They crossed the room to the door on the other side and hurried into another passageway. This one, however, was made entirely of glass on one side. Ridley almost stumbled to a halt when she looked out and saw the tops of skyscrapers. “Wait, are we—is this Aura Tower? Are we in your home?”
“Close enough. We’re five floors down from the penthouse. My father likes the convenience of being able to interrogate people without having to go too far. Anyone who catches his interest is brought here instead of being immediately disposed of or carted off to some other facility like the one in the wastelands that you destroyed.”
“I guess I should be honored to have been chosen,” Ridley said with as much sarcasm as she could muster. They entered a smaller room, this one with nothing but an orchid sitting on a table against a wall on the left, and a door straight ahead.
“To be honest,” Archer said as they aimed for the door, “I’m just relieved. We’re supposed to kill elementals if we happen to come across them. Unless—”
“Stop right there.”
The voice came from behind them. Familiar and feminine, it sent another sickening lurch through Ridley’s stomach.
“Lilah,” Archer said as he and Ridley turned slowly. Then: “Whoa!”
Because Lilah Davenport had a shotgun pointed at them. She gripped the weapon in both hands, pressing the butt of it into her shoulder as she eyed Ridley and Archer along the length of it. Ridley had to admit she looked kind of badass.
“Lilah, where did you get that?” Archer asked as he raised both hands. Ridley did the same.
“Does it matter when it’s pointing at you?” Lilah replied.
“Do you even know how to use it?”
Lilah’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Don’t patronize me, Archer. Is it so hard to believe there might be things you don’t know about me? Clearly there’s plenty I don’t know about you. Like the fact that your amulets are gone and you can pull magic. Like the fact that you’re on their side—” she jabbed the gun toward Ridley “—and not ours.”
“Lilah, I have always been on your—”
“I was in the surveillance room when you went in to get her,” Lilah snapped. “I heard everything you said. I saw everything you did.”
“Why don’t you stop pointing the weapon at us and we can talk about this,” Archer suggested.
“How could you betray us?” Lilah demanded, making no move to lower the gun. “How could you turn on your own family?”
“You don’t know what Dad’s done. You don’t know about—”
“I do know. I know all of Dad’s secrets. I know secrets even you don’t know, Archer.”
“I …” Ridley didn’t have to look at Archer to know he was confused. It was evident in his voice.
A short, bitter laugh escaped Lilah. “That look on your face? That hurt you’re feeling? The sting of betrayal because you think Dad confided in me and not you? That’s how I’ve felt for years. Dad left me out of everything. He only ever chose you to be part of his grand plans.”
“Because you weren’t interested. You didn’t want to be part of it.”
“No, Mom decided she was bored and didn’t want to be part of it, and everyone just assumed I felt the same way, so I was left on the outside.”
“Okay, well what does that matter now? You seem to be on the inside again, with Dad sharing his secrets with you.”
Lilah rolled her eyes. The gun twitched, which sent Ridley’s heart rate through the roof. She didn’t want to die by accidental gunshot while Archer and Lilah argued about which of them their father favored more. She examined her level of nausea—still very much present—and wondered if it was worth trying to change form. Would she have enough time to push her magic out and become air, concealing Archer along with her, or would Lilah pull the trigger the instant she saw a wisp of magic?
“I’m not on the inside,” Lilah said to Archer. “Dad would never trust me with any of his secrets. He didn’t tell me anything. I have my own ways of finding out what he’s up to.”
“So you know about the Cataclysm then.”
A loud but slow beep, beep, beep began to whine repeatedly from somewhere nearby. Lilah’s perfectly shaped eyebrows lowered a fraction further, though whether it was because of the alarm or because of Archer’s statement, Ridley couldn’t tell. “The Cataclysm?” she repeated. “What does that have to do with Dad and his secrets?”
“Everything.” Archer shook his head. “What secrets are you talking about?”
“Um, Archer?” Ridley interrupted. “I really think we should go.”
“Not happening,” Lilah snapped at her.
“Come with us,” Archer said.
Lilah let out an incredulous laugh. She even lowered the gun a few inches, though Ridley figured she probably didn’t know she was doing it. “You must be joking.”
“We were wrong,” Archer said quickly. “I was wrong. Elementals are not what we’ve always believed them to be. Just think, Ly. Think! You’ve known Ridley for years. Is she really the cold, soulless person we always imagined whenever Dad told us what elementals are like?”
Lilah pressed her lips together as she took a deep breath. “That doesn’t matter. I’m not turning on this family the way you have.”
“Lilah—”
“Family comes first. Family has always come first.”
“I’m your family too,” Archer said fiercely.
There was a pause as Lilah’s expression became steely. She raised her weapon. “Not any—”
Ridley shoved Archer to the side, launching herself in the opposite direction. Her skin glowed with magic, and a second later, she hit the floor in the form of water—just as a gunshot cracked the air. She barely had time for the thought Lilah actually shot at me to take hold in her mind before she realized she was human again. She couldn’t hold her elemental form with arxium still in her blood.
She rolled over as Archer lunged across the floor at Lilah’s legs. Lilah fell with a shriek, the shotgun clattering heavily beside her. She pummeled her brother with her fists before he managed to get hold of her wrists and force her arms down. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he grunted, just as Lilah kicked hard enough to shove him away.
“I will,” Ridley gasped, already rolling wisps of magic into a ball between her palms. She hurled the ball at Lilah’s head. The force of the magic knocked her flat onto her back, and when the glow disappeared, she lay motionless, a swollen, red mark on her forehead.
Archer looked up at Ridley, aghast. Breathless, Ridley said, “She tried to shoot me. All I did was knock her out. There was no conjuration there, just force.”
Archer climbed to his feet, muttering, “This is not the way I thought any of this was going to go.”
“Yeah, welcome to the club. Can we go now?”
Archer looked down at his sister. “I can’t leave her.”
Exasperated, nauseous, and starting to go a little crazy from the continued beep, beep, beep, Ridley pressed her fingers to her temples. “You can. She doesn’t want to come with us. You’re the one who can’t stay here now that you’ve freed me. You won’t be able to lie your way out of this one.”