Elemental Thief Read online

  “Really? He’s kind and smart, and have you seen those arm and shoulder muscles from all the rock climbing? I mean, talk about swoon-worthy, right?” Ridley’s grin stretched wider as Meera’s blush deepened.

  “Yeah, but he’s Shen.” She sucked in a deep breath, and slowly, tears welled in her eyes. “And … and I really thought he was going to be trapped in prison forever, or maybe even end up dead. I thought we might never see him again, and I could hardly bear it.”

  Ridley launched across the couch and wrapped her arms around Meera. “You’re so totally in love,” she said with a laugh.

  “I am not,” Meera protested weakly. And then: “Do you think I am?”

  “Well, look, I’m no expert,” Ridley said as she pulled back. “But it seems like it.”

  “Ugh, I’m never going to be able to concentrate on this stupid book now,” Meera said, covering her face with both hands.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t even bother trying. You know we can catch up quickly with reading once school starts.” Ridley picked up her commscreen again and searched for Mrs. Lin’s details. “Let’s find out what’s happening with Shen.”

  They called Mrs. Lin twice, and she answered the second time. After getting her emotions under control, she told them, “The lawyer says she’s pushing for him to be released by the end of the day. And she’s really good, this woman. She says they have zero legitimate evidence that points to Shen being involved.”

  Ridley high-fived Meera over the top of the commscreen before ending the call. They then spent the remainder of the afternoon texting back and forth with one of Shen’s brothers while watching the social feeds blow up about the video Archer had shared, the corruption within law enforcement and government, and the general injustice surrounding the whole situation. Eventually, half an hour before they needed to be at Wallace Academy, Shen’s brother sent one last message: HE’S OUT!

  Meera squealed, then jumped up and pulled Ridley off the couch. “Okay, you gotta go. You still need to get home and get dressed. We’ll meet at the bus stop?”

  “Yep, I’m going, I’m going. We can visit Shen at home later.”

  “Yes! Yay!”

  Ridley ran home, which was fortunately only two and a half blocks away, and quickly changed out of her jeans and jacket and into black pants and a blue shirt. It was one of three smart button-up shirts she kept aside for Wallace Academy events. That and the two dresses she wasn’t particularly fond of wearing. She dabbed on lip gloss, dragged a mascara wand over her eyelashes, ran her fingers through her hair a few times, and decided that was good enough.

  A little more than twenty minutes later, she and Meera walked up the Wallace Academy steps together. “Our last one,” Meera said as they reached the tall glass doors. “One more start-of-the-year dinner. One more year of school uniforms. One more year until all the hard work is worth it. Well, then there’s university, I suppose,” she added. “After that all the hard work will be worth it. But at least we’ll be done with pleated skirts and knee-high socks by the end of this year.”

  “Those ridiculous socks,” Ridley said. “I’m so over them.”

  “You definitely won’t need them at The Rosman Foundation,” Meera said with a laugh.

  If I get in, Ridley added silently. If she wasn’t accepted into one of The Rosman Foundation intern programs straight out of school, then hopefully one of her college applications would work out. Many of the world’s best tertiary institutions had been demolished in the Cataclysm, of course, but those in cities with arxium protection had survived. There were still some good places left around the world—if she could get financial assistance. Then she could try again in a few years for The Rosman Foundation, or something like it somewhere else in the world.

  As she and Meera passed reception and headed toward the academy’s grand dining room, Ridley’s commscreen buzzed. She pulled the slim device from her pocket, which showed a picture of Dad’s face alongside the incoming voice call symbol. “I’ll catch up in a minute,” she said to Meera as she turned and raised the commscreen to her ear. “Hi, Dad.”

  “Riddles! Did you see the news about Shen?”

  “Yes! Isn’t it great?” Ridley’s smile stretched wide as she wandered back past the reception desk. “I heard he’s out now.”

  “Yes, sounds like their lawyer was amazing. Ferocious woman. And with the public going nuts about rich people framing poor people for crimes they didn’t commit, I think the cops felt pressured to speed up the process of releasing him.”

  “So is he home yet?”

  “Yes. Saw him myself. He had a police escort straight to his front door.”

  “Awesome.” Ridley stopped near the library door. “Meera and I will come over later after the dinner. I mean, if the Lins don’t mind.”

  “Sounds great. I’ll check with them and let you know. And Ridley?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Try to enjoy tonight.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She traced one finger over the gold lettering on the library door. “I’ll try.”

  “I know you hate these stuffy traditional events, but it’s your last one. At least, the last of this exact type of event. So pretend you’re happy to be there. You know what’ll happen.”

  Ridley smiled again as she lowered her hand. A smaller smile, but one no less real. In the early days of living above Kayne’s Antiques, when life sucked more than it had ever sucked, Dad would say, “Let’s just pretend, okay? Let’s pretend it’s fun to live here.” So they pretended, and most of the time it actually made Ridley feel a little better. “I will,” she said, turning away from the library door. “I promise. See you later.” She ended the call, slid the commscreen back into her pocket, and looked up.

  And took a startled step back at the sight of someone standing there, watching her. With hands curled at his sides and his expression thunderous, Archer Davenport said, “What have you done?”

  15

  “What have I done?” Ridley repeated as Archer stepped past her and shoved the library door open. He grabbed her arm and pulled her in after him.

  “You stole a priceless artifact from my home,” he said, releasing her before she could tug her arm free. “And you posted a video that should never have been made public.”

  She hesitated, utterly baffled as to how he knew she was the one who’d done these things. “Even if it were true that I posted the video,” she said eventually, ignoring Archer’s first statement, “what are you so concerned about? It’s not like it showed you doing anything wrong. You’re still off the hook.”

  “How did you even get hold of it?” he demanded. “My father said that all trace of the original footage was gone.”

  “How did I get hold of it? You’re joking, right?”

  He brought one fist down on the librarian’s desk. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  “You seriously don’t know the things that happen under your own roof?” Ridley asked. But even as she said the words, she remembered Lilah hiding one laptop in her bottom dresser drawer and the other behind a pile of books at the top of a bookshelf. If you tell anyone what you think I spend my spare time doing, Lilah had said to her, I will make sure you pay.

  Archer’s eyes narrowed. “I know you were in my bedroom this evening using my computer to post that video. And since you were stupid enough to wear the exact same jacket as the mysterious thief who stole that figurine a few nights ago, I now know that mysterious thief was you.”

  “You don’t know—”

  “I do know, Ridley. It was you who walked past the camera in my bedroom.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You have a camera in your bedroom?” she blurted out. “Okay, that’s just creepy.”

  Archer’s gaze grew darker. “Think whatever you want to think.”

  “I’m trying not to, actually. I’d rather not imagine the things you like to record in your own—”

  “Ridley!” he shouted. “You have no idea what a mess you’ve created. Apart from the vi
deo, which I had to get creative about when explaining things to my father—”

  “Oh, poor Archer,” she sneered. “Did I make a mess for you? I guess that’s what you get for going along with framing an innocent person instead of telling the truth from the start.”

  He leaned dangerously close to her and lowered his voice. “I had nothing to do with that. And did you ever stop to think that maybe your friend isn’t so innocent?”

  “No, I did not stop to think that. I don’t know about the kind of people you hang out with, but my friends aren’t the type who kill people!”

  Archer swung away from her, his hands clenching into fists. Several silent moments passed before he turned back to her, his jaw set. “Just forget about the stupid video. I need the figurine, okay? That’s all that matters right now.”

  “Why? What’s so important about one stupid artifact from the old world? Your family owns so many of those kinds of things I’m surprised you even noticed it was—” She stopped then, her mouth half open and her body suddenly drenched in goosebumps as she remembered something: She’d used magic when going in and out of Archer’s bedroom this afternoon. And Archer had cameras she didn’t know about, which meant he now knew her biggest secret.

  “What’s so important,” Archer said, “is that you don’t get to take things that don’t belong to you. Which means you need to give it back.”

  No, she told herself. He couldn’t have seen her magic. She’d only used it while in the passageway and not inside his bedroom. He would have said something by now if he knew about it.

  “Ridley!” Archer threw his hands into the air as he swore beneath his breath. “Are you even listening to me?”

  “Yes,” she answered, almost smiling with relief. “You were trying to get me to believe that it’s somehow a big deal that I stole one of your many, many, many toys, and now you’re demanding that I—”

  “It isn’t a toy!” he shouted. “This is serious. You have no idea what—”

  Shattering glass and a loud crack interrupted Archer. Ridley spun around. “What—” Another splintering crack reached her ears before she found herself on the floor with Archer’s arm across her back. “What the hell?” she gasped. Another window shattered, and she flinched and squeezed her eyes shut automatically.

  “Get up!” Archer tugged her upward and half dragged her toward the bookshelves as she struggled to find her feet. “Move!”

  “Trying,” she gasped as she made it onto her feet and launched herself forward. Another shot, and the screen of a nearby computer shattered just as she raced into the shadows between two bookshelves.

  “Storeroom,” Archer said as he dashed ahead of her toward the other end of the library. Ridley wasn’t sure she agreed about the storeroom being the best place to hide, but she certainly wasn’t turning back. At least, not until she’d become invisible. She needed to turn at the end of these shelves and duck away before Archer saw. She could disappear among the other shelves and let her magic—

  “Hurry up!” Archer called, looking over his shoulder. Then: “Get down!”

  She swerved and ducked, knocking into the shelves on the left as another crack sounded behind her. “Dammit,” she hissed as books fell all around her, hitting her head and shoulders. The shooter was in the library now. She needed to disappear as soon as possible—without anyone seeing her magic. She pushed away from the shelves and raced forward again, then took a sharp left at the end of the row instead of continuing straight.

  She dashed between the maze of bookshelves as a memory of sitting here late one evening with Derek rose abruptly to the surface of her scattered thoughts. “Dusty old things no one ever uses,” Derek had said, looking around at all the books. Surrounded by their laptops and commpads, she’d had to agree with him.

  She blinked the memory away and made an abrupt right into another aisle—and there was Archer, straight ahead with the storeroom door just ahead of him. “Come ON,” he called to her as he looked back.

  “No, we’ll be trapped!” she answered, coming to a halt and looking back over her own shoulder. And I’m trying to escape you as well, she added silently. But Archer’s hand was suddenly on her arm, pulling her back around and shoving her toward the storeroom.

  “Wait, stop—”

  “Trust me,” he hissed into her ear before pushing her forward the final distance. Ridley’s magic screamed to be let loose, to hide her, protect her, but she shoved it down and grabbed hold of the storeroom door handle. She twisted, pushed, and then she and Archer were tumbling into the room. He slammed the door shut immediately and glanced wildly about before his eyes came to rest on an old filing cabinet. He leaned his full body weight against it and heaved it toward the door. Ridley rushed to fit into the space beside him and pressed her shoulder against the cabinet. She flattened one palm against it as well—close to her chest, shielded from Archer’s view by her body—and pushed her magic as hard as she could. The cabinet screeched against the floor as it slid in front of the door. Ridley lowered her hand and stepped back.

  “And now?” she asked, her chest rising and falling as she caught her breath. “We’re stuck.”

  “We’re not stuck.” Archer moved toward the back of the room, and Ridley followed him. They passed rolls of plastic, reams of paper, boxes of stickers, and other supplies that probably hadn’t been used in years. On the other side of a cupboard with old textbooks stacked on top of it, he turned left, and where Ridley had assumed the room came to an end, it actually extended into an L-shape with boxes piled up against the far wall. “Help me,” Archer said as he began pulling the boxes away from the wall. The boxes, labeled ‘Teacher Stationery,’ were easy to shove aside, and in no time at all, she and Archer had cleared the space in front of the wall.

  Except it wasn’t a wall. It was a door. With a key sitting in the lock.

  Ridley stared. “What—How did you know that was there?”

  Archer reached for the key. “You didn’t know about it?”

  “Why would I know about it? I’ve never even been inside this room.”

  He pulled the door open and looked back at her. “Clearly you’ve never needed to escape the library when you weren’t supposed to be there.”

  At the sound of a thump from somewhere behind her, Ridley flinched. “Okay, move. Movemovemove!” She pushed him forward and hurried after him, then reached around to pull the key free from the lock. She shut the door, locked it from the other side, then took off after Archer along a corridor she’d never seen before. He shoved his way through two swinging doors, and Ridley followed a second later. “The kitchen?” she muttered as she ran after him. Yet another part of Wallace Academy she’d never been in. They raced past counters of food, a pantry, a small office, then up a ramp and finally, through a door that led outside to the street. Ridley slowed and looked around. “Where exactly—”

  “Keep moving.” Archer grabbed her arm—she was seriously getting tired of him doing that—and pulled her across the street. They rounded a corner, and he ducked down beside a low window at street level. It appeared to be closed, but perhaps the latch was broken because it opened easily when he pushed it. “Come on.” He held the window open as Ridley crouched down. She dropped inside, her feet striking the floor a little further down than she’d expected. A moment later, Archer landed beside her.

  “Why do I feel like you’ve done this before?” she asked as she looked around the basement at the old furniture and boxes.

  “What? Escaped Wallace Academy at night when I wasn’t supposed to be there and hid in the principal’s residence? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He crossed the room to the stairs. “Don’t stop yet. No one wants to be trapped in a basement.”

  True, she admitted silently. After a glance at the window they’d come through, she hurried up the stairs after him. He led her across the dining room of an old-fashioned home with wooden floors and painted portraits in gilded frames. Then across a hallway and up a spiral staircase that
creaked beneath their feet. At the top, they pushed open an old wooden door, and Ridley found herself in a round room furnished as a study. A study with a view of the city in almost every direction. The small tower, Ridley realized, that she’d spent many hours staring at from Mrs. Hardman’s English classroom.

  She jumped as something banged behind her, but it was only Archer shoving his weight against the old door to get it to close. He finally pushed it into place, turned the key, then moved to the nearest window. He looked out, then checked every other window before saying, “I don’t think we were followed.”

  “No one wants to be trapped in a basement,” Ridley muttered, still catching her breath. “No one wants to be trapped in a tower either.”

  “We’re not trapped. We can get out of that window—” he gestured behind him “—across the top of the house, and onto the next building over. I’d rather be up here where I can see someone coming than down on the street where I don’t know if someone’s still following us.”

  “Okay stop. Just stop.” She leaned against the desk as her pounding heart finally began to slow. “Why the hell is someone trying to kill you?”

  He turned away from the window and met her gaze. “Maybe someone’s trying to kill you.”

  “Seriously?” If she hadn’t just escaped a life-and-death situation, she might have rolled her eyes. “Just answer the damn question, Archer.”

  “I am being serious.” He crossed the room toward her. “Ridley, if I was certain that shooter was aiming at me, I wouldn’t have dragged you with me when I ran.”

  She blinked. “But … why would someone want to kill me?”

  He stared at her a moment too long, his mouth open as if to say something. Then he pressed his lips together and looked away. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Surely you have a reason for saying something so crazy.”

  “Okay look.” He faced her again. “We escaped the gun—or guns. What we need to focus on now is that figurine. I need it back tonight, so wherever you hid it, that’s where we’re going next.”