The man wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I think he’s one of them.”
“One of what?” I asked and knelt next to the kid. He was flat on his back, barely breathing, and had turned blue around the lips as if he couldn’t pull in any air. I recognized the signs and whipped around to the Council member. “Did you use a forbidden call on him?”
“What’s it to you?”
Was he kidding with that question?
“Katy, focus here. Use light, gently at first. Gauge how he reacts. Only increase your call if he’s nonresponsive.” Syd placed my hands on the kid’s chest. As soon as I touched him, his elements reached for me, begging me to heal them. He didn’t need light. He needed his primary. His water call was stronger than any of the others, so I pushed water to him. The element came up from the ground and elevated the young elemental on an aquatic bed.
“What are you doing?” the Council member asked. When I didn’t answer, he regarded Syd. “What the hell is she doing, healer?”
“I, uh… Katy?”
“She’s healing him using his primary instead of shorting out his powers using light.” Rob appeared, his dark hair wet with sweat. He’d ditched the black blazer—thank God—and had his sleeves rolled up as far as comfortably possible, revealing golden skin covering his muscled arms. “She did the same thing to me. It’s something Stace taught her.”
“Layden?” The Council member made a face and shook his head, knocking some of his comb-over loose. “That woman wouldn’t know her—”
“Be very careful what you say next,” I interrupted, one hand now squared in on him while the other remained on the kid. “I will remove your ability to speak, call any element, and quite possibly any chance of you reproducing if you say the wrong thing.”
He brought up his hands and stepped back. I glanced at Rob, who kicked his lips up into a grin. I love you, he mouthed. It was either that or olive juice. I went with my first choice.
The kid blinked his eyes open and looked around, holding his head. “What happened?”
Mr. Personality happened. I kept my comment to myself and instead said, “How are you feeling?”
“Like I have a sunburn.” He rubbed his chest. “And a really bad cold. I couldn’t breathe.”
I glared at the Council member. “He’s water.”
“How was I supposed to know he couldn’t handle a little fire?”
I motioned at the blue blazer on the student. “First clue, asshat. He lives in Aquae.”
“Katy,” Syd warned. “It’s not our job to question the Council.”
Wanna bet? Saying something like that to me was only going to make me want to do it more. I helped the kid to his feet. When our hands touched, my palm immediately began to pulse. I didn’t have to see it to know it glowed. Something inside him beckoned to the darkness inside me, luring it to the surface like a siren song.
And I knew.
The Council member was right.
This kid was an enhanced elemental. I looked to Syd, who didn’t seem to pick up what I’d just picked up. I then turned to Rob, who picked up on it right away and dropped his shoulders, shaking his head. I didn’t even bother regarding the Council member, refusing to give him the satisfaction of being right.
After learning what would happen to an enhanced elemental once they’d been discovered, I wanted to scream for him to run away. Teleport out. Anything to disappear before the Council took him and locked him away for a crime he didn’t commit. This was wrong on so many levels. He was just an innocent kid.
“You’re going to be okay,” I said and looked him right in the eye, lying through my emotionless expression. As a healer, I had to detach myself, or I’d wind up attached to every one of my patients, which wouldn’t be good. This one was being taken to Carcerem, not permanently, but at least for now. I couldn’t let his future dictate my reaction.
He searched mine with wide eyes full of fear and uncertainty. “Did I pass?”
I had to turn away, unable to tell the kid the truth. I then regarded the Council member, who said in a gruff tone, “Yeah, kid. You definitely passed.”
5
“I got in trouble for not using light, if you can believe it.” I fell into the chair next to Leo, wanting to hang with my low-key water elemental over my flighty air elemental. I needed the downtime Leo brought. His blue blazer hung across the back of the chair, leaving him in his white dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves. He’d unbuttoned it a few, revealing a hint of his modest chest hair. It was a simple yet beautiful sight. He brought up his arm so I could lean in and rest my head against his shoulder.
I had to adjust several times to get comfortable, his contact making me overly warm, which didn’t make sense. Leo was usually cool to the touch. I wrote it off to me being hot enough for the both of us. “I’m not allowed to use light without permission, but when I know how to heal someone without using something that’ll short him out, I get my hand slapped.”
“Syd’s the healer, babe. Maybe you should listen to him. He had to stop you several times today before you took the field and got yourself killed by friendly fire.”
“You were there?”
“We had to be.”
“Clay wasn’t.”
He looked at me.
“Never mind.” I shook my head. Clay Williams rarely stuck around for anything serious. Clearly, tribunals fell into that category.
“Bryan only stayed a few hours before sneaking away to study for his alchemy exam. Clay popped back in to give a play-by-play of the battles closest to us, which was both amusing and disturbing.”
“Which was the disturbing part? The battles or Clay’s commentary?”
“Both.”
We laughed. He ran his hand up and down my
