Hexbound (The Dark Elite 2)

“Here goes,” I said, and closed my eyes. I imagined the three of us were a circuit, like the connected wires in a circuit board. I pulled up the well of energy, and instead of letting it flow into a bulb above me, tried to imagine it twisting, funneling from my extended arm into Naya’s, slinking softly through her, and into the ghost at her side.

I felt my hair rise and lift around my head as energy swirled and Naya’s fingers began to shake in my hands.

“Holy crap,” I heard Scout say.

My eyes popped open, and I glanced at Naya. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes were clenched closed. “I’m fine. Just keep going.”

“I saw her.”

I looked back at Scout, her face pale, her eyes wide, and the key around her neck—something worn by every girl at St. Sophia’s—lifting in the currents of magic. “I saw her. She wore a brown skirt. You were doing it. Keep going.”

I nodded, then closed my eyes again and imagined a long cord of energy between the three of us—two current Adepts and an Adept from a former time. I pushed the energy along the current, not too much, just a little at a time, narrowing in as it spindled between us, like a fine thread being spun from a pile of frothy yarn.

I imagined the energy moving through Naya, slipping past her again, into the whirl of energy that was Temperance Bay. I tried to fill her with it, and with Naya acting as a conduit, I could feel her on the other side—her ache to be heard by the world around her, to be seen and remembered once again. It was a hunger, and as I offered her the energy, I felt her relief. When that hunger eased, I pulled back on the power again, slowing it to a trickle, and finally cutting it off.

Our hands still linked together, I opened my eyes. Everyone’s gazes were focused to my right, past Naya, at the girl who stood beside her, gaze on me.

She wasn’t quite solid—more like an old movie projection than an actual girl. But even still, there she was. She had wavy brown hair that fell nearly to her waist, and she wore a simple, straight brown skirt and long-sleeved sweater. Her eyes were big and brown, and although she wore no makeup, her cheeks were flushed pink, like she’d just come in from the cold.

Maybe she had. Maybe the gray land was cold.

She moved toward me, her image flickering at the edges as she moved, her body transparent. She held out her hands. I let go of Naya’s hand and extended both of my shaking hands toward Temperance.

And then we touched.

I couldn’t hold her hands—but I could feel them. Their outlines. Their edges. She was made of energy and light, coalesced into a form we could see, but still not quite real.

“Temperance Bay,” she said, her voice soft and barely audible.

“Lily Parker.”

She smiled back at me. I knew she was thanking me, so I returned her smile. “How long will it last?”

“Not long,” she said, then turned to look at Naya, who nodded at both of us.

“Temperance,” she said, “we think that building was used by the enemy, but we aren’t sure why. We need to know what went on in there, and we need to know if anyone is still using it. Can you move through it? Take a look and see what kinds of things they were doing? We need to know if there are computers or papers—documents of any kind that might be useful.”

Temperance nodded, then walked toward the doors, one slow step at a time. She moved right through the trip wires and then the doors—and then she was gone.

“And now we wait,” Naya said.

“Waiting” meant sitting cross-legged on the ground, the others chatting while I waited to get a little of my own energy back. It hadn’t occurred to me that filling Temperance up with power meant draining some of my own. My arms and legs felt heavy, like I’d run a marathon or was coming down with the flu. Jason sat beside me, eyes scanning the corridor as he offered me granola bars and water to boost my energy.

For Detroit, “waiting” meant working her mechanical magic. While we crouched in the entryway, she pushed the buttons on the sides of her giant black watch. After a second, a coin-shaped piece of black plastic popped out like a CD being ejected from a laptop.

“What’s that?” Scout asked.

“Camera,” Detroit whispered, then gestured toward the double doors. “I figure since we’re here, we might as well be proactive. The pictures aren’t fabulous, but it’ll give us eyes on the doors without risking Adepts.”

She glanced around, her gaze settling on the concrete eave at our end of the corridor. “That’ll work. Should give us a clear view.” She looked around. “Could anyone help me get a lift up?”

“I’ll help,” Jason said. He went down on one knee, the other propped up like a step, and held out a hand. Without hesitation, Detroit took his hand for balance, stepped up onto Jason’s propped knee, and pressed the plastic coin into the concrete.

“Now I have a way to check in on whatever this is at the lab,” Detroit said.

“You guys have a lab?” Scout asked.

Detroit looked up, surprise in her face. “Sure. Don’t you?”

“You’re joking, right?”

Detroit just blinked at Scout. “No.”

“Uh, yeah, that room we met in earlier? That’s our entire Enclave.”

“No way. You guys are running a low-budg operation. We’ve got a lab, conference rooms, kitchenette, nap rooms. I mean, it’s not lush or anything—it’s a bomb shelter built in the nineteen sixties or something.”

“Not lush, she says, but they have a nap room.” Scout made a noise of disgust, then glanced at me. “You know what we need? A benefactor.”

“Aren’t your parents, like, superwealthy?” I wondered.

“We need a generous benefactor,” she clarified. “My parents are pretty Green-focused. Ah! I made a pun.”

Detroit offered Scout an arch look, like she didn’t appreciate the use of humor in dire Adepty situations. I was beginning to wonder how they ran things over in Enclave Two. So far, it seemed like a pretty (up)tight ship.

“You know, I hate that we’ve come this far—and through a gauntlet of fangs—and we aren’t even going to take a look inside that building.”

We all looked at Michael, who shrugged. “I’m just saying. I mean, I know there’s bad juju there, but I hate to have come all that way for nothing.”

“Not nothing,” Naya pointed out. “You’ll find out what’s inside when Temperance returns.”