“What are you doing here?” I asked her. I kept watch for any sign of observers, but although there were people about, they didn’t pay any obvious attention to me.
Zedala continued to huddle in her veil, but finally replied, “I was looking for you. You tried to help me.”
“And?”
“I need to get out of here.” She looked up, and the faint, fading light shone on tear tracks on her face. “They say I failed. They say I’m not powerful enough; I’m not the one they need. So they say I’m going to go home. But I’m not going home, am I?”
I thought of the bodies under the tilled field. “No,” I said. “I don’t think they’ll let you go home.”
“Can you help me?” she asked in a very faint voice. “Because there’s nobody else. Nobody.”
I closed my eyes. The pain in her voice pierced me, but I knew what Ashan would want me to do. What the old Cassiel, the Djinn Cassiel, would have done. I knew I should have walked away, left her there in her tears and desperation, and preserved my chance to win the day.
But she had no chance without my help. None. By dawn, I’d be finding her corpse buried next to Merle’s. I’d be imagining a child’s last, frantic, desperate moments. A child whom these people professed to honor and protect.
I might be a good Djinn if I allowed that to happen, but I would be a monster of a human being.
I opened my eyes and said, “All right. Can you veil yourself until I come and get you?”
“I think so.” Zedala wiped her face with her sleeve and looked up at me with hope dawning warm in her eyes. “You’re going to help? Really?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m going to help. But you have to promise me one thing.”
“Okay.”
“You have to promise me you won’t stop running until you reach the Wardens. Tell them I sent you for help.”
She nodded solemnly, and I pushed away from the wall and went into the lodge. My shower seemed to take an eternity, as did the dinner that followed. Will tried to distract me with amusing stories, but my smiles were all halfhearted.
Oriana was gone, too, I realized, as I looked around. Merle and Oriana, both missing, both likely dead.
I would be next, or the child would. I couldn’t let her suffer for my mistakes.
After dinner, I willed myself to return to the lodge. Oriana’s bunk above mine was neatly made, but any personal effects were gone. Instead, it was ready for a new occupant, complete with the same welcome gifts she and I had received upon our arrival. I undressed and got into bed, and waited for the hours to pass.
In the full dark, I rose and dressed as silently as I could, went to the restroom, and pried open one of the small windows at the back. I would never have made it in my original Cassiel form, but Laura Rose was smaller and lighter-boned, and I squirmed through the narrow opening and dropped to the ground outside. The moon was dark, so I had only starlight to navigate by. Apart from the rustle of the wind in the trees, there seemed to be no one about at all tonight. I spotted the subtle glimmer of Zedala’s veil; she was where I had left her, close against the wall of the lodge building. I hesitated for a moment more, breathing in the sharp evening air, all senses alert, but I heard and saw nothing else.
I moved toward her under cover of shadows and crouched down next to her. She was wrapped in my quilted jacket, but still shivering. Nevertheless, she gave me a wan smile when she saw me. “You came,” she whispered. “You came.”
“Of course,” I said. “I wouldn’t leave you.”
I helped her up, took her hand, and after another careful survey of the area, led her across the dangerously open area toward the fence. It was a significant barrier, but not for an Earth Warden; I had no more fear of disguising my power, because I knew that in order to allow Zedala’s escape, I’d have to betray myself.
It felt like a positive step, until I remembered the friends I’d made, the peace I’d felt here. Until I imagined the look in Will’s eyes when he learned of my betrayal.
“Are you okay?” Zedala whispered. We were at the fence, and I was at the moment of truth now. No more delays, no more doubts. I had to do this, or the child wouldn’t survive her next encounter with her teachers.
It would cost me my chance at Pearl if I did this, but if I stood by and allowed a child’s death as the cost ...
No. I was willing to pay a high price, but not that. Not that.
I extended my hand, exerted a delicate flow of power, and the metal mesh of the fence began to split and peel back like the edges of a sharp, dangerous flower.
Something hit me in the back of the neck with a stunning blow, and then again, even harder. A wave of disorientation, darkness, pain, and then I was falling to my knees, struggling to turn my power on the one who’d attacked me ...
... until I saw Zedala’s face, alight with triumph and malice. She still held a bloody rock in her hand. She raised it over her head and screamed in triumph—a warrior’s cry, chilling from such a small, fragile girl.
“Why?” I asked. I was clinging to consciousness only with the greatest of effort, and there was something terribly wrong with my head. The world tilted, sliding me toward the black edge.
For answer, Zedala hit me again. I heard answering cries, hot with approval, and this time, I couldn’t hold on to the world at all.
Cass. Cass! Wake up!
Luis’s voice, whispering urgently in my ear. I didn’t want to wake up. The darkness was kind; it cloaked the pain and dulled the betrayal, but the whispers reached me even there, dragging me into a dull twilight full of agony. The pain drove me upward, into a harsh light that made me groan and twist aside from the glare.
“She’s waking up,” someone said. Not Luis. I ached to feel his presence, his comforting, healing touch, but instead there was only pain, and isolation. I couldn’t move far. I was tied, or otherwise restrained. When I opened my eyes, the blaze of sun made me want to retch in anguish. There were dark shapes around me, distorted and sinister. “Block her! Don’t let her get at her power!”
A child-sized hand flattened against my forehead, and I felt a cold, iron-hard wall come down, severing me from the reservoir of warm golden power that had accumulated within me. Luis had been feeding it to me, I realized; he’d been trying to heal me from afar, but now I was adrift and alone, and without that constant pulse of power, I was beginning to die. Oh, it was a slow process. It would take days of agony and terror, but my flesh would rot, and then the core of me would starve and flicker out like a blown flame.
I blinked away the glare, and the shadows wavered into the shapes of faces and bodies. Zedala’s face came first. She was kneeling next to me with her hand on my forehead, and it was she who was cutting me off from my source. From Luis.
Zedala looked up, and I saw a boy of about her own age standing there staring down at us with a cold, remote expression. The Earth Warden boy, the one who’d staged that elaborate charade in the field to draw me out. There were two more children as well—a small, delicate girl who almost vibrated with the energy of Fire and a golden-skinned boy with silky black hair who radiated ... nothing. Absolutely nothing.
There was something terrifying about him, and the look in his eyes. He couldn’t have been more than nine years old, but that was an ancient, awful thing inside of him.
There was an adult woman with them as well, one of the teachers in a red bandanna. She was standing back, head bowed, hands clasped together. I thought for an instant that her obedience was directed toward the children, but then I realized that there was another presence in the room, standing farther away and somewhere past my aching head.
I pulled in a shaking breath as I felt the tidal force of her presence wash through the room.