Rob was the first to shake his head. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“No, you were too busy trying to out-alpha him,” Clay said. Rob flipped him off.
“Now that I think about it,” Bryan jumped in. “I didn’t feel earth in him either.”
We all turned to Leo, who blinked at us as he scratched his head. “How can he be a quad if none of us felt our element in him?”
Good question.
Now I understood why Clay insisted on being on the field.
We all said our good-byes and headed in opposite directions to get to our next class. Turned out, Ancient Divination was as boring as it sounded. I doodled on my folder the entire hour. As I left the classroom, I still had no idea what the class was about and made a point to ask Professor Layden to switch me back to Elemental History and drop this one. Having Clay in class with me would make it tolerable.
The fact the guys couldn’t feel any elements when they shook hands with Spencer weighed on me. How’d he get to this point in his life—in his famous career—without any powers? There had to be more to it, and I planned to find out what that more was in today’s training.
The guys were out on yet another extraction during lunch, so I grabbed a burger and ate it in glorious solitude by hiding out in the ruins. My reasons were twofold. First, I didn’t feel like being social. Or nice. Second, I wanted to talk to Cressida, which I realized now totally contradicted the first reason.
Cressida’s presence was always strongest here inside this structure. They’d built the stone watch tower on the edge of a cliff overlooking the water to spot enemies closing in before it was too late. Although the other original structures had nothing left but the foundation, this one remained partially standing. After Alec had trapped a group of us inside it last year and collapsed the roof, several earth elementals got together and repaired it, me included. With it now fully enclosed, it was almost pitch-black inside. I hated the dark, especially in this place, so I gently called light, just enough to make my hands glow a faint white.
“Things aren’t always as they appear,” I repeated the message from before and took a seat on one of the large square stones that used to be part of the wall. “I thought that applied to Professor Layden and her assigning the wrong primary to a student, but now I wonder if you meant that for Spencer. How can he be this famous quad if he has no powers?”
The wind kicked up, blowing loose leaves and dirt around. She definitely didn’t like my conclusion. Or maybe she didn’t like Spencer. “The guys didn’t feel any of his elements. Not one. Now that I think about it, I didn’t sense his primary like I did with the others at their tribunals. No one is that good at concealing their powers, are they? I guess we’ll find out today when we’re on the field.”
I stared at the way my hands glowed and played around with increasing and decreasing the strength of my call, which brightened and dimmed the light. If I wanted to be at full strength for today’s training, I needed to kill my call and let it recharge, so I did and stood, not wanting to be here in total darkness. “Good talk.”
A rock shifted as I made my way to the entrance, blocking me from leaving. “Was there something you wanted to say?” The breeze whirled around me, so I moved deeper inside. Talking to Cressida was worth spending a little bit longer in the dark. “What is it?” A gust of air hit me, surprising me and knocking me back. “What was that for?”
Another burst of air slammed into me, and I fell onto a large stone. As soon as I sat, the wind died. “You could have just asked me to stay.”
Open your eyes.
Ugh, not this again. “Cressida, I already know you can materialize, so if you want to tell me something, just come out instead of smacking me around with one of your elements.”
The rock shifted, turning me to face the wall. I stood and crossed the room to rest my hand against the cool stone. As soon as I did, I felt a presence behind me and turned.
Cressida Clearwater appeared before me in her long, flowing robes. “Katy.”
“Hi, Cressida.” Every time I saw her, I stared. I stared at chestnut hair and beautiful hazel eyes. I stared at flawless skin. I stared at how much she looked just like my mother.
“Hello, Katy.”
It still got to me whenever she manifested, this woman from the 1600s. The first supreme elemental. The only supreme elemental, in my opinion. “What’s with the wrath of wind?”
She smiled warmly, which made me miss my mom so badly, I could barely breathe. “I need you to listen to me very carefully. I can’t stay long. Things are not as they seem.”
“About Spencer? Professor Layden? What?”
“I don’t know.”
The air hardened in my lungs as the world tilted off its axis. Shock rocked through my body. How could she not know? Didn’t spirits have, like, a third eye or something? Weren’t they all-seeing and all that? “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t have all the answers.”
“But…but…but…” Jesus, I sounded like a car backfiring and shook my head to get my brain to reconnect. “How do you know things aren’t as they seem, then?”
“I sense it.” She traced the ruins with her gaze and sighed. The wind reacted by whirling around us, sending the leaves spiraling. “The elements are restless, out of balance.”
“You sound like Bryan.”
“He hasn’t visited with me in a while.”
“He’s been busy,” I defended, making a mental note to ask him about it.
