“Bye now.” With a flutter of his fingers, Franco leaps to his feet and shifts back into his raven form. But not before he kicks out against two of the levers on the control panel. The rifles fire just as the boat’s momentum is thrust back by the sudden loss of power, making the soldiers’ aim go wild. Several bullets strike the boat’s controls.
The man with the knife loses balance and releases Amelie from his grip.
I reach for her, pulling her close to my side as I unleash my flame, letting it shoot out in every direction from my core, lashing the guards in a fiery inferno. Flames erupt from my skin, and it’s an effort to keep them from scalding my sister. Screams roar along with my growing fire, and I charge the nearest guard, who spins in a circle, desperately trying to beat the flames from devouring his uniform. Lifting my knee, I aim a kick at his gut, sending him curling inward. I shove him to the side and pull Amelie forward as we rush to the edge of the boat. With every step I take, I leave fire in my wake, coating the floor of the boat, raging up soldier’s legs. I hear splashes as soldiers jump from the other side. I exchange a glance at Amelie. She nods, knowing what must be done.
Squeezing each other’s hands, we take a deep breath and jump.
* * *
Waves pullme under at once, swallowing me into a world of cold and darkness. Sound is muted in my ears while pressure builds in my head, my lungs. I open my eyes, feeling the sting of salt as I struggle to orient myself in the raging current. Spreading my arms, I realize with horror that Amelie’s hand is no longer in mine. I whirl one way then the other, my movements painfully slow, but I see no sign of her. All I see is dark water with no indication which way is up or down.
Panic seizes me as my lungs constrict, the last of the air being pressed from my lungs.
This is the end. This is it. I’ll drown in the one element I was never able to master.
My movements go still. Not with fear; with realization.
The elements.
I may be under water, but the other elements aren’t lost to me.
My first need is air. I imagine a pocket of air, forming from the oxygen molecules that help make up water. I envision it growing into an enormous bubble, one large enough for me to swallow a lungful of breath. I can feel it. It’s so close.
But why can’t I see it?
Pain sears my chest. I won’t make it much longer. I need to breathe.
I close my eyes, thinking of Minuette, the wind that constantly writhes around her. I imagine the feel of a breeze against my human skin, then rustling my fox fur as I run through the windblown forest. I focus on what the air element represents. Thought. Imagination. Innovation. I know air. Iknowit.
With calm certainty, I open my eyes.
Then I see it. A shimmering bubble of air unlike any ordinary bubble I’ve ever seen. It’s enormous and round, maintaining its shape as if it were a solid thing, not one composed of air. It floats slowly through the black water, just feet from where I am. Jolting into motion, I kick out my legs, pull my arms, swimming toward the bubble. My vision fades with every inch I close between myself and the air I so desperately need, and I fear I’ll lose consciousness before I reach it. Still, I keep going, focusing on my connection to the element of air, imagining it filling my lungs long before it truly does.
Then finally it’s there. My lips press against the bubble, and I suck in an enormous breath. My chest still aches, but at least I’ve given myself more time.
Now how to reach the surface?
I immediately know the answer, and it surrounds me like a shroud. Water. I must connect to the element of water. Work with it. Make friends with it.
Face it.
I already know what it will bring, but I have no other choice. Closing my eyes, I allow myself to feel the icy sea against my skin, taste the salt on my lips, feel its pressure squeezing me at all sides.
Then I open myself to it, using all my will to take it to the Twelfth Court.
There I fall into a chasm of grief.
31
Abullet. Blood. Death.
I’m back in the courtroom where Mother’s death plays out before me. The violet haze of the Twelfth Court does nothing to take from the pain of this memory, and the emotions that accompany it swallow me whole. Pain and regret. Guilt and shame. Sorrow. Sorrow. Endless sorrow.
I want to open my mouth and wail, but a small part of me remembers where I truly am, knows what will happen if water rushes in through my lips.
My next instinct is to pull away, swallow the painful emotions or burn them with my fire. I can do neither of those things, for my fire is tempered by the water around me, and the only way out of this is through it. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.
Mother’s death plays again and again. I watch the life leave her eyes as a bullet strikes her forehead. Blood streams down her face, filling the tub she’s kept in. She sinks lifeless into the crimson water, the color bright against the violet haze that falls over everything else.
