Elemental Thief

  She’d known for years that Ezra lived here. Of course, he wasn’t aware that she knew. He no doubt thought he’d been clever about the secret roundabout ways he took to get home after making any exchange with Ridley, but she’d easily followed him multiple times. Once every few months, in fact, just to make sure he still lived in the same place. She highly doubted he’d be happy with her showing up out of the blue now. She figured this was probably the end of their professional relationship.

  She raised her hand and rapped her knuckles against the door. Then she waited, but no sound came from within the apartment. She tried again. Eventually, with Archer sighing impatiently beside her, she bent and peered through the keyhole. She could see the side of a couch bathed in moonlight, but that was about it. “Look, he’s clearly not home,” she said, straightening.

  “Right, so we wait. Inside the apartment where he can’t possibly miss us when he gets home.”

  Ridley crossed her arms. “That’s creepy. I’m not doing that.”

  “Oh, so now you have a problem breaking into someone else’s home? What is this, some kind of thief’s code of honor?”

  She shrugged. “Call it whatever you want.”

  “Look, if we’re really lucky, the figurine is inside this apartment and we can take what we came for without having to wait. So just unlock the door. It shouldn’t be hard for you. Apparently you do it all the time.”

  “I can’t,” she said, her mind racing to come up with a believable excuse. She certainly wasn’t about to use magic in front of Archer.

  “You can’t?”

  “It’s … a different kind of lock.”

  His eyes narrowed. “How exactly did you break into our apartment?”

  She leaned against the door, hoping to stall for another few moments. “You mean your secret surveillance cameras didn’t show you how I did it?”

  “My secret cameras are in my room only. The rest of the cameras installed throughout the living area didn’t show you breaking in. All I know is that you didn’t come through the front door.”

  Ridley smiled. “That’s correct.” The Davenports’ double front doors each had a thin layer of arxium sandwiched between two pieces of wood. Lilah had mentioned that particular security feature years ago, and Ridley had never forgotten it.

  “I’m breaking in,” Archer said, not waiting for her reply before ramming his shoulder against the door.

  “Hey!” she hissed, looking around to see if anyone had heard the commotion. From somewhere around the next corner, she heard a door swing open. She grabbed Archer’s arm and tried to pull him away from Ezra’s door. “Go tell that person nothing’s wrong.”

  “What?”

  “Just go! Tell them anything. I’ll get this door open. Quietly.”

  “Have you forgotten the part about my face being recognizable?”

  “If anyone says anything, just say you always get asked that. No one’s going to believe the actual Archer Davenport is inside Jasmine Heights. Now go before someone comes this way asking questions.”

  She waited until his back was turned before letting magic rise to the surface of her hand. The motions required to unlock a lock with magic were a little complicated, and she hadn’t tried them in years, so she simply held her hand against the lock and transformed it to air. With one hand still against the lock, she twisted the handle with the other, and the door opened easily. A second later, she heard the door around the corner bang shut.

  “I guess no one’s that interested in what goes on outside their own apartments,” Archer said from the end of the corridor. As he turned back, Ridley pulled her hand hastily away from the lock and shoved it into her jacket pocket. The lock was visible again, and her hand was hopefully returning to its normal non-glowy state while inside her pocket.

  Archer reached her side and frowned at the door that was now ajar. “You managed that pretty quickly.”

  “Turns out the lock wasn’t that different after all,” she answered. She pushed the door open, walked in, and looked around. Aside from the couch she’d seen through the keyhole, a small table, a single chair, and one moth-eaten rug, the rest of the apartment was empty. She turned slowly on the spot, taking in the empty half of the room and the kitchenette with no appliances. Crossing to the only other door, she found an empty bathroom. A fine layer of dust covered the toilet lid and bath. She walked back out as Archer opened a kitchen cupboard to reveal empty shelves inside.

  “So … he’s moved?” Ridley said. “Or is in the process of moving? ’Cause this is definitely where he used to live. I’ve followed him here multiple times. I saw him come in here just last month.”

  Archer stopped beside the window—too dirty to see out of—and said, “Interesting.”

  “So.” Ridley leaned against the wall beside the open front door and crossed her arms. “Do you still want to wait here for him? If he’s already living somewhere else, it could be days before he comes back for this stuff. We could ask some of the neighbors if they know where he went. Or I could ask them, seeing as how you don’t want to show your face. Or …” She trailed off as she noticed the strange way Archer was looking at her. “What?” she asked. No, not at her; his gaze was fixed on the wall just beside her head.

  She looked right, and sucked in a breath. Some sort of insect, almost as large as her hand, clung to the wall. Translucent wings covered in glowing blue spots quivered. It detached itself from the wall, and Ridley held her breath as it zoomed through the open door and disappeared into the corridor, leaving a trail of light imprinted on Ridley’s vision. “It must have come over the wall,” she whispered.

  “So pretty,” Archer said. “Don’t you think?”

  Her gaze snapped back to him. “I guess,” she said carefully.

  He paused a moment, watching her, then said, “Turn your commscreen off.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  Heaving a dramatic sigh, she pulled the device from her pocket and switched it off. “Okay, done.” She put it away. “What about yours?”

  “Mine’s off already.”

  “Terrific.” She was about to tell him he was just as paranoid as Meera when he said, “You know what this building is, don’t you?”

  She hesitated, wondering if this was a joke. “Uh, an apartment block?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, why don’t you tell me then.”

  “It’s an entrance.”

  Her eyebrows climbed a little higher. “To … ?”

  Archer cocked his head to the side. “You really don’t know? Or is this you doing a great job of pretending?”

  Ridley’s jaw tensed. “An entrance to what, Archer?”

  His lips curved into a small smile. “Lumina City’s illicit underworld of magic users.”

  17

  Goosebumps crawled up Ridley’s arms, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “Illicit underworld … of magic?” she whispered. “Why—why would I know about that?”

  He frowned. “Because you’re a thief?”

  “Oh.” Her racing pulse slowed slightly. “Right.”

  He leaned forward against the back of the couch, his eyes never leaving her. “You really expect me to believe that you, a criminal, know nothing about the people who live illegally beneath the city’s surface where the drones can’t detect them?”

  “I’m not that kind of criminal,” Ridley answered. “I keep to myself. I steal things and pass them on to Ezra. That’s pretty much it for my criminal life.”

  “Oh. That’s a bit of a letdown.” Archer pushed away from the couch. “Here I was thinking I’ve been in the company of a genuine crook.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you. I’m really more of a straight A scholarship student than anything else.”

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  Ridley glared at him. “I assume you mentioned this alleged magical underworld for a reason?”

  “Right.” He sat on the arm of the couch as he looked around
the room once more. “This building conceals one of the entrances. Plenty of people who claim to live here merely use this place as a route underground.”

  Ridley waited for him to start laughing, to crack a smile, but his eyes continued to examine the room. “You expect me to believe this nonsense? Magic is dangerous, unreliable. Totally unstable since the Cataclysm. People who use it get killed. If this underworld you’re talking about really did exist, there’s no way it would remain secret. There’d be underground explosions all over the place, the ground would crack apart, and buildings would cave in.”

  Archer shrugged. “Perhaps it isn’t as dangerous as everyone believes.”

  “It is,” Ridley said. “I’ve seen what happens to people who use it. So have you.” She thought of the woman who’d died just days ago. She thought of Serena Adams. Ridley’s own magic was different, of course. The power that existed inside her had never changed, never fought back or become uncontrollable. But the magic out there—the magic everyone had pulled for centuries—was different. She only had to look out at the wastelands or up at the stormy sky to know this was true.

  “Maybe what you’ve seen is a lie,” Archer said.

  She shook her head. “Nope. I’m pretty sure I saw a woman completely lose control of magic a few days ago.”

  “Look, I don’t know what to tell you, Ridley,” he said as he stood. “This underground community exists. They use magic in the same way we used to use it before the Cataclysm.” He crossed the room and peered into the bathroom, as if Ridley might somehow have missed a secret doorway inside that part of the apartment.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s say I believe you. I assume the government doesn’t know about this magical underworld?”

  Archer turned away from the bathroom. “Of course not. It wouldn’t exist if they knew about it.”

  “How do you know about it?”

  “I didn’t,” he admitted, “until I left Lumina City. Anyway, my point is that your friend Ezra could very well be down there. If you’ve seen him coming in and out of this apartment, it could be because he wants to hide where he’s really going.”

  “Or,” Ridley countered, “he moved, and this is the last of his furniture that hasn’t gone yet.”

  “A couch, a chair, and a table, neatly arranged on a little rug, all within perfect view of someone standing at the door.” Archer strode to the doorway. “It’s only when the door is fully open and someone steps inside that they can see the rest of the apartment is empty.”

  “You’re saying this stuff is here to fool people?” Ridley gestured to the furniture. “So if Ezra happens to be here and someone stops by, he can answer the door and it appears as though he lives here?”

  “Yes.” Archer walked back to the chair.

  “That’s a little bit of a stretch.”

  “It would be,” he said, dragging the chair back and crouching down, “in any ordinary building.” He flipped the edge of the rug back, revealing a square trapdoor. “But we know this isn’t an ordinary building.”

  Ridley moved to his side and frowned at the square in the floor. “Is that supposed to be a doorway to this supposed criminal-ridden underworld?”

  Archer lifted the trapdoor and Ridley crouched down to get a better look. What she saw was an empty corridor dimly lit by dusty old-fashioned lamps fixed to the walls. “No,” Archer said. “But I think this is the route Ezra takes to get underground once he’s entered this apartment.”

  “Okay, I’ll admit that a trapdoor in the floor is kinda weird.” Ridley leaned to the side, squinting as she tried to see more of the corridor. “Maybe you’re right about this underground community.”

  “Of course I’m right. I didn’t just make it up.” He sat at the edge of the trapdoor and dropped down to the floor below. “Come on,” he added, gesturing for her to jump. “We’ve wasted enough time already.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, scooting on her backside toward the edge of the trapdoor. She dropped down, hitting the floor with a jolt and stumbling forward a step or two. She didn’t normally do this type of thing without the assistance of magic.

  “Oh, the trapdoor,” Archer added, looking up. “I wonder how he closes it once he’s down here.”

  “Well, if he really is a member of this magical underworld, then he probably does it with—”

  “Magic. Right. I guess we’ll be leaving it open then.” He looked at Ridley. “Unless you have a way of closing it?”

  She narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out if he might possibly know more about her than he was supposed to. “And what way would that be?”

  “You could get up on my shoulders and pull the trapdoor down.”

  Ridley’s eyes widened a fraction. “That’s not happening.”

  “Okay, then it’s staying open.”

  “Fine with me.” She looked over her shoulder, but the corridor came to a dead end behind her. “I guess we go that way, then,” she said, pointing her gaze forward.

  They followed the passageway, making several turns both left and right, as if they were being led around and between apartments. Ridley looked up every now and then, noticing more trapdoors in the ceiling. “We’ll probably be breaking the law by entering this underground area of magic users,” she said after they turned a corner for the fifth time. “We’re breaking the law just by knowing about it and not reporting it.”

  “Yes. But we’ve already established that breaking the law is something you have no problem with.”

  “True.” Ridley looked at him. “I find it interesting that you’re okay with it though.” She hesitated for barely a second before adding, “Given your family’s opinion of magicists.”

  Archer’s eyes flashed toward hers, and she held his gaze as he said, “I’m not hurting anyone by going down there. In fact, I’m hopefully saving a whole lot of people. So I can live with the fact that I’m breaking the law.”

  No mention of his family, she noted. Drop the subject, she told herself. Don’t provoke him. But somehow, she couldn’t let it go. “I doubt your family could live with that fact. Your father would probably disown you for voluntarily entering a community of illegal magic users.”

  Instead of responding in anger, Archer’s mouth quirked up on one side. “Perhaps.” He looked ahead once more, and Ridley was so busy examining his response that she almost walked into the door he stopped in front of.

  She brought herself to an abrupt halt with her nose inches from the plain metal door. Taking a step back, she cleared her throat. “Do you think this is it? The entrance?”

  “Yes.” Archer reached out and knocked twice. “This is it.”

  She looked at him again. “But you’ve never been down there before, right? You said you only found out about this underground community after you left.”

  “Once.” Archer stared at the door as if he could see beyond it. “I’ve been down there once. The first time I came back.”

  “The first time?” Ridley squinted at him. “I thought this was the first time.”

  “Yeah. You and most other people in the city.”

  She was about to ask for more details, but at that moment, the door swung open. On the other side, less than a foot beyond the door, was a rose bush so large and overgrown that she couldn’t see over or through it. Leaves and twigs and thorns twisted around each other, with red roses creating splashes of color here and there. Archer moved closer and reached up for the highest rose. The moment he touched it, the twigs began to retract. The entire bush instantly became magic blue, revealing that it was all a clever conjuration. The twigs swiftly untangled themselves with a rustle of leaves and moved outward to flatten against the walls and ceiling—revealing a path forward.

  A path that was blocked, Ridley realized a moment later, by two thickset men standing side by side. The one on the left was pale and bald with numerous piercings in both ears, while the other’s copper-colored arms were covered almost entirely in dark, swirly tattoos. Ridley couldn’t help looking
for the scars beneath their left ears to see if they might only have one each. She was almost disappointed to see two, but she reminded herself that two scars meant nothing. After all, her own second scar hid no AI2. And the dazzling rose bush conjuration suggested Archer might be right about people safely using magic down here.

  “The moon is hidden tonight,” Archer said.

  Ridley frowned, then realized this odd phrase might be some kind of code. Sure enough, the bald guy nodded and asked, “Yeah?”

  “Oh, uh, we’re looking for someone,” Ridley said. “A young man named Ezra.”

  “Actually,” Archer said, “we’re here to see Christa.”

  The bald guy’s gaze shifted away from Ridley. “Is Christa expecting you?”

  “No, but she knows me.”

  “I see.” The bald one looked at the tattooed one, a question in his eyes.

  “Why don’t you just call her?” Archer asked. “She’ll confirm she knows me.”

  “No need, pretty boy,” the bald one said with a twisted smile. “We know exactly who you are. Come on in.”

  Ridley hesitated, her instincts warning her not to walk through that door. Clearly Archer felt just as unsettled by the man’s strange welcome because he made no move to walk forward either. “What, now you don’t want to see Christa anymore?” Bald Guy asked. “Make a decision, folks, or I’m shutting this door.”

  Something told Ridley that might be the sensible way to go, but Archer put his arm around her, pulled her against his side—which was probably the strangest of all the things that had happened since they entered this building—and said, “Thanks. We know the way.”

  “Great,” Tatooed Guy said as Archer and Ridley walked forward.

  “Still, one of us should go with you to make sure you don’t get lost,” Bald Guy added, shutting the metal door.

  “That won’t be necessary.” Archer ushered Ridley ahead of him before turning to face the two men. “I told you we know the way.”