Night descended, the steadily falling rain making the evening grayer and drearier. Minutes passed. He paced in the doorway, the phone cord stretched to its maximum as he went out onto the porch, trying to see if Keko had gone through one of the doors in that line of shops, or if she’d just kept walking.
A fumbling of the phone on the other end, then a familiar voice, resigned and tired. “Griffin.”
With the time change, it would be after midnight at the air elemental compound in Canada. Griffin didn’t care.
“What the fuck.” To hell with propriety and diplomacy. “We had a deal, Premier. I come after Keko alone. The Children agreed to this. Keko is theirs only if she gets to the Source.”
“Whoa, whoa.” The premier sniffed and sounded like he took a drink of something. “Slow down. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Really.” Griffin gripped the slick porch railing, holding back a biting laugh and a shout of rage-induced frustration. “A Son of Earth attacked us and you’re telling me you had no clue.”
“Us?”
Griffin bowed his head, letting the rain hit his neck and run through his hair. “I found Keko. I’m with her. And this fucking earth elemental turns into a tree or possesses one or something, and almost kills us both.”
The premier sucked in a breath. “Is the Source safe?”
“Heard of any natural disasters lately?”
“So our deal is still on.” It wasn’t a question.
Griffin squeezed his eyes shut. “Look, I’m upholding my end. You sure as fuck better honor yours.”
The premier inhaled as though he had a cigarette between his lips. “I sanctioned no attack, authorized no breach of the deal. I gave you my word. Aya gave hers, too. I’ll bring this up with her immediately.”
“Tell her to leave us the hell alone. If you want the Source safe, I need more time.”
“If all I wanted was for the Source to be safe”—another smoke-filled inhale—“I would just let Aya and the Children do their thing. Let them take care of it themselves. This is about giving you your chance.”
A sick feeling twisted Griffin’s gut, like he’d finally gotten a bite after nearly starving and the food had gone rancid. He stalked back into the room. “I’m handling this,” he snarled, and slammed down the receiver. It felt good to do that. You didn’t get to do that with cell phones anymore.
He stared at the phone for a long time, wondering exactly what he’d just done. By warning off the Children of Earth, he’d bought himself much-needed time with Keko—time to find out what secret she was protecting and what she was going to do with the map that was in his head. More time just to be with her.
And yet he’d also basically reconfirmed with the premier that he’d trade Keko for a Senatus seat.
But would he?
THIRTEEN
Aya broke through the hard, cold crust of earth and rolled herself onto the windswept prairie of southern Alberta. This spot was a few hours from the U.S. border, though that sort of delineation meant little to her kind. What did matter was that the land here had been worked over so much with plow and seed that there were very few purely natural, untouched areas left for her use as travel and entry/exit points. Except for this one spot where a great tree stood twisted like an old soldier standing sentry by the gravel road.
An icy, blustery night out here, where not much lived besides crops and the few farmers who tended them. And the Airs.
Spring ran cold here, and yellowed late-March grass poked up through the remaining patches of snow around the tree. She pushed her human body into being as quickly as the painful, awkward shift allowed. She magically fashioned clothing from the grass and the nearby dead husks of corn: a soft, woven suit that conformed to her body from neck to ankles. It looked strange, she knew, but she had no human clothing of her own yet.
Someday. Soon.
She started walking west under the blue-black sky made in the hours past midnight, the moon casting shadows and the stars guiding her way. On all sides she sensed the great space of central Canada extending out. She felt the unbroken rush of wind as it crossed the land and whipped across her body, and it made her smile to herself. Made her breathe in deeply the sweet scent of fresh air. Made her revel in what she could not get Within.
She’d been here before. Two months ago the premier had summoned her, wanting her counsel, when the Chimerans had been on the verge of declaring war on the Ofarians. And then one month ago, when she’d been informed that Madeline was no longer the Airs’ mind-wiper, and that her position had been filled by her brother.
A similar summons had arrived barely an hour earlier, its urgency just as potent. She’d been sitting in her cave, human eyes closed, trying not to think about the walls closing in, when the little glowing root had pushed through a crack and unfurled the premier’s message, written on a leaf in the way she’d only told him and the Chimeran chief to contact her. My compound. As soon as possible.
Her immediate thought? Griffin. Keko.
Now she trudged through the crunchy, barren aisles of dead corn, heading toward the massive white walls that loomed in the distance. When the crops gave way to the grass of the meadows that surrounded the Air compound, she passed several wooden signs staked into the ground.
HAVE YOU REPENTED?
WALK WITH THE LORD AND YOU’LL NEVER NEED TO RUN FROM ANYTHING AGAIN.
JESUS SAVES.
The white walls were two stories tall, impenetrable except for the iron doors big enough to admit a semitruck and stamped with a giant white cross. Razor wire coiled over the top of the wall. Security cameras covered all angles of the enclosure and the surrounding meadow.
As Aya approached, one side of the iron doors opened and a woman in a parka and hat and mittens appeared. She eyed Aya’s body, tightly clad in the woven suit, unable to disguise her shock and wariness. Peering out into the cold, dark night, and then returning her stare back to Aya, she said, “You can only be . . .”
“I am.” Though the female Air was taller than her by a head, Aya proudly lifted her chin and looked the Air directly in the eye. “Aya, Daughter of Earth. The premier is expecting me.”
The Air shuffled back to admit Aya, and Aya felt the Air’s awe pass over her like the wind. Aya could not wait to blend in better, to not draw such stares.
“This way.” The female hurried ahead, snaking through a vaguely familiar set of dark alleyways between narrowly placed buildings. The whole compound was like that, she remembered, a maze packed tightly with boxy, nondescript structures meant to hold and house the largest density of air elementals.
Aya could not keep track of their path. Just when she was sure she’d seen this particular corner or doorway more than once, and that the female was steering her back out the way they came, they popped out into a small square. Ahead rose a giant, ornate church topped with the massive silver cross she’d glimpsed from the other side of the wall. The other woman pulled open the heavy wood doors of the church and the two of them entered.
The inside looked nothing like the few other churches Aya had wandered into, but the interior didn’t matter, as long as anyone flying over or trying to spy inside the compound thought this place was dedicated to a Primary religion and inhabited by isolationist zealots. Each Secondary race had its own way of hiding in plain sight, so it was rather an important thing to have been invited into another elemental world.
And this marked the third time. This excited her. She needed stronger eyes on the Airs. Aya’s growing friendship with Keko had given her hope that she’d be allowed a peek into the Chimeran culture, and she knew Griffin would openly welcome a chance to meet with her eventually, but had both those opportunities been destroyed now? What then?