“How would I be able to help? This is beyond my reach.”
Crap. I was afraid she’d say that.
“But not yours.”
I was afraid she’d say that too. I thrust my fingers through my hair. “I’m trying to reach more, but it’s taking too long. By the time we have enough to go up against the Council and all its blind followers, it’ll be too late. Isn’t there anything you can do? Something I’m not thinking of? Secret underground mole people? Or maybe mermaids with razor-sharp fins?”
Her head pulled back as her shoulders pushed forward. She turned away and stared out the opening toward the water, suddenly lost in her thoughts. Okay, maybe my examples took it too far. I wanted to scream at her to say something—patience was never one of my virtues—but I remained silent and waited.
She moved to the opening and folded her hands in front of her. “In my time, the great war that divided my world also separated us from nature.”
That made no sense. We literally had the power to call nature. “What do you mean?”
“Humans aren’t the only beings capable of controlling the elements. There are others like us, but not like us. Wanting no part of a war between the elementals, they were driven away when it broke out. Seek their help.”
“Are you talking about the leechers? Because if you are, they’re already here siding with the Council.” And I hated every last one of them. It was as if Spencer Dalton had seventy-five clones.
“She’s talking about legends,” Bryan explained. “The stuff in elemental nursery rhymes. My mom would read me the stories when I was a kid. It’s just myths and fairy tales.”
“And yet so many retell the exact story, describe the characters in the same manner. A yeti living in the woods, yet no one has ever captured him, as if he becomes one with the earth as soon as strangers are present. Air pixies traveling through the trees by leaping from leaf to leaf, leaving a trail of pixie dust often mistaken as mildew. For every element, there is a living, breathing creature that is one with it. The snow ghosts of the mountains. Air pixies of the rain forest. Yetis in the woods. Lava snakes in volcanos. Unite them, and you reunite our world. Only then will we truly be in balance.”
I tilted my head and waited for her to go on. When she didn’t, I tilted it the other way as I struggled to process the message. “Are you saying I need to recruit these legends to fight for our side? Why would they join the fight when you said they were driven away by the war in your time?”
“Our world is also their world.”
“And the Nelems’ world. And everyone else’s. Every living thing.”
“One world,” Bryan added.
“One world,” I repeated in agreement. We stared at each other, blinking as that sank in. “The Council and its dark followers aren’t just destroying our world by conjuring up these fake natural disasters. They’re destroying everyone’s world. If they succeed, the world as anyone—anything—knows it will be no more.”
And now I knew how I was going to convince the legends to join us.
“We need to go.” I reached for Bryan’s hand.
Cressida intercepted it by grasping my wrist, studying my palm. The lines around her mouth grew into a frown. “You’re warded.”
“We both are.” Bryan held up his hand to prove his point.
She glanced at his palm before dropping her attention back to mine. “Who did this?”
“An elder witch. It’s supposed to protect us. It also bonds us and gives us the ability to sense each other. According to her, we can borrow each other’s elements through the bond.”
“She’s right. You are connected now in every way.” Her frown deepened.
“Then why do you look like that’s bad news?”
“It’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” My heart skipped. “How?”
“There’s a reason why the others don’t have the power to call all the elements as you have. Their bodies were never meant to command that level of control.”
Bryan and I exchanged looks. He didn’t have to say anything. The worry tightening his expression matched the anxiety tightening my chest. If I called an element they couldn’t, like light, it could do serious damage. I returned my attention to Cressida. “What if we don’t tap into each other’s elements?”
“That won’t be possible. Every call will be felt. Every point of pleasure, and every point of pain.”
Shit and shinola. This was exactly what I’d feared. If one of us fell, we’d all fall. What if Spencer tried to steal the air from Leo’s lungs again? Would we all choke and collapse? We won our battles because we helped each other. When one fell, someone would pick that person back up. It was always five against one with us. Until now. “This makes us weaker as a unit, doesn’t it?”
“No. You’re protected. No elemental attack can harm any of you so long as you’re warded. Forbidden calls will always be a threat. I don’t know if the ward will protect you from those.”
“But they are always used with negative intent. That’s literally what the ward protects us from.”
She stilled and locked gazes with me. “Is that what she told you? That this ward protects from negative intent? Those exact words?”
Uh-oh. Why did I feel like I just screwed up by telling her that? Did I just get Renee in trouble? “Um…yes?”
“It’s only negative intent if the caller believes it to be negative.”
“I don’t understand.” Or maybe
