I was pacing up and down the room, waiting for someone to come. Lily’s agents had brought me here some fifteen minutes ago and told me to wait for Lily. The windowless room had dark metal walls and was filled with computers and a table with scientific equipment. There weren’t any agents or guards in sight, and the computers were turned off.
The door suddenly opened, and Jaiden trudged inside, followed by Lily. I immediately rushed toward him, throwing myself into his embrace. His arms wrapped around me, and his lips crashed against mine. I slipped my hands through his hair, exploring his mouth with my tongue. Lily coughed, and I let go of Jaiden, savoring the taste of him on my lips.
“You’re both lucky we haven’t been able to capture or kill Blake,” Lily said. “There’s only one way this will work. You two will be my agents and do this mission my way.”
Jaiden and I looked at each other, and then I nodded.
“We’ve been monitoring elemental energy levels in the city, but there are too many spikes. If we at least knew in what area to look, it would be easier.” Lily sighed, sitting down in front of one of the computers and turning it on.
“How did you track Blake and me to the meadow?” I asked.
“We didn’t. We tracked down Jaiden,” Lily said, and I glanced at him.
“I knew you were in trouble, so I created a spike of energy,” he said. “I knew I’d be detected.”
A smile spread across my lips, and I took his hand in mine. He’d risked getting caught and killed to save me. “What about the Sacred Place? I’m sure Blake will try to go back there.” I still wasn’t sure if I actually believed in the prophecy. The Sacred Book seemed to have special power within its pages and it had led us to the Sacred Place, but I didn’t think anything could take away everyone’s elemental energy and give it to three people.
“I have agents waiting there at all times,” Lily said. “We’ve found some kind of a secret door, but we haven’t been able to open it yet.” She turned in her chair to look at me. “We found the Sacred Book. How exactly did it reveal the location to you?” She raised an eyebrow at me.
“Blake, Hayley, and I touched the book, and the energy flowed through us. The map just appeared on the blank page,” I said. “Is Hayley going to be okay?”
“Yeah,” Lily said. “I’ve sent her back to her family. We just gathered some information about her in case we have to find her. She’s the only known elemental with four elements who doesn’t have magic disease. I imagine many people would want to get an opportunity to study her case, so I decided not to put that info into our files.” She frowned at me. “Ever since you broke into our system and took the list, we figured we need to have better security, but I still don’t want to risk anyone finding the girl.”
“Good.” I was glad that at least Hayley was back with her family and away from danger.
“My scientists also discovered something interesting about that book,” Lily said. “Its pages are completely covered in particles of some kind of a drug.”
“What?” I gaped at her.
“These particles have a special ability to tie themselves to a specific type of elemental energy,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Jaiden asked, his brow wrinkling.
“My scientists have a theory that someone produced pills for enhancing elemental energy, but these pills work only on elements that had already been enhanced by a similar drug.” She frowned and waved her hands. “You should ask an expert about this. Really. But apparently, when enhanced elements are near those pills or its particles, the elements react like a magnet for the drug and take it into itself. That way an elemental’s energy grows stronger as if they’d actually swallowed the pill. Since you say the map appeared when the three of you touched the page, I assume it was full of these particles that were covering the image like a thin layer of protection, and you just removed that protection by taking the particles into yourselves.”
“Oh my God.” I slapped my hand over my mouth. “Blake told me... Well, he might have lied about it, but he told me he’d been held in a laboratory.”
“Ah. That would explain why he’s so powerful.” Lily sighed.
“Hayley’s mother was one of the experiments in some lab, and her element was probably enhanced,” I said. “My father also had an enhanced element, and Jaiden’s father tried to enhance my element, too.” Which would mean that by touching the book, I had been taking an element-enhancing drug into me.
I sensed Jaiden was looking at me. His elements were practically created in a lab, so that would explain why the drug worked on him, too. That meant the whole thing about the Strong, the Hero, and the Murderer had been a product of our imagination. Well, Blake’s imagination.
“Great, so we can confirm that the drug reacts only to elements that had been enhanced and not to elements of every tainted elemental. Now there’s another thing we need to figure out. Who wrote that book and why?” Lily asked.
“Were your scientists able to tell how old the book really is?” Jaiden asked.
“Not really. The material is strange because of the drug, but I’d say it can’t be that old. I doubt anyone had means to produce an element enhancing drug centuries ago,” Lily said.
“Blake and I found weird notes in the trunks of some trees at the Sacred Place. The Murderer was supposed to kill the Strong, and the Hero was supposed to bring the Strong back to life. I didn’t think about it before, but the paper the note was written on was white. It couldn’t have been there for long,” I said, glad that Blake and I hadn’t been able to go through with something as stupid as that.
Lily arched her eyebrows. “And what was supposed to happen after that?”
I felt silly even saying it. “Everyone on the planet was supposed to lose their element, and the energy was supposed to flow into the three of us. Then we would be able to save the world and share the energy among our trusted friends.”
“And that actually made sense to you?” The corners of Lily’s lips curved upward.
“Yeah.” I shuffled my feet.
“Right.” Lily scratched her head.
“Someone was trying to lure out tainted elementals with enhanced elements to that place,” Jaiden said. “Do you know where Blake found that book?”
I shook my head. “Blake put a fake memory in my mind about how we found it in the National Museum, but now I know that never happened.”
“Why would he do that?” Lily asked.
I shrugged. “Maybe because he wanted me to think how special that book was or because he simply needed me to have some memories that were plausible for me.” Or maybe he didn’t want to tell me how and where he’d gotten the book, but wouldn’t he know that the prophecy was fake then? Or did he believe in modern prophecies?
“Still doesn’t help us, but it doesn’t matter. You two will go after Blake, and you better find him, because if you don’t, things will get ugly for everyone,” Lily said sternly, and looked at Jaiden. “Do you think your father knows anything about this? Care to tell us where we can find him?”
Jaiden’s face was expressionless. “I have nothing to say about that. We should focus on finding Blake.”
Lily smiled bitterly. “Yeah, let’s do that. Moira, will you now tell me where Blake could be hiding?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something important?” I asked.
“Forgetting what?” She gave me a blank look.
“Oh, you know. About our deal.”
“What about it? We agreed to our terms,” she said.
“I want proof of that.” I crossed my arms. “I’m not giving you anything until we all sign the deal.”
“Fine,” she said through her teeth. “We’ll sign it.”
“Good.” I didn’t want her or anyone to change their mind after I told her everything I knew or after we found Blake.
As Lily got to her feet, Jaiden leaned in, his lips brushing my ear. “Are you sure she won’t just rip it up?” he whispered, his voice filled with amusement.
“My parents won’t let her,” I whispered back. “Trust me. We have better chances this way.”
“If you say so.”
I smiled at him. Maybe there was still hope for us.