“What I don’t understand is how it happened to begin with? You said you felt the Gate opening? How? Allyra isn’t Gifted, she shouldn’t even be able to open the Gate, never mind crossing the Veil into the Between.” Rob asked thoughtfully.
“I don’t know. But it did open. I felt it and us being here is proof of that – I mean – the Cleaners wouldn’t have shown up if she’d just fainted and hit her head.”
“I know – but it still doesn’t explain how she’s Gifted right? She was tested wasn’t she?” Rob persisted.
“Of course – at the Joining Ceremony, the year of her twelfth birthday, the same night Emma and I were tested.”
His brother was silent for a moment and Jamie could almost hear the cogs turning in his head. “Is it possible that someone made a mistake?”
“Come on Rob – you know this as well as I do.”
Rob smiled at him sunnily. “But I do so love hearing you say it…”
Jamie rolled his eyes at his brother, but obliged him nonetheless. It was worthwhile saying it out loud – the questions plagued him too. “It isn’t someone who performs the test. It’s the Source, from which we draw our Gifts, the thing that powers the Veil. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t make mistakes. Besides – Allyra hasn’t ever shown any sign of being Gifted. I would’ve known if she was – I would’ve felt it.”
Even as Jamie said the words, he knew them to be true. He’d never been surer of anything. He’d grown up with Allyra, spent his entire life with her. He knew her better than he knew his twin, or even himself. There was no way she would’ve been able to hide a secret of this magnitude from him. There was no way she would’ve wanted to.
“Didn’t you once tell me that she claimed to know the past? Couldn’t that be some sign of her being Gifted?”
Jamie hefted a deep breath. “Seriously? You know what being Gifted is – we have access to one of the four Elements, call on them, control them even. Does seeing the past sound anything like that?”
Jamie shook his head, he knew this argument well, he’d made the same points to Allyra just before she stormed off on her obsessive trip. “She’s just observant, maybe sensitive to what people are feeling and good at jumping to fairly accurate conclusions.”
“Very good at jumping to conclusions – she found the Baobab tree didn’t she? After we told her that Sam died in a car accident? How did she find the tree – how did she know?”
“I don’t know.” Jamie replied miserably. It was one thing that he didn’t understand – how Allyra had found her way to the place where Sam really died. She had been like an unerring compass or a hound on a scent – chasing down answers with an obsessiveness that scared him.
But he didn’t have time to consider it further.
The outline of a door appeared in one of the walls and solid rock slid aside noiselessly to show two Cleaners.
Jamie jumped to his feet while Rob got up at a much more leisurely pace. In their own way, the brothers prepared themselves for a fight. The result was surprisingly similar, tall and blond with just enough bulk to be menacing. But a fight was not on the cards, the Cleaners simply gestured for Jamie and Rob to follow them.
The Cleaners led them through a maze of corridors, all of them carved from the same black, metallic granite. Jamie tried not to think of all the Gifted people locked up behind them, but couldn’t help but wonder at what crimes they committed to land up in the dungeon cells below the Elemental College.
A final, long corridor led them into a foyer of sorts. On one side was an imposing set of double volume doors, opposite of which was an open set of doors through which Jamie could see the outside world.
The sun was shining on a beautiful garden. The sounds of birds chirping and the breeze brushing gently though tree branches crept to him and he was suddenly consumed by the idea of escape.
Rushing out the doors. Freedom.
How long would it take before the Cleaners tackled him to the ground? Perhaps they wouldn’t bother keeping him alive. Maybe they would just rain fire down on him or have the ground open up and swallow him alive.
But their final destination wasn’t the doors to the outside. There would be no grand escape – not that he would without knowing where Allyra was. The Cleaners gestured silently for him to enter the set of double volume doors. He would’ve been lying if he claimed not to be nervous, but he tried not to show it as he turned towards the doors.
Rob turned with him and squeezed his shoulder in support and suddenly Jamie was overcome with gratitude for his older brother. He might even offer to clean his car if they got out of this alive.
The doors were massive, big enough for a train to pass through, big enough to make him wonder if he was strong enough to open them. Concentrating on the possible trial of strength ahead, he almost missed the commotion behind him. Turning around he found Rob struggling against the two Cleaners.
“I’m going with him!” Rob shouted.
“Let him go!” Jamie yelled at the same time.
One of the Cleaners finally spoke and to Jamie’s surprise it was a woman under the cloak and mask. Her voice was deliberately low, but it carried
