Turning Tides (17 page)

Lacking any other options, I did as she told me. I sat at the kitchen island and ate my sandwich.

The clock on the stove said she’d been gone ten minutes, but I was fairly certain I’d been sitting in the kitchen for hours, waiting to hear a council member accuse my grandmother of doing exactly what she was doing.

Even if the potion worked, it needed to put the council members to sleep simultaneously, before anyone became suspicious. There was no way four different people would drink their tea at the same rate. Someone would down it as soon as it was poured. Someone else would let it cool.

This was a horrible plan. Absolutely awful. Any moment now, Grams was going to step through the kitchen door and tell me it was a valiant effort, but the council had decided our entire family had gone off the deep end and would be tried as a group.

Instead, when she stepped back through the pantry door, she was still humming. “Works every time. Bless that handsome young herbalist with a preference for well-preserved blonds. You’ll have about an hour, though I’ve seen it wear off in half that time with the more stubborn full-blooded elementals. I’m going to wash out this pot and stay here, just in case that whole plausible deniability thing becomes an issue.”

“Thirty minutes is all I need. By the way, how long has that shortcut been part of the house?”

She looked flummoxed by the question. “Always, of course. What’s the point in building your own home if you don’t add a secret passageway or two?”

She had a point. “I like it. Thanks, Grams.” I took a second on my way out to kiss her cheek.

The house wasn’t quiet, not entirely. I could hear quiet snuffles and snores from the sleeping elementals in the library. I risked a peek into the room. Lydia was sound asleep in an armchair, while Michael and Deborah were on the love seat, his head on her shoulder. Rachel never even made it to a chair. She was curled up on the area rug, knees tucked into the fetal position. She almost looked sweet.

I wasn’t ready to trust the thirty minutes Grams had promised—elemental metabolisms are far from reliable—so I ran upstairs and tore through Rachel’s room as quickly as I could.

It took longer than I expected, because after I tore through one section of the room, I had to put everything back where I found it to keep my presence a secret. If police searches were conducted by neat freaks, it would look very similar to what I was doing.

I lifted her mattress and checked under the bed. When that turned up nothing, I lifted the sheets and rugs. I picked up stacks of folded clothes, looking for hidden items in all the drawers, then looked between each item of clothing. I ran my hands over the linings of Rachel’s suitcases. I even poked my head out the windows, in case an enterprising council member had duct taped a vial of the drug to the shutters.

Fifteen minutes were already gone, and I hadn’t found a thing.

I couldn’t afford to panic, not yet. I was missing something, that was all. I spun in a slow circle, relaxing my eyes and trying to see the room for the first time.

On the second rotation, I lowered my eyes to the floor, and I saw it. The air vents. I dropped to my knees and peered through the slats. I saw nothing, but I needed to be sure.

Twenty minutes had passed now. I grabbed a nail file from the bathroom and inserted the flat end into the screws holding the vent in place.

My nerves were frayed, and I dropped the nail file twice, but eventually the screws loosened and sprang free. With careful hands, I pried the vent from the wall and checked inside.

It was empty.

I sat back on my heels, defeated. If the drug was on the island, it wasn’t in Rachel’s room. Maybe they hid it elsewhere in the house, but my gut knew that wasn’t true. They’d never leave such an incendiary item where anyone might stumble upon it.

It was on their person, damn it. I’d just wasted Grams’ potion searching the house when I should have been frisking the people.

“Looking for something, Ms. Brook?”

I spun, dropping the air vent cover. It clattered to the floor. I raised my eyes to find Rachel Strait standing in the doorway, looking at me like something she’d scrape off her shoe.

Chapter 17

I rose to my feet
as slowly as possible, buying time to think of an explanation for my presence in Rachel’s room.

Rachel fought a yawn, and her lids remained heavy. Grams’ potion had worked, just not long enough. I imagined Rachel was the sort of woman who’d fight against drugs on principle, refusing to let anything else control her. She’s probably been struggling to rise from the moment she fell into a Grams-induced slumber.

“Grams said she was having problems with her air conditioning. With August around the corner, I told her I’d have a look.” I smiled brightly. I probably would have been more convincing if I hadn’t been casting nervous glances over her shoulder as I spoke.

“Really? I hadn’t realized you were so capable.” She glanced at my hands, still clutching the nail file rather than a flat head screwdriver, and somehow managed not to laugh outright.

The irony was that I actually could fix the air conditioning if it was broken. I’d lived alone in a worn down farmhouse for a decade and been determined to avoid humans as much as possible. I ordered the entire
Time-Life
home improvement book series and eventually learned which end of a hammer to hold.

But Rachel knew none of that, and she clearly didn’t believe a word I was saying.

Of course, being drugged against her will was a good reason to be a bit suspicious.

“I didn’t mean to intrude. Grams said this was a good time, that you were napping in the library.” I met her gaze, my own more defiant than was probably wise.

She returned my stare. Hers was impressive, I had to admit. She had centuries on her side. I had a secretly pissed-off fire on mine. I thought we could call it a draw.

“Yes, napping,” she said. “I’m not sure I’ve done that since I was a child. It is surprising that, when the mood struck me again, centuries later, it did so at the same time it afflicted my fellow council members.”

She made no attempt to hide her scorn, and I saw little point in claiming innocence. It’s not like they could sentence me to a worse punishment than they already had planned.

“I put the drops in the teapot when Grams wasn’t looking. She had nothing to do with it.” Of course, she believed that lie when she scoffed at the idea that I was a secret handyman. As transparent as my face is, sometimes people still only see what they expect to see.

Rachel stepped into the room and examined her belongings, looking for evidence that I’d searched through them. She kept her back to me as she spoke. “Last I checked, elementals have no laws against forcing someone to sleep, though at the moment that seems like a gross oversight. Your crimes, however, have been established. Everyone on this island seems to forget you were already convicted, Ms. Brook, but I have not. Edith’s death delayed your sentence, but it will be delivered when the council reconvenes this evening. Please tell me you are not attempting to delay the trial.”

“Actually, I was looking for evidence that proved the council has lost their ever-loving minds.” I kept my voice mild.

Rachel’s eyebrows twitched toward each other. She possessed too much control to show surprise, but it was pretty damn close. “I’m not certain I know what you mean.”

“And I’m quite certain you do. How about this. We’ll flip a coin. If I win, you tell me where you’re keeping the medicine that would put me into a magic-deprived vegetative state. You really weren’t kidding about needing laws that forbid drugging other elementals, were you? And if you win, then I’ll rip this house apart until I find it, since it looks like I don’t need to worry about secrecy anymore. Those are your options, Rachel. You’re in my family’s house, on my family’s island, threatening one of their daughters with an unspeakable punishment. Perhaps you should recognize that your position isn’t as strong as you believe it is.”

Even as I accused her of threatening me, I did the same to her. The council’s power was formidable. It had been designed that way, to have the strength necessary to govern the water elementals. Six of the most powerful waters in the world could battle their way out of any potentially hostile environment.

Except there were only four now. Even with Deborah Rivers on their side, they were weakened. Or, to put it in slightly blunter terms, they were screwed, and Rachel knew it. Though color rose in her cheeks and her lips tightened, she didn’t argue with my assessment.

Instead, she reached one hand into the inside pocket of her jacket and withdrew a small black case. She placed it on the desk, several feet from me, and cracked it open. Ten syringes were tucked neatly into each side, for a total of twenty. They were all full.

“This is what you wanted.” Her voice had little inflection.

I didn’t glance at her. I couldn’t look away from those vials intended for me. “How was it going to work?” I asked. “I’ve seen the effects before. Without some sort of time release, each vial would only last a couple of days.”

“That’s all Edith intended. Three days per vial, for a total of two months’ punishment. She believed being banished wasn’t enough incentive against others committing your crimes. She wanted to make an example of you.”

The words confirmed my and Sera’s suspicions. Sometimes, it sucks to be right.

I still couldn’t take my eyes off the vials. I remembered how terrible my mother looked when she’d been drugged. For several days, she’d been, for all intents and purposes, in a coma, and that had only been one vial. There was no way of knowing what multiple vials would do. How week upon week without access to my magic would change me.

They’d planned to use me as their living experiment.

With that realization, the fire awoke.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I insisted, fighting for calm. “I understand what I did was problematic from the council’s perspective, but I don’t know if I’d have lived if I hadn’t tilted the lake. The evidence was immediately erased. Why is it so important to make an example for something that will never happen again?”

“It wasn’t the lake. Or the agents, for that matter. We’re aware the FBI knows about us. We’ve worked with them in the past.”

At last, I tore my eyes from the vials and looked at Rachel. “Then why?” She appeared pained, but she didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. “The shifters. This is about me being friends with shifters.”

“Edith wished to discourage more people from following your example. We are not the same, Ms. Brook. Though we were born from the same source, theirs was a corrupted form of that magic. We should not be friends with them any more than you would be friends with a pig or a rat.”

I’d rather be friends with a whole zoo full of rodents than think the way the old ones did, but I doubted such an argument would help my cause. “You keep saying Edith, as though she was the only one who believed this. You all knew what she had planned, and only one council member voted against it.”

“Edith believed it most firmly, yes, and she was quite persuasive. Now that she is no longer available, we will vote again.” I winced at the euphemism. Rachel pretended not to notice. “Perhaps the vote will be different this time.” Nothing in her voice suggested she believed her own words.

“Is this what you were arguing about downstairs?”

“The council’s business is its own, Ms. Brook. We do not answer to outsiders.”

“What else could it be? Is Lydia still trying to convince you? I know it’s her. The rest of you look through me. She’s the only one who seems to take her responsibility seriously.”

“Insult us if it makes you feel better, but it changes nothing.”

I’d known ices and stones more flexible than this woman. The discussion was over.

I could back out of this room and wait for my sentencing and Sera’s trial. Sera would be convicted, and just when I needed to help her, when I needed my magic the most, I’d get jabbed with one of these needles and be incapacitated. By the time I woke, my entire world would be broken. Sera would be dead or in hiding. I couldn’t even imagine how Mac would be affected if he couldn’t feed on my magic.

There wasn’t a single part of that scenario I was okay with.

Rachel stepped back, leaving space for me to exit the room. I laughed at her. The fire joined in, turning incredulous laughter into something raw, ragged, and oddly joyful.

“All because you hate shifters this much. You would torture me, just to keep our races from mingling. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Every single one of you.”

She paled at the insult. “That’s enough.”

“I haven’t even begun. You’re making choices you have no right to make, creating barriers and rifts where none should exist. Do you have any idea how much shifters hate us?”

Rachel bristled. “After the recent events in Lake Tahoe, it is difficult to pretend otherwise. For centuries we have lived separately, never intermingling with their kind, but that is no longer the case. You and your friend involved yourselves in the affairs of shifters, and soon thereafter one of them made what amounted to a declaration of war. It does not matter that she failed. Her actions revealed the truth. Shifters no longer desire peace. It is time to remind our kind why we belong apart.”

“Is that supposed to prevent war or hasten it?”

She thinned her lips and refused to answer.

“It doesn’t matter. We keep heading the way we are and something’s going to give. I’ll tell you this, these days I see no reason to fight on the elementals’ side.”

I might as well have told her I was thinking of waging war on Canada. She couldn’t have been any more shocked. “How can you say that?”

“After everything I’ve learned today, after what you planned to do to me, how can I not? What reason have I been given to feel loyalty to elementals?”

As I spoke, I stared at the case full of syringes, still several feet away. I wasn’t faster than Rachel. I wasn’t a more powerful water. In every visible way, I was weaker.

Fortunately, I had a few invisible tricks up my sleeve.

“I don’t care what you had planned. It will not happen. You will never control me.” I paused between each word of the last sentence, letting the weight of my words build until they hung in the air, an overt challenge.

For the second time that day, I called to the fire. I encouraged it, grateful for its warmth and power, its hunger for destruction. It responded like an eager child, thrilled to be recognized at last.

All this time, I’d been wrong. The fire wasn’t the enemy.

The enemy stood in front of me.

The heat soared from me, arcing through the air toward the glass vials. I knew Rachel watched me, that she saw my gray eyes turn hard and dark, but I didn’t care. All my attention was on the vials. I stoked the fire, raising the temperature until it would burn everything it touched, then made it hotter still. It wrapped around each small tube, and it squeezed. The heat contorted the glass, forcing it to bend to its will until, one after the other, the syringes exploded in a shower of glass.

The contents fell to the ground and soaked into the rug.

There was no relief. I was safe, but my friends were not. There would never be peace between elementals and shifters so long as women like this fueled the hate. She was poison to us all.

Without the drug, I might be again facing only banishment, but Sera was about to receive a death sentence. I’d run out of time. Whoever the killer was, I wouldn’t find them before dusk.

The only way to prevent her death was to delay her trial. The only way to do that was to kill the woman before me.

The fire grinned. On this, we were in perfect agreement.

I thought even my water side might want to watch Rachel Strait burn.

“How are you doing that?” She stared at me, her eyes a mix of fear and wonder. “You can’t be…”

“Aidan? Aidan, are you still up here?”

The fire created tunnel vision. It always had, and it fought against the familiar voice trying to pull me from from that narrow, wonderful world where everything made sense.

“I just looked, and I didn’t see Rachel. Perhaps you should come downstairs. Oh. Oh my.”

My grandmother stood in the doorway, and I didn’t even think she saw the councilwoman. All her attention was on me, on the eyes I knew were far darker than they should be. On the intense expression no water ever wore. On the fire sparking from my fingertips. “Oh, dear,” she said, and ran.

Somewhere, I knew my life had just taken a most unwelcome turn. I should run as fast as I could to the cottage and grab Sera. We would break a window and jump into the ocean and start swimming, and we wouldn’t stop until we reached Japan. It was a more sensible plan than staying here while Grams told the whole island what I was, and then waiting for death to find me.

Maybe I would have done that. Maybe sense would have ruled the day, if Rachel hadn’t tried to flee along with my grandmother. That, I could not allow.

I lit the doorway on fire, trapping her in the room.

She turned to me with wide eyes, but she was still a full-blooded water. She might be terrified, but she would fight. She extinguished the fire, and the one I set after that, and the next one. Soon, I was sending hundreds of flames toward her, small bullets of fire. She put them all out. Minutes passed as we engaged in this dance, and my anger only sharpened and focused. She would not win.

She had wet her clothes and hair, so there was no way to set her on fire. Not her outsides, at least. I felt it then, the smile pulling at my lips, the maniacal glee infusing my body and possibly my soul. If I couldn’t set her outsides on fire, well, there were always the insides.

I knew how the body was formed. I understood how the organs worked together, how the heart pumped blood and the lungs filled with air. I’d had the same lessons in healing as the rest of my family, but I had no recollection of any Hippocratic oath. My knowledge could heal, but it could also destroy, and this time I was picking the second option.

I stretched the magic toward Rachel, sent it crashing through the layers of her skin. I pushed the fire toward her heart and lungs. I let it grab onto the blood vessels and the bone, and I took one long second to find joy in its power. In my power.