A GROWL COMES FROM MY LEFT, AND I LIFT MY head to see another man in a trench coat with long brown hair. I rush to my feet as the Mogadorian lifts his hand. A flash of light comes from it and hits me hard in the left shoulder, sending me flying backwards. The pain is instant and blinding. It runs down my arm, white-hot as though electricity has hit the bone and travels through it. My left hand feels dead, and with my right I reach up and touch the new gash on my shoulder. I lift my head and look up hopelessly at the Mogadorian.
The charm, I think. Adelina told me when we traveled that I couldn’t be killed unless it was in the order set by the Elders. This wound could be bad enough to kill me. I look down at my ankle to see if there are six scars instead of the three I’ve been living with for the last several months, but nothing has changed. Then how can I be killed? How can I be hurt this badly . . . unless the charm has been broken.
My eyes meet the Mogadorian’s, and he bursts into a heap of ash. For a crazy moment I think the intensity of my own thoughts is what killed him, but then I see that standing just behind him is the Mogadorian from the café. The one with the book, the one I’ve been running from. I don’t understand. Does their selfishness run so deep that they’ll kill one another to be the one who kills me?
“Marina,” he says.
“I, I can kill you,” I say in a shaky voice full of sorrow. The blood continues flowing from my shoulder and runs down my arm. I look over at Adelina’s body and start to cry.
“I’m not who you think I am,” he says, jogging over to me and reaching out his hand. “Time is extremely short,” he says. “I’m one of you, and I’m here to help.”
I take his hand. What other choice do I have? He pulls me up, and from the nave before any others arrive. He leads me down the northern hallway and to the second floor, heading towards the belfry tower. My shoulder screams in pain with each step.
“Who are you?” I ask. A hundred different questions race through my head. If he’s one of us, then why did it take him so long to tell me? Why torture me into believing he was one of them? Can I even trust him?
“Shhh,” he whispers. “Keep quiet.”
The musty hallway is silent, and as it narrows, I hear dozens of heavy footsteps on the floor below us. Finally, we reach the oak door. It opens just a crack, and a girl’s head sticks out. I gasp. Auburn hair, curious brown eyes, small features. She’s older by years, but there’s no mistaking that it’s her.
“Ella?” I ask.
She looks eleven years old, maybe twelve. Her face, which brightens at the sight of mine, is more slender now. Ella pulls the door open so we can enter.
“Hi, Marina,” she says in a voice I don’t recognize.
The man pulls me in, shutting the door. He wedges a thick wooden board between the door and the bottom stair, and the three of us rush up the circular stone steps. When we get to the belfry, I take another look at Ella. All I can do is stare at her, wide-eyed and confused, no longer feeling the blood rolling down my arm, dripping from my fingertips.
“Marina, my name is Crayton,” the man says. “I’m sorry about your Cêpan. I wish I had gotten there sooner.”
“Adelina’s dead?” the older version of Ella asks.
“I don’t understand,” I say, still staring at Ella.
“We’ll explain it all to you, I promise. There isn’t much time. You’re losing a lot of blood,” Crayton says. “You can heal people, correct? Can you heal yourself?”
With all the confusion and running, I hadn’t considered healing myself, but when I place the palm of my right hand over the gaping wound, I try it. The iciness tickles as the gash closes itself and the dead numbness is pushed from my hand and arm. After thirty seconds, I’m as good as new.
“Please be more careful with this,” Crayton says. “It’s far more vital than you know.”
I look to where he’s pointing. “My Chest!”
There’s an explosion nearby. The tower sways, and dust and rocks drop from the ceiling and walls. More rocks fall as another blast takes me off my feet. I use my telekinesis to stop their descent, and I fling them out the window.
“They’re searching for us, and it’s not going to take long until they realize where we are,” he says. He looks at Ella, and then at me. “She’s one of you. A member of the Garde from Lorien.”
“But she’s not old enough,” I say, shaking my head, unable to replace the younger version I’ve come to know with this older one. “I don’t get it.”
“Do you know what an Aeternus is?”
I shake my head.
“Show her, Ella.”
While standing in front of me, Ella begins to change. Her arms shorten and her shoulders narrow; she loses twenty centimeters of height, and her weight drops significantly. The shrinking of her face shocks me the most, and quickly she looks like the tiny girl I’ve come to love.
“She’s an Aeternus,” Crayton says. “She’s able to move back and forth between different ages.”
“I—I didn’t know that was possible,” I stutter.
“Ella’s eleven years old,” he says. “She came with me on a second ship from Lorien that left after yours. She was just a baby, only hours old. Loridas, the last remaining Elder, sacrificed himself so that Ella could assume his role and grow into his powers.”
As I’m looking at Crayton, Ella slips her hand into mine as she’s done so many times before; but it feels different now. I glance over and see that she’s returned to the older, taller version of herself. Recognizing my discomfort, Ella shrinks back down, the four years quickly melting away until she’s seven again.
“She’s the tenth child,” he says. “The tenth Elder. We created a rumor about her backstory, her parents dying in a car accident, and we sent her here to live with you to watch over you and be the eyes I needed.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the truth, Marina,” she says in her soft voice. “But I’m the best secret-keeper in the whole world, just like you said.”
“I know you are,” I say.
“I was just waiting for Adelina to give you your Chest,” she says, smiling.
“Do you know who the tenth Elder was?” Crayton asks. “Changing his age is how Loridas was able to live as long as he did, even after the other Elders had passed away. Each time he grew old, he made himself young again, and assumed the vitality that comes with it.”
“Are you Ella’s Cêpan?”
“Only in the surrogate sense of the word. Since she was just born, she hadn’t been assigned a Cêpan yet.”
“I thought you were a Mogadorian,” I say.
“I know, but only because you misinterpreted the clues. This morning when I was talking to Héctor, I was trying to show you I was a friend.”
“But why didn’t you just come and get me when you arrived? Why send Ella in?”
“I tried approaching Adelina first, but she cast me out the second she knew who I was, and we needed you to have your Chest. I couldn’t pull you away without it,” he says. “So I sent Ella in, and she started looking for it even before you asked her to. The Mogadorians have known your general location for a good while now, and I’ve done my best to keep them off your trail. Killing some, well, killing most, but also planting stories in villages hundreds of miles away, about kids doing amazing things, like about a boy who lifted a car above his head and a girl who could walk across a lake. It was working until they discovered you were in Santa Teresa; but even then, they still didn’t know which one you were. Then Ella found the Chest and you opened it, and that’s when I came here, to talk to you in private. When you opened the Chest, it led the Mogadorians right here.”
“Because I opened the Chest?”
“Yes. Go ahead, open it up now.”
I let go of Ella’s hand and grab hold of the lock. I’m sick thinking that I’m able to open it on my own, now that Adelina is dead. I remove the lock and toss the lid open. The small crystal is still glowing a faint blue.
“Don’t touch that,” he says. “The fact that it’s glowing means a Macrocosm is in orbit somewhere. If you touch it now, it will tell them exactly where you are. I don’t know whose Macrocosm is operational, but I’m pretty sure the Mogadorians have stolen somebody’s,” he finishes. I haven’t the slightest idea of what he’s talking about.
“Macrocosm?” I ask.
He shakes his head, frustrated. “There isn’t time to explain it all,” he says. “Relock it.” He opens his mouth to say more, but is interrupted by banging on the door at the bottom of the stairs. We can hear muffled bursts of foreign voices.
“We have to go,” Crayton says, rushing to the back of the room and grabbing a large black suitcase. He flings it open, revealing ten different guns, a handful of grenades, several daggers. He shrugs his coat to the floor and reveals a leather vest, and he rushes to strap every piece of weaponry to it before slipping his coat back on.
The Mogadorians ram the door below with a heavy object, and we hear footsteps enter the stairwell. Crayton removes one of the guns and snaps a clip into it.
“The burning symbol on the mountain,” I say. “Was it you?”
He nods. “I waited too long, I’m afraid, and when you opened the Chest it became impossible to slip away under their gaze. So I created the biggest beacon I could, and now we have to hope the others have seen it, and that they’re on the way. Otherwise . . .” He trails off. “Well, otherwise we’re out of options. We have to get to the lake now. It’s our only chance.”
I have no idea what lake he’s talking about, or why he wants to go there, but my whole body is trembling. I just want to get away.
The footsteps are closer. Ella grabs hold of my hand, back to her eleven-year-old self. Crayton pulls the slide on the gun, and I hear a bullet clicking into place. He aims it at the belfry’s entryway.
“You have a very good friend in town,” he says.
“Héctor?” I ask, suddenly understanding why the two of them were talking in the café this morning. Crayton wasn’t spreading lies, but rather telling the truth.
“Yes, and let’s hope he keeps his word.”
“Héctor will,” I say, certain that’s true regardless of what Crayton has asked him to do. “It’s in his name,” I add.
“Grab the Chest,” Crayton says.
I reach down and take the Chest in my left arm just as we hear the footsteps reach the last curves of the stairwell.
“Both of you, stay close to me,” Crayton says, his eyes moving from Ella to me. “She was born able to change ages, but she’s young and hasn’t developed any Legacies yet. Keep her close. And don’t let go of that Chest.”
“Don’t worry, Marina. I’m fast,” she says, smiling.
“You two ready?”
“Ready,” Ella says, tightening her hand around mine.
“They’re all going to be wearing body armor that would stop almost every bullet here on Earth,” Crayton says, “but I’ve soaked mine in Loricyde, and there isn’t a shield here that could stop them. I’m going to mow every damn one of them down.” His eyes narrow. “Keep your fingers crossed that Héctor’s outside the gates waiting for us.”
“He’ll be there,” I say.
Then Crayton pulls the trigger, and he doesn’t let go until every bullet’s been fired.