“Onions and garlic ready?” Ridley asked Archer that evening. They were cooking dinner in the cabin Ridley lived in, waiting for Dad and anyone else who might want to join them. The meeting Nathan had mentioned with the family reps would soon be over, and Dad would fill them in on everything that had been discussed.
“Yeah, watch out,” Archer answered. Ridley ducked as a cutting board soared past her head and tipped itself to the side over the pan on the stove. The sliced onions and garlic slid neatly into the pan and began sizzling in the oil. “Nice,” Archer said. “I’m enjoying this food-prep-with-magic thing. So much easier than cutting vegetables by hand.”
Ridley snorted. “Like you ever cut a vegetable in your life, Archer Davenport.”
“Hey, I prepared plenty of food while living with those other elementals.” He grabbed the cutting board out of the air as it flew back toward him. “I’ll have you know I’m extremely talented in the kitchen.”
Ridley’s snort-laugh was even louder that time. “Sure, whatever. And you’re telling me you didn’t use magic in these other kitchens you’re speaking of?”
“Nope. There was this chef. Like, legit trained-at-the-world’s-top-restaurant type of chef. He was convinced that food prepared by hand tasted better. No one was allowed to use magic when he was the one in charge of the meal. He would—”
“Hey, watch out!” Ridley called, looking over her shoulder in time to see Archer’s knife reach the end of the celery sticks and continue off the board and onto the table.
“Oops.” Archer grabbed the knife and rubbed at the marks on the wooden table. “We’ll, uh, just pretend that was already there. Okay, I’m sending you the celery now.”
The celery joined the onions and garlic in the pan just as the back door opened. “Well, I’m not changing my tune,” a woman said. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t agree with you.”
With a simple one-handed conjuration, Ridley left the wooden spoon stirring the pan’s contents and turned around. The person speaking was Tanika, a woman who had the room next to the one Ridley and Callie shared. She and Callie argued endlessly over their vastly different music tastes, but other than that, Tanika was fairly easy to get along with. She had taught Ridley a conjuration for scented bubbles, which Ridley now used almost every night in her bath. She also had a seemingly endless collection of vibrant scarves, which she used to tie up her thick, curly hair.
“Good meeting?” Ridley asked as Nathan and Saoirse walked in behind Tanika.
“Same meeting,” Saoirse said with a sigh. “Nothing ever changes. Ooh, what are you cooking?”
“Uh, not totally sure. Some kind of veggie stir-fry type of mix.”
“Smells amazing, whatever it is.”
“What’s amazing is having so much fresh produce to work with,” Ridley said. “This stuff costs a fortune in the city. Almost everything I’ve eaten over the past decade has come out of a can or a box.”
“And that’s the world you want us to join?” Tanika said to Nathan. “The world where they only eat out of cans and boxes?”
Nathan groaned. “You know that’s not the way it would be. We want to change the world. Make it more like the way it used to be. Once magic isn’t raging across most of the wastelands anymore, there’ll be plenty of space for farms and crops and all of that.”
“Uh, where’s my dad?” Ridley asked Saoirse.
“Oh, he and Cam and some of the others are packing chairs away after the meeting.” Saoirse sat beside Archer and added, “Can I, uh, show you a slightly different conjuration? One that won’t mutilate the furniture in addition to the vegetables?”
“Look, it’s not that I don’t want change,” Tanika continued. “Change would be great. I just don’t think we’ll ever have enough power to get through that much arxium.”
“Some people do,” Nathan argued. “There are elementals out there who have tremendous power. They could probably single-handedly burn through all the panels over a city.”
“Right, sure, these mythical elementals we’ve heard of. But we’re not lucky enough to have anyone like that here. So while other communities might be powerful enough to liberate their nearest city, I don’t think we are. The life we have now—it works. Why mess with that?”
“Because this isn’t enough!” Nathan insisted. “Sure, life ‘works’ right now, but it could be so much more. So much fuller. Don’t you want a world where children can do and be whatever they want? A world where they don’t have to hide? Don’t you remember what that was like?”
“No,” Tanika said flatly. She plopped into the chair opposite Saoirse. “We’ve always lived in hiding, Nathan. Yes, we used to use magic out in the open, but no one ever knew about the magic inside us. No one knew about elementals. We’ve been hiding forever.”
“And that was wrong,” Nathan said. “We should be free to be who we truly are.”
“I’m free right here,” Tanika reminded him.
“And if the Shadow Society finds us?” Ridley asked carefully, not wanting to anger Tanika but feeling that this was a valid point. “It happened before, when I was a baby. I know you’ve lived here safely for a long time, but they’ll probably find us eventually. Then what?”
“That’s why we have a backup home,” Tanika said. “We can get away and hide there. At the speed we can travel, there’s no way they’ll be able to follow us.”
“Backup home?” Ridley asked with a frown.
“Sorry, I forgot to mention it,” Nathan said. “We’ve been safe for so long that most of the time I forget we even have a backup. Oh! That reminds me. Has someone given you a gas mask yet?”
“A gas mask?”
“I’ll check if we have spares. Everyone’s supposed to have one, just in case. We’ve never had to use them, so—”
“Best to be prepared though,” Saoirse said. “I’ll check for one tomorrow.”
Ridley’s gaze moved between Nathan and Saoirse. “Uh, thanks.”
“Yeah, anyway. The backup home,” Nathan continued. “It’s on the other side of those far mountains. The ones you see in the distance when you’re out there practicing your magic. We spent a few years building it after we first set up home here at the reserve. We have some supplies stored there already—I made sure we wouldn’t have to start over from zero—but our magic is all we really need. It would be difficult, but we’d survive.”
“See?” Tanika said. “So we don’t need to worry about that.”
“But we do need to worry about all the lies the rest of the world is constantly being fed,” Nathan argued. “And the rest of the communities are starting to agree with me on this. They recognize what some of us have been saying all along: that governments across the world don’t actually have any plans to reintegrate magic into society. They’re intentionally—”
“Oh, here we go again.” Tanika pressed her fingers to her temples and rubbed in small circles. “The conspiracy theories.”
“You know I’m right,” Nathan said.
“I love a good conspiracy theory,” Archer said, successfully executing the conjuration Saoirse had just shown him. He sent a cutting board of red peppers and various green vegetables flying over Saoirse’s head and flipped it upside down over the pan. Ridley rescued the wooden spoon from beneath the pile of vegetables and continued stirring everything together.
“It’s still called a conspiracy theory even if it’s true, right?” she asked. She knew what the others were referring to. Nathan had spoken to her about it the night she arrived.
“Everyone in the cities believes the magic out here will kill them,” he had said. “But that’s a lie. Magic is wild, but if you don’t fight it, it isn’t deadly. And the only reason it’s wild is because people constantly cause it to retaliate. Way out here, far from any city, we’re fine.” Ridley might have thought he was crazy if she hadn’t seen the machines buried in the wastelands. The ones that rose from the ground and sprayed arxium into the air, stirring the elemental magic into fierce storms. She’d asked Nathan why anyone would do something like that, but at the back of her mind, she already knew the answer.
Control.
There were those who never wanted magic to be part of society, and after the Cataclysm, when everyone was afraid of magic, they took advantage of that. They made sure it remained wild. They kept it on the other side of a wall, and they forbade anyone from using it.
“Look, a conspiracy is exactly what’s happening,” Nathan said as Ridley slowly stirred the sizzling vegetables, “and it’s going to keep happening unless we do something to stop it. More and more elementals are recognizing this. We just need to get everyone on board and then we can all act at the same time.”
“Why?” Ridley asked, looking over her shoulder. “Why does it need to happen everywhere at the same time?”
“Well, we believe that if we do this only in some cities, it’ll be a warning to the Shadow Society chapters in other cities. It’ll give them a chance to put further protection in place and make it even harder to liberate those cities.”
“We keep saying ‘liberate’ like we’re doing something good,” Tanika said. She leaned forward and snatched up a piece of celery from the pile of excess vegetables Archer hadn’t chopped. “But what if people don’t want to be liberated?” She crunched on the celery. “What if they’re terrified of us?”
“That’s why we do the video as well,” Nathan said.
“Video?” Ridley asked. She hadn’t heard this bit yet.
“A recording that explains everything. The history of the elementals and the Shadow Society. The way government took advantage of the situation after the Cataclysm to take control of the cities that remained. How they continuously stir up the wild magic in the wastelands to keep people afraid. Everything. I’ve already written a rough draft of all the things I need to explain. I’ll send the recording to all the news networks. I’m sure someone will broadcast it. And one of you can upload it to the social feeds.”
“You’re not on any of the social feeds?” Archer asked.
“You should do it,” Ridley said, turning fully and pointing the wooden spoon at Archer. “I’m pretty sure at least half the surviving population of the world follows you.”
“That might be a bit of an exaggeration.”
“Actually, you know what?” she continued as an idea occurred to her, “maybe you should be the one in the video. People know who you are—in several cities, if not all of them—so they’ll listen to you. When your face shows up on a giant billboard screen, people will stop and pay attention.”
“That’s a terrible idea. People may have a sick desire to know what underwear brands I like, and what cologne I’m wearing, and who I’m having dinner with, but they also think I’m an irresponsible trust fund brat. They may hear the words I’m saying, but they won’t actually listen to me.”
“But you’ll be so different from the Archer they know. The Archer they think they know.” Ridley turned the stove off and placed the wooden spoon into an empty mug. “You’ll be genuine, telling them all about the truth you’ve discovered. They won’t be able to help taking you seriously.”
Nathan leaned on the back of a chair. “That is an idea,” he mused.
“Yeah, a terrible one,” Archer repeated. “How about I throw around some spectacular shielding conjurations that protect people from any falling pieces of burning arxium that aren’t totally consumed before they hit the ground? Like Ridley’s dad and all the others who aren’t elementals.”
It turned out Ridley’s grandfather had shared a little of his extensive conjuration knowledge with his son, and even though Nathan’s plan already included people using magic to protect those inside Lumina City, Dad was able to teach everyone a few new shielding conjurations.
“I don’t know, I like this idea too,” Tanika said. She grabbed another celery stick.
“I thought you were against all of this,” Ridley reminded her, lifting her jacket from the back of one of the chairs. It wasn’t her favorite jacket with the hood that she’d lost in a burning blaze, but Dad had conjured up something very similar. Before the Cataclysm, he’d designed and created fantastical jewelry and accessories for celebrities and anyone else who could afford his items, but his training had included garment conjurations. He was a little rusty after so many years of not using magic, which was why the right sleeve was longer than the left and the two sides of the zip didn’t properly meet, but Ridley had told him not to worry about fixing it. She loved having something unique that Dad had made specifically for her. It had been years since the last time that happened.
“I’m saying if we were to ever go ahead with this plan,” Tanika corrected. “Like I said before, I’m not against it. I just don’t think we’ll succeed if we try. We don’t have enough power.”
“Maybe we do,” Saoirse said quietly. “Maybe you underestimate us.”
“You think I’m underestimating us?”
“I do.”
“Okay, let’s play this all out again.”
“Tanika—”
“No, seriously. Let’s say this works. We break apart the arxium machines and the wall. Our earthquakes are targeted enough to stop right at the wall and not destroy any buildings on the other side.”
“Or the bunker,” Ridley interjected. “Don’t forget about the bunker. It extends right up to the wall.”
“Right. The earthquakes are somehow super targeted to hit all parts of the wall except that section. The arxium gas dissipates quickly enough that the magic doesn’t freak out for too long and cause one epically insane storm. We burn through the wall. We burn through the hovering panels. We tell people the truth. They actually believe us and accept us. But then what about—”
“The Shadow Society,” Saoirse said quietly.
“Exactly.”
“This is always your final point,” Nathan said, dropping into a chair with a sigh.
Saoirse looked at Ridley. “We’ve argued about this so many times. It’s like listening to the same song on repeat. You know what lines are coming next.”
“And with good reason!” Tanika said. “This will always be my final point because the Shadow Society will always be the biggest problem. They operate in secret, but their influence is far-reaching. We can’t possibly hope to dismantle their entire organization. So once we reveal ourselves, it’ll be easy for them to wipe us out. And I know—” she added loudly, speaking over Nathan “—you think the law will be on our side. That once we tell everyone about the existence of an organization that likes to kill elementals that that organization will be too afraid to act because of the consequences. But that won’t be the case. The Shadow Society will still have influence over law enforcement, politicians, news media, everything. They’ll kill us all, pass it off as a series of accidents or whatever, and even though no one will entirely believe it, they’ll probably all be relieved.”
Nathan paused, then said, “That isn’t what I was going to say.”
Tanika arched a disbelieving eyebrow. “New lyrics? This isn’t the same song we sing every time?”
“We get rid of them before they get rid of us,” Nathan said simply.
“Get rid of?” Ridley and Archer echoed at the same time.
“Yes. Not all of them. Just the leadership. The director, plus the chairperson of every chapter.”
Silence greeted Nathan’s words. Then Ridley said, “Murder? Is that what you’re talking about?”
“You don’t know who they are,” Tanika said, “so how are you going to get rid of them?”
“Actually,” Nathan said, “we now know that the mayor of Lumina City is one of them. He’s the chairperson of the Lumina City chapter. Who knows, maybe he’s the director too. Maybe he’s running the whole show.”
“Or maybe it’s someone else, in some other city, on some other continent. You have no idea.”
“My point,” Nathan said, “is that if I get to him, I can get all the information I need.”
“What makes you so sure he’ll tell you anything?” Tanika asked.
“I’ll make him.”
“So now we’re talking about torture?” Ridley demanded. “Torture and murder?” An image of the rooms in the Shadow Society’s base flashed across her mind. The beds, the straps. She knew the mayor had been involved in experimenting on elementals. He’d probably tortured plenty of elementals. Yet the idea of doing the same to him—or anyone else—made her sick.
Nathan sighed. “This is why I didn’t bring it up at the meeting.”
“And this is why you probably shouldn’t have brought it up now either,” Saoirse added quietly. “You didn’t think people would agree with you, did you?”
“Actually, this might be the first thing we do agree on,” Tanika said thoughtfully.
“You can’t go out and murder a bunch of people,” Ridley said to Nathan.
“Ridley, I thought you, of all people, would be okay with this. You were captured. You were almost killed. You told me what you saw inside that Shadow Society base. You burned it to the ground. You killed whoever was left inside.”
The truth sucked the air from Ridley’s lungs. She had done that. She’d blazed through that building, not caring how many terrible Shadow Society people were left inside. How was this—what Nathan was proposing—any different? It wasn’t, and yet it felt different to sit here coldly making plans to walk up to someone and kill them face to face. What a hypocrite she was to think that one type of murder was fine while another was not.
“I—I know,” she stammered. “But … I … I wasn’t really thinking. I was acting out of anger. Maybe I … I should have got rid of the place and not the people. Things are different now, and we have a bigger plan. If we want the world to know the truth about everything, then all these people who’ve done terrible things need to be around to stand trial for what they’ve done. And if we want the world to know that we’re not dangerous, then we can’t go around torturing and killing people. That makes us no better than them.”
“Perhaps I don’t care about being better than them,” Nathan said, “if it means every elemental gets to live in a world without fear.”
“So you’re serious,” Archer said. “You’re actually intending to kill people.”
Nathan sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know. Maybe. We have new information now, so maybe this is what we should be doing with it.”
“Or not,” Ridley said. “I can think of other things you could do with that information.”
“And I think this is the end of our discussion for tonight,” Nathan said, pushing up from the table. His easy smile was back in place as he headed for the stove and leaned over the pan to sniff its contents. “Saoirse was right. This smells amazing. Mind if we stay and join you for dinner?”