Elemental Thief E-Book

Rachel Morgan

• Herausgeber: Rachel Morgan
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Serie: Ridley Kayne Chronicles
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 370

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

She's a thief with forbidden magic. He's the guy she just stole from. Now they'll have to work together.

In a city where magic is outlawed, teenage thief Ridley uses her special powers to steal from the rich and give to those in need—until the night someone follows her home after a heist and ends up murdered outside her apartment.

When her best friend is accused of the crime, Ridley is determined to prove his innocence.

But things get messy when the artifact Ridley stole turns out to contain secrets that could endanger many lives. Forced to team up with wealthy Archer—the guy she stole from—Ridley must hunt down the artifact before it winds up in deadly hands.

Which means following a trail into the hidden parts of the city ...

... and hopefully not winding up dead.

- - -

"OH MY GOSH THIS WAS SO GOOD!" ~ Caitlin ★★★★★

"A real page-turner, couldn't put it down." ~ Lisa K. ★★★★★

"... mesmerizing from the word go!" ~ Angie T. ★★★★★

"Love, love, LOVE this!!!!" ~ Lil'n ★★★★★

- - -

THE COMPLETE RIDLEY KAYNE CHRONICLES:

1. Elemental Thief

2. Elemental Power

3. Elemental Heir

Leseprobe

ELEMENTAL THIEF

RIDLEY KAYNE CHRONICLES

BOOK ONE

RACHEL MORGAN

Copyright © 2018 Rachel Morgan

Summary:

In a near-future world ravaged by magic, seventeen-year-old Ridley steals from the wealthy and secretly gives to those in need—until the night someone follows her home after a heist and ends up murdered outside her apartment.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information please contact the author.

v2024.10.04

Mobi Ebook ISBN: 978-0-6399436-1-9

Epub Ebook ISBN: 978-0-6399436-2-6

1

The dark afternoon sky crackled with magic as Ridley Kayne crept across the penthouse apartment she was about to rob. She kept her hood up and her head angled away from the cameras, hiding both her face and her distinctive white-blond hair. Years had passed since she was last at the top of Aura Tower, but not much had changed. The open-plan space with its high ceilings and gleaming surfaces was still decorated with uncomfortable-looking furniture, exotic art, and the Davenports’ private collection of ancient artifacts. That last bit was where Ridley’s interest lay, so she was relieved to see the Davenports hadn’t grown tired of showing off their most priceless possessions.

She tiptoed past glass cases containing centuries-old urns, hand-painted beads, and items fashioned from rusted metal and carved bone. It was a wonder no one had robbed this collection before, especially since the items were now infinitely more valuable than they’d been before the Cataclysm destroyed most of the world’s history. Then again, Ridley thought as she paused before a porcelain vase to breathe in the unusual scent of fresh flowers, it was probably impossible for anyone who didn’t possess her exact skill set to get in and out of this apartment undetected. No doubt the richest family in Lumina City thought they were untouchable way up here on the two-hundredth floor.

She exhaled and continued moving, marveling at how quiet it was up here. The sounds that usually accompanied her jobs—the revving of car engines, the ads on billboard screens, the buzz of scanner drones—were almost nonexistent at the top of the city’s tallest building. All Ridley could hear through the floor-to-ceiling windows was the wind and the faint hiss and crack of magic in the storm clouds. She turned near the grand piano, her eyes moving from one artifact to the next—some familiar; others new to her—as she searched for one in particular. Her gaze skimmed across a coffee table, a rug, and up to the paintings on the opposite wall.

And finally, she spotted it. On a pedestal positioned between two paintings stood a solid gold figurine with a ring of tiny green stones around its neck. It was enclosed within a glass box, but that was no problem for Ridley. She headed straight for it, wondering how much time would pass before the Davenports noticed it was⁠—

At the sound of a lock clicking, Ridley froze. Her gaze snapped toward the pair of entrance doors. Then, without hesitating a moment longer, she darted forward and slipped around the corner into the passageway that led to the bedrooms. Her heart thumped uncomfortably as she pictured the doors swinging open. A moment later, they closed. Someone muttered something in a voice too quiet for Ridley to tell whether the owner was male or female. She knew what the muttering was about though. A shrill beep should have pierced the air the moment the door opened, but Ridley had disabled the apartment’s entire security system as soon as she’d arrived, and so the newcomer was greeted by silence.

The staccato click of heels against the polished floor met Ridley’s ears. So it wasn’t Mr. Davenport who was home, and it wasn’t the Davenports’ son—not that Ridley would ever have expected Archer Davenport to walk in; he’d left Lumina City more than a year ago and hadn’t been back since. That left⁠—

“Mom, you forgot the alarm again,” a voice groaned.

Delilah Davenport. She wasn’t supposed to be home yet. Ridley was almost certain she had a dance class on Thursday afternoons. “Well I just got home, and it wasn’t on,” Lilah continued, presumably speaking into her commscreen. “And neither is the smart home system, it would seem. Probably needs an update.” Ridley heard a tap and a beep and then⁠—

“Good evening, Delilah,” a feminine voice purred.

“There we go,” Lilah muttered as Ridley smirked. She’d disabled the home automation system along with the security. The last thing she needed when attempting a heist was a robotic voice greeting her and offering her a drink or asking what music she wanted to listen to.

“What can I get for you this⁠—”

“Nothing, thanks,” Lilah snapped in a loud voice. “Yes, I know it isn’t six yet,” she continued in a quieter tone, the clean click of her heels moving toward the other side of the living area. “Irina wasn’t feeling well, so she ended the lesson early.”

Ridley tilted her head to the side until she could see Lilah. The girl had one arm wrapped around her waist and her commscreen pressed to her ear as she faced the window. Ridley followed her gaze to the view outside. Heavy clouds blotted out so much of the sky that street lamps across the city were already on. From way up here, at the top of Lumina City’s tallest building, she could see beyond the many twinkling lights and the ten-story-high wall to the wastelands that surrounded the city in every direction. Flashes of magic illuminated the overgrown remains of buildings and roads, but other than that, the train was the only other source of light out there. It wound through the darkness like a bright silver snake with its arxium metal casing lit up. Ridley followed it with her eyes, imagining the walled city hundreds of miles away at the other end.

“That’s fine,” Lilah said to her mother, snapping Ridley’s attention back to the inside of the apartment. “I’m sure he won’t mind. He saw you and Dad last night.” She paused, and Ridley bit her lip as she considered her next move. “Yes, the two of us can just order something. We’ll be fine, Mom.”

Lilah ended the call, and Ridley pulled her head back before the other girl could turn and see her. Footsteps moved across the room toward the passageway. Ridley pushed away from the wall and ran for the nearest door. She slipped past it and pressed herself against the wall inside the next room—and realized her mistake immediately. She’d assumed this was still a guest bedroom, but the pink and purple items furnishing the space and the clothes draped across almost every surface clearly marked it as Lilah’s. With no time to duck back out, Ridley ran for the walk-in closet.

She could have used other means to conceal herself, but this was her second job for the day and she was growing tired. Making her way unseen into two apartments and disarming two security systems had taken a lot out of her. And she still had to escape Aura Tower, which would take almost as much effort as breaking in. Exhausting herself before she managed to get out wasn’t a good idea.

She reached the closet and pulled the doors shut just as Lilah entered the bedroom, raising her voice to tell the lights to switch on. Ridley forced herself to breathe slowly as she leaned forward and peered between the slats. Lilah tossed her purse onto the bed and told the large, sleek screen sitting on her desk to wake up and find her favorite streaming celebrity news channel. Several moments later, the cheerful voices of two women and a man filled the room as they discussed the fashion that had graced the red carpet at a recent charity event. Ridley shut her eyes for a moment and pushed aside the familiar pang in her chest at the mention of several well-known designers. Stupid celebrity news. Did Lilah really have to choose now to watch this trash?

Ridley opened her eyes to discover that Lilah wasn’t, in fact, watching her favorite celebrity news channel. She sat on her bed with two laptops open in front of her. As her fingers sped across one keyboard and then the other, Ridley smiled. Seeing the over-the-top wealth of the people she stole from always helped assuage her guilt. Not that she felt all that bad to begin with. People like the Davenports had far more than they could ever need. Ridley was only doing her bit to right the scales by taking from them.

Lilah scooped her glossy brown hair behind one ear, then shut both laptops and stood. She placed one in the bottom drawer of her dresser beneath several layers of clothing, and the other behind a pile of books at the top of a bookshelf. Interesting, Ridley thought, but Lilah was now crossing the room, which meant Ridley had far more urgent matters to pay attention to. If Lilah opened the closet, Ridley would have no choice but to⁠—

But Lilah headed straight past Ridley’s hiding spot and into her en-suite bathroom. Ridley exhaled and raised her hand to the closet door, listening carefully. The shower turned on. Steam drifted lazily into the bedroom. Ridley counted to ten, and when Lilah still hadn’t reappeared, she pushed the closet open, shut the doors silently behind her, and hurried from the room. Less than a minute later, with the gold figurine in her hand and the glass box sitting undisturbed on its pedestal, she left the apartment the same untraceable way she’d entered.

No one called out to her as she made her way across the marble floor of Aura Tower’s foyer two hundred stories below, but she waited until she was out of the building and across the street before allowing herself to relax. She zipped up her jacket, tucked the figurine inside, and breathed more easily. She’d done it.

She turned a corner, believing no one was watching as a gust of wind blew her hood back and tangled the strands of her pale hair. Ten minutes later, in an empty side street behind several overflowing garbage bins, she assumed no one witnessed the quick exchange in which the figurine moved from her hand to someone else’s and a thick envelope found its way into a pocket inside her jacket.

But after making two planned stops at two different run-down apartment buildings and noticing the same shadowy figure outside each one, Ridley began to grow suspicious. So she headed away from home instead of toward it. She took another three turns into three random streets before finally confirming her fear: Someone was following her.

2

The man following Ridley wore a vintage fedora hat, and his hands were pushed deep into the pockets of his dark maroon coat. He must have seen the envelope Ezra handed to her, must have seen the cash she took a few seconds to count before slipping the envelope inside her jacket. He would also have seen her stopping at the two apartment blocks, but what he wouldn’t have seen were the two new envelopes she’d left on two different kitchen tables, each filled with half the money Ezra had given her. Ridley had nothing left on her now, but the man in the maroon coat didn’t know that.

She mentally kicked herself as she tried not to change her pace. She and Ezra, the dealer she sold her stolen items to, were always so careful about the meeting spots they chose. How had someone seen them? But perhaps, Ridley wondered as she turned yet another corner and increased her pace ever so slightly, this wasn’t a coincidence. She wasn’t the type to get paranoid, but this job hadn’t exactly been of the regular variety. Ezra rarely received specific requests from clients. Ridley stole things—jewelry, art, pre-Cataclysm collectibles—Ezra presented them to whoever might be interested, and hopefully the items would sell. It wasn’t every day that one of those clients came back to him and said, Get me this item from Alastair Davenport’s private collection of ancient relics. Which meant someone knew before she even broke into the Davenports’ apartment that it would happen. And if that someone hadn’t been careful with his information …

“Dammit,” she muttered as specks of rain landed on her head and shoulders. A glance at the store window to her right told her the man was gaining on her. Perhaps he knew she’d noticed him and decided there was little point in keeping his distance now. Or maybe he didn’t know, but either way, it was time she stopped pretending she was oblivious.

She sped up, heading straight for the subway entrance up ahead. If she wasn’t so tired already, she would have disappeared another way, but she knew if she tried that particular method right now, she’d end up with the kind of migraine that felt like a screwdriver piercing her eyeballs. Besides, at this time of day it would be easy to lose the man among the crowds down in the subway.

She reached the subway entrance and the scanner that arched over it. Her pulse quickened, as it did every time she approached a scanner, but it beeped happily as she passed beneath it, the round bulb above her head flashing green for a second as it detected her AI2. She hurried down the steps, dodging between people and raising her fingers out of habit to brush the two small scars on her neck just behind her left ear.

The first scar came from her first amulet, embedded beneath her skin at birth. The old-fashioned term ‘amulet’ always conjured up images of crudely molded arxium charms hanging from necklaces and bracelets, the way people wore their protection centuries ago before someone decided to place a charm beneath the skin instead. These days, the amulet was a flat piece of silvery arxium metal the size of Ridley’s pinkie nail. Its anti-magic properties—the same properties that made arxium a necessary component of the wasteland trains and the wall surrounding Lumina City—prevented anyone from using harmful magic against her.

She got her second scar at roughly the same time everyone else did: after the Cataclysm when the use of magic was banned worldwide. Just in case anyone planned to ignore that law—anyone stupid enough to risk pulling on the wild elemental magic that now covered most of the earth—an additional law was put in place dictating that everyone receive a second amulet, the Arxium Implant 2. With this second amulet beneath the skin, it was impossible to pull magic from the environment and use it.

Ridley reached the bottom of the steps and pushed forward through the throng of people. Muffled music thumped from a nearby pair of headphones while somewhere overhead, an intercom beeped and a voice announced a delay in one of the subway lines. Instead of moving with the crowd toward the turnstile, Ridley weaved her way to the restroom. Seconds later, she was inside, holding the door slightly ajar and watching through the sliver of space for the man in the maroon coat. She spotted him as he reached the final step and began struggling to push his way through the crowd toward the turnstile.

“Ohmygosh, and they caught her, like, right in front of my apartment building!”

Ridley glanced over her shoulder as she became aware that she wasn’t alone in the restroom. Two girls leaned against the wall beside the hand dryer, peering at something on a commscreen. A video, she realized as a tinny female voice reached her ears: “… finally tracked her down and arrested her earlier this afternoon.” Ridley returned her gaze to the man who was heading straight for the turnstile and about to give her a chance to sneak back up to the street.

“What an idiot,” one girl said. “She had to know she’d end up dead.”

“I know, right? One-way ticket to the death penalty.”

“Well, yeah, either that or from magic blowing up in her face. Like that chick on top of the Haddison Building earlier this year.”

At the word ‘magic,’ Ridley’s attention snapped back to the two girls.

“Serena Adams?” the second girl replied.

“Yeah, her. Why don’t people learn when they see things like that? No, they have to go and experiment and put everyone else’s lives in danger.”

“Shh,” the other girl said, and pointed at the commscreen.

“All we can confirm at this point,” the voice from the video continued, “is that her AI2 was removed sometime within the last few days, allowing her to pull magic from the environment, a crime that has been punishable by death for close to a decade now. The woman, whose name we have yet to confirm, is an employee of Capita Farms on the edge of the city. It was the farm’s proximity to the arxium wall that alerted several of the woman’s colleagues to the fact that elemental magic was being used: The magic rebounded upon making contact with the wall’s arxium plating, first causing minor damage to a solar panel, then followed minutes later by a small explosion that destroyed a section of a wheat field.”

As the newscaster continued speaking, Ridley touched the scars behind her ear yet again, hesitating as her eyes followed the man in the maroon coat. But as much as she wanted to know more about this woman who’d just got herself arrested, Ridley had more important things to worry about right now. She pulled the door open enough to stick her head out and watched the man finally push through the turnstile and rush forward without looking back. She ducked out of the restroom and walked the other way, back to the stairs and up to the street.

Raindrops—a little larger than before—pattered down around her. Ridley tugged her jacket off, turned it inside out to reveal the light blue lining, and pulled it back on. After covering her head with the hood once more, she shoved her hands into her pockets and walked as quickly as she could without running. In the back of her mind, she mapped out the quickest way home—a two-block walk, a bus ride, and another quick walk—but she kept most of her attention directed behind her. With every corner she turned, her eyes darted back over her shoulder. Still no maroon coat or fedora hat in sight.

The bus she caught carried her fifteen minutes away from the city center. She survived the annoying kid kicking the back of her seat while singing rude variations on the old ‘roses are red, magic is blue’ poem and got hastily to her feet as soon as the bus neared the first Demmer District stop. She climbed off, jumped over a puddle, and skirted the soggy trash blocking the drain. Demmer wasn’t exactly the slum of the city—the bus would have had to continue for another five minutes or so to reach that part of town—but it certainly wasn’t an area anyone from the glitzy skyscraper district would frequent.

Ridley crossed the street as the bus grumbled and groaned and pulled away from the stop. She turned a corner—and that was when the bolt of magic flashed downward. It struck a pole half a block ahead of her, rebounded off the bent pole in multiple zigzagging flashes, and hit the road, cracking the tar and sending a small shock wave through the ground. Ridley stumbled back against a laundromat window, her heart jumping into high speed as the last spark of magic cracked a garbage bin in half and vanished. Her first thought was that it must have come from the storm brewing overhead. The many arxium panels—flat bus-sized pieces of arxium metal hovering a little higher than the city’s tallest building—were supposed to reflect atmospheric magic away from the earth. But the large spaces that existed between the panels made it easy for stray magic to find its way through during particularly volatile storms. It was startling to witness firsthand, but it wasn’t unheard of.

Then Ridley’s gaze moved beyond the fissure in the road. She saw flashing blue and red lights and a car screeching to a stop. A woman raced in front of the car, then leaped over the cracked road. Something blue and wispy rose away from her hands and arms, streaming behind her as she ran. Shouts and gunshots echoed between the buildings, and Ridley realized suddenly that the magic wasn’t from the storm above. The magic was pulled from right here in the city. Pulled by the woman fleeing past her. Ridley flattened herself against the laundromat window, her thoughts tumbling wildly over one another. Was this the same woman the police had arrested earlier? Had she somehow escaped? Would the magic she’d pulled end up destroying the entire street and everyone in it?

Before running around the corner and out of view, the woman grabbed hold of a lamppost and swung around to face the cops racing toward her. Her hands came together, then appeared to claw at something invisible in the air. Just beyond her fingertips, magic appeared in glowing blue wisps. With precise, hurried movements—movements Ridley hadn’t seen anyone use in years—the woman scooped at the magic. Her palms touched, her hands twisted, then her arms moved apart in a sweeping motion as her fingers traced patterns too fast for Ridley to follow. The wisps coalesced, formed a bubble, then exploded outward in a brilliant blue flash.

Ridley ducked down, squeezing her eyes shut and throwing her arms up to shield her face. The light vanished almost instantly. She blinked and tried to peer closer, both afraid and curious. Surely the woman had intended to create more than just a flash? Her hands or fingers must have made the wrong movement, produced the wrong conjuration. Ridley watched as the woman pulled desperately at the air a second time.

Crack.

Ridley flinched as the woman jerked backward. She seemed to sway a moment, then half-fell, half-slumped to the road. Her head hit the tar and the faint blue wisps drifted away just as three uniformed men gripping guns reached her motionless body.

Ridley didn’t wait to see what happened next. As the rain began to fall harder, she pushed away from the window and ran.

3

Ridley did her best to think of anything except the dead woman as she ran all the way home: The smell of rain, the slap of her shoes against the pavements, the spray of water every time she hit a puddle. By the time she reached Kayne’s Antiques, her throat burned and she was completely out of breath. She leaned her forehead against the glass door for several moments, allowing her heart rate to slow and making one last effort to shove the image of that still body from her mind.

As thunder rumbled overhead, she inhaled deeply and pushed open the door into the antique store. The familiar chime of the bell above the door greeted her ears, tinkling again as the door eased shut behind her. “Hey, Dad,” she called to the man sitting behind the heavily carved oak desk on the far side of the store.

He looked up and peered at her through his jeweler’s glasses. “Oh, sweetie, you’re home.” He tilted the magnifier lenses upward and smiled. “How was tutoring?”

“Same as usual,” she answered, shrugging out of her wet jacket. It wasn’t a lie. She had been at the tutoring center before sneaking into the apartment of one of her students to retrieve the stolen pearls she’d overheard him bragging about. It was only after that quick and easy robbery that she’d taken a detour to Aura Tower. Busy day, she thought to herself, breathing out a long sigh. “Did you eat lunch?” she asked as she slipped between the displays of teapots, clocks, books, and other old objects. Maverick Kayne tended to forget about meals when he was fully absorbed in his work—which appeared to be the case right now, given the numerous minuscule watch pieces and tiny tools spread across his work surface. “I left something in the fridge for you, remember?” Ridley walked around the counter with the antique cash register and stopped beside her father’s desk.

“Uh …” His eyebrows, flecked with gray, pinched together. He twisted his wedding ring around his fourth finger. “Yes. I did have lunch. Oh, and you don’t need to worry about doing anything for dinner. Shen brought something over from his mom.”

“Hey,” Shen said at the sound of his name. Ridley looked up and found him standing in the doorway that led to the back rooms, his hand raised in a half wave and his straight black hair almost touching the doorframe above him. “I left the dish on your stove upstairs.”

“Hi, stranger,” Ridley said, her face breaking into a smile. “Didn’t see you at the rock wall this morning. Did you end up having to work?”

“Yeah.” Shen slouched against the doorframe. It was a bad habit of his from years of being self-conscious about his height. “Sorry about that. Mom needed help. Is Meera doing any better?”

“Well, I don’t think she hates it anymore, so that’s progress.”

“Great.” Shen brightened. “It’s only taken us, what, five years to convince her to give indoor climbing a go?”

“Approximately. But she still says, and I quote, ‘This is one of the stupidest sports ever.’” Ridley rolled her eyes and leaned her hip against the side of Dad’s desk. “Anyway, thanks for bringing dinner over. I could have come and picked it up.”

“And saved me the looooong walk across the road from our shop to yours?”

“Yes. That long and arduous walk.”

“It’s a strenuous one indeed,” Shen said with a long-suffering sigh.

“I don’t know how your short legs ever make the journey.”

“It’s a mystery. I should be winded and out of breath right now.”

“You two,” Dad muttered without looking up at them, and they both started laughing. Shen and his family lived across the road above the Chinese takeout shop his parents owned. Mrs. Lin had been sending food over at least once a week since Ridley and her father moved in above Kayne’s Antiques after the Cataclysm. Ridley and Shen had been friends almost as long.

“Well, tell your mom thanks.” Ridley held up her hand, and Shen high-fived her as he walked past.

“Sure. See you and Meera at rock climbing tomorrow afternoon. Unless,” he added as he reached the front door and looked back, “you guys have tutoring again?”

“No, today was the last class.” Ridley scooped her damp hair away from her neck—being careful not to pull the silver chain she always wore—and ran her fingers through the tangled ends, trying to separate them. “The center figured they’d let the kids relax for their last four days of summer break.”

“How kind of them.” The bell chimed as Shen opened the door. He lifted the hood of his raincoat. “’Kay, see you tomorrow then.”

“See ya.” Giving up on the tangles, Ridley turned to face Dad and found him watching her. “What?”

“Are you planning to relax over the next four days, or will you be spending all your time obsessively climbing indoor rocks?”

She spread her arms out, palms up. “What’s wrong with obsessively climbing indoor rocks? It’s exercise. A full-body workout for both strength and cardio.”

Dad sighed and tilted the magnifier lenses back down over his eyes. “Yes. You’ve quoted the promotional pamphlet to me before. But how about you spend a little time outside?” he suggested as he picked up one of his tiny tools. “You know, relaxing and enjoying the last few days of summer?”

Ridley snorted. “Ah, yes, summer. Rain only half the time instead of rain and snow all the time. Temperatures almost warm enough for me to remove my jacket.”

“You forgot the bit about working on your tan,” Dad added without looking up.

A small smile touched her lips as she looked at the picture frame standing beside a coffee mug of pens and pencils on the desk. “And you forgot to remind me to be grateful we’re alive and that Lumina City survived the Cataclysm. That’s what you usually say at this point in the conversation.”

Dad still didn’t look up, but Ridley could see his smile. “After nine summers repeating this dialogue, I figured it might be time for you to say that bit.”

Ridley put on her chirpiest sing-song voice. “I’m grateful we’re alive and that Lumina City survived the Cataclysm.”

“Like you mean it?”

She sighed, her fake smile slipping. “I do mean it. I really do. I’m beyond grateful we were protected.” An image of the erratic flashes of magic bouncing back and forth across the street earlier crossed her mind before she continued. “It’s just … what’s the point in spending time outside when the sun barely manages to make its way through the clouds and magic, and when it does, it’s hardly warm enough to be enjoyable? It’s nothing like the old summers.”

Ridley was eight years old at the time of the Cataclysm, old enough to remember now what summer was like before that fateful day. The day of the GSMC, the Global Simultaneous Magic-Energy Conversion. That was the day thousands of magicists around the world had tried to harness more energy from the elements than they’d ever harnessed before using thousands of simultaneous conjurations—and instead ended up destroying most of civilization. Magic, wild and powerful, had erupted across the earth, ripping through anything and everything that wasn’t protected by arxium. And those cities that had been labeled paranoid—the cities that had ‘wasted money’ putting thousands of hovering arxium panels in place to reflect magic away on the off chance that something might one day go wrong—were the only places that survived.

Ridley’s home, Lumina City, had been one of those places. She was fine. Dad was fine. But her mother had been out there, on the road, traveling back from visiting Ridley’s grandparents where they lived in a small town several hours away. A town that had no arxium protection. Ridley used to fantasize about her mother returning one day. Perhaps she’d been inside someone’s arxium bunker and not on the road. Perhaps she was busy battling through the wastelands, making her way back to Ridley and Dad. But in her heart, she knew it wasn’t possible. Her mother had called from the road mere minutes before the explosion that changed everything. Ridley had spoken to her.

After the Cataclysm, Dad’s business had gone under—every fashion accessory and jewelry item he’d crafted using magic had been rounded up by a new government task force and destroyed—and within the space of a few months, after Dad settled all their debts, he and Ridley found themselves left with nothing but a small amount of savings and Grandpa’s antique store. Dad had inherited it several years earlier when Grandpa died, and someone had been managing it since then. Dad took over management of the store—he couldn’t afford to pay someone else to do it—and added ‘watch repairs and jewelry design’ to the sign in the window. He didn’t get many customers though. True antiques were valuable, but the name Kayne scared people off. It was risky doing business with someone whose primary income used to be generated by magic. Who knew if Maverick Kayne might secretly use magic to create a pair of earrings or get a watch to start ticking again? What if the antiques he sold were actually created by some conjuration he did whenever the scanner drones weren’t flying overhead?

Ridley knew about the rumors because she’d heard them. She’d listened intently as she sat on uncomfortable couches waiting for Dad while he went to interview after interview, trying to find a new job in a post-Cataclysm world where no one needed the skills he possessed. She quickly learned that no one would ever give him work. It took Dad a little longer to come to the same conclusion.

And so Ridley and her father remained in the small apartment above Kayne’s Antiques, and nothing—especially summer—was ever the same again.

“I know it’s not like the old summers,” Dad said, pulling her from the memory of hot sand, icy lemonade, and the smell of sunscreen. “But it’s the only summer you’re getting, so I suggest you enjoy the last of it.”

“Dad,” she said, pressing her palms down on the desk and leaning closer to him. “If anyone should spend some time outside, it’s you. You’re in here all the time.”

“That isn’t true. I’m not in here during your shifts.”

“And how many of those do I have? Not nearly enough. You need to give me more so you can have time to⁠—”

“Sweetie, it’s fine.” Dad finally removed the jewelers glasses and smiled at her. Though wrinkles creased his brow from too much frowning and his hair was now more gray than black, his eyes were still as blue as Ridley’s. “I know how hard you have to work to keep your scholarship. And there’s all your extra-murals. I’m not going to pile any more onto your shoulders than I have to.”

Guilt shifted uncomfortably in the pit of Ridley’s stomach. She was hardly the perfect child Dad thought she was. Sure, she committed hours of her life to tutoring underprivileged kids, and it was something she genuinely enjoyed, but the fact that it would look great on her application to join The Rosman Foundation after graduation was the main reason she’d started tutoring. And indoor climbing was a good way to stay fit and healthy, but the skills she’d learned definitely came in handy when breaking in and out of certain buildings. “What about your shoulders?” she pressed, pushing her ulterior motives to the back of her mind where they belonged.

“My shoulders are just fine, Riddles. Even if they’re not physically as strong as yours.”

Ridley knew there was little point in arguing with him. It had never worked before. “Well, can I at least close up for you today?” she asked, looking at the cuckoo clock on the wall. “You can finish that watch tomorrow. Go upstairs and read a book or something until closing time. Or take a walk around the block. Get some rain and fresh air. I mean, you know—” she rolled her eyes “—air that’s fresher than the centuries-old air inside this place.”

Dad leaned back and stretched his arms out to the side. “Maybe,” he mumbled around a yawn. He opened one of the desk drawers, pulled out his cracked secondhand commscreen, and scrolled through a few notifications. He exhaled slowly. “Yes, okay.” He pushed his chair back and stood. “I’ll take a walk. Even if it’s just around the apartment upstairs. I’ve probably been sitting for too long.” He slid the commscreen into his back pocket and pulled Ridley into a hug. “You should stop trying to take care of me, you know?”

She smiled and squeezed her arms tighter around him. “Never.”

He chuckled against her hair, then stepped away. “Oh, and, uh … Don’t touch anything on the work area.”

“Dad. I know by now not to touch anything on the work area.”

“I know, I know. Just reminding you.”

“I might tidy up around the work area,” she added, “but I absolutely will not touch the work area.”

“Thanks, Riddles.” With a final smile, Dad turned away and walked through to the back rooms.

Ridley sat in Dad’s chair, then shifted to the side as she felt something hard in her back pocket. She remembered the string of pearls and pulled it free, making a mental note to return it to the tutoring center coordinator’s office the next time she was there. She imagined the look of relief on the woman’s face when she discovered it—and the disbelief on her student’s face when he got home tonight and realized the pearls he’d stolen were gone. Hypocrite, she imagined he would say to her if he knew what she spent many of her nights doing. You steal, so why can’t I? “There’s a difference,” she whispered.

She removed her commscreen from inside her jacket. The only notification on the screen was a message from Meera saying she could barely lift her arms after all the climbing Ridley had made her do that morning. Ridley smiled to herself as she set the commscreen down and began tidying the outer areas of Dad’s desk. Next to all the antique pieces in the store, the commscreen looked completely out of place. That and her state-of-the-art laptop and commpad were the most modern—and most expensive—pieces of tech in the whole building. They were part of her scholarship package, and the school gave her a new version of each at the start of every year. Ridley thought it was unnecessary, but she didn’t complain. She generally passed the older versions on to Shen or someone else in his family.

After pausing at the picture frame to brush her thumb over the photo of her six-year-old self sitting between her mother and father, Ridley continued straightening the surrounding objects. She returned pencils to the coffee mug, gathered up blank note paper that hadn’t been scribbled on, and closed the little carved wooden box her mom had given her dad years ago. Her fingers traced the tree carving on the lid as her thoughts returned to the woman who’d died only a few blocks from here for the crime of using magic.

Ridley wondered if she’d been a trained magicist before the Cataclysm. Her movements had seemed more intricate than those required for average, everyday conjurations. But she could have taught herself if she had a copy of one of the old magicist texts. All the paper editions had been gathered up and burned after the anti-magic laws were passed, but it had been impossible for the government to control the deletion of every single electronic text that explained the use of magic.

The bell above the front door rang out again, startling Ridley from her thoughts. She straightened, looked up, and her heart almost stopped at the sight of the girl who stood there smiling sweetly at her.

Delilah Davenport.

4

Ridley wiped the shock from her face and replaced it with an innocent smile. “Lilah. How nice to see you here. It’s been … what? Ten years?”

On the far side of the room, Lilah Davenport’s gaze slid slowly from one display case to the next. “Probably more.”

“I’m surprised you remembered how to get here,” Ridley added, knowing she should keep her mouth shut and finding herself utterly unable to follow her own good instincts.

“I didn’t,” Lilah said. She waved her commscreen at Ridley as she stalked between the tables and cabinets. “Some tiny corner of the net seemed to remember this place still exists and showed the car where to go.”

“Lovely,” Ridley said, her overly fake smile stretching wider as she forced herself to keep her fists hidden behind the desk. She knew she should be afraid right now. Her mind should be racing back over the events of the afternoon, working furiously to figure out whether there was any possibility of a camera in the Davenports’ apartment having seen her face. But all Ridley felt was heat in her veins and a heavy pulse pounding in her ears.

Lilah looked over her shoulder at the door, then turned her frown back to the table of candlestick holders and teaspoons in front of her. She was dressed more casually now than when Ridley had seen her earlier, but even in jeans and a sweater she managed to look glamorous. Perhaps it was her perpetually glossy hair. Or her perfect posture. Or⁠—

The bell over the door jangled again. Ridley looked toward it, and her jaw just about hit her chest. “Oh, there you are,” Lilah said to her brother. “I thought you were right behind me.”

The door swung closed behind Archer Davenport as he wandered past an eighty-eight-year-old wrought iron side table toward Lilah, his gaze traveling lazily across the store’s contents. “Just checking the takeout options in this area. How do you feel about Chinese?”

“From this part of town?” Lilah wrinkled her nose. Ridley might have thrown something at her if shock wasn’t still rooting her to the spot.

Archer shrugged. “Yeah, why not? It’s not exactly the Ju-long Bar, but how bad can it be?” He finally deigned to look across the room at Ridley. With a small nod, he said, “Hey,” before looking away.

Which was actually quite something, Ridley had to admit. He’d barely spoken a word to her since the Cataclysm. Where have you been? she almost blurted out. It was the question everyone would ask the moment they realized he’d returned. Archer had left Lumina City at the beginning of last summer as soon as he’d graduated high school, and it seemed not even his friends knew where he’d gone. The most popular rumor was that he’d run off to get away from his overbearing parents so he could continue his partying playboy lifestyle in peace. Ridley saw a few holes in that theory, but in truth, she was just as clueless as everyone else.

“Fine, whatever,” Lilah said. “We can get Chinese here. Anyway.” She turned to face Ridley as if they’d been in the middle of a conversation when Archer walked in. “It’s our mother’s birthday tomorrow, and with everything that’s—” She cut herself off, her expression faltering for only a moment before she smoothly went on. “We both forgot. I was just going to pop out to Voletti’s quickly, but Archer reminded me that Mom already has all the scarves she could possibly want and that we should get something different. He remembered she likes quaint old things.” She looked around, her eyes landing on a midnight blue masquerade mask that definitely wasn’t an antique, though it was almost as old as Ridley, and added, “I told him this place was always more of a secondhand shop than a genuine antique store, but he didn’t listen. So here we are.”

Ridley nodded slowly, focusing more on Lilah’s story than on her barely disguised insult. It might be true that it was Mrs. Davenport’s birthday tomorrow. Or the real reason that Lilah and Archer had come all the way to the butt end of Demmer District could be that they’d noticed the missing figurine and taken a close look at their home’s security footage. Was Lilah waiting for the perfect moment to reveal that she knew exactly what Ridley had done? If so, she was taking her sweet time. She walked slowly through the store, humming quietly as Archer stood with his arms crossed, reading something on his commscreen.

“Did you see this?” he asked Lilah, unfolding his arms and pointing the commscreen to face her. She moved closer as he added, “They arrested her, but she escaped and lost control of all the magic she’d managed to pull.”

“Yeah, I saw,” Lilah said, peering at the screen. “No doubt the magic would have killed her if that bullet hadn’t. Reminded me of what’s-her-name who went to Wallace.”

“Serena,” Archer said, slipping the commscreen back into his pocket.

“Yeah, Serena Adams.” Lilah sighed and picked up a solid brass nutcracker. “If people want to be stupid and break the law, then that’s what happens. I just wish they’d go do it somewhere it won’t affect the rest of us. What is this?” She frowned at the nutcracker, which was essentially two metal clowns joined by a hinge. Pretty much useless these days considering how rare nuts were. “It’s, like, the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Mmm,” Archer said, looking at the nutcracker for only a moment before his gaze moved onward. “Mom wouldn’t like it.”