“I’m sorry about that. I was trying to explain to him that I have real hope for our plans, and I suppose I must have come across far more excited than I have in recent months, so he wanted to know what changed. I told him about you. And, Ridley—” she gripped both of Ridley’s hands in her own “—I do have real hope now. Having you with us changes everything. The rest of us could probably sit back and watch while you burn through all the arxium around Lumina City on your own.”
Ridley shook her head as a shiver raised the hairs on her arms. “I don’t know about that.”
“Well, if you had both your family stones you probably could. But your father’s was lost several generations ago.”
“The stones? Why would it make a difference if I had both of them?”
“As I understand it, the magic within them helps to focus your power. You know how when you fragment, you sort of … lose touch with time and place? You feel as though you’re everywhere at once? It’s very … instinctive. You give yourself over to the elements, and magic senses what you want and need. But when you’re wearing the stone I gave you—at least this is how your mother explained it to me—you’re able to focus more sharply. You’re everywhere at once, and also distinctly aware of everything at once, so you’re able to direct it more easily. Essentially, it makes you even stronger than you already are.”
“Hmm,” Ridley mused. “Is that why magic was able to warn me that we were about to be attacked? Did I have, like, a stronger connection to it because I was wearing the stone then?”
“You already have a stronger connection than the rest of us because of who you are. You can just about have a conversation with magic if that’s what you want. You can ask it for things and it will understand you in a way it will never understand the rest of us. But yes, even more so when you’re wearing the stone, I think.”
“But magic warned you too. It didn’t warn anyone else—at least, not that I gathered—but it did warn you. Wait, are you also one?”
“Oh, no, I …” Saoirse stumbled over her words as she shook her head. “With much patience and meditation over many years, I’ve honed my connection to the elements. But it’s still not as easy for me as it is for you. The warning I got wasn’t very clear.”
“Oh. So, is this why …” Ridley played absently with the ends of her hair, wondering if she should voice this part out loud. She’d wanted to ask Saoirse about it before, but it seemed too silly, like something she’d probably imagined. “The first time I fragmented, it felt to me as though magic said it … knew me. And then after I burned through that building in the wastelands, I got the sense that it was pleased with me. I thought either I’d imagined or … I don’t know, that maybe all elementals feel like magic is telling them it recognizes them.”
“Amazing,” Saoirse murmured. “No, I don’t think magic says that to all of us. At least, I don’t remember getting that sense myself, and no one else has ever mentioned it to me. There must be something recognizable about the magic you’ve inherited. Some signature to it that’s passed along with each generation.”
“Maybe,” Ridley murmured.
On the other side of the coffee table, Archer swore beneath his breath. Ridley had almost forgotten he was there, but now she looked at him. “You’re one of them,” he said softly. “You’re an heir. You must have inherited it from your …” He trailed off, frowning as he looked at Saoirse. “But you said both. And Ridley’s father isn’t …” His eyes slid away, focusing on something in the distance, and Ridley could almost see his mind working. Then his gaze snapped up to hers again, and there was something like pity in his eyes. He’d figured it out. And he’d accepted it immediately, not arguing about it the way she had. Not saying that it was impossible, that Saoirse must have got it wrong. He was probably thinking it made a lot of sense. He was probably thinking, So that’s why she looks nothing like her father.
“Ridley …” he said slowly.
“Don’t,” she said tightly. “Whatever you’re going to say, just don’t. And actually—” she tilted her head to the side “—now that I think about it, if you know about these so-called heirs, then you should have already figured out that I’m one of them. I showed you the pendant Saoirse gave me.”
“The … oh. That’s the family stone.”
Ridley rolled her eyes. “Yes, Archer. Your father recognized it, so I assume you would too. Maybe you’re the one who told him what I am. Maybe that’s the reason he told his guys to bring me back to him instead of just killing me.”
Archer shook his head. “If someone told him, it wasn’t me. I’ve heard of elemental heirs, and I know about the family heirloom stones that are passed down from generation to generation. I’ve heard stories of siblings and cousins killing each other over the single stone passed down from their ancestors. But I don’t remember anyone ever telling me what they look like. Honestly, it never even crossed my mind that that’s what it might be when you showed it to me. Didn’t you say it was a healing stone or something?”
Ridley looked at Saoirse. “You mentioned healing properties. I’m guessing that was a lie?”
“Your mother did actually mention that she could draw power from the stone and use it to heal herself.”
“Oh. But you didn’t just happen to be wearing it when your community was discovered.”
“No, that part was a lie.” Saoirse looked appropriately contrite. “I’m sorry. When the Shadow Society found us …” She swallowed and took a deep breath. “Cam had taken Bria to the park nearby. I went to your parents’ home first, as it was the closest. But they were already … they were dead. You weren’t with them, but I hoped you were in the nursery. I knew about the stone pendant being part of your heritage and linked to your power, so I took it off your mother’s neck. I intended to search the house for you, hoping I would find you alive. But by then there was so much arxium in the air. I was so dizzy and sick, and I’d barely made it through the next room when someone returned. It took everything in me to change to air and flee.
“By the time I found Cam and Bria, fire was already raging through everything. I don’t know who started it—perhaps it was one of us, fighting back, or perhaps it was them. But everything was burning, and there was so much arxium, and we had to get out of there.”
Ridley tried not to imagine the scene. She tried not to imagine her parents’ dead bodies. “Why did you wait two weeks to give me the stone?” she asked quietly. “You could have given it to me as soon as I arrived at the reserve.”
“I thought … well, I don’t know exactly how it works. You’re supposed to be immensely powerful to start off with, and then the stone amplifies that even more. But when you arrived at the reserve, you had only just begun to embrace your own magic without restraint. I thought perhaps you needed to first stretch yourself, to discover the potential of your own natural magic, before adding a magical booster to your power.”
Ridley nodded slowly. “You wanted me to be strong on my own first, so I could then become even stronger.”