Page 114 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

“Let me show you.” He tilts his head toward the garden.

“Okay.”

Then I’m following him out of the school, through the garden and into the mastick, but not beyond the barrier. There’s been no official announcement, but I’ve heard some students talking about a possible ban on the mastick since there’s been an influx of students getting attacked. Of course, a prince would probably be the first to know of a rule, especially after a princess was attacked.

The leaves of the trees are already falling off here. Back home they wouldn’t until… now. We’re past three hundred days of the Collianth cycle. The year is almost over, and I’ve been here for months doing… what?

Kai steps into a pile of fallen leaves and holds his hands out open to his sides. With his eyes closed, he mumbles something under his breath.

Then the wind picks up around him. I can hear it howling when the leaves he’s standing over get picked up into the current and swirl around him. A Light Folk performing air magic. I can’t believe my own eyes. The leaves fall down abruptly, and Kai looks like he is catching his breath.

“Are you okay?” I ask, then curse myself for not saying all right like Lieholan is always instructing me to—especially in front of the prince.

“Yes.” After a minute of heavy breathing, he says, “Channeling a component you don’t inherently possess takes more energy. I wanted you to know what to expect.”

“Oh,” I say. “Thanks.”

Kai sits on the ground, then gestures for me to do the same and says, “Please.” I sit. “All you have to do is open yourself to a new element, the same way you had to open yourself to the one you have,” he says. “The truth is, you have them all, there’s just normally one that’s stronger than the others.”

Okay, so almost everything I know about Folk magic is turning out to be a lie? Light Folk can do more than shoot things with electric currents, and anyone can use any form of magic. But what about the Water Folk? The creatures that have to live in water, can we use their powers, and can they use ours?

I have so many questions, but I start with, “What happens to a Folk who isn’t born with just one element stronger than the rest?”

His eyes go wide for a second. “What?”

“You say that normally one is stronger than the other. What happens when that isn’t the case?”

“Well, it normally doesn’t happen to the Fire Folk, since only they can carry that element,” he says, deflecting the question.

“Okay,” I say. “That’s fair, I do already have a lot on my plate with the Flame.” I smile. I don’t show any sign that I know he doesn’t want to answer the question. I pretend like he already has.

He doesn’t say anything more about the subject, instead saying, “Close your eyes.”

I begrudgingly do.

“Air, light, water,” he whispers, stops, then adds, “fire… I have everything inside of me.” So, we can use water magic. He repeats it again, like a mantra, and I do the same. I feel the wind pick up, brushing through my hair and against my ears, and I know that it isn’t me doing this. “Reach for it,” he whispers. “The first time letting the foreign energy course through you is the strangest.”

I feel it, rising in my stomach and bubbling in my chest. It’s like rena coursing through my blood, moving through me, into my arms and palms, taking me over until all I can feel is that rush of power.

“And release it,” Kai says, and I do. It leaves me feeling pleasantly dizzy. My mind hums with a sort of silence I’ve never experienced before. My whole body vibrates with it.

It’s the peace of sleeping without the horrors of my dreams, and I could sit in it forever.

But someone is calling me, saying my name, and I’m trying to ignore them as best I can, but they’re only getting louder.

Kai is in front of me when I open my eyes. Fire is behind him and I see that he’s screaming but I still can’t really hear him. He pulls me up, and we run.

I begin to make out the noise of our feet against the crunching leaves. The opposite of Damien when he moves through the woods. Lucian too.

Kai’s cursing, and I don’t know what to do. When the sun shines on my face, I can suddenly feel the heat that’s surrounding him and me. It’s from the fire that’s chasing behind us.

I didn’t tap into another element, I tapped into my own. The Flame.

“What are we gonna do?” I yell, losing my breath and trying to catch it. We’re making it closer to the school, but the fire follows closely behind. This is how we die back on the septic, and I’m about to kill countless others.

“I’m going to get Headmistress Constance,” Kai says. “She can stop this.”

There’s only one person I know who can fix this.

---