Unseen

I didn’t think so. I looked up at the others, who were sitting or lying in the small defensive space left to them. Marion still had her wheelchair, and she took time to spare me a quick look from her maintenance of the barrier that held back the ravening fire. “Thanks for joining us,” she said. “But it might not have been a good idea. We’re not doing so well.”

She was right about that; the situation looked bad. Earth could defend against Fire, but not for long. Ben’s Weather skills had been their best possible option; he could have kept the air fresh and clear, and starved the fire, given enough time and power.

The elderly Earth Warden, Janice, was in charge of the children, who were huddled close against her for comfort. She’d put two of them under, and they seemed to be sleeping with u

Isabel tugged on my sleeve. I looked down at her in distracted affection and kissed her forehead, but she only tugged harder. She leaned in and whispered in my ear, “We’re in trouble.”

“I know that, Ibby.”

“No, we’re in trouble. Really.”

“Can you get through the fire and get out?”

“Sure,” she said, and shrugged. “But I can’t get anybody else out. They’ll let me go; they already told me so. And Sanjay and Elijah, too. But nobody else. And I can’t leave Uncle Luis.”

“You may have to,” I told her. “You may have to take the other two and leave, if they’ll let you.”

She gave me a long, sober look. “That’s what they want us to do. They want us to go back to the Lady.”

My arms tightened around her. I thought of Zedala, of those other fanatical children; Ibby, Sanjay, and Elijah would make perfect assassins, if she continued their indoctrination. I couldn’t allow that to happen to them.

But at least they’d be alive. My alternative might be to watch them die in a particularly horrible way.

I turned to Luis, but he was moving toward Marion, who was beckoning for his help. He was limping, and there was a broad, bloody stain on the leg of his pants. A bullet wound, but one he was managing well.

Ben had also been shot, from behind, by someone he must have trusted. He’d been heading to join Marion, or to warn her. “Ibby,” I said. “You said we were in trouble. You didn’t mean the fire, did you?”

“I saw her shoot him,” Ibby said, still in that tense, quiet whisper. “I didn’t know how to stop it. You should have showed me how to stop the bullets from exploding, and I could have stopped her from killing Ben. But it was too late then. I couldn’t bring him back. Nobody else saw it, and I don’t think she knows that I know.”

My gaze moved around the room, and fell on Shasa, who was deep in concentration, hands held palms out. She was sending waves of control against the fire, but whatever or whoever directed it against us was stronger. She was shaking, and damp with sweat as much from effort as heat.

“Not her,” Ibby whispered. “Her.”

I turned and met Janice Worthing’s calm, kind eyes—only in that instant they weren’t calm, or kind. Only blank with calculation. And I felt something go still and very quiet inside me.

I had known. On some level, I’d been uneasy with the woman, though everything and everyone around me had given the lie to that instinct. I should have listened to my Dji

Janice Worthing had been the traitor in the heart of the school, and no one, not even Marion, had suspected her. I wondered how long she’d been waiting to strike—months, maybe years. Maybe she’d been an early convert of Pearl’s, or maybe she’d simply been for hire. She didn’t, even now, strike me as a true believer—more of a mercenary.

She was holding little Elijah, the youngest of the children, in her arms. He’d been sent into a deep artificial sleep; to all appearances, her cradling of his body was gentle and protective, but suddenly I saw it differently.

Suddenly, Elijah was a shield.

“Let go,” I said to Ibby. She shook her head. “Ibby, let go and go to your uncle. I don’t want you to get hurt.” This was, in many ways, more dangerous than anything else that might have happened ... that the traitor was locked in here with us, in this desperate last stand, ready to strike at will. I wondered why she hadn’t done it already, but I thought I knew. She didn’t dare strike until she could ensure that she would take out all of the remaining Wardens in one blow—Marion, Luis, Shasa, and now me, to complicate her problem. Janice’s mission must have been to gather the most powerful children and bring them out alive to Pearl.

She’d gathered them. Now she simply had to kill the rest of us to ensure her victory.

I peeled Isabel’s arms away from my neck and pointed her at Luis. “Stay with him,” I said, and she backed toward him, never taking her wide dark eyes from Janice.

Janice cocked her head slightly to one side, and I saw the recognition in her eyes. She knew that I knew, and that Ibby did as well. Her charade was ending.

“Well,” she said, “it was nice while it lasted.” She extended one hand toward Luis, and the bullet wound in his thigh suddenly broke open, pumping bright red blood in a fountain. Ibby stopped, shocked, and backed away from the spatter in instinctive horror. Luis let out a choked cry and grabbed for his thigh, squeezing with both hands; Marion spun her chair toward him and slapped her hand atop his. She was splitting her concentration dangerously, and as I’d noted when I’d left the school, she’d already been tired. She had to pull away as a fresh attack pounded against the stone walls she’d thrown up, and the bleeding increased again as Luis sank down to a sitting position on the floor. Ibby ran to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

“No, no, Isabel, you’re in no shape to do that kind of work,” Janice said, and I felt a subtle, wrong shift in the energy coming from her. The edges of it brushed me, and I felt sick, wrong, twisted ... but it wasn’t directed at me.

It was directed at Isabel, who screamed and dropped to the floor beside her uncle, writhing in the grip of one of those seizures I’d witnessed before.

Janice had induced it. Deliberately.

I snarled and turned on her, every instinct—Dji

“I’ll flay you,” I said, with an eerie control that I didn’t feel. “I’ll flay you and feed your skin to the pigs while you watch. Stop hurting them.”

“Back off, and I will,” Janice snapped. “Ah, ah, Marion, stay where you are. Don’t make me start thi

Marion’s face was frightening to behold, but she stopped her slow advance toward Janice. I could feel her gathering up her power, getting ready to strike, but like me, she was at a severe disadvantage.

As long as Janice had the children gathered around her, we were limited in what we could do.

Shasa’s concentration broke as the situation in the room finally dawned on her. She opened her eyes, startled, and glanced at Janice with a frown. “What the hell is going on?” It was only at that moment that I realized how much Shasa’s power had kept the ravening inferno at bay around us; smoke poured through tiny cracks in the stone, and the rock itself snapped and hissed under the pressure of the heat. Marion’s barrier couldn’t exist for long without Fire Warden assistance. “Janice? What’s she talking about?”

“Nothing,” Janice said in that warm, soothing voice that had lulled so many into trust. “She’s a traitor, Shas. She’s one of them. She left us to give them intel, and now she’s back to finish the job. She brought this on us, and we let her inside.”