A Matter of Heart (4 page)

Our friends from high
school, another example of opposites working, have proved to be one of the
cutest love stories around. “I think it’s adorable.”

“You would.” She sighs and
then shudders. “You and Jonah aren’t getting a dog, are you? Or, gods forbid, a
baby?”

“Hasn’t even been a
thought,” I assure her.

Cora sighs. “Sometimes, it
feels like we’re growing up too fast. Just a couple months ago, we were in high
school. And now, you’re on the Council, and going on some big mission soon.”
She drops her chin into a propped up hand. “Ignore me. Raul’s
madre
mentioned something about marriage and it’s got me all freaked out. I’m so not
ready for any of that. What if I want to sow my wild oats?”

She seems so happy with
Raul. “Do you?”

“Of course not. I’m just
saying what if I change my mind? I mean, his
madre
was practically
picking out china for us. I’m looking forward to picking out a futon for my
apartment and taping posters to the wall.”

I shove an extra apple
across the table to her. “She’s nuts if she thinks it’s a good idea you guys
should get so serious so quick, being so young. You’ve only been dating a few
months.”

Cora smirks. “Shall I remind
you that you and Jonah got engaged in high school?”

“That’s different. We’ve
known each other our whole lives.”

She
takes a bite; a tiny drop of juice falls down her chin. “Young is young,
Cousin.”

“Do you need to get closer,
mate?”

Kiah Redrock’s voice—clear
as day, not tinny like in the movies—fills my headset. The Dreamer’s riding
shotgun next to Raul, who, until this morning, I had no idea could even pilot a
helicopter. He tried to correlate it to his love of winds, but I think it’s
more because he’s an adrenaline junkie. Just last year, he thought it was
easier for us to get to the top of a building by riding a tornado than using
something logical like a ladder.

The Shohannah atoll glistens
in the distance, a bleached white ring circling a smoking baby volcano peeking
out of turquoise waters. Iolani Popolohua, a Volcanic I’m friends with, has
been in the South Carnelian Ocean for two weeks now, triggering eruptions in a
sunken seamount long thought extinct. Surprisingly, even though we’re on the
Goblin plane, our team is entirely Human. The Goblin Volcanic is in the
hospital with a sick child; Iolani was more than happy to step up and join us.
I have my suspicions, though, that as a concession to Astrid’s concerns,
Endolff Strikertree allowed my team to be comprised of people I’ve previously
worked with, which can be risky on a plane we’re not native to, like the Goblin
plane, where everyone’s skin is a varying shade of green. Thus Kiah’s
presence—Dreamers are quite talented at manipulating peoples’ perceptions,
awake and asleep.

Despite what Karl had thought,
Jonah wasn’t able to come along. He’s off on his own mission at the moment back
on the Human plane. The Council ruled just a few days ago that there needs to
be a series of protests over Human Rights issues in Shanghai; Jonah’s tasked
with supplying the region’s citizens the fervor to revolt.

I wish he were with me right
now. I’m ready to jump out of my skin.

You can do this
,
Caleb tells me.
Easy-peasy
.

I’m glad nobody in the
helicopter can hear me snort. Of course it’s easy. That’s not the point.

“No. This is good,” I tell
Kiah. She nods and gives Raul a thumbs up. The helicopter tilts to the right
and we move in a slow arc around the tiny island.

According to the report I
read about twenty times last night, the atoll we’re circling is, as Karl claimed,
basically uninhabited. It’s used as a stopping station for cruise ships filled
with travelers seeking the allure of a lagoon, and for modern day pirates, but
for the most part, its wide, empty beaches are left alone to bake in the sun.
It’s beautiful, in a stark, barren sort of way. I can’t help but wonder at the
memories created on these shores, of the people that fell in love or laughed or
cried or smuggled or dreamed or did countless other things that helped shape
the history of every grain of sand and coral.

I want to ask Kiah again if
she’s sure nobody is there. But I’ve already done that several times this
morning only to get the same answer—if anyone is, then they’re idiots,
considering the lagoon has been destroyed by volcanic activity.

A big hand squeezes my arm.
Karl knows me too well. I match his smile before he resumes talking to Raul.

I lean forward to see the
atoll better, the thick straps holding me into the helicopter snug against my
chest. Wind whips through my long hair; I can’t help but wish I’d tied it back
in a ponytail. But that’s a stupid wish when I’m getting ready to destroy
something beautiful.

Something that exists in
this moment will no longer exist in a matter of moments, thanks to me. It’s a
sobering thought.

My friends in the helicopter
seem so much more comfortable with their roles and actions as Magicals. But
then, they’ve been working on missions for years now; they’ve had plenty of
time to come to terms with whatever havoc or beauty they wreak upon the worlds.
This is probably nothing to them. They’ll go to sleep tonight, not even
thinking of what will happen.

I wonder if I’ll ever be
like that.

I let go of the breath I’ve
been holding in. The atoll in the distance is still for one shining moment and
then begins to crack into pieces. Raul pulls the helicopter toward the left; as
we fly away, I crane my neck around to watch what was once beautiful sink into
bubbling waters.

The calendar in front of me
says it’s September first.

I’ve been living in Annar
for nearly four months—four
good
months. Four of the best months of my
life. I am, without a doubt, the happiest I’ve been in . . . well, forever.

Everything is perfect,
except for one tiny thing. And, okay, it really isn’t tiny—not to me, in any
case. Because, Kellan isn’t in Annar yet.

He was supposed to be back
by late July, or, at least, that’s what I’d overheard. I’ve been too chicken to
actually ask Jonah outright about it. The one sore spot in our relationship,
the one thing that mars our otherwise dreamy, perfect existence together, has
been the fact that I am also Connected to his twin brother.

Which is insane and
difficult for me to deal with on good days, so I’ve gotten pretty good at
pretending the Connection to Kellan doesn’t exist; this is made easier by the
fact that Kellan has gotten pretty good at pretending I don’t exist.

He and I dated in high
school, and I’m not going to lie—he’s a phenomenal guy. Only, he isn’t Jonah,
and that was the problem, or maybe the solution, but to make a long story
short, because of a Connection that neither of us were aware of, Kellan and I
were serious for a couple of months shortly after he and Jonah first moved to
town. It was . . . complicated. And messy. And painful. Because I was supposed
to be with Jonah, because
he
is my Connection, the person I’ve loved my
entire life, and we’d dreamed about each other since we were little, and he’d
manipulated his family into moving to California for the sole purpose of being
near me. And yet, I was drawn to Kellan, and he to me, and we hurt Jonah and
ourselves in the process, and now Kellan doesn’t speak to me. At all.

Logically, I understand his
reasoning. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t think about him far too often,
thanks to being the only woman alive Connected to two guys, let alone brothers.
They also have two Connections apiece, the only others in existence, but the
secondary ones are to each other since they are twins.

So, like I said,
nightmarishly messy. Actually, I can think of a bunch of other words to
describe it, but it’ll only lead me to another round of self-pity that I’ve
tried my hardest to stay away from since moving to Annar.

But the point is, Kellan’s
deadline to join the Guard early came and went without his presence. And while
I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring that extra Connection’s existence, it’s
fundamentally impossible for me to pretend my fiancé’s twin brother doesn’t
exist, especially when the calls pour in asking Jonah where Kellan is. This led
to me panicking—outside of Jonah’s presence, because
hello
, he would
have been in on that feeling like a heat-seeking missile—and making efforts to
uncover where he was myself without letting anyone know I was actually
interested.

First stop, Moira Graystone,
Karl’s beautiful wife and mother to my goddaughter. We’re at a park, just us
girls, when I casually ask, “Are you back to work yet?”

As Emily’s too young to
actually enjoy any of the play equipment, we’re hanging out with her on a
blanket. Moira hands a toy over. “Just one mission so far.”

A sad look crosses her face.
She’s a good mom, devoted to her adorable daughter, and hates being away from
Emily for more than ten minutes at a time. “Must make it nice that you have
such good friends to lean on in the Guard.”

“Oh, definitely.” Emily lets
out a loud coo, grabbing her mom’s attention.

I try again. “How are things
with the Guard? Everything okay there?”

She picks Emily up and blows
raspberries on her tummy. “Runs like clockwork. Sometimes I wonder if they even
miss me when I’m gone.”

Perfect
lead-in. But just as I’m about to ask about Kellan’s absence, her cell phone
rings; ironically, it’s the Guard, and before I know it, she’s off, leaving
Emily and me to finish our playdate alone.

Since striking out with
Moira, I’ve resorted to eavesdropping. As luck would have it, Karl is over,
questioning Jonah about just the thing I want to know. I’m far enough away that
I can’t feel the pull towards him; hopefully he can’t sense my emotions at such
a distance, either.

“If you know something, you
need to tell us,” Karl is saying. They’re in Jonah’s apartment, and I am in my
bedroom on the other side of mine, so despite the wide-open wall between the
two, their words are soft and hard to grasp. I have to fight to hold onto them.

I slide down and sit to the
side of my open bedroom door. A small listening device complete with headphones
materializes in my hands. It’s wrong, I know it’s wrong, but desperate times
call for desperate measures.

I just need to know Kellan’s
okay. And there’s no way I’m asking Jonah outright. I think he’s still hurt
from what may or may not have happened between Kellan and I last spring. Jonah
and I had, well, not broken up, and not really fought, per se, but we’d been in
a bad place after I’d caught him kissing his ex-girlfriend (which he maintains
was a goodbye kiss). And by bad place, I mean I’d basically fallen apart like
some nutjob whack-a-doodle and ended up leaning heavily on Kellan after running
away to Annar. Kellan and I found ourselves in bed together after drinking
heavily at a Guard party, and while I can’t say for sure nothing serious
happened between us, neither of us could verify it.

“Tell me,” Jonah is saying,
“are you here as his friend or as an official Guard representative?”

“What if I say both?”

There is a protracted
silence, which prompts me to peek around the corner. Unfortunately, neither guy
is within eyeshot of the doorway I’d created between our apartments.

Jonah finally says, “I
happen to know Kellan’s faithfully checked in with Guard brass once a week, as
agreed upon. He’s completed every mission he’s been assigned in the field and
sent back paperwork on time. So far, I don’t see what the problem is.”

“Jens wants him back in
Annar.”

Jens Belladonna. The head of
the Guard. We’ve yet to meet, although I’ve heard plenty of stories about him
so far. Apparently, he’s a ballbuster.

“Then Jens can tell him that
during one of their assigned talks. I’m not my brother’s keeper, you know.”
Jonah is clearly annoyed.

“I don’t want to overstep my
place—”

“Then don’t,” Jonah
counters.

But Karl keeps on going.
“But I think it’s time Kellan came back, too. He hasn’t done himself any favors
by staying away so long. No Guard has ever done that before. And Jens’ patience
is wearing thin, despite Zthane’s influence. Being a second tier Council
member’s twin brother can only carry Kellan so far.”