Fire and Fantasy: a Limited Edition Collection of Epic and Urban Fantasy Page 42

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” I asked.

  The sound of my voice pulled him from his trance, and he brought his lips together, licking them. “It is.”

  I looked around the room again, my eyes passing over each identical vial. One of them in the far right corner seemed to glow brighter than the rest, its blue much more vibrant. An energy I couldn’t pinpoint drew me toward it. The closer I got, the more energized I felt. I reached out toward the vial. Even before my hand clamped around it, I knew. This one was mine.

  “There are so many,” Noah said, startling me so much that I pulled my hand back away from the vial. “How do we know which ones are ours?”

  I pulled my brows together, looking at him. “Can’t you tell?” I turned back to the bright, blue vial and reached out for it again. I felt so full of life the closer I got. I finally touched it and pulled it off the shelf, holding it close to my chest. Happiness filled my soul. It practically didn’t matter what happened from here on out. All that mattered was that I had my magic back.

  “Oh, look,” Noah said, holding up one of the vials and pointing to the bottom. “They’re labeled.”

  I nearly had to force myself to drag the vial away from my heart to check the label. Sure enough, Bree Waters was scrawled across the bottom on a small label. “Found mine.” I held it up with a triumphant smile spread across my face.

  “How’d you know that one was yours?”

  I shrugged. “I just did. It called out to me.”

  Noah pressed his lips together. “Maybe it’s because you haven’t been separated from your magic as long as I have.”

  “You think you lost touch with yours?” I tried my best to remain focused on the conversation, but it was difficult when the pulsing energy in my hands called my attention.

  “Oh.” Noah let out a light sound that I couldn’t exactly place. Then I noticed his eyes had locked on one of the vials next to me.

  “I think you found yours,” I smiled, stepping aside so he could finally reunite with the lost piece of himself.

  His eyes didn’t stray from the vial in front of him. I imagined I looked a lot like that just a moment ago. When he pulled the vial off the shelf, he drew it to his chest the same way I had and then breathed a sigh of relief.

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” I asked, still holding my magic as close to me as I could. “It makes you feel…so alive…so complete.”

  Noah didn’t turn to me when he spoke, but his voice cracked. “I forgot what it felt like.”

  The sound of a door falling shut somewhere in the hall startled both of us. Noah and I swung toward the entrance to the room and swore in unison, though we used different words. I swallowed hard, wondering if we should stay put or make a run for it.

  Twenty-Six

  Noah didn’t hesitate. “I think it’s time to go,” he said with a serious tone.

  I didn’t waste another second. I headed for the hall, but when I got there, it was just as empty as it had been when we entered the room. I wondered if we’d just been hearing things. Maybe it hadn’t been the sound of a door but rather the furnace kicking on or something.

  ”We’re clear,” I hissed, and Noah took that as an invitation to go back and lock both doors.

  We started our way back down the hall, but my conscience got the better of me. I couldn’t walk away from that dark room where I’d last seen Tristan. At the very least, I had to say I tried. I owed him that much.

  “Hang on, Noah.”

  I held my hand out in his direction, and though confusion crossed his face, he understood and gave me the keys. I quickly found the small silver key he’d said was most likely the master key, and I slid it into Tristan’s door. Before I could turn the lock, a voice shouted down the hall.

  “Hey,” a man called.

  My heart pounded in response, and I looked up to find a man at least a head taller than me racing toward us from the other end of the hall. I didn’t take the time process the string of curse words firing off in my mind. Noah took off, expecting me to follow, but all I could manage to do was twist the door open vigorously and reach inside in search of a light switch. My hands found it immediately along the wall, and light flooded the room.

  I nearly stumbled back in shock. On a small bed lay Tristan. He had the same long blond hair and same matching beard as the first time I saw him. When he blinked his eyes open and shielded them from the light above his head, they had that same blue-green color with a magical glow to them. What had changed were his other features. To put it bluntly, the dude had grown legs. His beautiful green tail I so greatly admired had split from one unit into two, and he now wore a pair of jeans over them with a gray t-shirt covering his upper half.

  I didn’t have time to explain. The guy was closing in on me. All I managed to get out was, “Come. Now.”

  Tristan must have read the urgency in my face, or maybe he was just glad to get out of the small room, but he hopped up from the bed without saying a word and followed behind me. By the time we ditched the room and began sprinting down the hall, the guy chasing us was only feet away. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he could have reached out and grabbed me.

  Noah turned to look back before rounding the corner. He hesitated, confusion once again crossing his face as if to ask where I picked up our extra friend. But he didn’t miss the other guy close behind me, and he understood it was time to run.

  The muscles in my legs protested at the speed, and my lungs began to burn with shallow, frightened breaths. I focused on keeping up with Noah in front of me and less on the man behind me, but I couldn’t help but listen to the sound of his footsteps pounding on the concrete floor. It felt that with each step I took, he came one step closer.

  At the end of the hall, Noah took a left, our only escape. That brought us back to the door to the dark stairwell. Noah tossed open the door without hesitation. It flung open so hard that the sound of it slamming against the wall echoed down the hall.

  Without consciously thinking about it, I slipped the keys I was holding into my pocket and used my free hand to grab onto Tristan’s and help guide him through the stairwell in the darkness. His fingers were much warmer than the first time I’d met him.

  Our footsteps echoed through the stairwell as our feet pounded on the stairs in full sprint. Luckily, Noah and I had been through the stairwell before, so we knew where to move in the darkness. Unfortunately, the man behind us knew the stairs just as well, if not better. At the top of the stairs, I took a sharp right, following the sound of Noah’s feet. Tristan followed, sprinting beside me.

  The door at the end of the hall sprung open, flooding the area with light from a lamp outside. Noah darted out the door, and Tristan and I followed closely behind. The night air hit me unexpectedly, and a breeze rushed through my hair. I didn’t dare look back as we hurried across the parking lot for fear that it would slow me down. Tristan, on the other hand, did look back. When he placed his gaze back in front of us, he squeezed tighter on my hand and increased his stride, though I didn’t realize it was possible that we could run any faster. I increased my speed to keep up. Where Tristan excelled in stride length thanks to his long legs, I made up for with speed, but my backpack jumping up and down on my back slowed me down a bit. I only prayed the guy behind us wasn’t in the shape we were.

  Noah led us away from the street lights and down a dark alley that cut between two rows of houses. We turned again, zig zagging several times. Down another alley, Noah darted to the right, cutting into someone’s yard. There was no time to wonder where he was going. Tristan and I followed. Noah stopped behind the garage and crouched low. Tristan and I skidded to a stop next to him and bent to his level, still keeping our hands entwined, my vial of magic still locked in the other hand.

  I tried to remain quiet, but my lungs fought for oxygen. I was sure that if the man was still following us, he wouldn’t miss the sound of my breathing from behind the garage. But as I listened past the sound of the wind and to our surro
undings, I didn’t hear any footsteps.

  I glanced to Noah and spoke in a quiet voice. “You think he’s gone?”

  Noah rose slightly and glanced around. “Yeah, I think we lost him. Or he gave up.” When he returned to his crouch, his eyes locked on Tristan.

  I couldn’t see much in the darkness, but I could tell by the direction of his gaze that he was questioning Tristan’s presence. “I’ll explain later,” I whispered.

  We all went silent for several long minutes, listening to make sure we were safe. At some point, I dropped Tristan’s hand, realizing we didn’t need to cling to each other any longer. In the silence, all I wanted to do was break it, to talk to Tristan and ask him all the questions that I’d been wondering since finding him. Where did he come from? How many of his kind were left?

  Eventually, Noah stood. He glanced around one last time and then to me, reaching out his hand to help me up. “I think we’re good for now. We should get going.”

  I swallowed hard when I stood, glancing between Noah and Tristan. “Uh, Noah, this is Tristan. Tristan, Noah.”

  They both nodded toward each other.

  “We can save introductions for later,” Tristan said with a slight accent I’d never heard before. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  This time, we didn’t sprint. We snuck slowly around buildings, doing our best to remain in the shadows so no one would spot us—not that anyone was out and about at this hour, but the guy could have still been looking for us or could have called for help. It was times like this when I was thankful for my overactive paranoia that kept us in caution mode to give us our best chance of escape.

  I noticed Noah didn’t head back toward Liana’s house to drop off the keys so she could return them. I supposed that by now, trying to remain under the radar was useless. They already knew we’d been there, and even if the guy hadn’t caught us in the act, they would have known by tomorrow morning when they found Tristan gone from his cell. The best thing we could do was get out of here as soon as possible. I knew Liana was expecting us, though, so I made a mental note to ask Noah for his phone later to get in contact with her.

  After several minutes of slinking through the streets, Tristan spoke again in a quiet voice intended just for me. “Thanks for rescuing me,” he whispered.

  I glanced up into his bright eyes. The expression on his face told me he truly was thankful, but it was more than that. It was like he wasn’t just thanking me for tonight but that he was thanking me for more. Could he be thanking me for the day I found him, for getting him off that beach? I eyed him up and down. I couldn’t quite tell in the darkness, but it looked like they’d been taking good care of him. I didn’t see any bruises or anything that would suggest torture, and the way he’d been running beside me with that energy told me he hadn’t been starved. Why’d they keep him in that room, then? I wondered.

  “You’re welcome,” I whispered back, but it came out even quieter than I intended thanks to the lump in my throat.

  For the most part, we all stayed quiet, focusing on keeping out of sight. We all knew we’d have the time to discuss everything later even though we burned with questions. It was evident in the way Noah continued to glance back at Tristan and the way Tristan kept eyeing me. I had looked his way a few times, too, but after he caught my eyes several times, I kept my gaze locked in front of me.

  None of this distracted me from the fact that my magic was finally sitting in my hands. The vial was small enough that with a hand clamped around it, the glowing wasn’t obvious. I wanted to sneak a peek at it. I wanted to open the bottle and see what would happen. But unfortunately, that wasn’t a priority at the moment. What mattered was getting back to Noah’s car and leaving Sea Haven once and for all. I didn’t know if anyone planned for Tristan to tag along with us, to escape his imprisonment, but at the very least, I figured we’d be able to talk it all out once we reached the car.

  At the edge of town, we hit a secluded road, and I felt safe breaking the silence. “Well, that went better that some of the scenarios I envisioned.”

  Noah sighed heavily from in front of me. He slowed until we were side by side, leaving me between him on my right and Tristan on my left. “It certainly wasn’t great,” Noah said begrudgingly. “They must have caught us on a camera we didn’t realize was there. It just seems like it was too easy to get in if they had security cameras, but at the same time, I wonder why the rooms had been locked in the first place in a town like Sea Haven where break-ins are practically non-existent.”

  I could tell Noah had been contemplating this for a while.

  “I don’t know, either,” I told him. “But hey, we should maybe call Liana, let her know we’re okay.”

  “We shouldn’t have been caught…” he mumbled under his breath, completely distracting me from my latest suggestion.

  “Sorry.” I dragged out the word, making it clear that I wasn’t actually sorry.

  Noah breathed another sigh and ran his fingers vigorously through his hair. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—maybe if someone could explain.”

  I swallowed deeply. I didn’t even know where to start. “Well, Tristan’s part of the reason they sent me away.” The only reason?

  Even in the darkness, I could sense the confusion cross Noah’s face. “What exactly happened?”

  I glanced between Noah and Tristan. I wished Tristan wasn’t so quiet, but he was probably trying to process it all. He’d followed me without question, and I was sure he was trying to figure just as much as Noah was what exactly was going on. And here I was in the middle of it with the answers. No. That wasn’t right. I didn’t have all the answers. I hardly had any. But at the very least, I could do my best to answer Noah’s question.

  Twenty-Seven

  “I—” I didn’t know where to start. “Tristan’s not from Sea Haven,” I settled with. How could I possibly put the rest of it into words?

  “And?” Noah prodded.

  I blinked several times, my eyes locked on the dark pavement stretching in front of us. “I wasn’t supposed to know about him. That’s why they sent me away, to keep their secret quiet.”

  “Secret?” Noah asked.

  “That Tristan—” My throat closed up around my words. Why couldn’t I bring myself to tell Noah? It wasn’t like he was going to blab to anyone. And he deserved to know.

  A weight settled on my shoulder. My gaze flickered over to Tristan’s hand touching me and then up to his eyes. Even in the darkness, I could see their color.

  “You can’t tell him,” he told me.

  At first, I thought the words were a warning, that Tristan was telling me I had to keep the truth about what he was a secret. But his tone didn’t read caution. It was more like sympathy. My eyes widened, and my chest dropped in my chest all in one moment of revelation. Tristan wasn’t saying I shouldn’t tell Noah. He was saying I couldn’t, as in, I’d never be able to speak the words.

  “There’s a spell over your town that prevents you all from sharing certain secrets,” Tristan explained, sending both Noah and me into a state of pure shock. He spoke so casually, like it was everyday knowledge, but to me and Noah, it was a lot to consider.

  It took me nearly a minute to process what he was saying, and I suspected Noah was just as shocked because he didn’t speak for a long time, either. We couldn’t share secrets… That was why we could be connected to the outside world without anyone worrying about our secret getting out. That was why no one took my phone away from me when I left, because I couldn’t have told anyone about what I’d seen anyway.

  But then, why’d they send me away in the first place if it wasn’t about keeping quiet? Were they afraid I’d go looking for more secrets and uncover them? That had to be it. With my dad on the council, I was close to the secrets. That’s when it hit me. I remembered something my father said before we met with Carson at City Hall. I need you to believe me when I say that I can’t tell you anything. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to tell me, that
he was purposely trying to keep something from me. It had to be because he physically couldn’t tell me. Was I on the right track here? Did this kind of spell make us prisoners? Someone was controlling us, and that wasn’t right.

  Noah was the first to speak. “How does that even work?”

  Tristan cleared his throat. “The way the spell works is that the people of Sea Haven and their descendants are sworn to secrecy. It’s something your ancestors agreed to generations ago. If you try to tell anyone about who you are, about your magic, you simply can’t. Your thoughts will wander, you’ll get confused, and you just won’t be able to speak before you can mention any of it to outsiders. You won’t even know what’s happening to you.”

  I knew the feeling all too well. Anger flared throughout my body. I didn’t like being controlled like this. It wasn’t fair, whether my ancestors agreed to it or not. My pulse pounded against the sides of my head. I couldn’t process all this information. How could this be true yet none of us knew about it?

  “But we can talk to each other about our secrets,” I stated, trying to make sense of it all.

  “Right,” Tristan confirmed.

  “Then why doesn’t anyone know about this one, about the spell?” And why is Tristan so willing to share? I wondered.

  “Some secrets are available to your council members only. Unfortunately, this is one of them.”