“If she told you that, she’d be lying.” Kai scratched the end of her nose. “I said it was a bad idea, but—”
The wind moved at their feet, Kai’s long hair whipping at her back. Rynn stormed over to her. “Are you not an elemental? If you believed it was a bad idea, then you should have prevented it!”
Lightning flashed in Kai’s eyes and heat flared at Jade’s side as Aidan moved toward Rynn. But then, Isla stepped in.
“Is that your solution to everything? Force me into doing whateveryouthink is best?” The venom in Isla’s words shocked Jade. She had the impression it was not the first time Isla and Rynn were having this conversation. “What did you want Kai to do, drown me? Knock me unconscious and drag me back?”
He looked at her for a moment, his wind slowly dying down. He moved closer to her and put a finger to his temple. “No, of course not. But Isla, did you not realize how dangerous—”
Isla cut in. “I think I understand how dangerous all of this is, thank you. I made the decision, and I would do it a hundred times over if it meant finding my family.”
Jade had to admit, it was rather amusing watching Isla put him in his place. Isla turned on her heel and walked a few feet back to the stranger, who still leaned against the wall. The girl—Brielle—reached out and threaded her fingers through Isla’s, squeezed, and then let go.
Isla gave a summary of what happened during her time with the king, her words clipped in annoyance. It was nothing new, in Jade’s opinion. The king wanted Isla to find the dagger for him and took her brother and father as collateral, exactly as he had threatened. Rather predictable. It seemed to have been a pointless meeting, probably a way for him to get closer to Isla. Jade still believed he was infatuated with the human.
“So now I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Isla said. “I know you all want to use the dagger against him, but I can’t let him kill my family. And that’s what he’ll do if I don’t give him what he wants.”
“We arenotgiving him the dagger,” Jade cut in.
“I tried that already,” Kai sighed.
Isla glared at Jade. “You’re okay with letting my father and brother die, then?”
Her words stung. “Isla, that’s not what I’m suggesting.” Jade closed her eyes to run through possible scenarios in her mind. “First of all, we need to get that dagger. Once we have it, we can track the king down or lure him to us somehow and get your family out of harm’s way. If you trick him into thinking you’re going to give it to him, we can attack at the last moment, when he least expects it. He believes he has you cornered and that you’d never risk anything that would endanger your family. He won’t suspect it.”
“Iwon’trisk anything that would endanger them,” Isla responded hotly, then held her hand up before anyone else could speak. “Look, we can’t talk about this so openly. He knew our ideas. He could be listening in at any point. We have to be careful, or we won’t be able to make a move against him at all.”
Nobody spoke for a few heartbeats, the idea of the king being present at that very moment seeming to chill the air. Aidan broke the silence a moment later. “Who is this lovely friend you’ve brought?” He motioned to Brielle.
“We were on our way back here in the middle of the night when this one,” Kai said as she pointed her thumb to Brielle, “showed up. My compulsion had worn off and she caught up to us. She refused to take no for an answer.”
Jade huffed out a breath. “Look, I understand your concern for your friend,” she said, gesturing between Isla and Brielle. “But you need to go back home. You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, girl, and you’re going to get hurt.” Jade could not stand the thought of putting any more humans at risk for them.
Brielle’s eyes simmered, and she spoke for the first time since introducing herself. “I don’t know who you’re calling ‘girl,’ but you need to get off your high horse. I’m not going anywhere.”
Jade’s eyebrows rose.
Aidan chuckled. “Can we keep this one?”
“What’s going on here, anyway?” Brielle asked. “You kidnap my best friend and three weeks later, she has stitches down half her face and is talking about people havingmagical powers? And no more ‘we’ll talk about this later,’” she snapped at Isla, who promptly closed her mouth. “You haven’t told me a single thing except that we’re safe up here, and then we slept in a cave. What’s with that, anyway? Do you live in the mountains now?”
For someone who had been still and silent for so long, the girl could talk.
Aidan sauntered over to Brielle and held out his hand. “I can clear some of that up for you. My name is Aidan. This is Rynn, Kai, and that angry one over there is Jade.” Aidan winked at Jade. “We each have power over a different element of nature. Mine is fire,” he said, sending a smattering of flames up his arm as Brielle tentatively shook his hand, and she jumped back with a yelp.
“As for the sleeping arrangements,” he continued, “It was better to live in the mountains away from people in case King Sebastian—who, by the way, can manipulate minds—took control of our powers again and caused us to destroy nearby villages,” Aidan finished casually.
Brielle’s mouth hung slightly ajar.
Kai smacked Aidan on the shoulder. “What iswrongwith you?”
Aidan shrugged. “She has fire, I can sense it. And she’s obviously not going anywhere. I say we let her stay.”
The girl blinked. “You people are crazy.”
“On that note,” Kai interjected, her normally bright voice turned low with worry. Jade eyed her suspiciously. “There’s something else that happened when we were in Lockhurt.” Kai walked over to her and Aidan’s bed of blankets and carefully lifted an ancient, wooden box. Moving back to the center of the cave, she placed it onto an old barrel.
Jade crept closer, her heart thudding wildly as she took in the symbol on the front. A mountain with two arrows striking at the center. “What is the crest of Iona doing on this?” she asked sharply, fingering the faded shapes.
