I didn't say anything when West streaked off, instead keeping my thoughts to myself. We were wary and on high alert as we approached Weatherstone's gates, but nothing else was coming for us tonight. The path there was clear.
Walking into Weatherstone was like entering Narnia from central London. The area enclosed by the high gates proclaimed it to be a military testing area, and no-one in their right mind would approach such a desolate place. It was only once through the gates that the illusion gave way to the grounds of the place I called home. When I wasn't spending my time masquerading as a typical year twelve seventeen year old, I lived here day in, day out. Every time I returned, I was only reminded of how much of a nomad I truly was. Home? I had no real home.
You didn't have to even walk up the path from the front gates to see the dorm building. A fifteen floor high tower of marble and glass, it was as imposing as it was luxurious. This building housed our bedrooms, the dining room, training rooms and the teachers' offices. It was early evening, and so students were flowing in and out of the building. Very few, if any, were Midnights since their classes would just be starting or they would have just woken. We hadn't yet approached the building, and I walked far slower than I needed to, knowing that as soon as I did, the stares and whispers would start. Really, I should have been used to them by now.
Farther in the distance was the building that was the actual academy. It looked like a school, except that there was no escaping the polished marble, or the way it was almost as imposing as the dorm building. I was almost thankful that the only uniform we had to wear was a coloured badge proclaiming our parental status to the rest of the school. I reached into my pocket and clipped mine on as I walked up.
The closer I got to the dorms, the more I could make out the trees at the back perimeter of campus. The school's woods held rock formations and a natural pool, and there was also an extremely large greenhouse which I couldn't make out. At the edges of campus were a series of cabins and cottages: the cottages were the homes of the teachers, whilst the cabins were for students' use for study, training, or (if you were Lily Ashton) making out with your boyfriend whenever you felt like. Despite being a school, Weatherstone was pretty lax in its rules when it wasn't something that involved personal misuse of abilities.
Weatherstone Academy: both my home and my personal hell. When we finally entered the hotel -sorry, dorm building -I ducked my head and ignored the stares and whispers. Despite the intrigue about Tiffany's arrival, people avoided me like the plague and fawned around Lily, Martin and Shelby like they were celebrities. I may as well have not been involved. I used the distraction to split from the others and head for the infirmary.
Did it bother me? No. I'd gotten used to it, even if the reason everyone considered me a freak was for something that was out of my control. I found myself biting my lip. Would Tiffany be like every other "friend" that had come through here and start ostracising me too? I pushed the thought from my mind.
"Amy!"
Before I could react, strong arms wrapped themselves around my waist, pulling me in for a hug. I relaxed at the familiar metallic scent and hugged Uri back, Tiffany temporarily forgotten. I was almost surprised by how much I missed him. Had two months really been that long?
"You have no idea how much I've missed you," I told him when we finally pulled away, though Uri's arm was still lightly around my waist as though scared to let me go.
"Same, though the constant phone calls were probably evidence enough," he admitted. He took in my dishevelled state and instantly lost the smile. "How many were there?"
"Three. Metallo, Torrin and Caeli." I tried to keep the fear I'd felt from my voice, but my words still came out a little shaky -I could never fool Uri. "I'm not sure if we would have survived without that West guy."
Uri's arm on my waist tightened. "You could have died." His voice trembled slightly.
One of the students pointedly ignoring us shot a slightly alarmed look at Uri. Now that the two of us were together, people were practically walking single file to avoid us, as though Uri and I both had the plague. I couldn't help but mentally shake my head at how stupid they were. With his pale skin, mismatched eyes and dark hair shot through with silver, Uri's appearance was startlingly different to some of the other students', though he wore jeans and a t-shirt like any normal person. He was over six foot, causing him to lean down slightly to look at me, and he had large muscles from the amount of time he spent in the training rooms. These things combined probably didn't help in making him seem harmless, but that wasn't what made everyone scared of him: like me, his abilities stood out far more than anyone else here. We were the freaks in a school already designed for freaks, and because of that, few people really bothered to get to know us. It was something that made school here pretty depressing when you considered that Uri and I were year-rounders. The two of us may as well have been orphans.
I shrugged off Uri's fear. "I'm fine, same as usual. If anyone's to be worried about, it's Tiffany and Lily. Lily got bit."
I shouldn't have said that. Uri's eyes immediately went black, and the temperature around him shot up. Students who had been warily pretending to ignore us suddenly began moving rapidly down the corridor with fear in their eyes. Only this time they actually had reason to be scared. I ignored the clearing hallway and grabbed Uri's face between my hands without a second thought. "Calm down! Uri, look at me. I'm fine."
Uri closed his eyes. "That could have been you."
"But it wasn't. I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere, so relax."
Uri took a deep breath and opened his eyes. I smiled with relief to see that they were back to normal: his left eye gold and his right eye green. "Thanks," he murmured.
"I wouldn't ever let you lose control. You know that," I said softly.
How long we stood like that, I don't know. But eventually we suddenly became aware of the fact that Uri still had his arm around my waist and I still had his face between my hands. Both of us leapt back from one another at the same time as though burned.
"You have to find Tiffany," Uri said at the same time that I said: "I need to see if T got here okay."
Both of us laughed to relieve the tension before heading down the corridor together, carefully not touching. Uri filled me in on the details of what I'd missed as we walked. Helena Gold, his fellow metal elemental and sister, was in trouble yet again for having slapped a guy who'd hit on her and hence put him in the infirmary. The popular crowd were being their usual asshole selves and the gossip had somehow already spread like wildfire about Tiffany's parental status.
So apparently nothing much had changed.
"Where do you think you're going?" Vera, the healer that served as the school nurse, folded her arms and stood in front of us to block the doorway as we entered the infirmary. I held back a growl of frustration and looked at her.
"To see Tiffany. Everyone's permitted one visitor at a time, and she's my best friend."
"She already has a visitor." Vera gestured at the curtain at the far end of the room, "Mr Reynolds is checking up on her."
"He doesn't even know her," I retorted. I was on the verge of hitting something. "Hell, I don't even know him, and I know everybody in this school!"
"He's her guardian, so he gets priority rights."
I froze at her words. "What? You're telling me that he's -"
"Yes, he's the latest chosen from the house of fire. And you didn't hear that from me." Vera shooed us from the room. "Tiffany's not even awake yet, so get to the meeting!" The infirmary door was slammed in our faces.
We walked to the lifts, numb. Neither me nor Uri spoke, too wrapped up in our thoughts. If there'd ever been any doubts remaining as to Tiffany's parentage, this definitely confirmed it.
Drydan may not have fathered any children in... a while, but he'd instead continued with the process of creating chosens: people born human who were converted to elementals. These humans were more powerful than your average elemental since they'd get all the elements of one house. West being the elemental of house of fire gave him three elements: fire, light and electric. That at least explained to me how he'd got Tiffany here so quickly- he'd run as fast as I could, and that was impossible for a child of Volta, but easy for a child of Lux.
Every child of Drydan was issued with a chosen as their guardian -the equivalent of a bodyguard sent to protect the Drydan children until they'd gained full control of their abilities. Drydan currently only had one chosen per house, so I was confused since I was pretty sure that last I'd checked, the house of fire chosen had been female. I was going to have to get to the library as soon as I had time.
"So the rumours are true...?" Uri murmured as we walked back to the lifts. "Poor Tiffany -she's about to become the most famous student in this place, and that -" he gestured to some students in the corridor, who were giving Uri wary looks " -is not always necessarily a good thing."
I groaned and took the lift to the fifteenth floor.
****
"You're late," Mr Shoal snapped as I enter his office. I restrained myself from rolling my eyes. The meeting doesn't even look like it's properly started, and I doubt it isn't stuff I've not already heard a thousand times. I've been a finder since I was eleven -which is longer than anyone else in this school. I was already bored as I slideinto my seat.
Mr Shoal is the acting principal of Weatherstone. I say "acting" because our school has a rotating head system. Each year, the headmaster is changed to a different elemental teacher. Last year was Mrs Charles, a Lux, or light, elemental. That year was a year that sucked -light and dark elementals don't necessarily get along, what with being polar opposites in every way. Mr Shoal was a lot fairer to me, but still let Shelby off the hook for just about anything. He also could get seriously moody -water elementals were renowned for their mood swings, and Shoal was no exception. Even now he was ranting. I tuned out.
Because Mr Shoal was the current principal, his office was the largest and most luxurious. Huge windows looked out over campus. Like every floor, it had a balcony (I kid you not when I say that every room had a balcony, and it's as ridiculous as it sounds), though his was more like a patio, since it was about five times the size of the small room I'd been crashing at whist in London with Tiffany. A water dispenser sat within easy reach of his desk, and a large fish tank, practically an aquarium, took up nearly the entire right wall. At the left wall was an ensuite bathroom, which obviously I'd never had reason to be in, but I had no doubt it'd be huge. The room had been decorated neutrally -the four of us were currently sitting on a leather sofa, the desk Mr Shoal normally sat at was made of heavy, polished wood, and the technology we could see was top range. Mr Shoal had tried to alter that, though, by hanging some kind of blue drapes that gave the room an underwater feel, and a shelf near his desk was practically lined with coral. The room somehow smelled of the ocean, just like Shelby and Mr Shoal always did. It wasn't to my taste, but it was miles better than the way it had been last year -Mrs Charles had covered the room in fairy lights and permanently lit the place up like Christmas. Entering the room had nearly made me pass out, and I was pretty sure that anyone just visiting had required sunglasses. I shuddered at the memory.
"...As I was saying," Mr Shoal was saying now, glaring at us, "how did it take you so long to calculate what she was? You were at that place for nearly three years! You -" he added, stabbing a finger in my direction, "practically lived with her! I want answers. The first Drydan in a century and you nearly get her killed! What do you have to say for yourselves?" Shoal looked pointedly at me. Since I had the most experience and had been training to do this most of my life, I was unofficially the leader whenever I was tasked on tracking down elementals. This was pretty much all on me. I scowled.
"First, we did work out that she wasn't normal, and we reported every incident whenever she did something. You can even check the records. Only because she was displaying multiple elements, and Mrs Charles hates me, she wouldn't let me bring Tiffany in unless the Demons made a move first to confirm it. Tiffany was always wearing a negator, though, so the demons wouldn't have touched her anyway. Second, no-one expected for Tiffany to be a Drydan. The guy's practically been a monk for a century, and it's not like anyone told me he'd removed his chastity belt!" I snapped.
Shelby cracked up, and I could see Martin fighting a bemused smile. Lily looked mortified. I winced. There had been no intention to make it sound like I was joking, but I knew that Shoal wasn't going to take it well. His eyes narrowed as he glared at me. Sometimes being the leader sucked.
"I don't like your impertinent tone, Miss Warden," the tone of his voice implied he'd happily strangle me. "I'll have words with Mrs Charles. Now tell me exactly what happened tonight. I hear I apparently have to cover up an earthquake, a car crash, a wrecked field and blocked roads?"
One thing that Weatherstone Academy had was connections. Somehow they were able to talk to the right people to cover up nearly every freak accident that occurred regarding us, otherwise we would've all been taken apart by scientists long ago. I hadn't realised quite how much damage had been done by us though. It sounded about ten times worse than usual.
Shelby relayed the story, leaving nothing out. We'd instinctively let her tell it in order to get on Shoal's good side. Whilst she spoke, Shoal took notes. By the time she was done, he'd filled out an A4 sheet. "The council" -here he was referring to the ten elemental teachers that were in charge of the school -"and I will discuss this. In the meantime, here are your schedules." He handed us sheets of paper. According to it, I was currently late for some maths class, but you'd have to be having a laugh if you thought I was actually attending. "You'll start classes tomorrow, Miss Warden. I doubt you'll actually do as I say, but I'm ordering you to get some sleep. When was the last time you did?"
I shrugged. "Like a month ago? I still want to take daytime classes though. I can take some of the morning ones. Classes at ten am are like being awake at ten pm." I had realised that day classes had been totally obliterated from my schedule. Even if it wasn't my job to watch Tiffany anymore, I wanted to at least have classes with some of my friends.
Shoal looked at me, eyes narrowed. "Mr Nilsson recommended you get more sleep. You've barely had any."
I looked him in the eye. Headmaster or not, I was taking whatever classes I wanted. "I'm seventeen, sir, so it's not like I'd actually be asleep anyway. All I'm asking is that you let me take classes up until noon. Give me more free periods so I can get naps if you want, but I'm sure you'll agree that Tiffany needs a familiar face in the school."
Shoal looked away. I'd given him my "don't mess with me" glare, which Tiffany had once told me could make people do just about anything. Five minutes later, I had a new schedule and was on the way back to the infirmary.