Edward was waiting inside the doors. There were white balloons on the floor being kicked up by glittering heels. The chemical smell of dry ice competed with perfume and cologne and the contraband vodka someone had already spilled. It was nice in its own way; simple. A boy and a girl at a school dance.
Edward frowned at the lights flashing star shapes on the walls. They looked slightly melted. “I told them not to do it that way,” he muttered. He smiled apologetically. “The Drama Club did the lights. I have to fix them. I’ll be quick.”
Simple again, when the worst thing to worry about was decorations. There was no mystery here, no secrets.
Well, there were always secrets.
There was a swan sleeping inside every moment. But maybe tonight, I could pretend, just a little bit. I didn’t have to think about magic arrows or swans in cages or best friends who kissed you out of the blue right before you went on your first date with your crush. Maybe tonight the pretty lights could just be pretty lights, not something that made it harder to see as I searched the shadows for Renards.
“Sorry,” Edward said from behind my shoulder. His breath tickled the back of my neck, sending hot, delicious shivers along my spine. He was handsome and kind, and being here with him was everything I’d wanted for months now. But here I was thinking about swans and other boys. Edward had finally noticed me and I was too distracted to enjoy it.
“No,” I muttered to myself. I wouldn’t waste this moment.
“Sorry?” Edward asked, confused.
“Oh,” I replied, flushing. “I meant, let’s dance.”
Fate finally obliged me and the song turned slow. Dancing was something I knew I could do. In fact, all of my cousins were doing the same, twirling so elegantly and intensely that the lights flickered and the wind rattled the windows. A draft snaked around my ankles.
I noticed Pierce leaning against the wall. I hadn’t realized he’d decided to stay. I lifted my hand in a small awkward wave, before resting it back on Edward’s shoulder. His arm was around my waist, pulling me closer. The moment was warm, like sunlight on your face at the end of winter. Don’t you dare be distracted, I told myself.
I realized I didn’t know much about Edward, aside from the fact that he did set design for the Drama Club, but it was difficult to care about that right now. I used to go to school plays just to see him dash across the stage, wearing all black and looking so serious. He looked serious now as well, looking down at me as if this was a scene in one of those plays. He bent his head and I tilted mine up, and then suddenly we were kissing.
His lips were soft and hesitant. When I responded, the kiss turned open-mouthed and slow and sweet.
I imagined swan feathers and what it would feel like to fly.
I refused to compare it to Pierce’s kiss. He had taken me by surprise. That was why I’d tingled all over like that. I also refused to look in his direction. It wasn’t my fault he’d kissed me. It’s not like I was cheating on him. He was simply suffering side-effects from my song this afternoon.
Also, why was I even thinking of that now? Edward was kissing me, for crying out loud.
Someone whistled. Edward pulled away, smiling as star lights crashed over us. “Guess we have an audience,” he murmured.
I nodded mutely as the music faded. What did I do now? Say “thank you for kissing me”? He looked at me expectantly.
“Where is it?” Liv’s fingers dug into my shoulder. She had no idea she was saving me from an embarrassing pause, especially since she was spitting with fury.
Edward frowned at her. “Hey.”
I shrugged her off. “Liv, go away. Seriously. One night without the stupid feud. Is that too much to ask?”
She lowered her voice, but it was so barbed with anger it prickled. “Give me back my pendulum.”
I closed my eyes, shaking my head. One day, I was going to move clear out of the country, graduate high school, and kiss a boy without interruption. Hopefully not in that order.
“Did you hear me, swan?”
“Oh, give it a rest,” I snapped. “I don’t have your pendulum. Like I want some gross old tooth.”
Her green eyes narrowed. “I want it back.”
“And I want you to piss off. We all want things.”
“This is about that day in the pond, isn’t it?”
“It’s not actually, but you totally deserve it.”
“So you did take it.” She drew her fist back.
Pierce was suddenly there, holding her wrist. “Missing quality time together in detention?” he asked mildly.
“Let go, Pierce. She took my pendulum.”
“Did not.”
“Did so!”
What can I say? We bring out the best in each other.
“Liv.” He let her go and her arm dropped to her side. I wasn’t sure but it looked like she was fighting back tears. Renards didn’t need their pendulums to shift into totem shape the way we needed our cloaks, but clearly they were still important.
She leaned in close so I could see the sharpening of her teeth. “Pierce won’t always be there to save you.” She shoved into me as she stalked away. Edward whistled through his teeth. “That girl is odd.”
If he only knew.
Actually, if he only knew me, what would he think then?
I refused to worry about it tonight.
Because as always, there was something more important to worry about.
Rosalita sauntered by as if she was on a fashion runway instead of a scuffed gymnasium floor. She had her arm through Samuel’s and he looked proud, besotted. When Jackson broke away from the shadows to follow them outside, Pierce and I exchanged a glance. He took off after his brother.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Edward.
Chapter Six
Ana
Samuel slumped against the bricks, moaning. “Crap,” I said. “Was it Jackson?”
“I don’t know,” Pierce replied. “I didn’t see anyone.”
I shook Samuel. “Wake up! Where’s Rosalita?”
Samuel just groaned again. Pierce frowned. “I think someone hit him on the back of the head.”
There was blood in his hair. I glanced at Pierce out of the corner of my eye. “You might want to plug your ears.” He looked briefly annoyed.
I barely whispered the song, not wanting to draw attention. I didn’t have any of my herbs on me; they wouldn’t fit in the useless little clutch that matched the dress. The leaves on the ground skittered like insects. I used the song, the wind, the tingle of magic in my fingertips, pushing it into Samuel’s wound. I imagined a warm glow of light until I didn’t have to imagine it anymore. My palms glowed faintly. Magic wasn’t exactly subtle. Samuel groaned, struggling to open his eyes.
“Where’s Rosalita?” I barked at him.
He blinked at me blearily and glassy-eyed.
There was a distinctive whistle, shrill and piercing. Aunt Aisha taught it to us during drills. Something went cold and sharp in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t know what was going on, only that Jackson was the least of our worries. And here I was with my lips still tingling from Edward’s kiss and not a single weapon on me. I’d lecture myself later. Right now we needed to do a lot of running.
“We have to find Rosalita now.” I didn’t know what else to do. I looked around wildly, hoping I would think of something. There had only been the one whistle and I couldn’t track it. “Rosalita!” I shouted, listening so hard for a reply that my ears pounded. I thought I heard the slam of a car door, but that could be anybody. No footsteps. The muffled beat of the music still blaring in the gym swallowed the smaller sounds.
Pierce poked his head back around to the door of the gym. “Get a teacher, someone’s hurt,” he called out. Then he popped back around and took my hand. “Let’s go. If I can track deer, I can track your cousin.”
I followed him onto the grass, the shadows thick and tangled outside the security lights. He might be the guy who preferred books and coffee while I
always preferred being outside, but he was a better tracker. He searched for footprints, broken twigs, tire marks on the pavement. It all looked the same to me, a jumble of gum wrappers and dead leaves. Pierce turned left, into the copse of trees by the student parking lot. “There.”
The gray van was idling, angled toward the exit.
The same van from the river.
On the steps below us, two people wearing balaclavas over their faces held a limp Rosalita between them. I launched myself at them, screaming as loud as I could, hoping whichever teacher was tending to Samuel would hear me. My brain was running circles like a disoriented ferret, but my body remembered Aisha’s training.
She made us run and duck and fight for hours. It was tradition. Everything in our family was tradition.
White dresses? Tradition.
Arrows over more practical knives? Tradition.
Run parkour every Sunday morning? Tradition.
I’d never been so grateful for strange, illogical traditions.
I kicked the first kidnapper in the hip so that he stumbled down the next step, letting go of Rosalita. Pierce threw a punch at the second kidnapper. He dodged, but his hold on Rosalita slipped as well. She crumpled bonelessly.
“Take her, too,” the first kidnapper shouted, grabbing for me. He got the hem of my dress and tugged. I knew he was expecting me to yank away so instead I went forward, slamming into him. He faltered, off balance. The van behind him darted closer, tires squealing. If they got us in there, we’d be done for. There was blood on Pierce’s collar already. We could run, but only if Rosalita woke up. Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t move.
I opened my mouth and began to sing again, this time as loud as I could.
“Down, down, down, down; Down among the dead men let him lie.”
The wind responded almost instantly, sliding between the trees and making whirlwinds of the litter in the parking lot. It whipped into a column fed by my fear and anger. I stepped over Rosalita, guarding her. The Renards never bothered hiding their faces. I didn’t know why they were wearing balaclavas. If they were taking the feud to that kind of level, we might not survive this time. Any of us.
They squinted against the angry air as it pressed them back. Light glittered through it like sunlight on water.
“Down among the dead men, Down among the dead men.”
I flung more wind at them, tearing and scratching at them. The garbage can slid across the pavement. Thin trees bent double, threatening to snap. Pierce took the hit from the airborne debris, shielding me.
On my other side, there was the glint of silver from a knife. My hair lashed my eyes, but I didn’t stop. “Never mind the other one!” They were trying to reach me, hands clutching at the wind. “Grab her!”
Pierce
I curved around Ana, even though I was pretty sure a dagger wouldn’t bounce off my spine. Who the hell did I think I was? A superhero? Her long golden hair lifted behind her like a war banner. It was beautiful, distracting. And when she took a deep breath to keep singing, it was a clear disadvantage. The driver of the van closed his hand into a fist around her hair. She jerked to a stop, yelping. Her song stuttered. The wind paused.
I darted around her and punched him in the side of the throat. He lurched sideways, surprised and suddenly breathless. But when he punched back, he still managed to catch me in the kidney. Pain exploded through my side. I tried to straighten without wincing. To hell with it. My kidney was on fire and it freaking well hurt.
And then his friend was there, a wicked hunting knife in his hand, sawing through Ana’s hair. She kicked back and his knee cracked, but he didn’t let go. Strands of blond hair drifted to the ground, the rest stayed clenched in his fist. I yelled, launching forward. The driver tackled me before I could reach her. I tried to simultaneously dodge jabs to my nose while keeping an eye on Ana, at least until he caught me on the eyebrow and that eye started to swell shut.
Ana fought like a cat, vicious and feral. There was nothing swan-like about her; she was all fury and training. But in the end it only saved half her hair.
She managed to twist away, driving her elbow into his throat. When he stumbled, she smashed her knee up into his face. His nose crunched like boiled eggshells. She drove her elbow onto the back of his head. And then she was singing again, even as she clutched her ragged hair. I managed to heave the driver off of me, scraping his face against the pavement.
Ana was wild-eyed, but her voice belonged to a different time and a different place: a fairy tale full of castles and wolves and roses that bled. I forgot about my bruised kidney. She was so close I was diverted by her eyes, a strange blend of lichen-gray and moss-green. Why was I thinking about her hair and her eyes? What the hell was wrong with me? The air thickened and darkened around us, and I was left with her smell: summer dust, and grass, and flowers. I decided there were worse ways to die.
I swayed closer, both to protect her and because the space between us was suddenly an insult. I barely registered the words, a folk song about broken bodies and broken hearts.
We became the heart of a tornado. I could see how much it cost her: she was pale, sweat glistened on her neck, and her eyes were growing bloodshot. They’d taken some of her magic away, but she kept fighting. Rosalita stirred, adding her voice. She was slurring a little but it still helped.
The roar of the air was like a train bearing down on us. Dust, leaves, wrappers, and pop cans were sucked into the sky, circling like guard dogs. Inside the storm, it was windy but bearable. On the other side of the wall of wind I could just make out the glow of streetlights, the flash of the van as it drove away.
When the whirlwind dissipated, a rain of litter fell around us. I didn’t move, not yet. I felt odd, but at least I wasn’t thinking about how pretty she was. She’d kick my ass for that. Some beautiful girls took compliments like an insult. I shook my head, as if her magic song was water trapped in my ears.
“Your hair,” I finally said. My voice was cold. I felt it everywhere, like jagged ice.
“Never mind,” she said, trembling. The ice turned to a kind of fury I could taste in the back of my throat, like pepper.
“Who grabbed you?” she asked Rosalita. “Was it Jackson?”
“Of course not,” Rosalita mumbled, as though her lips felt thick. “You shot him, remember? I don’t know who it was, they wore a mask.”
“So it could have been him?”
“No, he was walking away. I’d just told him to stop stalking me.”
Relief that my brother hadn’t entirely lost his mind helped my pulse slow back down to normal.
Rosalita rubbed her arm, bare in her sleeveless dress. “They stuck a needle in me. Do Renards do that now?”
“I don’t know,” Ana answered, touching her uneven hair. “I need to hide this. People will ask questions.”
I tossed her my hoodie again, remembering that she’d never given me back the last one I’d lent her. She drew the hood up over her hair.
We helped Rosalita up the steps toward the school where most of the students milled on the lawn. Everyone was talking about the freak tornado. Ms. Pritchard was pressing a bandage to Samuel’s face. “Where have you three been?” she asked us sharply.
“Hiding from the storm,” I replied hastily. “We were too far from the doors.” I winced down at Samuel. “Did you get hit with debris?”
“I guess so,” he replied, baffled. “I can’t remember.” Rosalita crouched next to him unsteadily. “Where were you?”
“Getting something from my car, remember?” she lied.
Ana stepped back, already talking to Aisha on her cell phone. There were leaves and twigs stuck to her hair. Edward rushed across the grass and I had the sudden urge to trip him.
“Are you okay?” he asked her. He wasn’t covered in blood and bruises and dirt like I was; he’d been safe in the gymnasium with his perfect hair and perfect teeth. I felt like an idiot for noticing and wondering if that was what Ana liked about him. Wat
ching them kiss on the dance floor was a gut-punch. I knew I should give them some privacy, but like hell I was letting her out of my sight. Not now, with the curve of her neck so vulnerable under her ragged hair.
“My cousin’s not feeling well,” she said, apologetically. “Pierce will drive us home since he lives nearby.”
Edward glanced at me. “All right with you, Kent?”
“Sure.”
“Okay then.” He looked uncertain for a moment, as if he was contemplating leaning in for another kiss. He finally walked away.
“Kent, fetch me the first aid kit from the office,” Ms. Pritchard ordered. I glanced at Ana. I didn’t want to leave her alone, even now. She just nodded at me, still speaking on her cell phone in furious undertones.
“Now, Mr. Kent,” Ms. Pritchard insisted.
Ana
They’d taken my hair.
It usually fell halfway down my back. It was a pain to take care of, but it was also family tradition. A way to keep my magic close.
And now it was gone.
They’d stolen some of my magic. I could still heal, could still sing the wind, but it would be that much harder. And there was no telling what they would use my hair for.
I reminded myself that there was a time and place to throw a fit, but this was not it. I wasn’t physically hurt aside from a few bruises and magic-fatigue. They hadn’t managed to kidnap me. Or Rosalita. That was the important part. That was the part to focus on. I had to be smart. Calm.
Tradition. It had been just another weird family thing to get on my nerves, but now it was a mantra. It calmed my heartbeat. Aisha had seen to that. She’d trained me to be calm, to escape, to fight. And my dad had made sure I could survive without magic. Wings or no wings, I was as prepared as I could hope to be.
Pierce jogged out of the school, throwing the first aid kit at Ms. Pritchard. The fire trucks, which had come to inspect for damages from the tornado, were parked around the corner, red lights flashing. “I told you school dances were a bad idea,” he said.