The pain inside Ridley was too big, too blinding. She fragmented, every particle of her elemental being becoming every particle of the violent tempest that now raged across the wastelands. Her tears were the monsoon rains that gushed from above. Her breaking heart was the crack of lightning as it split the sky. She raged and sobbed and groaned, and the storm poured everything out over the broken landscape.
If Archer hadn’t broken her heart, she would have run to him now. She would have told him that Dad wasn’t her dad and Mom wasn’t her mom and her real parents were people she would never remember. She had no family left and no idea who she really was. She would have cried until she was empty, and he would have held her the entire time.
But there was no one to go to. No one who—
Meera, she thought suddenly. I still have Meera. My best friend.
Ridley sensed a change in the storm’s direction. Or at least, a direction where previously there had been none. The storm had spread out further and further, and Ridley had been everywhere at once, but now she felt almost … pulled together and hurled toward something. Toward Lumina City, hopefully, if the magic around her was correctly reading her intent. She was vaguely aware of the speed at which the landscape raced by beneath her, and it seemed the landforms and ruined towns slid by faster than before. Though perhaps it was only her imagination now that she knew she was supposed to be some kind of super-powered elemental.
Just like her parents.
People she would never know.
Thunder echoed across the wastelands as pain spread through every particle of her being. It was so huge, this hurt. How had it not broken her completely?
She sensed Lumina City on the horizon. Wrapped in a storm, she hurtled toward it. Details she hadn’t bothered to think of before rose to mind. What time of day was it? What day of the week? Would Meera be at school?
The city wall slid by beneath her, and soon she was traveling above her old district and toward Meera’s building. She entered Meera’s bedroom via the narrow gap where the upper edge of the window didn’t properly meet the window frame. The gap Meera complained about whenever it was windy. Ridley’s feet touched the worn pink rug as her human form materialized. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself. The room was so familiar it hurt. The wrinkle-free bedspread, the neatly organized desk, Meera’s precious print books stacked neatly on a small bookshelf. Ridley had spent countless hours in here with Meera, studying, talking, laughing. Would there one day be a world in which that could happen again? Not that she could imagine herself laughing. Everything hurt too much for that.
“Yeah, okay, just give me a minute and I’ll help you with that.”
Ridley looked up, her breath catching at the sound of Meera’s voice. And then, without another moment’s warning, Meera was there, in the open doorway, her eyes growing almost as large as her enormous glasses. “Ridley!” she gasped.
“Um, hi,” Ridley answered uncertainly. Now that she was here, she didn’t know where to start. She was saved from having to come up with something immediately when Meera launched across the room and enveloped Ridley in a hug.
“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh,” she said into Ridley’s hair. “You’re okay. You’re not dead. Oh thank goodness. What a relief.”
Ridley brought her arms up around Meera’s back and squeezed tight. Tighter and longer than she’d ever clung to her friend before. “I missed you,” she whispered, mainly because her voice couldn’t go any louder without breaking.
“I missed you too.” Then Meera pulled back and slapped Ridley’s arm. “Where have you been? Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? You and your dad both just vanished. What happened?”
Ridley stepped past her and quietly shut the door. It was probably a weekend, given that Meera wasn’t in her school uniform, and Ridley wasn’t sure how many of her family members might also be home. She didn’t need them all running in here while she struggled to get through the secrets she needed to share. “I … there’s …” She inhaled a shuddering breath, her fingers absently playing with the zip of her jacket. The jacket that Dad—not my dad—had conjured for her. “There’s a lot I need to tell you, Meera. I’m … my dad …” Emotion stuck in her throat, making it hard to speak.
“Oh no, what happened?” Meera raised both hands to her mouth. “Is he okay?”
“Yes. Yes, he’s okay. But …” Ridley couldn’t bring herself to say it. The words wouldn’t leave her lips. “Um, I have to tell you something about me,” she said instead.
“O-okay.”
“I … uh … I’m not like you.”
A frown line formed above the bridge of Meera’s glasses. “Okaaaaay.”
Ridley let out a rush of breath and said, “There’s magic inside me. Like, inside my body. I was born that way. I don’t have amulets beneath my skin—neither an AI1 nor AI2—and I don’t have to pull magic from the environment the way other people do. Or used to do, before it was banned. I can just use the magic from inside me to do conjurations.”
Unmoving, Meera stared at Ridley. Then she grabbed her commscreen from the desk and shoved it beneath her pillow. “Ridley, you can’t say things like that! You don’t know who might be listening.”
Ridley sighed, wondering if the meaning of her words had actually reached Meera’s brain, or if she’d got stuck on the fact that Ridley was talking about something illegal. “Don’t worry. I’m the one saying these things, not you, and I’m already a wanted criminal.”
“You—you are?”
“Yes. Because of this.” A demonstration was probably simpler than trying to explain things to Meera. Ridley pushed her sleeves up and extended her arms as glowing threads of blue pulsed beneath her skin. Wisps of magic drifted into the air. Ridley did a quick one-handed conjuration and flicked the magic toward her own head. Her hair swiftly pulled itself into a ponytail. It was a conjuration her mom—not my mom—had done often for her when she was little.
Meera blinked. Blinked again. Then she shook her head as if waking from a daze. “Ridley!” she hissed, her eyes darting furtively around as if she might find some member of law enforcement lurking in the shadows of her own home. “What the—are you crazy? You can’t do that here!”
“I’m sorry, but you didn’t seem to be getting what I was telling you. This isn’t a law I chose to break. This is the way I am. And I managed to keep this a secret—even from you—until the night I went to that party with Archer. Something went wrong there, and I had to use magic to get away quickly, but there were cops there and they saw me, and then Dad and I had to run.”
“You …” Meera was still staring at Ridley’s hands. “You just used magic,” she whispered. “In my house.”
Again, it seemed like Meera might be missing the point. “Meera, I’m trying to tell you all the things I’ve always had to keep from you. All the secrets. The reason that man was killed outside my home, and me being able to sneak around the city to steal things so I can help the people who really need it, and Lawrence Madson and his father trying to kill me, and Shen leaving without saying goodbye, and … it all comes down to this. There are people in the world called elementals, and I’m one of them.”
Meera was gaping at her, which was probably to be expected after the number of secrets that had tumbled from Ridley’s mouth in a single breath. “There are people who want to kill me because of what I can do, Meera. Because of the magic inside me. Because I can do things like this.” She became water in an instant, splashing to the floor and then leaping into the air as a sparking rush of flames before whooshing up to the ceiling as air, causing the curtains to billow. It all took place within a matter of seconds before she returned to her human form.
Her feet had barely touched the floor when Meera stumbled backward and smacked into the wardrobe. Her palms flattened against its doors. “Stop,” she whispered. Then louder: “Stop. Stop, stop, stop.” She covered her ears with her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t want to know any more. Please don’t tell me anything else, don’t show me anything else.”
“What? But …” Ridley’s heart floundered painfully. “I thought you’d want to know the truth.”
“Nope. No. Not this truth.” Meera lowered her hands and shook her head repeatedly. Her eyes were open again, pointed at the floor somewhere near Ridley’s feet. “There were times when it seemed like you were keeping things from me, and I always hoped you’d eventually be honest, but I didn’t realize you were keeping these kinds of secrets. Illegal secrets. Like, death sentence-worthy secrets.”
“Meera, just—”
“I don’t want to know!” Meera repeated, her eyes wide and desperate. “Please leave me out of this. I don’t want to end up in prison. I don’t want to …” She shook her head again as she edged past Ridley, keeping as much distance between the two of them as possible in this tiny room. “Please, Ridley, I love you and I’m so happy you’re okay, but … you have to go. I can’t be involved in this. My family can’t be involved. Please don’t get us into trouble. Please just … go.” She pulled the door open and rushed into the hallway, then stopped and looked back. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes met Ridley’s, her gaze pleading with Ridley to understand. “I’m so sorry. You’re my best friend and I love you, but … I’m not brave like you. I can’t do this.” She hurried away, her shoes swiping swiftly down the hall.
Stunned, lost for words or thoughts or any feeling other than the ache radiating from the center of her being, Ridley stared at the empty doorway. “What’s going on?” Meera’s sister Anika asked from the living room. “I thought you were coming to help me with—”
“We’re going for a walk,” Meera interrupted.
“What, now? But—”
“Now. Grab your coat. We’ll finish lunch and your history homework when we get back.” There was the scuffle of shoes and the mumble of voices and then the front door banged shut.
Ridley was alone.