Of Breakable Things (29 page)

March 1867

Your dreams have been odd, Sephi. I know you don’t like it when I visit them, but being here I think of you constantly. Rocks, sand, and soil? What are you looking for? Are you thinking of Paradise, too? I do think our connection is something neither of us can control. Why else would our minds be so open to one another?

Don’t worry about my confusion. I just need to exercise my mind a bit more. I wish I had an ancestry to guide me.

I tried to get some answers from the Darwins and DeLyres since they both have such substantial history here, but the card game last night was a debacle. I knew it wasn’t a good idea for Ben DeLyre to invite his brother, Leo. The boy is more of a nob than anyone I’ve ever encountered. Technically, it isn’t cheating when I toss my cards under the table. If no one else notices, I believe it is their fault, not mine. Leo caught on towards the end of the night and began a tirade about morality. Gave me quite the headache.

Leo DeLyre asked about you several times. I think you have an admirer.

Eviar

***

Ellington couldn’t stop beaming. Ardor Westfall had seemed impressed with his findings. He struggled to steady himself on the bumpy path back through the trees, precariously balancing a stack of thick folders stuffed with his uncle’s precious records.

“Ellington!” He heard her voice and his heart skipped a beat. For a moment, he thought it was
her
, but he should have known better. Of course it was only Alex. Why was she awake so early?

“Ellington!” she bellowed again.

Without slowing his speed, he peeked over his shoulder. She was right behind him. There was no escaping. He tried to sound jovial. “Alex, hello! How are you?”

“I’m fine! What are you doing? Why were our last few sessions cancelled? Not that I’m complaining. No offense.” She quickly held up a hand. “You know I hate therapy.”

“Oh!” He did his best to hide the folders in his arms. He’d exited through the back door in order to avoid seeing anyone. “I’ve been asked to do a bit of research, I’m afraid. It isn’t usually my responsibility, but the mission falls under my area of expertise.”

“What are you researching?” Alex asked breathlessly.

“Oh,” Ellington said with a start. “Um … ”
Not your mother
, he almost blurted out. He’d been skirting around Alex’s questions about Erin since the poor girl arrived here. How do you tell a child that her mother was hunted like an outlaw with a price on her head?

“What is it? Paradise?”

This girl was behaving more and more like her mother every day. How did she hear about that?

“Er … why?”

“I read about it.” She shrugged. “And it’s written there on your folders.”

Ellington shifted the folders, but it was no use hiding the labels now. “I have been asked to take a look at it, yes.”

Alex’s eyes lit up. “It’s a city, right?”

She sounded so hopeful, and Ellington wondered why. She should be terrified of Paradise. “Not quite.”

“Oh. What is it, then?”

Drat
, thought Ellington. How was he going to get out of this one? For a second he considered running away like a scared child. He adjusted his folders and sighed. He could give her pieces of the truth. He would just have to sieve it a bit. “I suppose people call it a city, but spirits do not make the choice to live there.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Paradise is a prison.” He absorbed Alex’s shocked expression. “My uncle Crete Reynes was also a psychologist, and often he traveled to Paradise to help the inmates. The prisoners tend to be rather extraordinary spirits, but they don’t really have it all together up here.” He pointed to his head. “Paradise is a place for them to get help and repent their actions.”

“A prison?” Alex began to fumble with the strings on her sweater. “Did you by chance ever know of anyone named Eviar?”

Ellington noticed relief on Alex’s face when he shook his head. “No, I’ve never heard that name before.”

“Oh,” Alex said slowly. “So, why are people suddenly interested in Paradise?”

He let out a little laugh. “No one is interested. Why would you think that?”

“Because you told me. Just now. You’ve been asked to research it.”

Darn my big mouth
, Ellington thought, perplexed. “Yes, I suppose I did.” He balanced the stack of folders in one hand and swiped at his glossy hair with another. If he were human, he’d be sweating bullets. He’d been given explicit instructions not to give Alex any information that would put her in harm’s way. Such things had led to her mother’s demise, so they’d chosen a different tactic for Alex. “The people who end up there are typically very talented. Often, their profiles are researched to see if they can be of some service. At one point, the government sent Van Hanlin and my uncle to evaluate the inmates for release to help with the war. Although they were useful to the city, they also secretly terrorized it with what they thought were harmless jokes. Pranks.”

He used the last word carefully, and she seemed to understand. “You think those inmates never went back to Paradise?” she asked.

“No, they certainly never went back. They were recruited to help fight during the Restructuring, but they were on the losing side of the battle. They were all killed.”

“So then what is there to research?”

“Other inmates. Pranks aren’t unusual in the city of Paradise. The inmates need something to do, and according to the guards, they channel their creativity into practical jokes and such.”

“You think some more were recently released?”

“According to the Patrol, no. But I’m looking into it.”

Alex nodded. “But you’ve never heard of someone
named
Eviar?”

Ellington wondered why she was so sure this was someone’s name. “No. Never.”

She nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Thank you for talking to me, Ellington.”

“No problem.” Ellington was very happy to end the conversation.

“Is your uncle still alive?”

“No, unfortunately he isn’t. His job was rather dangerous. He had to speak to those spirits, to counsel them. There was risk that he would uncover things that others wanted to keep a secret. He practically walked around with a bull’s-eye on his back.” Ellington turned to leave.

“If all those inmates are gone, why would he have been targeted?” she called after him.

“Why indeed,” he muttered.

June 1867

Dear Sephi,

I was too cowardly to admit to you earlier that I saw something in your thoughts, but something tells me that you already knew that. Were you aware that I was there in your mind?

I know you worry about my friends. I have to admit that at times I do, too. What they consider to be “harmless fun” is often not harmless at all. If I hadn’t intervened last week, there’s no telling how long that cluricaun would have been hanging from its ankles in the courtyard. No one likes a cluricaun, especially one that has been drinking, but regardless, the last thing this town needs is bad luck.

I don’t know why it has been so difficult to control myself recently. I regrettably admit that a part of me wants to lose control because it is then that I feel the most powerful. When I’m involved with Gideon’s hijinks, the nerves spark something within me. Could the plague of my temper, or my anxiety, my emotions, be what makes me so extraordinary?

***

“Why do you care so much?” Chase asked. “Just out of curiosity.”

Why
did
she care so much? It was a good question. The letters had nothing to do with Alex, but she felt addicted to them. And perhaps the letters were drawn to her as well. Sometimes she would go to sleep with the box tucked away in the corner, and she’d awaken in the middle of the night to find it halfway across the room, inching its way towards her.

Whoever Eviar was, his talents were unmatched. He could control things with his mind so well that it made Alex wonder if his magic had leaked out into his writing. In one letter, he explained how he had silently willed half the students in Duvall’s class to fall asleep mid-lecture and how hilarious it was to watch their heads drop like victims of the guillotine. Duvall had been infuriated.

He had not been successful, however, in forcing spirits to go completely against their will. For instance, he could not manage to make Professor Duvall stop glaring at him, or to get his friends to stop cabbaging—stealing—for sport, or to force his classmate and rival Leo DeLyre to make a fool of himself.

So, who was Eviar? She needed to know. Did he ever find his family? Did he and Sephi end up safe together?

“Are you ignoring me?” Chase asked.

Classes had finished for the day, and Alex tried not to gawk at Chase’s perfectly chiseled form sprawled out on her bed. His mind had forgotten to project him into a shirt. “I’m sorry. What did you say again?”

“Does it matter who this guy is? I’m just wondering why you’re so obsessed.”

“Obsessed?” Alex asked defensively.

“It’s just the idea that this kid violates minds, and people don’t even know it. It’s creepy. And he’s kind of an ass.”

“You of all people shouldn’t judge someone for being in another person’s head.”

Chase offered a crooked grin.

“Besides, he’s not making them do anything bad. It’s pretty funny. And you might be interested to know that he mentioned an interrogation at the Dual Tower, but he said they called it an interview.”

Chase perked up. “Really? Anything about colors or someone transcribing?”

“No, he went on and on about Paradise.”

“Like Adam and Eve Paradise?”

“No dummy, like an underground city Paradise. Well, detainment center Paradise. This Eviar guy wanted to find it to keep Sephi safe. He just didn’t know it wasn’t a real city.”

“Why would he need to do that?”

“Because for some reason he thought she was in danger. Her relatives were killed. Maybe she was a witch or something, because in one of the letters, he mentioned that hunters were tracking her.”

Chase adjusted the pillow under his head. “Toss me one.”

“What?”

“One of the letters. I want to see.”

“Seriously?”

He nodded. Alex eagerly searched for the box, which had been next to her bed but was now hiding underneath her desk. She crossed the room and ducked down to give the box a scolding look before extracting a letter. “Here.”

Chase sat up and the muscles in his arms rippled and settled like a wave.
Stop staring
, Alex told herself. Then she froze, wondering if he had heard her. When a playful grin spread across Chase’s face, their eyes met, and Alex knew she was busted.

“Stare away.”

Alex snatched a pillow and threw it at his face with a little too much force.

“Now you’re in trouble,” he said, scooping up the pillow.

Alex was already cornered. Chase had the pillow gripped tightly in his hands, blocking her from any escape. She tried to fake a cut to the right and leap to the left, but Chase shoved at the air around her, and the energy of it threw her flat on her face. Chase burst into laughter. Alex swiped violently at the space nearest to his ankles, satisfied when it pulled his feet from under him, and he fell backwards to the ground.

“Now who’s laughing?” Alex asked, but Chase spun over top of her, pinning her down and swiping the pillow across her face. The seams exploded and feathers flew into the air like birds freed from a cage.

“My pillow!” she cried.

He mimicked her in a squeaky voice. “My pillow!”

Alex pretended to scowl. “You are totally going to give me one of
your
pillows,” she ordered him.

“Oh, am I? Are you going to make me?” he said, inching toward the bed. He grabbed another pillow.

“Don’t you dare,” she growled.

“You’re much more fun now that you’re not a china doll anymore.”