“Yes.”
“And you’re telling me that with this stone, I should have enough power to burn through the entire wall around the city and all the panels overhead?”
“I think so, yes.”
Ridley hesitated, then said, “You’re going to be rather upset when I tell you I don’t have the stone anymore.”
A heartbeat of silence passed through the room. Then another. Saoirse shook her head. “Sorry … what? Why? What happened to it?”
“I’m pretty sure Archer’s father has it. I was wearing it when someone discovered me back at my old apartment, but when I woke up, it was gone. Alastair Davenport told me that’s how he knew what I was.”
“He definitely would have taken it,” Archer said. “He’s been hoping to find an elemental heir for years. Not that it was a top priority of his, but he mentioned it every now and then, how it would be useful to find one.”
“And I’m the lucky one he eventually found,” Ridley muttered.
“Okay, so this explains why whoever caught you at your apartment didn’t just kill you,” Archer continued. “They probably saw the stone and, unlike me, they recognized it. I thought maybe my father was hoping to get other information out of you, but it’s obviously because you’re an heir.”
“Well, I guess I really am lucky then,” Ridley said, no sarcasm this time. “I’d be dead if I was just a regular old elemental.”
Saoirse leaned forward, rubbed her fingers against her temples, and groaned. “It would really help us if we could get that stone back.”
“You know, if it’s so vitally important, you probably should have told me to be more careful with it. I thought it was just jewelry with a bit of magic in it.”
“I told you it was your mother’s. I thought that would make it important enough to you.”
Ridley bristled at the accusatory edge to Saoirse’s voice. “That did make it important. But if you’d added, ‘Oh, and we need it in order to save civilization,’ then maybe I could have hidden it somewhere on myself.”
“Then we’d be back to you being dead,” Archer said quietly, “because if no one saw it, they would have killed you.”
“Look, it’s not that we need it in order to return the world to the way it used to be,” Saoirse said to Ridley. “After all, we’ve been planning this for a long time without an heir. But I think we have a much higher chance of succeeding with you on our side. With you and your family stone. There’s so much arxium around the city, and so many of those panels in the sky. We just don’t know how much power it’ll take to burn through them all. The more we have, the better.”
“Okay, so I’ll get it back then. I’ve stolen things before—I’m pretty good at it, actually—so if we need it, then I’ll get it. I want this plan to work. I don’t want the Shadow Society controlling things anymore.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Archer said. “You don’t know where my father is keeping it, and even if you did, it’s too dangerous to try to get it back. This isn’t like breaking into some random apartment. If he catches you again, he’ll make sure you can’t get away.”
Ridley pinned Archer with a level gaze. “You probably know where the stone is.”
He sighed. “If I knew—”
“Or, if you don’t, you at least have a good idea of where he might be hiding it.”
“Sure, I know of all the places we could look for it, but that doesn’t make it any safer. And what if he has it on him?”
“Well then I guess I’ll just have to get it off him. If I have magic and a gas mask, I’ll be fine. I’ll get him on his own somehow, and—”
An ear-splitting crack tore through Ridley’s remaining words. Saoirse’s hand shot out and landed on Ridley’s leg as a bolt of magic flashed outside and thunder reverberated through the building. “Just another storm,” Ridley said, though her own heart raced from the shock of the abrupt weather change. Rain began to shower against the windows.
Saorise stood and crossed the room, raising one hand to the window pane. “We’re out of time,” she said, her quiet voice barely reaching Ridley over the sound of the rain.
“No, it’s normal here,” Ridley said. “That was maybe a little angrier and more out-of-the-blue than usual—and magic itself doesn’t often make its way past the panels—but storms are common over the cities. Not like out there at the reserve where magic has learned to be calm around elementals. You’re probably not used to it.”
Saoirse shook her head. “This isn’t an ordinary magical storm. The attack has begun.”
It took a moment for the words to settle into Ridley’s brain. Then she stood abruptly. “Attack? What attack? Like … Nathan’s plan? Elementals destroying the arxium around the city?”
Saoirse turned and met Ridley’s eyes. “Yes.”
“But … now? Since when?”
“Since we were attacked and everyone decided to retaliate without waiting any longer. Since …” Saoirse took a deep breath, and there was something apologetic in her gaze. “Since I told everyone you’re an heir and that I’d be able to find you, and that we could win this.”
“You—you what?”
Saoirse pressed her hands over her face. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. So fast. But after we made it to the mountains, everyone decided enough is enough. They want to fight back now. Which is good—we’ve waited long enough—but you were supposed to be with us, and you were supposed to have the stone, and you were supposed to know exactly what you need to do.” She lowered her hands and looked at Ridley. “But they’d already decided. They didn’t want to wait even a day. So I told them about you, and then I went ahead of everyone and caught up with Nathan and Maverick. They told me about you taking off and how they were so worried about you. Nathan couldn’t sense you anymore. But now I’ve found you. You’re okay, and we can still do this without the stone. We just need to get outside the city and join everyone else.”
Archer was standing now too. “Why didn’t you tell us this the moment you got here?”
“Perhaps because I saw you,” Saoirse retorted. “And because I’d just discovered your affiliation to the Shadow Society. And because I knew Ridley had found out the truth about her parents, and I didn’t know what kind of mental state she was in. We needed to talk before I mentioned that oh, by the way, we’re doing this now. And because—” she dug her fingers into her hair and sucked in another deep breath “—because they were supposed to wait. Nathan was supposed to wait. He was supposed to trust that I would find Ridley and not begin any of this without us. But none of us could sense her anymore, and he thought that meant she might be dead, and—”
“So let’s go,” Ridley said. “Now. We can be outside the city walls in less than—”
“No.” Mrs. Adams stood in the doorway. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me exactly what’s happening.”
“I’m guessing you haven’t been in the kitchen this whole time making tea,” Archer said.