She wished he was here.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to deny the ache in her heart for him, but there it was. She desperately wished he was here. She wanted to feel his arms around her as she curled up against his chest and told him how sorry she was for not believing him sooner. How sorry she was for holding her mother’s death against him. From the moment he’d admitted the truth about the Cataclysm, she had held him partly responsible. How grossly unfair of her. All he had done was trust his father and then live with the crushing guilt ever since. How cruel of her to make him feel even worse.
Perhaps she was tired out from all her tears, but it didn’t take too many replays of Archer’s speech before Ridley drifted off to sleep. She didn’t hear Shen or the rest of his family come home. She slept solidly until the noise of Shen’s brothers getting ready for school the next morning reached into her dreams and pulled her out. She rubbed her eyes and focused on the window where weak morning light was trying to filter through the curtain.
She reached for the commscreen on the coffee table and turned it over. Adrenaline jolted her awake at the sight of a message from Dad.
Or at least … from the number Dad was using.
* * *
Ridley, this is Alastair Davenport. I have your father. And your grandfather. If Lumina City falls to the elementals, they’re both dead. Let me know when you’ve made your choice.
* * *
Ridley sat up, staring at the message, breathing hard. She read it several times, but that didn’t make the contents any better. If anything, she felt sicker each time she read it. How did he have Grandpa as well? What was Grandpa even doing here? He was supposed to be far from Lumina City. In fact, as far as Alastair Davenport and most other people were concerned, Grandpa was already dead.
Let me know when you’ve made your choice.
Her family or her city. That’s what it came down to. If she didn’t make sure her elemental friends backed off and left Lumina City alone, Alastair Davenport would kill Dad and Grandpa.
Ridley lowered the commscreen to the table and pushed both hands through her tangled hair. If she hadn’t realized it before, it would have hit her squarely in the chest now: Dad and Grandpa were absolutely, one thousand percent her family. It made zero difference that she wasn’t related to them by blood. She would do anything—anything—for them.
And Alastair Davenport knew that. He knew what her choice would be, just as Ridley had known since the moment she read the message. She squeezed her eyes shut against the dark, ugly picture of herself that took shape in her mind. She had raged across the wastelands after she’d learned her true heritage, her storm self coming apart as she realized she had no idea who she truly was. But the answer was right here: She wasn’t good or selfless. She didn’t really want to help other people. All the tutoring and extramural activities she’d done so she could one day join The Rosman Foundation were for nothing. When it came down to it, she chose the small circle of people she loved over everyone else.
Lumina City’s residents would remain afraid of the magic beyond their wall. Those living in the bunker would have to stay hidden. Any elementals living in the city would have to continue hiding who they were. Nothing would change for these people the way Archer had said it would. Even if the world changed everywhere else, Alastair Davenport would make sure his city remained firmly in his control. Because Ridley couldn’t bear to give up the people she loved.
Sometimes there’s no right answer, Christa had said. Just two wrongs with you stuck in the middle trying to choose the wrong that sucks less. Ridley dropped her head into her hands. She wished she’d never judged Christa for the impossible decision she’d had to make. Of course she chose the people she knew and cared about—the bunker’s residents—over all the unknown elementals she was yet to meet. She had to live with her guilt, and now Ridley would—
She lowered her hands quickly as a swishing sound caught her attention. On the other side of the living room, the curtain stirred as a breeze moved through the open crack at the top of the window. “Nathan?” Ridley whispered.
He appeared a moment later, breathing heavily as if from exertion. He leaned on the back of an armchair. “Okay, we did it. Got back here faster than I expected. Man, I’m tired. But we can rest when this is done.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. “Only managed to convince six people to come back with us. Not a lot, I know, and on our own, we wouldn’t stand a chance. But with you, I think we can do it. And we’ve already taken care of the arxium machines. There’s no way they’ll have rebuilt those yet. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s been no storm since we destroyed those machines. Yes, there are some unhappy looking clouds swirling around the panels over the city, but out there beyond the wall, things are starting to clear up. We’ve made a difference already, Ridley. Now we just need to finish what we …” He trailed off, seeming to finally notice that something wasn’t quite right. “Are you okay? Is something wrong?”
Ridley’s insides had been winding tighter and tighter with every word Nathan spoke. Don’t tell him, warned a tiny voice. He’ll make you choose the city over your family. But she wasn’t supposed to be acting on her own anymore. She was supposed to be trusting people to help her. At the very least, she had to tell Nathan she could no longer be part of his big plan.
“What is it?” Nathan asked.
Tell him. Don’t tell him.
Ask for help. Act alone.
Save the city. Save your family. If you don’t, who will?
Ridley pressed her eyelids shut. She saw Dad removing his wedding ring to show her that his AI2 was fused to it. She didn’t know that he’d removed it from beneath his skin years ago. “I needed to know I could protect you if something ever happened,” he’d told her. “So yes, I know how to use certain offensive conjurations.” She saw him fighting on the balcony of a Lumina City skyscraper. She saw him hurling fireballs of magic at Shadow Society pursuers on the edge of the wastelands. She saw Grandpa sitting on the couch in their old apartment saying, “There are things I know. Certain conjurations. Old, dangerous ones that most historians believe were forgotten centuries ago.” She saw Saoirse sitting on a couch in Mrs. Adams’ apartment. “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.”
“Ridley?” Nathan asked. Ridley opened her eyes as he stepped around the chair, concern growing on his face.
She stood, her hands clenched at her sides, her decision made.
26
Ridley stood at the very edge of Lumina City and craned her neck as she stared up at the interior surface of the arxium-reinforced wall. At least ten stories high, she’d thought most of it was solid, aside from the security infrastructure set up at certain points. However, as she’d recently discovered, the windows in this particular section of the wall belonged to Alastair Davenport’s secret research facility. Ridley never would have guessed she’d be back so soon.
She tilted her head back even further and looked at the sky. The unhappy clouds Nathan had mentioned darkened and tumbled over one another and began to cry. Ridley opened her palm as rain showered over her. Please don’t leave me while I’m in there, she begged. Listen to me. There are windows and cracks and gaps. You’ll find a way in and out. A bolt of magic flashed straight down, struck the earth beside her, then rebounded and whizzed around her outstretched hand before vanishing. “Thanks,” she whispered out loud, her chest swelling with gratitude. She wasn’t alone. She felt it now as surely as she had when she’d been broken-hearted in the dark of her old home above Kayne’s Antiques.