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Strands of hair fall into his eyes as he shakes his head. “Nah, I’ll carry you through the portal.” He looks at Gabe. “So, what’re we going to do?”
Gabe glances at the trees, the portal, me, then at Holden. “Take her back to the house. We’ll find your brothers and send them back. Then your mother and I will go to headquarters.”
“You think it’s safe?” Holden asks, his arms tensing around me.
Gabe wavers. “
I’m not sure, which is why we’ll go to Gabby first. She’ll be able to give us a sense of what’s going on. We’ll make our next decision based on that.”
Worry crams Holden’s expression. “Just be safe, okay?”
“Of course.” Gabe forces a smile.
Holden sighs, striding across the podium toward the rainbow portal.
Guilt weighs down on my chest. If something happens to them, it’ll be my fault.
Before I can verbalize my feelings, though, Holden jumps into the portal and rainbow light swallows us up.
Chapter 15
After Holden transports us through the portal and back to the Everettsons’ living room, he sets me down on the sofa. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” Then he spins on his heels and strides out of the room.
My palms are sweating and my pulse is soaring as I process everything I discovered over the last day. Powers. Paranormals. Me being some rare creature. That my parents might not actually be my real parents. How is this possible?
I’d probably be more in shock if I hadn’t already been dealing with my powers for most of my life. While some of what I just learned is frightening—and frustrating, if it turns out my parents aren’t my real parents—I also feel a trace of relief that, after all these years, I’m finally starting to understand why I can make lightning and fires ignite from out of nowhere, why I can sometimes start flashfloods, why light bulbs burst when I get angry. I’ve spent years believing I was crazy. Years thinking, if I really did have powers, I was the only one in the world who did.
“All right, I want to try a couple of things,” Holden announces as he returns to the room. He has a small, leather bag in his hand and his sleeves are rolled up.
“What sort of things?” I dubiously eyeball the leather bag that looks an awful lot like an old-school doctor bag.
“Nothing bad. I promise.” He sinks down onto the edge of the coffee table and opens the bag. “I want to see if I can get that invisible wall around you down. If I can, it might allow you to talk about your powers. It’s got a tiny crack in it already, but we can use that to our advantage. Although, I’m curious what caused the crack.”
“I have no idea.” I pause. “You think this wall is what’s restraining me from talking about… Well, you know?”
“It could be.” He retrieves a thick, leather-bound book from the bag. “It could be a spell, though. If that’s the case, we’re going to need to bring in an elemental witch.”
“Is that like a normal witch?” I pause as what he said sinks in. “Wait … Witches exist?”
“Everything exists.” He fans through the pages of the book. “But elemental witches are a bit different from normal witches. Where normal witches gain their powers from spells, elemental witches’ powers come directly from the elements.”
“So wind, fire, water, and ice,” I list the elements I’ve heard about so far. “Are there any more elements?”
His throat muscles work as he swallows hard. “There’s one more … Darkness.”
“I’m guessing from your tone that darkness isn’t a good element?”
An uneven exhale eases from his lips. “Our history is filled with wars and dark periods caused by the elemental protectors of darkness. There’s something about controlling darkness and being connected to it that makes a lot of them almost insane. It doesn’t help that darkness is linked to dark magic, which is the most evilest form of magic.”
“Do …? Um …” I nervously wet my chapped lips. “Elemental enchanters have all the elements, right? So that includes darkness?”
He nods. “Don’t worry, though. Even though darkness is a part of you, elemental enchanters are known for doing more good than evil. And usually, they only cause evil when forced by the hand of another.”
“Oh.” I can’t help thinking of Foster and the unkindness he’s shown toward me.
“Foster isn’t as cruel as he comes off. There’s just a lot to being an elemental enchanter, which you’ll learn about soon. That is, if I’m correct about you being one.” He returns to skimming through the book.
Again, it’s as though he can read my mind.
