Elemental Hunger

Chapter Forty-One

Davison met me at the vehicle, beyond late. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. At least three dozen freed Elementals formed a tight group behind me, and together we faced Davison.

"I did what you wanted." Smoke poured out of the office behind me. Concern didn't register on my emotional scale.

"What in the blazes happened?" His eyes flicked from mine to the door of the Enforcement Office, to the swarm of Elementals, to the two people in the vehicle.

"I lured Alex out to the plains." I still hadn't looked fully into his eyes. I knew what I'd find there. Loathing. "Just like you asked."

"She's dead. I left my sentries to search for anyone alive." Davison sounded beyond furious. "You burned a lot of acreage."

"My Airmaster needs medical attention," I said.

"Why is that building burning?"

I finally looked up, right into his fiery eyes. "Because I lit it on fire."

"Are there people inside?"

The image of Felix's cruel sneer rose in my mind. "Define 'people.'"

Davison turned, already gesturing. "Susanna, Donella, Olivia—if you would, please. Search for survivors."

None of the Watermaidens would look at me as they passed. I didn't understand why Davison bothered. "He won't survive."

"This is not what Councilmen do," he said.

"Oh, right," I said. "I should've sent my Unmanifested or my sentries to kill all those people." As soon as the words escaped, they floated in my ears, repeating and reorganizing into I kill people.

Davison stepped toward the vehicle, toward Hanai, his mouth saying words I couldn't hear. A white frame edged into my vision.

My stomach clenched, and I bent over. "I killed him. Hot blazes, I killed him," I said over and over, thinking only of Hanai and how he wasn't breathing. I retched, and then the square of whiteness covered everything.

#

Paperwork needed to be filed and finalized, meetings attended, motions approved, messages sent to the far cities. Davison had the support of every Councilman in the United Territories, and he was appointed the new Supreme Elemental. As busy as the twentieth floor in Gregorio had been, that activity was nothing compared to what Davison organized in Tarpulin.

The Earthmovers, including Isaiah, were commissioned to clear the Elemental school. Airmasters took over communications, sending messages through the air.

While things were being reorganized and reassigned, I took the liberty of drafting a new clause that would eliminate the marriage requirement for female Elementals.

I delivered the single sheet of paper to Davison, who took it with a heavy sigh and a small smile. He didn't say he'd make it happen, but that didn't matter. I would make it happen.

I retreated to a bedroom near a garden Hanai would've loved. Cat stayed close to me, and I was secretly glad, unsure if I could bear to be alone with myself. When Isaiah returned from his work excavating the school, he shared a room with Adam down the hall. I spent most of my days in their room, waiting for Adam to wake up.

Desperately praying and hoping that he would wake up.

Cat had taken on the public face of our Council—she attended all the meetings, she spoke to the right people, she filed the paperwork so we could attend diplomacy training.

I kept watch in a hard, straight chair next to Adam's bed. Sometimes I talked, telling him about my work in the kitchens in Crylon. I told him about my friendship with Patches and then all about running through the forest with Jarvis. About Educator Graham. And how I wanted to see the sun reflect off the wide waters again.

I cried a lot. Mostly when I realized that Adam hadn't moved for hours. Or when I thought about Hanai, the gentleness in his hands, the slow curve of his smile. After I let myself drift to those thoughts, I couldn't breathe.

Isaiah brought food I didn't touch. Cat brought paperwork I didn't sign. Both of them watched me carefully, like I was a doll that might break at any moment. They were probably right.

Two days later, the paperwork merely needed my signature, sloppy and childlike as it was. I'd been enrolled in reading lessons, something I should've been eager to attend. But Hanai should've been sitting next to me in class, and he wouldn't be. He'd never learn to read, and I found I didn't want to either.

Isaiah settled on the edge of the bed, humming a tune I'd heard many times in my past life in Crylon. He lightly touched Adam's hand. "Has he moved at all?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Gabbers, this isn't healthy. You need to get out of this room. Come to the school and help."

I swung my head harder. "No."

Isaiah sighed and dropped both hands to my knees. "Gabby," he said. I noted he hadn't called me Gabbers. "He may not wake up."

I'd thought of that, too many times. "He will."

The patterning lines of the tattoo still washed over Adam's face and neck, disappearing under his clothes. I traced the darkest one from his chin, over his jaw and cheek and up into his hair.

Alex's words from the plains played over and over in my mind. Adam is a silly boy. He doesn't love you. He'll abandon you. I shoved the words away.

"He will wake up," I repeated, more to assure myself than Isaiah.

"Cat insisted that you sign these documents." Isaiah held out a folder stuffed with papers. "She told me not to leave until you agreed to do it."

"Leave them on the table. I'll do it before I go to bed."

"Cat's already signed. So have I. We just need your signature...and Adam's. And Davison wants to know who our Unmanifested is going to be." The pain in Isaiah's voice mirrored the hot stab running through my chest.

I couldn't answer. Just like I couldn't erase the image of Hanai, burning and not breathing, from my head.

"He suggested Liz," Isaiah murmured.

"Liz?"

"She lost her Firemaker and her Watermaiden to Alex," Isaiah whispered. "Davison is appointing the Earthmover and Airmaster to Elemental diplomacy divisions in Cornish and other Unmanifested villages. It's part of his new integration program." He cleared his throat. "Liz will be sent back to Crylon if we don't take her on."

Back to the laundry facility, I heard in my head. A death sentence.

"Great, let's take her on."

Isaiah grunted his approval and paused in the doorway. "You've got to leave this room. Your reading teacher says she's ready any time you are."

"In a minute," I said, curling into a ball in the chair, my gaze never leaving Adam's face.

When I woke up, the late afternoon sunlight sent deep shadows scurrying across the floor. As I rubbed my stiff neck, I noticed something different about the room.

The bed lay empty.

My heart pounded in my throat. Before I could stand, someone stepped into the doorway, the sun not quite reaching his face. "You finally woke up," he said.

A sob caught in my throat, blocking the air. I jumped up and flung myself into Adam's waiting arms.