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“I didn’t do anything.” I open my stride. His words are nudging at that place inside me that keeps tugging and twinging, that shows me images I don’t want to see, feelings I can’t possibly be feeling.
This is bad timing. I have my mission. As Elijah falls behind, I make my way to the lakeshore and the four guys. There are small clusters of boys around them, I realize as I approach, probably their gangs. Are they guarding them or just hanging around?
Nobody else gets in my path, though eyes turn on me, more and more, following me, making my skin itch. The boys seem so tall from up close, their shoulders broad like bulwarks, their arms thick with muscle, their faces cut from glass, hard and beautiful.
That strange feeling hits me again—that sense of the elements, but more than that, a sense of familiarity, of warmth and need, and an ache I can’t name. As if I belong with them, as if I’ve missed them.
I shake my head as I come up to them, and by then their faces have turned my way and they’re starting toward me, as if they can’t wait for me to reach them.
“Mia!” Jason grabs me in a hug, his strong arms around me, and it brings an odd sting to my eyes. “Where were you? We looked everywhere for you. We thought Ophelia got you—”
I pull back, my heart strangely pounding. “I’m fine.”
My body is buzzing. It’s like my blood is running hot under my skin. My head is throbbing. What is this?
“We thought something had happened to you,” Emrys says, reaching for me and I take another step back. “Mia?”
I glance at Ashton and Sindri who are now frowning. “I said I’m fine. I was looking for you, too.”
That seems to relax them a bit.
“What are those papers?” Ashton asks. “Were you at the library, researching? We looked there but didn’t find you.”
“Yeah, I did some research.”
“Mia,” Sindri says quietly, just that, a question in his low voice, and dammit, I can’t look at their handsome, worried faces anymore.
“Come with me,” I say and nod at the bonfires. “There’s something I need to show you.”
“Show us what? What did you find?” Ashton asks even as they follow without seeming to think about it, their eyes on me. “That’s a lot of pages you copied.”
“Yeah, it was a lot to take in,” I whisper. Ashton reaches for my hand but I twist away and walk faster. “Come on.”
Emrys mutters something that sounds like a curse. They’re slowing down.
I stop at the biggest bonfire, where the big boomboxes are, and turn around. The four of them are watching me, their eyes slightly wide.
“Mia—” Jason starts.
I lift a hand. “Stop the music!” I shout.
I need a bullhorn, I think, a way to amplify my voice, somehow make it be heard over the noise, but when I open my mouth, the music shuts off, leaving behind a vast, rippling silence.
Someone is asking what is going on. The hush is more expectant than shocked. They think I have a good announcement to make. Something to do with booze, probably, or a future party.
The moon winks at me from the sky.
“Students of Pandemonium Academy,” I say and my voice carries on the air, over the sparks of the fires, the water of the lake, the pulsing earth. It seems to vibrate and resonate. “Did you know that four students among you are special?”
“Mia.” It’s Emrys this time. “What the hell are you doing?”
“These four boys—these four princes of the Houses of Air, Fire, Earth, and Water, are criminals. Murderers. If you didn’t know, it’s time you read the facts. Here.” I pass stacks of the papers to the students right and left. “Pass them on.”
The four boys are frozen in place, staring at me, faces pale, mouths gaping.
In the gathering crowd, I can see Percy. He’s glaring at me as if I killed his puppy. Did he know about the boys’ crimes? Anala’s face seems to glow. Elijah is talking with the agitated werewolves. Az is grinning but his eyes are angry.
The gangs are swirling like coffee stirred in a mug, brawls breaking out in them. The entire crowd is moving, heaving like water, clusters forming and subsiding. Some people yell. Others are whispering.
