Saoirse stopped, her hand inches from the rope. Her expression puckered, confusion and fear flashing across her face. “Ridley?”
Ridley’s words tumbled from her mouth: “The Shadow Society is coming. Magic told me. Did you hear the warning too?”
“I—yes.” Saoirse blinked through the rain beading her eyelashes and streaking down her face. “It—it told you too?”
“Yes. We have to tell everyone. Wake everyone. We have to ring the bell. Now!” She rushed forward, launching past Saoirse for the rope because it seemed the older woman had frozen. She grabbed the rope and tugged downward. For a second all she could think of was telling Archer that this bell was probably too rusty to move. But it did move. A loud clang issued forth. She tugged again and again—clang, clang, clang—while all around her, the gusting air let out a sigh as it stilled. The thrashing rain slowed to a drizzle, and the repeated flashes of lightning became distant flickers.
But the urgency thrumming through Ridley’s veins remained. She dropped the rope and turned back to Saoirse. “The backup home. That’s where we have to go, right?” Behind her, the metal clapper knocked once more against the inside of the bell. Then again, quieter. Then … silence.
“Yes. Grab whatever you can. Grab whoever you can. Anyone who isn’t elemental. Most of us know where to go, so you can—”
“Sense where you are and follow you. I know.”
With a single nod, Saoirse vanished, leaving a small whirlwind of leaves in her wake. A second later, Ridley did the same. As she raced on the breeze back to her cabin, she heard shouts and spotted movement below. People running. Flurries of leaves as others vanished into the air.
The bell had done its job.
She spun back down toward her bedroom window and slipped inside. Releasing her magic, she skidded across the floor just as Callie straightened from tugging on a pair of shoes. “Oh, it’s just you,” she gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. “What’s happening? That bell was a warning, right? We have to—”
“Run. We have to run.” Ridley was soaked, but there was no time to change out of her wet pajamas. She grabbed her hooded jacket from the small wardrobe in the corner and shoved her arms into the sleeves. “I mean fly. As air. Go!” she added a little more forcefully, when Callie did nothing but stare at her with wide eyes. “Follow the others. Tanika, Saoirse, whoever. They know where to go. I’m going to get Archer.” She snatched a pair of sneakers from the floor, tugged them on, then raced toward the window, becoming air between one step and the next.
Within moments, she’d reached Archer’s cabin. She blew through the tiny loft space that belonged to him, but it was empty. She was so sure he would still be here—barely any time had passed since she’d rung the bell—that she hadn’t even thought to reach out and ask the magic around her where he was. She turned back toward the window, casting her thoughts out.
But she couldn’t sense him.
A sound caught her attention, and she swirled around, her first thought that it must be Archer. But it wasn’t him. The man’s face was cast in shadow, so Ridley couldn’t tell whether she recognized him, but the fact that he was inside some type of hazmat suit was a good indication he wasn’t on her side. There was also the fact that he held a canister in one hand and a gun in the other. He swung both hands up—
Ridley spun around and shot away through the gap at the top of the window, hearing first the spray of the canister and then, as she whirled up into the night, the crack of a gunshot. She knew the man hadn’t seen her, but perhaps the curtains had billowed or the sheets had rippled as she spun around, giving away her presence.
The night air, which had been so crisp and clear earlier, was now heavy with arxium. Ridley struggled to hold onto her elemental form, wishing someone had given her that gas mask Nathan had been talking about earlier. Too late now.
Where are you, where are you? she thought as she pictured Archer again. He had to be close by, so why couldn’t she sense him? She thought of Dad instead, and the answer came back almost immediately. She whirled down toward him as he ran between two cabins.
“Oh, Ridley, thank goodness,” he gasped the moment she materialized. He grabbed her hand. “We have to go now. They’ve—”
“Have you seen Archer?”
“Uh, I saw him a few moments ago, coming out of your cabin.”
“I can’t sense him. That’s weird, right? What if he’s—”
“He must be gone already if you can’t sense him.”
“But then—”
“Some of the others can move really fast. He’s probably beyond your reach already.”
“But he wouldn’t have let someone else take him if he didn’t know whether I was—”
“Ridley, we have to go!” Dad insisted. “Someone probably just swooped by and took Archer without stopping to have a conversation about it.”
“Okay, okay.” Ridley didn’t want to leave without knowing for sure, but she had to get Dad out of here, and he was probably right about Archer. She took a deep breath—then coughed and retched. Had these monsters brought one of their arxium machines with them? Is that why the suffocating particles were filling the air so quickly? Thunder growled overhead, and rain drops began to spatter the ground.
“This way,” Dad said, tugging her between the cabins. “Hurry. We need to get away from the arxium. The river, maybe? Water should be easier for you. Hopefully it isn’t full of arxium like the air.”
They rounded the corner of a cabin—and stopped mere inches from tripping over a body on the ground. Ridley saw the colorful scarf first, then the pool of blood, then Tanika’s lifeless gaze.
Horror crashed into her. “No,” she whispered. “No. How is this … this isn’t supposed to be happening!”
“Keep moving,” Dad said, steering her past Tanika. “We have to keep moving. Just keep moving. Just—” His voice caught, but not before Ridley heard the intense emotion in his words.
She followed him blindly. Suffocating smoke and the flickering orange glow of flames filled the air. Rain pattered down in fat droplets, but it wasn’t enough yet to quench the fires. They seemed to burn brighter with every passing moment, sending more and more smoke into the air. It was just like her dream. How many other bodies were lying in pools of blood, hidden by smoke, about to be consumed by flames? What if Archer—
“There it is,” Dad said, tugging her forward a little faster. She blinked and looked ahead. He was talking about the river. “Can you shift? Is there less arxium here?”
“I … um …” She tried to push aside the image of Archer lying dead somewhere and instead pushed her magic outward. It made her feel ill, but not so terrible that she couldn’t handle it. Water, she thought as they reached the river bank. Water, water, water, water—
She felt herself fall, heard herself splash. A moment later, she released the magic, rising fluidly back into her human form. A muffled shout met her ears, but before she could look behind her, Dad said, “Quickly! Now, Ridley!” He threw his arms around her just as she moved to throw herself around him. They became water together, slipping easily into the river and racing away on the current.