I am alone.
She stared across the room at a framed wedding photo of her parents on the wall. Golden and glowing and looking absolutely nothing like Ridley. Maverick and Claudia Kayne, she reminded herself. Not my parents. Sarah and Karl Ohlson were her parents. She was not Ridley Kayne, she was Ridley Ohlson. The name felt foreign in her thoughts. “Ridley Ohlson,” she whispered, then shivered. Saying it out loud was even worse.
She covered her face with her hands and released a long breath. Dad loved her—she knew that without a doubt—yet she felt betrayed in a way she couldn’t make sense of. Some logical corner of her mind knew that none of this should make a difference to who she truly was. Dad had raised her. He had been her father—was still her father—even though they shared no genetic material. But she was left with the horrible feeling of being … set loose. Of not belonging anywhere. Somehow she was both the same person and not the same person at all. The same person … reframed.
She lowered her hands and whispered, “I am alone.”
You are not alone.
It wasn’t a voice. It wasn’t words. It was a feeling, the distinct sense of being comforted. Magic, Ridley realized. This was the way it always communicated with her, though she was usually in elemental form when she ‘heard’ it. Although … was that true? She’d been human when she first sensed magic trying to warn her that the Shadow Society was coming to attack the reserve. First in the afternoon when she’d been with Archer, and then later that evening as she’d returned to her cabin, before she’d been distracted by Nathan and Saoirse’s conversation. And then magic had warned her in her dream. She hadn’t been in elemental form then.
You are not alone, came the feeling once again, accompanied by the sense of being held. Of course, technically, she was being held by the couch. Embraced by the cushions. But it was more than that.
Or perhaps I’m losing my mind, Ridley thought. She shifted sideways and lay down, burrowing into that quiet, unwavering promise that she was not alone. Her fingers searched near her feet until they found the edge of a blanket. She pulled it up over her head. She knew it wasn’t safe to stay here long. Somehow, the apartment hadn’t been broken into in the weeks it had stood empty—which Ridley had put down to the ever-present stigma of Dad being a former magicist—but that didn’t mean it would continue to be safe. A thief might decide to take a chance, hoping there were no illegal conjurations protecting the place. A drone might fly overhead and detect Ridley’s presence along with her lack of AI1 and AI2.
But she couldn’t bring herself to move right now. She wanted to ignore the rest of the world. Ignore Nathan’s plans for the future. Ignore the possibility that she might be as powerful as he suggested. Ignore the difficult conversation she would have to have with Dad when she saw him again. She wanted to simply … lie here and fall asleep and not feel.
Run.
Ridley’s eyes popped open, seeing nothing but darkness beneath the blanket. The quiet sense of comfort that had promised to lull her to sleep was gone in an instant. Panic took its place. Run! it told her. Go! Now! Hide!
She threw the blanket off and bolted upright—just as an odd tearing sound reached her ears and a shadow of movement behind the curtain caught her eye. She launched to her feet, her magic already swirling around her. Air, she thought, but in the blink between human form and invisibility, yellow light flickered behind her, and then everything—
13
Ridley woke slowly, becoming gradually aware of the tight discomfort at her wrists and ankles. She blinked. Blinked again. Her stomach turned, but a deep breath kept her from vomiting. She was lying on a bed, her head resting on dark gray sheets and her hands bound in front of her with a cable tie. She tried to pull one leg up, but pain bit into her ankles. Her legs were also bound together.
Stupid, she thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She should never have gone back home. Especially after revealing herself to Lilah at the Davenports’ apartment yesterday—or whenever it had been. Days and nights had begun to blend together ever since the attack on the reserve.
Ridley pushed herself up and swung her bound legs over the edge of the bed as she looked around. Of all the rooms she’d woken in after being unexpectedly knocked out, this was by far the nicest. A thick cream carpet concealed the floor, and the walls were covered in interlocking geometric panels of dark gray. In the far corner stood a modern bucket-style armchair beside a pair of small, round nesting tables with gleaming brass legs and marble tops. There were no windows. No other furnishings. There was, however, a door near the armchair.
Locked, Ridley thought. It must surely be locked. Still, she had to at least investigate. She stood. Her head spun lazily and the desire to throw up increased several notches. She took another few moments to breathe, managing to keep her body upright and the limited contents of her stomach where they belonged. When she was certain she wasn’t about to fall over, she began to hop.
She made it about halfway across the room before something shocked her cheek, her hand, her knee. She recoiled, stepping back instinctively. Which was impossible with two feet tied together, so instead she toppled over and landed hard on the carpeted floor. Her stomach heaved, and she was convinced she really would vomit this time, but after a moment of retching, she recovered.
With a shaky breath and a groan, she squinted up at the diamond-shaped mesh-like layer that had appeared, dividing the room in half. An orange glow rippled across it, originating from the spot she’d walked into. The glow faded. The silvery diamond shapes vanished. Ridley narrowed her eyes. Whatever it was, she had no doubt it was still there.
She scooted back to the bed, pushed herself up, and sat. Her pulse drummed a dull, throbbing ache across her head, and something a little like panic rose up to mingle with the nausea. Every crushing revelation from the past day or two—Archer, the Cataclysm, Dad, Meera—receded in her mind as the primal need to survive took precedence over everything else.
Don’t. Panic, she reminded herself. Breathe in. Breathe out. This is not the—
A beep sounded from the direction of the door. It swung open, and in strode Alastair Davenport. “Ridley,” he said, his tone businesslike. He glanced up from his commpad as the door swung shut behind him. “You’ll be moved soon, but since you’re awake, I thought we could have a brief chat.” He swiped at the screen of the commpad, then placed it on the larger of the two side tables as he sat in the armchair. He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other, comfortable and composed in his perfectly tailored suit. The man who orchestrated the end of the world. The man who would kill her.
Ridley sat utterly still, frozen by the two opposing forces pulling her in opposite directions: fear and fury. The instinct to bolt, and the desire to inflict as much pain on this man as he’d inflicted on the rest of the world. On her.
“So,” he said. “Ridley Kayne. Turns out you’re not human. Turns out you’re also not a Kayne.”
Like a puzzle piece fitted neatly into place, it hit Ridley with immediate and satisfying clarity that she was. Face to face with her death—because that was surely what was soon to happen—the only thing she wanted to do was throw her arms around Dad and tell him she loved him. Who the hell cared whether they were related by blood or not?