She walks the waters like a thing of life,

And seems to dare the elements to strife

 

Lord Byron- “The Corsair”

 

Two years after the Fall, Nia, Princess of the Water House, led a rebellion against the Council of All Houses.  As far as rebellions went, Nia didn’t have a particularly impressive force of freedom fighters.  It was just the four of them, in fact.  But, it was enough to completely by-pass Elemental laws, disobey direct orders from Job, and basically qualify her for Banishment if she was caught.

Of course, sending someone into exile to die alone, when the entire species hovered on the cusp of extinction, seemed pretty damn redundant.  The irony of that would probably be lost on the rest of the Council, though.  They tended to be fairly humorless about treason these days.  Still, the knowledge that she faced death no matter what path she followed certainly helped Nia feel better about ignoring the other Phases.  She’d just carry out her plan without their support, because there was nothing else to lose.

There simple weren’t enough Elementals to hang on much longer.  They had long life spans, but Phases still died.  Smaller Houses were already beginning to tumble.  Two days before, the last three members of the Cloud House died in a freak dune buggy accident and their House ended.  The Weather Phases quickly assumed what jobs they could, ensuring that the rain would still come and nature would stay in balance.

Luckily, the world didn’t end, again.  Which was, admittedly, always a good thing.

They’d still lost too much, though.  The Cloud House had created the pictures in the sky.  Clouds shaped like horses or motorcycles or Abraham Lincoln had always been on display for anyone with an imagination to see.  The forms had shifted in a beautiful, endless Rorschach Test.  Now, the clouds had gone static.  No one could see the images, anymore.  The sky was just white on blue and it broke Nia heart.

They couldn’t afford to lose any more Houses.  Something needed to be done and if the Council didn’t understand that, they could just have her Banished.

But, they’d have to catch her first.

“Ty, how we doin’, honey?”  Nia asked into her small walkie-talkie.  “Did you find it?  Because I’m not having much luck.  I think I’m lost somewhere in oncology.”  The handheld gizmo made a beeping noise and Nia frowned down at it.  She didn’t have her cousin’s talent for electronic stuff or her twin’s knowledge of human technology, so she wasn’t quite sure she was using it right.  It kept chirping at her, which defeated the entire purpose of covertly using walkie-talkies to sneak into a building.  “Thar?” She raised the devise to her mouth again and called her twin.  “It’s still doing that thing.”

“You’re pushing the blue button, Nia.”  Tharsis’s voice came over the line filled with brotherly annoyance.  “I told you, use the red one.  Job’s right.  You never listen.”

Nia made a face at his tone.  “Jackass.”  She muttered.  “I never should have let him come along today.”

“I can still hear you.”  Tharsis reported, helpfully.

“I know.”  She assured him and pushed the red button.  “Ty?  Are you there?”

“Um, Uriel and I are on the second floor, now.  We found the lab.  It’s room 290.”  Tritone sounded nervous, which wasn’t unusual.  Since the Fall, Ty’s formally shy and mischievous personality had turned into crippling insecurity.  Ty liked computers, being quiet, and solving math problems.  Ty did not like meeting other people, talking to other people, or generally being out in public in any way.

Though she was the actual Queen of the Water House, Ty relied on Nia to make most of the decisions.  Nia was the one who represented the Water House on the Council and spoke for them.  Nia was the one everyone looked to for leadership.

Nia wasn’t sure she was doing her cousin any favors by shielding Ty from so much of life.  But, she still couldn’t help but treat Ty like she was made of dried flowers, spun glass, and sadness.  Ty was only ninety-five, making her one of the youngest Elementals alive.  She’d endured too much in too short a time.  Nia was afraid that nothing could restore her spirit now.

Plus, the multiple, high paying bounties on Ty’s head didn’t exactly promote feelings of security.

Damn Reprisal bastards.

“290.  Great!  Good job, guys.  Thar, you get that?”  They’d split up into three teams to search the hospital.

“Got it.  On my way.”

“Alright.  Hang on, Ty.  We’re coming to you.”  Nia checked the “You Are Here” map attached to the wall and headed for the hospital elevator.  There were two humans in there already.  Nia adopted what she hoped passed for an “I’m-Just-an-Average-Member-of-Your-Species” expression and hit the button for the second floor.  She surreptitiously slipped the walkie-talkie into the pocket of her lab coat.

It chirped again.

Nia cringed as the humans looked at her.  “Beeper.”  She explained with a nod.  Did humans still use beepers or was there some new gizmo, now?  It was hard to keep up.

In any case, they seemed to believe her.  Humans tended to believe a lot of what they were told.  Nia wasn’t sure if she envied or pitied them for their innocent faith that the world was a stable and safe place.  Maybe they just didn’t know any better.  The humans’ obliviousness to… well… pretty much everything was one of the reasons that the Council was so against this plan.  Anti-human prejudice ran high in most Houses.

The Elementals happily borrowed technology, interesting obscene language, and snack foods from the humans, but that was all out of necessity.  Humans just had the most interesting swear words.  No one could dispute that.  And TVs, Cheetos, and computers weren’t really elemental in nature.  There wasn’t a Plastic and Circuit Board House to create video games for the other Phases.  They had to get them from the humans.  Luckily, Uriel’s Wood House was excellent at whipping out stacks of the humans’ paper money, so they could pay for their toys.

No matter how much the Elementals loved watching The Simpsons, eating popcorn and cursing at each other, though, Phases did not interact with humans.  At least, not in anything but the most superficial ways.  It was their oldest law.  Hence, the need for a rebellion if Nia’s plan was going to work.

Nia got off the elevator at the second floor and finally located a deserted hallway that led to the serology lab.  Blood work, all neatly documented, filled the computers in there and promised a new life for the Elementals.  Nia found herself smiling in anticipation as she spotted her cousin by the wooden door.  “Any problems?”

Ty shook her head.  “I’ve got the equipment we’ll need.  Let’s just hurry up and do this.”  She hesitated and glance at Uriel.  “When he’s ready, I mean.”  She added in a respectful whisper.

Beside Ty, Uriel sat cross-legged on the terrazzo floor, with his eyed closed.

Nia spared him a quick glance and nearly groaned.  Uriel, like most Wood Phases, had a deep spiritual belief in Gaia, the Mother of the World.  Nia did too, but she didn’t see the need to center herself every friggin’ time she used her powers like Uriel insisted on doing.  Reminding herself to be fair, Nia resigned herself to waiting out his mediation.

Uriel was young, only one hundred and fifty-four.  That made Nia exactly a century older than him.  Phases got more powerful as they aged and Uriel was going to expend a lot of energy.  If he thought his quiet time routine actually helped, Nia wouldn’t complain.

Too much.

Minutes ticked by.  Nia’s foot began to tap.  She looked down at her Minnie Mouse Timex, impatiently.

They didn’t have time for this relentless rule following.  Stubborn law abiding-ness was another Wood Phase trait.  Really, Nia was still sort of astonished that Uriel had come along today.  The Council had assigned him to protect the Water House, but only as a precaution in the Elemental realm.  Joining Nia’s rebellion wasn’t going to help him get promoted up the warrior ranks.

Uriel’s sense of responsibility towards his House was even greater than his desire to follow Job’s edict, it seemed.  There were only five Wood Phases left.  Uriel was determined to do something to fix that before all the trees, forests, and oxygen in the universe snapped off like a light switch.  The Water House Rebellion was lucky to have him on their side, Nia supposed.  Even though what Uriel knew about human culture could be fully documented on a Tic-Tac breath mint with room to spare.

“Oh, prefect.”  Tharsis came loping up.  “He’s doin’ the yoga thing again.”  Like all the Phases of the Water House, Thar had reddish hair and turquoise eyes.  He was larger than his cousin and twin, though.  His tall, muscular frame dwarfed their smaller, curvy bodies.  He looked over at Nia.  “Do we have time for this?”

She shrugged, helplessly.

Tharsis blew out an aggravated breath.  “Uriel, come on, man.  Human’s lunch hours are really, like, twenty-three minutes, so we hafta do this, now.”

Uriel didn’t move.  Another ninety seconds passed in total silence.

Two nurses walked by.

Ty bit her lower lip and pulled down on her baseball cap so forcefully that it hit the top of her glasses.  The oversized brim kept her face hidden, dwarfing her small features.  Ty liked to try and disappear as much as possible whenever anyone outside the family was around.  Unfortunately, she was also dressed in a lab coat.  Since not many doctors at Mayport Beach General wore pink hats machine embroidered with the “Hello Kitty” logo, her disguise really wasn’t helping her vanish into the woodwork.

Nia shined a “Trust Me” smile as the nurses eyed the four Phases curiously.  Even humans were bound to wonder why someone was meditating in front of a closed serology lab, for Gaia sake.  Still, the nurses kept walking, leaving the hallway empty, again.

Nia looked around for something to clonk Uriel over the head with, hoping that a massive blow to the skull would knock some sense into him.

Tharsis pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed like the most tortured man in the world.

Finally, Uriel opened his deep brown eyes and released a long cleansing breath.  “I’m ready.”  He announced, rising to his feet.

“About time.”  Tharsis and Nia chorused.

Uriel frowned and dusted off his pants.  “You can’t rush on a mission like this.  It makes you sloppy.”

“You know what else makes you sloppy?”  Thar arched a brow.  “Sitting on the damn floor for an hour and drawing attention to us, ya idiot.  I told you that if you didn’t understand how to act around humans…”

“Thar.” Nia held up a hand, cutting him off.  “It’s alright.  Let’s just go already.”  She gestured for Uriel to begin.

He laid a palm flat on the wooden door and gave a pushed with his powers.  “Ty, you first.”

Ty obediently walked right through the formally solid surface of the door.

It was easy enough for Uriel to control the structure of the wooden barrier and let them all pass through it.  Elementals could manipulate the natural elements connected to their House.  Anything that had to be created through human intervention was out of their control, though.  They could manipulate simple inventions, like paper, but nothing complicated.  Plastics, for instance, were completely beyond their powers.  The hospital ID cards Uriel had created for them weren’t even laminated because of that problem.  Their energy was tied to the elemental processes of the universe, not human made technology.

“Thar, Uriel, move it.”  Nia ordered as she slipped inside the lab after Ty.

Tables covered with computers, vials and other serology equipment filled the room.  Nia had no idea what most of it even was and she didn’t care.  The only thing they needed now was the name.  “Ty, you’re up.”  Nia gestured towards a computer and gave her cousin an encouraging smile.

 The Queen of the Water House was a science nerd, which came in handy when you needed a little electronic thievery done fast.  Ty sat down at one of the keyboards and began breaking into the hospitals database with surprisingly confident motions.  In every other aspect of life, Ty might’ve been a candidate for a PSA on Social Anxiety Disorder, but in digital worlds of numbers and techno-jargon she had total self-assurance.

Nia hovered over Ty’s shoulder for a beat, watching her cousin work.  Ty’s talents were so apparent.  So special.  Her cousin had been one of the most brilliant Phases alive, even before the Fall.  Only Tharsis had ever given Ty a run for her money on IQ tests.  Of course, now he just used his extraordinary brain to memorize TV schedules and commercial jingles.  He’d given up and Nia had no idea how to get the real Tharsis back.  Ty kept going, though.  Kept trying to solve problems through the power of her own ideas and research.  She thought she could save the world.

It gave Nia a pang, realizing that this was how Ty would have been about everything if Parald hadn’t come into their lives.  Competent and creative and secure with herself.  The Water House had always bred artists and academics, but Ty had the potential to be their greatest gift to the universe

Ty brushed her hair behind her ear.  Mixed in with the mass of red curls was a shot of vibrant blue.  Each House was born with a different color streak at their temple.  For the Water House, it was a bright turquoise that matched their eyes.  “This might take a few minutes.”  She murmured.

Uriel and Tharsis, meanwhile, started ransacking desks.  Drawers were ripped out, files dumped, even the wastepaper baskets were overturned and the contents scrutinized.  Everything that looked remotely useful was passed to their friendly, neighborhood Wood Phase.  As long as it was printed on a piece of paper, Uriel could see it once and then recreate it forever.  He was like a combination printer and scanner, only he didn’t have a plug and you needed to feed him a lot.

“Should I copy these family pictures, too?”  Uriel picked up a photograph from a random desktop.  He squinted down at the snapshot of a smiling boy with a birthday cake.  Then, he cleared his throat.  “I’d rather not, unless you really think they could be important.  It will take more energy to do an image of this quality.”

“No, we won’t need those.” Nia assured him, quietly.

Uriel gave a sharp nod and carefully set the frame aside, facedown on the desk.

Nia moved closer to him and laid a palm on his shoulder.  So much would’ve been different if the Fall hadn’t struck.   The unfairness of it staggered Nia sometimes.  That’s why they were doing this.  Because maybe, maybe, they could fix it.

“Okay?”  She whispered, so only he could hear.

He nodded.  “Okay.”  He pressed a friendly kiss the top of her head.  “Thank you.”  Uriel might have come to the Water House as a guard, but he’d become another brother to Nia over the last year.

She gave him an understanding squeeze and headed over to investigate an office towards the back of the lab.  “Thar, how we doin’ on time?”

“We’ve got -like- fifteen minutes left to find it and get the hell outta here.”  He reported, not looking up from the day planner he was fanning through.  “Ty?  Think we should try again when everybody’s gone for the entire weekend or are you planning to crack that computer sometime today?”

“I’m almost there.  Don’t nag.”

Nia almost grinned at her cousin’s irritated tone.  She didn’t hear that delightful bitchy-ness very much from Ty anymore.  Luckily, Tharsis could bring out the worst qualities in everyone around him.

The office at the back of the lab looked like it belonged to some sort of neat freak.  Everything was perfectly arranged and pristinely white.  It made Nia sort of sad for the person who worked in the beige box.  There was literally nothing in the room but a desk, a chair and a four foot tall fake plant in the corner…

…So, Nia was pretty damn surprised when she was attacked.

The overhead light suddenly blew out, sending sparks raining down on her.  The telltale crackle of Elemental energy filled the air.  She looked up at the broken fixture, dread filling her, and saw six armed Phases just appeared in the empty space.

They must have been monitoring the Water Phases, waiting for them to leave the protective barriers of their homeland and expose themselves to attack.  Not seeming the least bit disoriented from their jump into the human realm, the men pulled their swords and looked around.  Their eyes fell on her like a pack of wolves scenting a rabbit.

Nia knew immediately that it wasn’t Job coming to enforce the Council’s law and arrest her.  First of all, Job loved the Water House.  He wouldn’t really harm Nia or her family, no matter what she did.  Job could be a stodgy pain, but he was also like her uncle or something.  What’s more, Job’s energy was a controlled, flowing strength.  He didn’t panic about anything.  These Phases were riding a high of frantic excitement.

That meant they must be some of the Water Houses’ real enemies.  The Air House or the Reprisal stood as the most likely candidates, although there were probably more contenders out there, too.  Nia had given up on counting all the people who wanted her dead.  It was depressing.

When the men first appeared, Nia had been bending to investigate the bottom drawer and now she used the desk as cover.  She ducked down instinctively as the Phases came at her, swords held high.  One of them swung it at her, going for a clean slice across her neck.  Nia’s swift movement caused him to miss and catch her along her shoulder, instead.  The blade sliced a shallow cut into her flesh.  Pain radiated through her body.  Nia fell sideways, griping the wound with one hand.  Blood leaked out between her fingers as she rolled under the desk.

These guys were playing full contact.

Definitely not Reprisal, then.  Chason’s men were all zealot-preacher nuts, but most of them knew better than to actually kill her.  Nia supported a third of the Water House.  Even if her charms never got her named Elemental of the Year, Nia remained vital for everyone’s survival.  Keeping Water around sustained the entire world.  Without her, Ty and Tharsis would have to hold all the Water by themselves and neither one of them had Nia’s power.  Odds were high that the whole House would topple.

That was another reason Nia felt confident about her little rebellion.  Even if Job got pissed enough to want to behead her, he’d never doom the universe and really do it.  These Phases seemed suicidal enough to chop first and worry about the apocalypse later, though.

Only Parald was stupid enough for that kind of behavior.  Sure enough, Nia focused long enough to spot the yellow gold streak at their blond temples, marking them as members of the Air House.

Idiots.

“Ty, go!”  She screamed, knowing that her cousin would be their main target.  Nia kicked out as one of the Phases made a grab for her, catching him in the knee.  He staggered sideways, swearing viciously in Elemental.  Another sword swung at her, the blade imbedding itself in the fake wood of the desk.  Nia aimed a second kick at the wrist of the man holding it, knocking his hand off of the handle as he tried to pry it free.

She heard Tharsis and Uriel shoving their way into the office.  Uriel, like most Wood Phases, trained for warrior-hood from birth.  He had a sword of his own.  But, the Water House had always been the most peaceful of all the Elementals.  Tharsis’ only experience with violence had been during the Fall and the horror of it still haunted them all.

Nia’s eyes widened as two Air Phases headed for her twin.  “Uriel!”  She bellowed.  “Get Thar out of here!”  She lunged for the sword stuck in the desk, needing a weapon.

Wood Phases made excellent soldiers.  Their sense of duty and respect for authority fit in nicely with military work.  Uriel’s fighting skills were certainly superior to the Air House stooges’.  One on one, two on one, maybe even three on one, Uriel could have beaten them all.  But, there were six armed mercenaries and Uriel only had half a second to react.

Uriel slammed into one of the guys headed for Thar, sending the Air Phase into the wall.  Two more tackled Uriel from behind.

“Son of a bitch!”  Tharsis toppled the potted fern into the path of the other Phase headed his way and scrabbled backwards out of range of the deadly arc of the blade.  “Nia!”

“I’m alright.”  Nia lied.  “You and Ty run!”  She pried the sword loose and gave an experimental swing with her wrist, trying to figure out how to use it.  Since the guy whose shin she aimed at let out a bellow and reached down to grab the wound, she guessed she’d done it right.

The desk was suddenly lifted right from over her.  One of the Air House assholes toppled the whole thing sideways so Nia was exposed, again.

From the outer room, Ty let out a cry of alarm.  Nia could hear her trying to get into the fight, rather than run away from it.  Typical.  Ty found waiters intimidating, but had no trouble taking on a half dozen, blood-thirsty assassins.  As Job delighted in pointing out: for all its emphasis on education, the Water House had never been known for its rational thinkers.

Nia drew on her powers to gather up as much water vapor as she could.  Since the air conditioning in the building kept the humidity annoyingly low, it really wasn’t much, though.  Elementals didn’t usually use their power in fights against each other.  It wasn’t considered honorable.  But, neither was attacking unarmed people, so Nia wasn’t worrying about playing fair.

She slammed Water energy at her attackers like a punch, trying to evade their clutching hands and get to her feet.  It wasn’t going to be enough.  She knew it.  Nia realized in a distant sort of way that they were all going to die.

And that’s when she felt a new force enter the fray.

Not Uriel’s steady Wood Phase energy, not the flowing strength of the Water House, but something so huge and dark that it swamped her senses.  Nia’s head snapped around, expecting to find another army of Phases standing in front of her.  Instead, she saw a single, shadowed shape.  Even then she didn’t see it so much as sense it as it moved.

The two men attacking her must’ve noticed it, too, because they shifted in unison to face the new threat.  Nia wasn’t sure what happened after that.  Everything moved too fast.  The sword was ripped from her hand and took the heads off both men in one long, clean slice.  Blood splattered on the beige walls in a horrible rainbow shape.

Nia felt her mouth drop open in shock.

The Air Phase going after Tharsis fell next.  The guy didn’t even have the chance to turn and see his death coming.  The power behind the sword swing sent the attacker’s head slamming into the ground like a dropped cantaloupe.

“Holy shit.”  Tharsis whispered.  He stared at the Air Phase’s decapitated body in a sick sort of fascination.  Behind his shoulder, Ty looked more terrified than ever.

Nia’s brain finally registered that the sword was actually held by a male Phase.  A very big Phase, wearing black and grey camouflaged pants and a sleeveless t-shirt.  The horror of the situation must’ve been making her slightly hysterical, because Nia had the very clear thought that every man’s muscles should look so good in a muscle shirt

Most Elementals ranked high on any attractiveness scale.  It was the nature of their species.  This particular Phase made the rest of them look like everybody’s last choice for prom date, though.  Even covered in the blood of his victims and twirling a massive sword around like a baton, the man was beautiful.  The kind of beauty that didn’t seem quite real; as if you might blink and he’d just disappear right in front of you.  Every move he made had a purpose and easy masculine grace.  His mercury colored eyes fixed on his next target with a deadly intensity that really shouldn’t have been nearly as hot as it was.  He was gorgeous.

And then Nia noticed the silver streak at his temple that declared him part of the Shadow House.  Her heart stopped.

There was only one Shadow Phase left in the universe.

Cross.

Words tumbled through Nia’s memory.  Whispers she’d heard about Cross.  Warnings from anyone who ventured too close to the Shadowland.

Unstable.

Dangerous.

Wrong.

After the Fall, every Elemental felt Cross lose his grip on the Shadows.  They’d all braced themselves as the end of the world began unfolding in an explosive chain reaction.  For many Phases, it had been a relief when Cross let go and his House crumbled.  Others had panicked.  Most were already too far gone to care what happened.

Nia had been sitting at Ty’s bedside when she’d sensed the pull of oblivion.  She vividly recalled the rush of it, the terrible power promising to stop all the pain and despair.  Nia had thought that she’d been one of the Phases passed feeling anything, at that point.  But, when the Shadows burst free, her eyes had filled with frightened tears.  She’d never felt so alone in her life.  Like she’d suddenly been abandoned at the edge of some great, yawning abyss.

Except, there’d been no end at the end of the world.

Cross somehow stopped it and pulled the Shadows back.  He’d shouldered the entire House himself.  It shouldn’t have been possible for one, single Phase to do that.  Every Elemental knew that it just couldn’t be done.  In all of history, it had never even been attempted.   Yet, Cross had held the weight of the Shadow House for two solid years, now… Alone.

No one could do something so impossible and stay sane.

Unpredictable.

Deranged.

Wrong.

Nia knew that they’d had a far better chance against the six Air Phases than they’d have against Cross, if he turned the sword on them next.

Uriel had killed two of the three men he’d been fighting.  The last one was attempting to pin him to the floor when Cross came up behind him and stabbed the attacker through the neck.  The guy’s eyes rolled back to stare at Cross in a sort of dazed stupefaction as he slumped sideways.

Cross actually smiled.  He twisted the blade in a practiced flourish and took the Phase’s head clean off.

Ty cringed.

Ignoring Uriel, who was breathing hard from the battle, Cross calmly decapitated the other two bodies.  Nia still couldn’t force herself to look away.  Besides the Fall, very few things killed Elementals.  Beheadings were one of them.  It should have made her sad to lose more Phases when the Elementals needed every member of their species so desperately.  In her heart, though, Nia wasn’t sorry to see such terrible men exterminated forever.  They would have killed her twin, kidnapped her cousin, and probably destroyed the universe in the process.  Their deaths weren’t going to keep her up at night.

Tharsis, Ty, Uriel and Nia stayed perfectly still as Cross finished his grisly task.  None of them were sure what to do next.

“Um.”  Tharsis finally cleared his throat.  “Wow.  Nice work, crazy guy.”  He gave an encouraging nod, his gaze still fixed on the body in front of him.

Cross disregarded that.   Mercury colored eyes swung around to pin Nia.  “What the fuck were you thinking?”  He demanded, harshly.  His voice was a shadow of shadows, seeping out and chilling the air.  “Do you want to die, now?  Is that it?”

Nia’s eyes widened.  “Who, me?”  She actually glanced over her shoulder to see if maybe his glower was directed at someone else.  She couldn’t imagine why he’d look so angry with her.  She hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Yes, fucking you.”  He stalked closer to her.  “What if I hadn’t gotten here in time?  What if I hadn’t felt you, again?  Huh?  Then, where the hell would you be?”

“Probably trying to get back under that desk.”  Nia admitted, before she thought better of it.  She had no clue what most of his rant meant, so anything she said could set him off.  He was crazy.  It would undoubtedly be better to keep her mouth shut, but Nia had never really excelled at doing that.

She held her ground as Cross moved closer to her, once again struck by how lovely he was for a lunatic.  His dark hair swept back to his shoulders, offsetting the pale color of his skin.  There probably wasn’t a lot of sun in the Shadowland for tanning.  For some reason the unexpected thought made her smile.

Cross didn’t appreciate her small grin.  “You think this is fucking funny?”  He sounded incensed.

“Stop swearing at me.”  Her smile faded.  He still gripped the sword in his hand, but Nia wasn’t about to let him just push her around.  “And stop trying to intimidate me.  Just stop.”  She held up a hand in the universal “don’t come any closer” signal.  “I mean it, Cross.  Don’t.”  There was so much power clinging to him, she could feel it like an electrical charge.  No one should be able hold so much energy and still function.

Unique.

Deadly.

Wrong.

Against her will, Nia took a small step backwards.

Cross froze.  His eyes flashed with an emotion Nia couldn’t quite identify; hope or sorrow or something that vanished too fast for her to read.  “You know who I am?”  He asked, in a softer tone.

“You’re the only Shadow Phase left.”  Nia gestured to the silver streak at his temple. “Narrowing it down wasn’t too hard.”  She felt a little more secure, now.  When she’d said “stop,” Cross had halted on a dime.  That was a pretty clear indication of the type of man he was.  He wasn’t going to hurt them.  “Everyone knows about you and what you did after the Fall.”  He’d saved the universe.  Did he really think any Phase, anywhere, hadn’t heard that story?

Cross glanced away as if that wasn’t the answer he wanted.  He suddenly seemed to realize that he was covered in blood, because he winced.  Avoiding Nia’s gaze, he wiped his free hand down the side of his pant leg, trying to get it clean.

“The Shadow King?  Aren’t you supposed to be all wrong, now?”  Uriel inquired with typical Wood Phase tact.  “Why are you helping us?”  He pulled himself to his feet and eyed Cross like he was a volatile science experiment.  “Why are you here, at all?”

“I’m on vacation.”  Cross sneered.  He watched expressionlessly as Uriel and Tharsis both moved closer to Nia.  “What’s your name?”  Blood dripped off the blade of the sword and onto the floor.

“Well, that’s Uriel.”  Nia explained when no one else seemed willing to answer.  “And this is my brother, Tharsis.  And that’s my cousin Tritone.”  She pointed over her shoulder. “She’s the one hiding in the doorway.”

Ty bit her lower lip and regarded Cross warily.

If Cross was impressed at meeting the infamous Queen of the Water House he didn’t show it.  He met Nia’s eyes, again.  “Not them.  What is your name?”  His voice suggested that only a simpleton would have misunderstood his question, even though he hadn’t been looking at her when he’d asked it.  “What the hell do I care what the rest of ‘em are called?”

For some reason, Ty’s mouth curved at that.

“Gee, thanks.”  Tharsis muttered.

“Oh.  Me?”  Nia ran a hand through her hair.  “Well, I’m Nia.”  She wasn’t used to introducing herself to other Phases.  Pretty much everyone knew her from her passionate, if inevitably losing, arguments at Council meetings.

“Nia.”  Cross’s expression became something close to awe.

“Nia is the princess of the Water House.”  Uriel told Cross, pointedly.  “She’s not wrong.  She’s normal.”

Cross looked down at his palms again.  Blood still stained them.  He shoved his free hand into his pocket, holding the sword with the other.  “She’s not normal.”  He retorted, almost to himself.

Nia wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

“Should we be –like-- escaping now?”  Tharsis wanted to know.  “’Cause, I don’t think the humans will understand sword fights and headless guys in their office when they come back from lunch.”  The Fall had made Tharsis immune to dead bodies.  He absently nudged the torso in front of him with the toe of his black Converse high top.  “Plus, the whole ‘happening in a serology lab thing’ is not gonna be great if the humans start testing the blood of these guys.  Elemental DNA’s bound to raise some red flags.”

Uriel sighed.  “Humans.”  His tone said it all.

Cross scowled over at Nia, seeming to remember that he was an arrogant madman.  “What the hell are you even doing around humans?”

Nia hesitated, not sure how much to tell Cross.  Not sure why he was in the human realm, at all.  He may have sided with them during the Air House attack, but everyone with a brain in their head hated the Air House.  Cross probably wasn’t going to love the idea of accidently joining up with a rebellion.  He seemed pretty touchy.  Besides, Nia didn’t want to get him in trouble with the Council.  A Banishment sentence really wasn’t the best way to repay someone for saving your life.

“We’re on vacation.”  Ty put-in, seriously.

Cross flashed her a quick glare.

Nia turned to stare at her cousin in shock.  Ty didn’t joke with other Phases.  She even kept Uriel at a polite distance.  Ty’s dry sense of humor only ever came out around family.  It was bizarre.

Ty raised a shoulder in a small shrug, a smile still curving the edges of her mouth.

Nia looked back at Cross and prepared to lie.  Nia was actually a fairly good liar, which was why she was presently in the human realm and not staying safely in the Water Palace like the Council thought.

When she met Cross’s mercury eyes though, every “very reasonable explanation for all of this” excuse went right out of her head.  She heard herself telling him the truth.  “We’re searching the blood records.  Someone donated plasma and it was used at this hospital.  Only the blood wasn’t completely human.”

She didn’t go into detail about what they were hoping the other, non-human, qualities in the blood were, of course.  Cross would think she was nuts.  Job certainly had.  Because, Nia’s rebellion was searching for something magical.  Something that could undo the Fall and restore what had been lost.

The Quintessence.

To most Elementals, she might as well have been hunting Big Foot.

Uriel and Tharsis winced in unison.  “Nia, you’re not hooked up to a lie detector.”  Thar hissed.  “You could maybe fudge a little bit here, huh?”

Cross’s eyebrows shot up.  “Humans and Elementals can’t interbreed, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I’ve never been comfortable with that theory…”  Ty began, musingly

“Nia.”  Uriel interrupted in a calm sort of voice.  “Whose blood is that on your arm?”

Cross swore savagely in Elemental.

Nia winced.  She’d forgotten about the cut on her shoulder, but now she felt the pain of it rush in.  “Oh, great.”  She looked down at the throbbing wound and said the only think that came to mind.  “And now, my favorite blouse is ruined.”