I tested the crystal’s power of invisibility and took a step toward the ruins. Neither Council member noticed me. I took another step, then another. Weak 1 and Weak 2 were busy chatting it up about Graves being the master of the universe and how he should be knighted or some bullshit. I stopped listening when they both declared him the only Council head who’d done anything for our world. Albert Stephens wasn’t my biggest fan, nor me his, but he was a hell of a lot better than Virgil Graves. Granted, the prior Council head had been unceremoniously and quite brutally murdered at a celebration he’d insisted on holding, and by the very person the party was celebrating, which said something about his judgment of character, but I stood by my opinion. I’d take Stephens over Graves any day that ended in Y.
Weak 1 and Weak 2 still carried on about something I’d lost interest in. I stopped and faced them, waving my arms above my head. Nothing. Well, fine. I’d take it. I hurried across the wet grass, so by the time I’d reached the half-fallen stone structure, my shoes were soaked, my feet sloshing inside them. I really wished I’d worn my boots. At least they were waterproof.
I stepped inside the ruins and glanced around. It hadn’t changed much in the few weeks since I’d last visited Cressida, at least from what I could see in the darkness. The roof we’d replaced had held, keeping the inside of the building dry. It did nothing to keep in any heat, but that made sense since the rock wall facing the cliff overlooking the ocean was more like a window. Giant square stones that used to make up parts of the outer shell were now embedded into the ground, providing makeshift seating.
“Cressida?” I whispered and glanced over my shoulder. The Council members were still standing there, stilling talking, still not paying any attention. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. With patrols like theirs, the school didn’t stand a chance.
“Cressida?” I whispered more fiercely, unsure if the invisibility charm worked on my voice as well. “Please come to me. I really need to talk to you. I’m already opening my eyes. Please. I don’t have much time.”
Silence answered me. Didn’t she know the stakes? How could she choose a time like this to ignore me?
“This is literally a matter of life and death,” I went on, my irritation edging higher. “I need to know how you sent word to all the other elementals to join you here on the island.”
Open your eyes.
I wanted to scream every freakin’ time she planted that message in my subconscious. Each time, it meant something different.
That thought stopped me.
It wasn’t the message that meant something different. It was my interpretation. Every turn I made, that message smacked me upside the head. Why? Why constantly repeat it? What was I missing?
I waited for over twenty minutes, begging Cressida to appear, and received silence as my reply. Finally, accepting defeat, I turned to leave. “Thanks for nothing.”
Open your eyes.
“Dammit, Cressida!” I shouted as I whipped around, shaking my fists in the air. “Why can’t you ever just tell me what you’re talking about? Why do you always talk to me like I have to solve a puzzle to get to the answer?”
“Who’s there?”
Oh, shit.
Apparently, the crystal’s charm didn’t transfer to my voice. Good to know.
And fuck a bunch of fuckers for giving up my position like a dumbass.
“Cressida, if you are here, now would be a good time to create a distraction.” Especially now that the two Council members had started to walk this way.
“What the hell are you two doing just standing around?”
I sucked in a breath. I knew that gruff, growly voice. I peeked around the wall to see Rob Emmett, my beautiful hotheaded hottie of a fire elemental, storming up to Weak 1 and Weak 2, Leo on his heels.
Rob towered over them both and used every inch to intimidate them as he stood up as straight as possible before puffing out his chest. “I asked you a question.”
“Ease up, Emmett. You may be Graves’s new favorite thanks to your relationship with his daughter, but you’re still the new kid on the block around here.”
Relationship? Did he say relationship? With Vanessa? Oh, hell to infinity no.
Rob took Weak 1’s statement as a challenge, of course, and practically bumped his chest against him. Weak 1 wisely backed down, but that didn’t stop Rob from pushing it one step further. “Well, Blanchett, this new kid on the block runs the patrol here at the academy, so when I ask you a question, I expect you to answer.”
“We were just taking a break,” Weak 2 answered.
“Break’s over. Now, take your asses to the other side of campus. The leechers are out looking for a snack. Get them back into their dorm.”
“I hate those guys. Come on, Blanchett.”
“Yeah, fine.” Blanchett—the taller of the two—spit at Rob’s feet. “Watch your back. You won’t be teacher’s pet forever.” With that, he and Weak 2 walked away, disappearing into the darkness.
It took every ounce of restraint I had not to remove the crystal and reveal myself to them, missing them so much, it hurt to breathe. Rob, with his thick five-o’clock shadow, broad shoulders, and need for control. He had an air of authority about him I missed desperately.
And Leo. My easygoing, blue-eyed water elemental with golden curls that never behaved. I could really use his calming influence right about now.
I was just about to create the gateway back to the coven when Rob’s comment froze me in my tracks.
“I swear it was Cressida Clearwater. She told me to get to the ruins. We get here, and I swear I hear Reed’s voice.”
“Maybe you just wanted to believe it was her. It doesn’t look like
