Then, to everyone’s surprise—including Brooks’s—the stubborn kid rose once again. When he brought up his hands, signaling he was ready for more, I silently pleaded with Brooks to take it easy on him. Trevor had already gone through enough torture.
Brooks hurled a fireball. It slammed into Trevor’s chest and caught what was left of his blazer on fire. He called earth, but nothing happened. I felt the pull of the element, felt it resisting his summons, and I knew. I didn’t want to believe it, but the damning proof was right there. Trevor glanced around, then at his hands, then at Brooks, then finally at me. He lowered his hands as his expression went limp.
“Why won’t my element come to me?” he whimpered, his attention on me.
My God. Oh my God. The truth gutted me. Trevor Carson, president of my elemental fan club and probably the most annoyingly innocent, happy kid in the world, was magically enhanced.
I looked to Brooks, who nodded for me to join him on the field. I rushed to them, swallowing the lump in my throat and detaching myself from any sort of emotion. As a healer, I had to sometimes deliver bad news, like now.
And it sucked balls.
“Hey, buddy.” I forced a smile and squeezed his shoulders. The contact confirmed my suspicion. The earth element inside him wasn’t meant to be there, at least not yet. That was why he’d struggled so much in all his classes. He had magic in him, that much I felt, but a very weak earth call. It had been magically enhanced to strengthen it. I don’t know why I hadn’t picked up on it until now, probably due to him constantly annoying me. I was more focused on how to get the kid to shut up than whether or not he’d been magically enhanced.
He was an elemental, no doubt. Syd said the spells would only work on those with the power to control the elements already. But he was young, immature like his call. The element wasn’t ready to come to him, and he wasn’t ready to control it. Whoever the bastards were magically enhancing these kids didn’t care whether the elemental was ready to control the element. They didn’t care whether the element accepted the elemental and would obey the calls. They only cared about increasing the elemental population, and at the expense of innocent lives.
I hated dark elementals. So, so much.
“Did I win?”
I hardened myself against what I had to do and righted his glasses. “Do you remember when you asked me to protect you from the bad?” I waited for him to nod before continuing. “You trying to control earth right now is bad. It’s not natural. You…” I had to pause and swallow another lump in my throat. “You aren’t meant to be here yet.”
“But… You said to stay in school. Didn’t you mean it?”
He remembered what I wrote on his make-believe cast—it was really just gauze—and yet he couldn’t remember how many times he’d asked me if he’d won? Damn the dark elementals and what they’d done to scramble the poor kid’s brain.
“You’re going to go to a different school now, one for people like you.” I had no idea if they’d set up a school at Carcerem, but had to assume they would with so many students now there.
His eyes welled with tears. “A Nelem school?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s a school for elementals who aren’t quite ready to be at Clearwater.” I was such a liar and had no idea whether any of this made him feel better.
“When will I get to come back?”
I didn’t know the answer to that and regarded Brooks, who shook his head. Oh, hell no. Stace had said sending these kids to Carcerem was only temporary, that they’d be released once the spell wore off. “Would you excuse me for a sec?”
I motioned for Brooks to follow me away from Trevor. Once we were out of earshot, I started in on him. “The elementals being sent away are coming back, aren’t they?” When he didn’t answer and only studied me with those steely eyes, his square jaw set, his lips sealed, I asked again, “Aren’t they?”
“It’s doubtful.”
“What do you mean doubtful? Stace said once the spells wear off, they’ll be released.”
“That’s not her call.”
“Whose call is it?”
“Stephens’s. He’s the head of the Council and has the final say. He thinks being magically enhanced is the first step to going dark, that locking up all these kids before they can grow up and turn against the Council is a preemptive measure. I don’t think he has any intention of releasing them. Ever.” He ground out a sigh and glanced over at Trevor. “Poor kid. He was real brave out there today, braver than a lot of the non-enhanced. He doesn’t deserve this.”
“None of them do.” I left that hanging between us and returned to Trevor, my heart in my throat. I had to find a way to stop this, had to convince Stephens being magically enhanced didn’t mean the elemental was going to turn dark. But first, I had to send another kid away. I made a silent promise to free him as soon as I could. I’d free them all. “Hey, buddy. Ready to go?”
“Am I really going to a new school? Will you come visit me?”
Jebus, this kid shredded my heart. “I’ll visit.”
“Promise?” His voice was so strained, it barely came out as more than a whimper. He was scared to death. I saw it in his eyes. He sniffed hard. “Katy?”
“Yeah, buddy?”
“I don’t want to leave Clearwater. Do I really have to?”
I glanced back at Brooks, whose shoulders dropped as he turned away.
“You really have to.” I sucked in a breath to regroup as two Council members approached, flanking him. I blinked back the burn behind my eyes. “Now, will you go with them? For me?”
He
