Arisa’s voice cut through the darkness. “I don’t suppose any of your abilities could help with this.”
Felix looked around the hall, but it was no use. The world was black. “I still don’t know what all of my family’s powers are. Or how to use them. But maybe I can ask Helena.” He closed his eyes and tried calling out to her. “Helena, can you hear me?”
Helena’s voice answered in his mind. Is something wrong?
Felix breathed a small sigh of relief. “Yeah, there’s a poltergeist around here somewhere. Does anyone happen to have any magical light powers?”
No, but Mom has fire, Helena replied. Do you have any metal on you?
Felix’s hand moved to the chain around his neck. “I’m wearing Mom’s ring.”
Perfect. I can’t help you with that, though. Try calling out to her.
“But I still don’t know how I got your power to work!”
Well, you’ll have to try. You don’t need to talk out loud when I’m in here by the way, Helena told him.
Felix frowned. Can you hear this?
Yes.
A crash came from behind Felix. Whatever caused it couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away.
“Felix?” Arisa asked. “You got anything?” She sounded calmer than Felix felt, but he thought he detected a slight tremble to her voice.
“Hang on.” As the words left Felix’s mouth, he felt Helena’s presence leave him. He turned his thoughts to his mom, recalling the sound of her voice and the way her mouth turned when she was concerned. Mom, can you hear me?
Nothing.
And then, a new presence.
Felix?
Within seconds, Felix had tears in his eyes. With the lump in his throat, he was grateful Helena had explained he didn’t need to speak to communicate. Mom!
Felix! What’s going on? Mom’s voice asked, her tone frantic. Why are you in the dark?
Poltergeist took out the lights, Felix explained. Helena said you might be able to help.
Hold out your hand.
Felix obliged, struggling to stop the hand from shaking. He felt the pull of something deep within. The moment he let it take over, vibrant blue fire sparked to life in his palm.
At the edge of the light, Arisa’s head snapped toward him. “Whoa,” she breathed. She lifted her gaze to meet Felix’s. “Can you make it a little bigger?”
Add more fire slowly, Mom instructed. Be careful.
Felix concentrated on the sensation of warmth in his hand and pushed it further. The circle of blue light around them expanded to the walls.
What happened? Mom asked. Your dad and I were talking and then you walked in and grabbed us. Where did he go?
Another painting fell from the wall. Instead of dropping the ground, this one shot through the air at Felix and Arisa. They darted in different directions to avoid it. “Uh, I’ll have to explain later,” Felix choked out. “Or maybe Helena can tell you.”
“Keep that light up,” Arisa said. “I’ll handle the poltergeist.”
“What?”
“Trust me.” Arisa reached into the pockets of her jeans and pulled out several pieces of paper, all marked with sigils. They folded themselves into cranes in her hands and took to the air. “Clementine, watch my back.”
The bear hopped from her shoulder to the floor. Felix’s gaze darted anxiously around the circle of light as he braced for the next attack. The cranes, meanwhile, moved in a slow circle in the air above Arisa. After a few moments, one of the cranes refolded itself into a plane and shot out of the circle, into the darkness.
“There!” Arisa turned in the direction it had gone. The remaining cranes flew past her and formed a new, wider ring at the edge of the light. Something invisible hissed at the center. The cranes narrowed their circle.
The faintest outline of a figure appeared in the middle of the cranes. “Let me out,” a raspy voice growled.
Arisa laughed. “Yeah, good luck breaking through those sigils.” She turned to Felix, and her expression softened. “You okay?”
Felix wiped his tears off his face with his sleeve. “Yeah, I’m fine.” The fire in his hand flickered. He took a deep breath. “What now?”
A swarm of bees came around the corner. Felix turned and expanded the fire light. Kendra emerged from the darkness, following the swarm. When she saw Arisa and Felix, her eyes widened. “Did you two run into the poltergeist?” she asked as she hurried over to them.
“Run into it?” Arisa laughed and pointed. “We caught it.”
“Well, Arisa caught it,” Felix said. “I’m just the light.”
“We walked into it on accident,” Arisa quickly added. “And it killed the lights, so we couldn’t run away easily. We were mostly focused on defending ourselves.”
“Good.” Kendra rested a hand on Arisa’s shoulder. “Do you have anything you can use to banish it?”
“No, I only had the trapping sigils on me.”
“That’s okay.” Kendra reached into her jacket and drew out a tall metal flask. “This should be enough.” Uncapping it, she walked up to the poltergeist. The poltergeist hissed louder in response. With one swift motion, Kendra dumped the flask’s contents onto the spirit.
Kendra’s bees flew off in different directions. A violent gust of wind scattered Arisa’s paper cranes and extinguished Felix’s fire. He scrambled to reignite it, letting that strange pull in his chest surface again. Blue light fell over a perfectly calm hallway.
“Looks like that did the trick.” Kendra recapped the flask and returned it to her jacket.
“Holy water?” Felix asked.
“Yep.”
“Was it actually blessed by a priest, or whatever?”
Kendra shook her head. “Nah. We use a special set of sigils to convert water to holy water.”
Arisa picked up her scraps of paper off the ground. Most were torn in half, and some had been reduced to nothing more than shreds. “Guess I’ll have to draw up some more.”
“That just seemed like a really violent ghost,” Felix said.
“That’s basically what a poltergeist is,” Kendra explained. “They no longer have their human memories, but we don’t know much besides that. Some people think they arise from a human soul being fragmented. Or that they come from people who have been trapped on earth so long they forgot why they were here in the first place.” She walked forward. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll find someone to repair the lights.”
Arisa picked up Clementine and held the bear in her arms as she and Felix followed Kendra. When they finally found a section of hallway lit by undamaged chandeliers, Kendra pulled out her phone, tapped the screen, and held it up to her ear. “Yeah, I found it. It’s gone. Can you meet me by the throne room in five minutes?”
Felix willed the fire burning in his hand to vanish. When that didn’t work, he focused on the tugging sensation in his chest and tried suppressing it. The blue flames flickered, then vanished. Felix studied the palm of his hand. There was no sign that the fire had ever been there at all. Like with Helena’s lightning, he’d been able to sense it, but it hadn’t hurt.
He couldn’t recall when exactly Mom’s presence had left, but she’d slipped away at some point during the encounter with the poltergeist. Felix wondered if she’d found Helena’s spirit. Could they be talking to each other right now?
“Great. Bye.” Kendra hung up her phone. “You two try to stay out of trouble until your training session, okay? Oh, and Arisa, don’t forget you’ll need to change into your uniform before then.”
Arisa groaned. “Ugh. Fine.”
“Do I get a uniform?” Felix asked.
“Yes,” Kendra answered. “Sebastian said he’d take you to get yours after lunch. I’ll see you two later, okay?”
The two exchanged goodbyes with Kendra, and she walked away. Arisa turned to Felix. “So, where are they keeping you prisoner?”
“Huh?”
“That was a joke,” Arisa said. “Where’s your room?”
“Oh. Southwest tower.”
“You must have a nice view of the pond, then.”
“I didn’t notice,” Felix told her. “I haven’t even opened the curtains, yet.”
“Well, can I take a look?” Arisa asked. “My room’s along the southern wall. The most interesting thing I can see is the road leading up to the front of the castle.”
“Sure! I should probably practice finding my way back there, anyway,” Felix said.
That might have been the smartest thing he’d said all day. When they reached the next intersection, Felix turned left, and Arisa stopped.
“West is the other way,” she said.
“Oh. Right.” Felix turned around and let her lead the way to the tower.
When they entered his dorm, Arisa set Clementine on the desk and spent nearly a minute circling the edge of the room. “Hm,” she finally said.
“What is it?” Felix asked.
Arisa walked to the center of the room and rested a hand on her hip. “I think it’s smaller than mine.”
“What?”
“That’s a good thing! I have seniority.”
“Barely!” Felix sat down on his bed.
Arisa moved to the window, pushed the curtains aside, and stared out at the castle yard. Though the sky above had turned from gray to blue, it looked like light rain was still falling over the forest at the edge of the hills. Fog hung over the trees. “Aw, you have to lean to see the pond,” Arisa said. “It’s still nice, though.”
Felix’s gaze moved to his backpack. “Do you know much about Gideon Pollock?” he asked.
“A little.” Arisa turned around. “I know he left during the Guardian Uprising. He’s one of the more notorious traitors.”
“Do you know what his ability was?”
Arisa thought for a moment. “I’m pretty sure he could shapeshift into animals. But he needed a piece of them in order to transform. Similar to how you need metal to channel your mom’s fire,” she said. “Pretty much all abilities rely on a channeling material to work, unless the ability acts on an object like mine does. The things I animate are my channeling material, essentially.”
“Animals,” Felix muttered, barely hearing the rest of Arisa’s explanation. He jumped to his feet, grabbed the hoodie he’d been wearing yesterday off the nightstand, and pulled out the necklace he’d taken from Gideon’s body.
Arisa’s expression darkened at the sight. “Where did you get that?” The unease in her voice suggested she already knew.
Felix walked over to her. He pointed at the fang hanging from the necklace. “Do you think this could have belonged to a raccoon?”
“Huh? Ew, I don’t know.” Arisa took a step back. “Why don’t you use your dad’s ability to figure it out?”
“What’s my dad’s ability?”
“No one’s told you about your family’s abilities yet?”
Felix shook his head. “Kendra said she was going to check the records for me, but I don’t think she’s had time yet. Do you know?”
“I don’t know about the rest, but your dad’s Thomas Carver, right?” Arisa asked.
“Yeah.”
“He came to the library a lot. Mainly for the artifacts on the upper level, but he checked out a lot of books, too. Hana told me his ability was psychometry.”
“Oh, cool,” Felix said. “Uh, what is that?”
Arisa turned her head. Her eyes moved to the world outside the window. “The way I understand it, you can see an object’s history. See memories that took place around it.”
“So, I could see where this fang came from?” Felix lifted the necklace to examine the fang again.
“Yeah. And…you’d be able to see everything that happened to the person wearing that necklace.” Arisa looked at him. “Anything they did.” There was a warning hidden in her words.
“Right.” Felix lowered his hand.
“I mean, you might be able to learn something useful from it,” Arisa added with a slight shrug. “Maybe you could summon your dad and have him help?”
At the thought of his dad, Felix felt a new presence awaken inside of him. He focused on in, drawing it to the surface, setting it free. Dad? he tried.
It took a moment for Dad to respond. Felix. Are you okay?
I’m fine. Felix ran through a quick explanation of everything that had happened.
I’m glad you’re okay, Dad said once he finished.
Yeah. Felix’s hand tightened around the gold chain in his hand. Out loud, he said, “Arisa said that with your ability, I could see the history of this thing.”
Is that Gideon’s necklace?
“Uh, yes.”
Put that away somewhere safe. I don’t want you looking at it anytime soon.
“But I wanted to see—”
You’re not ready.
As desperate as Felix was to know why Gideon killed his family, part of him was relieved. This wasn’t something he really wanted to deal with right now. Not emotionally, anyway. Having Dad tell him to set it aside made him feel better about hiding the necklace away. Felix crossed the room to his desk and dropped it in one of the drawers.
I’ll help you learn to use my ability, Dad assured him. But it’s going to take time.
Felix nodded, finding himself holding back tears again. I’ll talk to you soon, then.
“So, you can hear them talking to you in your head?” Arisa asked.
Felix waited for Dad’s presence to fade away before he turned around to face her. “When I call on them, yeah,” he replied. “I was also able to summon Helena’s ghost, but I needed a drop of my blood for that.”
Arisa’s eyebrows lifted. “Do you think other people could see their ghosts when you summon them?”
“Maybe,” Felix said. “But Kendra and Archer couldn’t see them at my house.”
“Well, ghosts who are in control of their forms can generally choose when they want to be seen.”
“Oh. Gideon could do that,” Felix recalled.
Arisa nodded. “And a magician’s going to make a more powerful ghost than an ordinary person. Especially someone like him.”
A knock at the door made Felix jump. He hurried to open it and found Sebastian waiting on the other side.
“Hey, kid.” Sebastian leaned to the side and peered past Felix. “Oh, good, Arisa’s here too.” Gaze moving back to Felix, he said, “I’m supposed to get you a student uniform.”
Felix blinked. “Even though I’m not technically a student?”
“Correct.”
Arisa sighed and stepped away from the window. “Guess that means I should go get changed.”
“Personally, I think we should be allowed to train in pajamas, but I don’t make the rules around here. So, yes, uniforms all around. However…” Sebastian leaned against the doorway and held up a hand. “The uniform thing is going to have to be postponed, sadly, since that poltergeist shattered all the windows in the north wing of the fourth floor. Where we store our extra uniforms. We can’t walk around there until they get the glass cleaned up.”
“Lucky you,” Arisa said, shooting Felix a jealous look.
“Well, I don’t want Felix having an unfair advantage, so for today only, it’s going to be casual wear all around.” Sebastian slid his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Except me.”
“Unfair advantage? I’m new!” Felix protested. “I don’t know anything!”
Arisa stuck her tongue out. “Sucks to suck, newbie.”
“Ouch.”
“Oh, yeah, she’s real competitive,” Sebastian said. “Thought I’d warn you in advance.”
“Hey, Seb, is there any more news about the poltergeist?” Arisa asked. “I want to know how those kids were able to summon one through the wards.”
Sebastian lifted an eyebrow. “Why, so you can do the same?”
“I would never!” Arisa held a hand to her chest and put on an exaggerated act of concern. “I’m just worried for Felix’s safety. He could have been hurt if I weren’t there.”
Sebastian chuckled. “We’re not sure, yet. Archer’s questioning the kids now.”
“Rest in peace,” Arisa muttered.
“You two should go get lunch.” Sebastian straightened up and stepped back from Felix’s doorway. “Can’t train on an empty stomach,” he added before walking away.
Arisa crossed the room. Picking Clementine up from the desk, she asked, “Ready to eat?”
“Definitely,” Felix replied.
“I was talking to Clementine.”
“She can eat?”
“Oh, not food. I have to recharge her every once in a while with my magical energy.” Arisa set Clementine on her shoulder. “It’s easier on a full stomach.”
The two took the elevator to the first floor and joined other groups of Guardians headed to lunch.
“Do you think Archer’s yelling at those kids right now?” Felix asked.
Arisa laughed. “Archer doesn’t really yell. That would be less scary than his death glare, though.” They passed through the doors of the dining hall. “He’ll probably just give them a terrifying lecture and put them on partial probation for a couple weeks. It’s basically like being grounded.”
“I mean, what did they think would happen?” Felix asked as they stepped into line.
“My guess is that they thought they’d be able to banish it before anyone knew they’d even summoned it,” Arisa replied.
“Huh.” Felix grabbed a tray. “Well, I’m just glad I have someone to eat with now. If that’s all right, I mean.”
“Sure. Beats eating in the library with Hana and Kendra. Not that I don’t love them, but they’re mostly talking about wedding planning stuff right now, and I could use a break.” Arisa blew out a breath of air. “I had no idea picking out colors was so stressful.”
Felix laughed, for a moment. But Arisa’s mention of a wedding reminded him that he had a funeral to attend tomorrow. His face fell as he picked a chicken sandwich off the platter in front of him.
Arisa looked up from the fruit options and frowned. “Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” Felix’s hands tightened around his tray. “Just nervous about training, I guess. I don’t know what to expect.”
“There’s nothing to worry about. Sebastian’s the nicest teacher we could get,” Arisa moved to the basket of rolls waiting at the end of the buffet line. “He won’t blame you if you don’t get the hang of it right away.”
“That’s good to know.” The two stepped away from the line and headed toward an empty table at the edge of the hall.
“Then again,” Arisa said. “Archer’s going to be watching today. Oh, damn it, now I’m anxious too.”
Great, Felix thought as he sat down. Now he was actually nervous.