“Excuse me?”
“They never found his body,” Chi clarified.
Allyra shook her head, trying to make sense of the flood of information. “What does it matter?” she asked. “They all died, didn’t they? All the Elementals that followed him into the Between?”
Chi nodded, and she could almost see the excitement rising within him. This was clearly a subject he’d spent a great deal of time thinking about.
“Thirty-three Elementals crossed through multiple Gates during the Betrayal. They found thirty-one bodies, including that of his brother Thomas.” Chi stared at her, his dark brown eyes swirling with excitement. “But they never found his.”
“What are you suggesting?”
Chi shrugged. “I don’t know really. I just find it interesting, you know? I’ve read just about every historical account of Alexander Cairns. It’s obvious that he was extraordinary. Powerfully Gifted, brave, strong, charismatic—anything less and he wouldn’t have convinced every Elemental of the time to follow him. So, I can’t help but wonder if he knew something that no one else knew. Something that we still don’t know.”
Chi shrugged again and started tidying his piles of books. “Maybe I just like the idea that he had prior knowledge. That information and knowledge are the things that sets someone apart from the rest.” He grinned suddenly, his face suddenly young and boyish. “That’s the only way I’m going to get anywhere in this competition…”
Allyra watched as Chi picked out two books, and then dithered over a third one before finally deciding to take it with him too.
“I’m going to bed—see you in the morning,” he said.
Allyra nodded mechanically, and he walked out the door, leaving her alone, frozen in space with nothing but doubt and a flood of questions to keep her company.
* * *
Allyra jolted awake with a painful creak in her neck. She was still in the common room, sitting exactly where Chi had left her the night before. She must’ve dozed off after spending an unproductive night trying to figure out who Alex was and what his motives were.
She tried to convince herself that her original belief was true—the Alex she’d met in the Between was just some random Elemental who’d chosen, for his own unfathomable reasons, to give her the name of the Elemental High Master who had lived over a hundred and fifty years ago. Her knowledge of his name had come from a single source—Alex himself. She’d had no other confirmation that it was actually his name. Mandla had never spoken it, and it wasn’t like Alex left clothes lying around with labels proclaiming his name.
As much as she’d tried to convince herself that it was a sound explanation of the facts, her logical mind had refused to accept it. It was simply too much of a coincidence for two utterly identical people with the same name to be born a hundred and fifty years apart. And that was neglecting all other clues that pointed to Alex being the Elemental High Master of the Betrayal, such as the fact that he had the Dragons Living Weapons tattooed on his arm.
It was an awful feeling, like she was somehow being disloyal to her own memory of Alex, who had done nothing but save her life and consistently put her life before his. But at some point, she would have to accept the facts—Alex was the Elemental High Master who’d orchestrated the terrible events of the Betrayal. And now she was the only person to have concrete proof that he’d somehow escaped death as Chi had suggested. In fact, not only had he escaped death, but he’d somehow survived for more than a hundred and fifty years, lying in wait in the Between until she’d stumbled into his life. It was hard, if not impossible, to try to reconcile the Elemental High Master who’d betrayed everything the Elementals stood for with the man who’d been willing to give up everything to save her.
Her mind had worked itself into a tangle of knots trying to figure it all out, and ultimately, she’d admitted defeat. It was the unsolvable problem and would remain so until she had more information. Chi was right—information and knowledge would be her weapons, but until she had them, there was no point wasting more time and energy on it.
It didn’t change anything, not really. The Rising still wanted their information, Emma still needed saving, and it was still likely that a Revenant had somehow made its way through the protection of the Veil. The information she needed lay hidden within the Great Colleges, and The Five Finals would take her to all five, so all she had to do right now was survive.
Allyra glanced at her watch. Five a.m. She groaned. Never mind surviving The Five Finals, right now, she just wanted a shower and some fresh clothes. She got to her feet and was pleasantly surprised to find that her ankle was not throbbing nearly as much as it had been before. Her Gifted healing ability had obviously been hard at work.
She made her way back to her room and ground her teeth when she saw the white sock still on the handle. But this time she didn’t hesitate, throwing the door open violently, spoiling for a fight and fully prepared to kick out anyone sharing Jason’s bed.
But she was disappointed. There was no one to throw out and as she slammed the door closed, Jason turned and cracked open one eye lazily.
“Do you mind? I’m trying to sleep here,” he said, his voice husky and laden with sleep.
Allyra took the sock and threw it at him. “What the hell is this?”
“Looks like a sock to me.”
With significant difficulty, Allyra swallowed her anger. “Yes, I know,” she replied coldly. “What I want to know is what it was doing on the door handle.”
Jason glanced at the still made bed on her side of the
