I hold my breath and inch my legs over the edge of the bed, listening to the rhythm of Elena’s breathing beside me. My feet find the icy floor, and turn cold instantly. I stand slowly to keep the bed from creaking and then tiptoe across the room and towards the door, taking my time, being careful not to bump any beds. I reach the open doorway and rush out into the hall and down to the computer room. I pull out the chair and push the computer’s power button.
I fidget waiting for the computer to boot up and keep peering towards the hallway to see if anyone has followed. I’m finally able to type in the web address and the screen goes white, then two pictures take shape in the center of the page, surrounded by text with a top headline in bold black letters too blurry to read. Two images now-I wonder what changed since I tried to check earlier. And then, at last, they come into focus:
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISTS?
John Smith, with his square jaw, shaggy dark blond hair, and blue eyes, fills the left side of the screen, while his father-or more likely Cepan-Henri takes up the right. What’s there isn’t a photo but a black-and-white artist’s sketch done in pencil. I skim the details I already know-demolished school, five deaths, abrupt disappearance-and then come to the breaking news only now being reported:
In a bizarre twist, FBI investigators today un-covered what is believed to be the tools of a professional counterfeiter. Several machines typically used for the creation of documents were found in the Paradise, Ohio, home rented by Henri and John Smith in a hatch beneath the floorboards of the master bedroom, leading investigators to consider possible links to terrorism. Creating local uproar within the Paradise community, Henri and John Smith are now considered a threat to national security, fugitives; and investigators are asking for any and all information that might lead to their whereabouts.
I scroll back to John’s image, and when my gaze meets his, my hands begin to shake. His eyes-even in this sketch there’s something familiar about them. How could I know them if not from the yearlong journey that brought us here? Nobody can convince me now that he isn’t one of the six remaining Garde, still alive in this foreign world.
I lean back and blow my bangs out of my eyes, wishing I could go in search of John myself. Of course Henri and John Smith are able to elude police; they’ve kept hidden for eleven years now, just as Adelina and I have. But how can I possibly hope to be the one to find him when the whole world is looking? How can any of us hope to come together?
The eyes of the Mogadorians are everywhere. I have no idea how One or Three were found, but I believe they located Two because of a blog post he or she had written. I had found it, and then I’d sat there for fifteen minutes thinking how best to respond without giving myself away. Though the message itself had been obscure, it was very obvious to those of us looking: Nine, now eight. Are the rest of you out there? It had been posted by an account called Two. My fingers found the keyboard and I’d typed a quick response, and just before I hit the Post button, the page refreshed-somebody else had responded first.
We are here, it read.
My mouth had dropped open, and I’d stared in utter shock. Hope flooded through me from those two brief messages, but just as my fingers had typed a different reply, a bright glow appeared at my feet and the sizzling sound of burning flesh reached my ears, followed closely by a searing pain so great that I’d dropped to the floor and writhed in agony, screaming at the top of my lungs for Adelina, holding my hands over my ankle so no one else would see. When Adelina arrived and realized what was happening, I’d pointed at the screen, but it was blank; both posts had been deleted.
I look away from John Smith’s familiar eyes on the screen. Beside the computer sits a small flower that’s been forgotten. It’s wilted and tired, shrunken down to half its normal height, a brown, crispy tinge at the edge of its leaves. Several petals have dropped, now dry and crinkled on the desk around the pot. The flower isn’t dead yet, but it’s not far off. I lean forward and cup my hands around it, move my face near enough so that my lips brush against the edge of its leaves, and then I blow hot air over it. An icy feeling shoots down my spine and, in response, life bursts through the small flower. It springs upward and a verdant green floods the leaves and stalk and new petals bloom, colorless at first, then turning a brilliant purple. A mischievous grin sprouts on my face, and I can’t help but think of how the Sisters would react if they were to see such a thing. But I’ll never let them. It would be misinterpreted, and I don’t want to be cast out into the cold. I’m not ready for that. Soon, but not just yet.
I turn off the computer and hurry back to bed while thoughts of John Smith, somewhere out there, swim in my head.
Chapter Three
A LOW WHISPER FINDS ME. THE VOICE IS COLD. I can’t seem to move but I listen intently.
I’m not asleep anymore, but I’m not awake either. I’m paralyzed, and as the whispers increase, my eyes are whisked away through the impenetrable darkness of my motel room. The electricity I feel as the vision breaks above my bed reminds me of when my first Legacy, Lumen, lit up my palms in Paradise, Ohio. Back when Henri was still here, still alive. But Henri’s gone now. He’s not coming back. Even in this state I can’t escape that reality.
I completely enter the vision above me, blazing through its darkness with my hands turned on, but the glow is swallowed by the shadows. And then I snap to a halt. Everything falls silent. I lift my hands in front of me but touch nothing, my feet off the ground, floating in a great void.
More whispering in a language I don’t recognize, but somehow still understand. The words burst forth anxiously. The darkness fades, and the world I’m in turns a shade of gray on its way to a white so bright I have to squint to see. A mist drifts in front of me and filters away, revealing a large open room with candles lining the walls.
“I-I don’t know what went wrong,” a voice says, clearly shaken.
The room is long and wide, the size of a football field. The acrid smell of sulfur burns my nostrils, makes my eyes water. The air is hot and stuffy. And then I see them at the far end of the room: two figures shrouded in shadows, one much bigger than the other, and menacing even from a distance.
“They got away. Somehow they got away. I don’t know how. . . .”
I move forward. I feel the sort of calm that sometimes comes in dreams when you’re aware you’re asleep and that nothing can really hurt you. Step by step, nearing the growing shadows.
“All of them, all of them killed. Along with three piken and two krauls,” the smaller of the two says, standing with fidgeting hands beside the larger man.
“We had them. We were about to-,” comes the voice, but the other cuts him off. He scans the air to see what he’s already sensed. I stop, stand motionless, and hold my breath. And then he finds me. A shudder runs up my spine.
“John,” somebody says, the voice a distant echo.
The larger figure comes towards me. He towers over me, twenty feet tall, muscular, a chiseled jaw. His hair isn’t long like the others’, but cut short instead. His skin is tan. Our eyes stay locked as he slowly approaches. Thirty feet away, then twenty. He stops ten feet short. My pendant grows heavy and the chain cuts into my neck. Around his throat, like a collar, I notice a grotesque, purplish scar.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he says, his voice level and calm. He lifts his right arm and pulls a sword from the sheath on his back. It comes alive at once, keeping its shape while the metal turns nearly liquid. The wound in my shoulder, from the soldier’s dagger during the battle in Ohio, screams with pain as though I’m being stabbed all over again. I fall to my knees.
“It’s been a very long time,” he says.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say in a language I’ve never spoken before.
I want to leave immediately, wherever this place is. I try to rise, but it’s as if I’m suddenly stuck to the ground.
“Don’t you?” he asks.
