Chapter One
I didn’t know how he did it. Nathaniel was so calm and forgiving. Even when his ribs were still only half healed. Even when he still bore a black eye and stitches in his left cheek. Even when he had nearly drowned partly at the hands of the very man asking for our help.
How could he just forgive Borden?
But if he could forgive Borden, what right did I have not to?
It didn’t mean I trusted him, though. The second Borden stepped foot through the door of the solarium, I turned and walked to the jar of change Nathaniel kept on his shelf. I reached inside and grabbed the first coin my fingers wrapped around. I raised the nickel in my fist to my lips and spoke truth to it.
“I’ve never hated anyone until David Sinclair,” I said the first thing that came to my mind.
Borden looked over at me, a slight look of confusion on his face. But Nathaniel just looked at me, nodding in agreement the moment he realized what I was doing.
I crossed back to Borden, holding his gray eyes. I wanted to read all of his truths right off his skin, written in blood. But this was the next best thing.
“Here,” I said, extending the bewitched coin to him. Still uncertain, his brows knitted together, he held his hand out, and he took the coin from me.
“You aren’t the descendant of Scottish royalty,” I said, immediately launching into the test.
“Yes, I am,” he said. And the moment the words came out of his mouth, his look of confusion deepened further.
“Your family is incredibly poor,” I said next.
“Not at all,” he corrected. He looked more bewildered by the moment. He might have had other words he wanted to say, but they changed right on his tongue, to nothing but the truth.
“Have you ever tried to kill anyone?” Nathaniel asked, looking up at Borden from beneath dark eyes and long lashes.
Borden’s eyes slid over to meet Nathaniel’s. “Yes,” he answered honestly.
My jaw clenched tight, my teeth grinding together as I crossed my arms over my chest. My stomach was full of knotted snakes. Their venom filled me up, poisoned me from the inside.
But we had to know.
“Do you really hate the Society Boys?” I asked.
“Every second with them,” Borden said, and even though I knew he couldn’t lie to me, I could tell he meant it just by the look in his eyes.
“Do you mean it, that you are only with them because they make you angry?” Nathaniel asked, walking to my side. We stood in nearly identical positions.
“Yes, they’re awful people.” Borden’s eyes flicked from mine to Nathaniel’s and then back to mine. “What…what’s going on? Why do I feel like this? Why can’t I say what I’m thinking?”
“Because I gave you a Coin of Compulsion,” I said, feeling a small smile curling on my lips. I felt smug. Like this was some tiny shred of revenge for all of the horrible things he’d been a part of. “You can’t say anything that isn’t the absolute truth.”
“Would you ever reveal our secrets?” Nathaniel asked, because really, that was the most important matter. Everything hinged on it.
“I don’t think so,” and that I knew, was an honest reply.
I glared darkly at Borden for a good thirty seconds, debating. What did it help us to let him in on anything? To teach him? He might say he hated the Society Boys, but he’d still been with them on numerous occasions of torturing Nathaniel. His hands weren’t clean of the night Nathaniel was nearly drowned by them.
“What else do you know how to do?” I asked. Because at this point, the only benefit I could see to helping him, was if he could help us in return.
“This,” Borden said, bringing his hands up, sparking the electricity between his hands. “It’s all I know how to do. When I’m angry it happens. I first discovered it when I was just twelve. I burned the entire pool house down. I nearly killed a few people who made me angry over the years. But I’ve got a good grip on it now. I just…have to be angry to tap into it.”
Nathaniel and I looked at each other, mulling it over, thinking.
“An electrical affinity?” Nathaniel mused.
I shrugged. “It must be. Paper. Earth. Electricity.”
“I…I think I’ve caused lightning storms before, too,” Borden continued. “When I’m the angriest I’ve ever been. There’s always been a storm. Rain, dark clouds. But mostly lightning. A lot of it.”
A little tick of fear jumped into my heart at that. Lightning, storms. That sounded powerful. Far beyond anything Nathaniel or I could do. That sounded dangerous.
Nathaniel could control paper.
I could lift rocks and dirt and turn things into gold sometimes.
Borden could cause entire lightning storms.
That alone felt overwhelming. Too big. Too dangerous.
“What do you remember?” Nathaniel asked, moving on with a bravery I wasn’t sure I had. “From that night at the beach?”
Borden’s eyes immediately fell to the floor. He looked ashamed. He stepped to the side, sinking down onto the leather couch. “David was in a rage,” Borden said. “One look at Margot, and it was like he turned into this… animal who needed to mark his territory and destroy anything within the vicinity.”
My fingers dug into my own arm as they curled in rage. I felt my fingernails digging into my skin. My stomach turned over and I swear everything gained a red hue.
Borden looked up at us but didn’t quite meet our eyes. “He convinced us all to take Nathaniel out to the ocean and tell him to piss off. Leave Margot to David or pay the price.”
Instantly, I was back on that beach, watching as they hit Nathaniel, over and over, as they pushed his face beneath the waves.
I was screaming, my throat raw.
“And then Margot was there,” Borden said as his eyes rose to meet mine. “And one second we were standing in the water, and the next, I was flying through the air, knowing I was going to die out in the dark ocean, and all I could see was you, there in that red dress, your hands held out, a scream ripping from your lungs. And we were all tossed out to sea.”
He shouldn’t remember. I’d gone into his room. I’d gone into David’s room, and James’ and Howard’s and Gerald’s and Donald’s. I’d altered their memories. I’d made them forget.
But it hadn’t worked on Borden.
“I nearly drowned,” Borden said. “And I could feel the storm collecting and I knew it was because of me. I knew the lightning was going to come next, and if I didn’t keep it in check, I’d electrocute all of us in the water.”
The breath hitched in my throat as I recalled the storm that was forming that night. The skies were black, and the wind had picked up wickedly, blowing snow in every direction.
I had felt it that night, the threat of electricity.
That had been Borden?
“I swam out and knew somehow I had to stop it all. The Boys. You.” His eyes burned as he looked at me. And I didn’t want to feel it, but I started to. A connection to this man. “But the second we started across the sand again, you unleashed…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what it was. But then it was just dark. And I woke up in the hospital.”