scoff, he turned and stormed off.

“What is it you wanted to say?” asked Lisabelle, once we had arrived on the second floor of the library without further incident. Even after the confrontation with Zervos Jenkins looked entirely unruffled. It was like nothing could upset him.

“I have a note from your uncle,” he said. “It addresses Ms. Rollins as well, so I thought she’d better come along to read it too. Ms. Quest was not addressed, so I did not see the need for her to attend. Luckily, Ms. Quest knows better than a professor with years of experience.” He gave a lop-sided smile. “Risper asked me to pass it along.”

“It’s okay,” said Sip, her purple eyes sparkling. “My friends would tell me what it said anyway.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Jenkins dryly. “Here it is. I suggest that once you finish reading it,     you burn it. I hear you have an elemental with an increasingly good grasp of fire magic.”

He winked at me and wandered back downstairs.

“Dear Belle,” the letter began.

“I write to you from an undisclosed location. I am hot on Elam’s trail. I believe I am the closest I have ever been to catching him. In the process, I have realized a couple of things that I want to convey to you as quickly as possible. First, Elam is after a series of objects, known as the Wheel of Power. They are hidden in various places around the world. He is slowly collecting them, and once he has them his power will increase exponentially. Charlotte is in possession of one of the objects, whether she knows it or not. The mirror that lies in the ballroom of Astra is the one in the series of six.  She must protect it at all costs. I might recommend that she even remove it from Astra to a safer location. Second, Charlotte shouldn’t listen to Mound. It’s all pixie wash, and when she performs the Power of Five during the Tactical Trial she will prove just how capable she is of protecting her fellow paranormals. Lastly, dear niece, we may have had our differences, but I would like to make it clear that no matter what happens to me, no matter what you hear and no matter what has been said in the past, I am always in your corner, fighting for the Verlanses. Give your mother my love, Uncle Risper.”

“Wow,” said Sip. “I think we all know the most fantastical bit of that letter. He calls you BELLE!”

“Yes, well, he’s bigger than I am,” said Lisabelle. “You are not.”

“He thinks the mirror is one of the series of objects that Elam is after? He thinks Elam is coming to Public for it?”

“Maybe the Shadow is Elam,” Lisabelle mused. “It would almost make sense.”

“I don’t want Elam to be the Shadow,” said Sip, frowning.

“Why not?” Lisabelle asked.

“Because we don’t know who either of them are,” said Sip. “It doesn’t get us anywhere.”

“It lessens the number of paranormals we have to find and we know stuff about the Shadow,” I said, getting excited. “We know that he isn’t entirely human and that he is conflicted about whether or not to kill me, which most paranormals can’t say, and he knows his way around Astra.”

“They have similar patterns,” Lisabelle added.

Distantly, I heard the chime of the library clock, telling me how late it was getting.

“I have to get to practice,” I said, frustrated. “We’ll figure out more of this later.”

I left my two friends discussing Elam and the Shadow. I had to see my team and then I had to get to the Long Building. I wanted a little more practice on my suffocating technique before I went into the forest. I had a feeling I might need it.

Practice went better than I could have hoped. We agreed that we shouldn’t try to enact the Power of Five until we were in the woods, because the deans would sense it and get angry with us before we even had a chance to use it to defend ourselves.  Besides, lightning doesn’t strike twice and this was definitely lightning. We didn’t dare waste it.

We mostly practiced other defensive moves in the quiet room, our feet padding softly on the heavy green carpet. Ulrik was the most worried about pulling it off. He wasn’t confident in anything I was involved in. Dobrov finally put his hands on Ulrik and told him to shut up. Ulrik was so disturbed that Dobrov had touched him that he complied with the command.

Ulrik barely spoke to me and never looked at me. It made me nervous. We needed him if we were going to enact the Powers, and I had a feeling he was going to be difficult about it. Then, right before we finished practicing for the night the thick door to the library study room banged open and Daisy stood there, glaring at each of us in turn except her brother, who studied the floor as usual. Her red skin had a shiny look under the glare of the library lights.

She marched up to Ulrik, and in the only move she would ever make that reminded me of Lisabelle she stood on tiptoe and said, “You will enact The Power or I will know why, and trust me, pixie, you do not want me to have to ask why.”

She spat out the word pixie as her eyes shot flames at the small, green guy in front of her. He tried to stare her down, but it was hard to be more intimidating than someone with boiled skin. He quickly realized that it was a losing cause and gave an audible swallow.

“Fine,” he gritted, taking a step back. “Whatever. I don’t want to die either.”

“Yeah,” said Daisy quietly. “You would do well to remember that.”

After practice I went back to Astra and tried to decide where to hide the mirror. If Risper said I should move it, then I was obviously going to move it. At first I thought to put it in the Long Building, but I decided against that pretty quickly. There was a very real possibility that the Shadow lived in the Long Building and I would be taking the mirror right to him. Then I decided to hide the mirror in plain sight. I almost took it out of Astra, but when it came right down to it I realized I couldn’t. The mirror belonged in the ballroom and I was going to leave it there.

Steeling myself to touch it, I picked it up—and nothing happened. No plume of smoke burst before my eyes, and I was able to carry it to the opposite wall as if it was the most ordinary of objects. I almost couldn’t contain my relief.

I went to one of the great pictures hanging on the wall, behind which was just enough space to stash the mirror. Now, to anyone looking for it, it would appear that I had moved it, but it was in actual fact only feet from where it had lain for years.

My task accomplished, the usual questions danced once more through my mind. Who was Elam? Who was the Shadow? Where was the Map? Was it all connected or were there totally separate stories getting all mixed together here?

I had no answers.

Wednesday I spent the day with Keller. He met me after my Museum class, in which Dacer spent most of the morning ranting about Dove and how dare he put me at risk by sending me outside the walls. Dacer also offered to fight a duel for me, swallow fire (not sure how that applied), and sneak into the woods to rescue me. I wanted to tell him that I would be alright, that my group had a plan, but in the end I didn’t say anything. The fewer paranormals who knew what we were going to try, the better.

“How are you holding up?” Keller asked as we left the Long Building. There were dark circles under his eyes and I knew he hadn’t slept well. He claimed it was because he was worried about finals, but at practice Vanni had said that he was worried about our group. Every time he saw her around Aurum, apparently, he wanted to talk about healing spells and medicines. He gave her jars and herbs and anything else he thought she might need. He wanted to make sure that if one of our team got hurt she could heal us. He drilled it into her head that there was no one else to do it until she yelled at him. She told me all of this in a small voice. I knew it bothered her that we were together, but I couldn’t imagine my life any other way.

“I’m good,” I said, shrugging. “I have no choice but to be good, right?”

Keller made a face. He reached across his body with his right hand, until he held my right hand in his. He slung his left arm over my shoulders and smiled reassuringly. “With me you can be whatever you need to be,” he murmured. “That’s what I’m here for. I don’t want you to pretend to be strong for me. I can take the burden for both of us. LET me take the burden for both of us.”

Normally I hated doing that, but I was too tired. I dropped my head onto his shoulder and gave a long sigh.

“Where do you want to go?” he murmured, rubbing his fingers over my hand.

“Aurum,” I said. I had already said goodbye to Mrs. Swan. She had given me a sad look and told me she wished it had been different, but she knew I would be fine. I almost told her where I had hidden the mirror, in case something happened to me, but I would save it and tell Lisabelle when she met us in the library, just as Lough and I had done for her only a couple of nights before. Now the rest of my day would be spent with Keller—in his room.

Once we got there, I relaxed onto his bed.

“Are you really going to try Power of Five?” he asked, leaning against his desk.

“Yes,” I nodded, looking up at the ceiling. “We have to.”

“Maybe the demons won’t come.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course they will come. No one has seen them all week, but we all know it’s not because they aren’t there, it’s because they’re waiting for me. Dove has given me a death sentence.”

“It’s not just Dove,” said Keller quietly.

I met his blue eyes with my gray ones and tried to smile. “You’re right. It’s all of them. I know it’s your aunt too. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “I tried to ask her about it once. How they could possibly send you outside the protections with no senior paranormals protecting you like they do when you go visit Ricky. She just ignored me.”

“Ricky!” I sat up with a start. “I meant to email him before I left! Can I use your computer?” Keller was already handing it to me.

For a few minutes I stared at a blank screen while Keller started reading one of his textbooks, wondering what on earth to say to a brother I might never see again, and more to the point, who might never see me again. I had already asked Sip, if anything happened to me now or later, to go to Ricky and tell him everything, especially that I loved him, and to make sure he was safe. She had told me it would never come to that, but I wasn’t so sure.