Page 168 of Bound By Fury

His arms stretch out wide as he continues. “To have control of the Air and the Water…,” he says, his smile sinister and all teeth. “This curse is no match for the Midnight Guard!”

Lucas nods, pushing past Malachi to come to my side, his voice low as his father continues to yell out his grandiose proclamations. “Harper, please,” he whispers, sending chills to my very core. When his hand grazes my lower back, I suck in a breath, dizzy at the way I’m instantly quieted, even if it’s only for a moment. His whole body is trembling. This close I can see the sweat beading his brow. His eyes are bright and shining, his lips parted and red. Where I have been slowly wilting like an over-watered flower, he’s grown radiant. But beneath that is something starving and raving mad. Thirsty.

The longer his hand is on my back, the dizzier I feel. The emptiness is disorienting. So much so, I swear I can see something wicked shifting in his face. His breathing slows.

“You lied to me… about everything,” I hiss.

He shakes his head. “That’s not true.”

“What do you mean, that’s not true?! You told me you loved me—”

Malachi sucks his teeth.

“—and yet you tried to kill me? In the hedge maze… that was you, wasn’t it? After everything that happened between us…” He must have used the tunnels beneath the school as a shortcut. I feel sick.

“No, Harps, you’ve got it all wrong. I wasn’t trying—it’s not like—we just, your blood… we needed it for tonight. To make sure you wouldn’t hurt us.”

I recoil against his words. “Do you hear yourself right now?” I guess that’s how they were able to dampen my magic… they can bind my blood to the iron chains, though I have no idea how that would even work.

He runs his hands through his hair, his eyes wide and pleading. “Just listen to what he has to say, okay? There’s more to this. There’s so much more to this. You’ll see. I promise. We don’t want to hurt you, right? I know he told you that. We don’t want to do it.”

I bristle at his words, glancing at Malachi. He looks like he wants to blow something up. “You said Kai was brainwashed, but you’re a liar. You’re the one that’s brainwashed! Stop fucking talking to me.”

Alastair is still going. “With the Water and the Air under our control, we’ll be well on our way to yielding the Four. The Holy River, it begs. And we will be there to fulfill our righteous duty! Fiona was no match against our power, and Harper will be no different.” An even more menacing look crosses his face.

He turns to his companions as he raises his arms to the sky. “No longer will the abominations of the world hoard this holy power for themselves. The Guardians will rise above!”

“Rise above!” the others say in solidarity. Well, everyone except Kai.

Wait.

Fiona.

My nails dig into my palms.

The fated Air? Not heir?

Fiona is the Air… but her body…

“Is Fiona still alive?” I ask Malachi.

“Of course she is!” Alastair snaps. “What is so confusing about all this? You were doing too much! Sneaking around my office, snooping through the meeting house—though I’ll never understand how you even found it in the first place!”

Beside me Lucas shifts the smallest bit.

“So we called in a favor. Staged the scene a little bit. I couldn’t risk you learning the truth before tonight, when the campus is nearly empty thanks to the school-wide outing down to the Village. Now any display of your power will go unnoticed.”

My heartbeat whooshes in my ears.

I look between the boys.

Have they known this whole time? The both of them? Pretended to be oblivious as people searched for Fiona? As the campus mourned a death that never even happened?

I am the Water.

If Fiona is the Air, where is she?

Where are the others?