Page 137 of Our Radiant Embers

“I’m a Sun,” he corrected almost absently.

“A Sun of four elements. In my book, that’s a similar amount of power you wield.”

“Maybe. But the point is, how does that relate to those towers?” He watched me, confusion evident in the line of his frown. I let my gaze skim over the water and tried to make sense of it all.

What else? Right, so Isabelle Blanchard had visited one of the sites today, or maybe more than one. Why? What was her interest? And wait, hang on—how had the book put it in its introduction on the Blanchard family? Rumours of an artefact, a hidden wellspring of their considerable powers. Ley lines, if my father was to be trusted.

If Isabelle Blanchard truly knew how to tap into the ley lines…If they were the source of the Blanchards’ powers…

Our energy towers incorporated all four elements. They formed an equilateral triangle.

Jesus.

“What if—” I cut myself off and looked around us. The road was still fairly busy with traffic, a few late stragglers walking past us on the promenade, but no one paid us any mind. I lowered my voice regardless. “What if Isabelle Blanchard told my family how to boost our magic by drawing from the ley lines?”

Liam tilted his head and raised one uncertain shoulder. “Why would she do that? If it’s true, that’s the kind of knowledge that defines the whole fabric of their power. Hardly the kind of thing you casually share over a cup of tea. Or a slice of baguette, whichever.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” But I could venture a guess. “Not money—they’re too wealthy to sell out priceless information. A grab for more power, maybe?” I wasn’t sure how this could possibly help, though, so—unlikely. “Or revenge. Getting the final upper hand over the Duvals.”

Liam made a low noise. “Or what if their ability to tap into the ley lines got cut off somehow? Because of what happened to Notre Dame, maybe. And now they’re looking for alternatives.”

Fuck. The pieces lined up, didn’t they? Dad and Eleanor’s trip to Paris, the likely initial placing of the Initiative’s concept and the identification of the three sites, our pitch that revolved around the energy towers. And Liam. A French ancestry that fed from the ley lines, and suddenly his magic increased by multitudes, as though his body was more attuned than most to those sources of power.

I rested both elbows on the river wall and closed my eyes for a second to calm the buzz inside my head. Stop. Breathe.

Something nagged at me.

Ley lines. Lines. The angular lines of The Shard. The Shard was near our Southwark site. Southwark, Finsbury, Covent Garden. Angles. Triangles.

An equilateral triangle.

The Green Horizon Initiative formed an equilateral triangle around St Paul’s Cathedral.

Ley lines.

I opened my eyes and turned to Liam. “Pull up a map.”

His eyebrows pinched but he didn’t ask, simply got out his phone and tapped to open a corresponding app. He tilted the screen so we could both watch the map zoom in on where we stood. The little blue dot, that was us.

I shifted closer, reassured by the steady pressure of Liam’s shoulder against mine. “Zoom out, please.”

He did. I’d studied our model for the Initiative so often that I could have recreated it blindly.

“St Paul’s Cathedral.” I drew a line from there to the nearest site and kept going, moving the map until— “Kensington Palace. Ley line number one.”

Liam went very still next to me. Me, I felt like I was about to burst at the seams, held together by near-translucent skin.

“Next one.” I returned to St Paul’s and drew a second line, just bypassing The Shard to hit our residential area, and continuing on to…“The Royal Greenwich Observatory. Line number two. And then…” Back to St Paul’s, and to the site in Finsbury. I followed the direction farther, and farther. Nothing. No, there had to be something I’d missed. I moved back and started again. Clissold House? Too insignificant. Bruce Castle? Museum. Grade 1 listed sixteenth century Manor House. “Bruce Castle,” I said quietly. “Number three. An equilateral triangle with St Paul’s at the heart of it.”

I dropped my hand and looked at Liam. He looked back at me, eyes wide.

“Ley lines,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“And those energy towers...” He blew out a breath. “You think they’re like sockets?”

“Sockets?” I repeated blankly.

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