Chapter 30

I'm funneledthrough a lightless channel, spat out along with a gush of water. Coughing, I whip the soaked hair from my eyes.

The Garden has deposited me outside its walls, into the same marsh where I first found the tidal pool and the key to Millie's workshop.

Rain pounds the marsh in heavy sheets so that I can't see more than a few feet in front of me. Thunder booms and wind howls through the reeds, whipping my hair into my eyes. Forks of lightning slash from the sky and explode into the ground, churning up clods of mud and water.

Liam, Evan, and Aurora are nowhere in sight.

Neither is the Garden, for that matter, and I wonder if I've angered its inhabitants to be expelled so abruptly.

I stagger to my feet and slosh through the marsh. I've got to get out of this storm and find my way back home.

I stumble on, half-blinded by the rain. The strange words the phantoms chanted have faded into garbled sounds, no longer decipherable. Please, I think. What did those words and glyphs mean? Are you all abandoning me now?

The marsh gives way to a meadow with large outcroppings of boulders poking through, and I recognize where I am. I'm not far from the shore where Liam and I first docked and carried Evan on his gurney. If I can make it back to the boat, without getting struck by lightning, I can wait out the storm, then sail home.

A few feet away, the air sizzles as lightning slams into a scrubby tree and sets it ablaze. Losing my balance, I stagger backward and fall onto my rump. But rather than dissipating in the driving rain, the smoke congeals into a heavy mist. Within the hazy mass, the contours of a man materializes.

Randy Lambert flips open a large umbrella, steps from the fog, and flashes me a gleaming smile. "Terrible day to be caught out in the elements, don't you think? Why don't you let me escort you home, sweetheart? Or better yet, isn't there someplace close by where we can seek shelter?"

His words ring out unnaturally clear against the roar of the storm. Though they drip with sickening warmth, I sense the malice behind them in my bones.

Liam was right. Randy used me. He had no interest in saving Evan. He only wanted me to lead him to the Garden.

"Go away!" I scream, but the storm eats my shouts. "I know what you want and I'm not taking you there!"

Randy steps closer, relaxed, and dry as if he's out for a stroll on a Sunday afternoon. "Sweetheart, why are you in such a temper? You're the one I've been searching for. Don't you understand how our energies mesh and entwine? The way the matrix of the convergence can be warped and manipulated? You see it, too, don't you?"

Breathless, I squint into the rain and the grid shimmers into view, spanning the storm-swept marsh. The lines that gather around Randy twist and bulge, undulating like ocean waves.

Randy steps closer to where I crouch, the lines distorting as he moves. He closes the umbrella and lifts it to the sky. The storm contracts, folding in on itself like a flower blooming in reverse. A single spear of lightning spikes from the shrinking cloud and strikes Randy's umbrella. He tosses it away and closes his fist around a ball of blue fire, which he snuffs out like a match in the rain. Then he smiles and the storm is gone like it never happened, the rain-soaked field now glistening in the sun.

Stunned and terrified, I fall to all fours, my knees and hands half-sunken into the muddy ground. "Get away!"

"Control of the convergence means limitless power, Rosalie," Randy says lightly. "But you and I? We are opposing forces. When we meet, we cancel each other out. If we were to join together instead, imagine the good we could do."

My insides curdle with rage. If only I could pull a fireball from the sky—I'd hurl it at him and burn him to a crisp. "What kind of good do you mean?" I shout. "Curse more children? You're the island tyrant. You use your power to hurt people, not help them. I'm not going to give you an ounce of mine."

Randy shakes his head and smiles. "Now, now. We both know you have no idea what that is or how to use it, thanks to your dear mother. I'm not asking much. In fact, should you cooperate, I will have your boyfriend released from his curse. And you need not do anything at all. Except let me into that Garden."

The sun beats down warm on my wet head. I'm so tired. Depleted. The idea that I can just make a simple trade—the Garden for the privilege of being with Liam—is so tempting.

But if I did that, Liam would hate and reject me. And Randy, further empowered by the Garden's amplification, would wreak pure havoc.

He moves closer, the gridlines of the matrix quavering in his wake. "I knew Millicent had a niece who was very much like her. I always figured you were out there, somewhere. But your mother, clever woman, kept you well hidden."

His words disarm me. My mother's paranoia. Her overprotectiveness. All to keep this monster away from me. And to keep me away from this island.

The gridlines shift as he advances, then seem to repel and turn back on themselves. Randy stops, still a safe distance away from me, and scowls. "These little barriers your friends the O'Donnells have constructed are quite the nuisance, don't you think? Why don't you come out of there so we can speak like two reasonable adults?"

I shake my head, still trying to untangle the foreign words the spirits chanted. What are they for? Do they let me conjure protections for the Garden? In my mother's frantic attempts to keep me safe from Randy Lambert, she left me completely vulnerable. If it weren't for the ward built by Liam's family, I'd be at Randy's mercy right now. I have no idea how to defend myself.

"Your family and the O'Donnells have always branded me as a threat," Randy continues, "but that's because none of you understand how I plan to save this island from the ravages of Outsider civilization. You and your father should understand better than anyone what their pollution and filth are doing to this planet. It's time we change all that by using our inheritance—the power of our ancestors—don't you think?"

I waver, his reference to the environment, to Dad's and Tyler's passion, temporarily disarming me. But had he used Tyler's passion to manipulate him? Fresh anger brews in the pit of my stomach.

"We can make a plan everyone will be happy with," he says. "Your father can come out of hiding and assume the limelight while you and I work behind the scenes, wielding the ancient powers to heal this broken planet."

His words hover and float in the air, surrounding my little patch of warded land. "Think of it, sweetheart," he says. "You, your dad, and your boyfriend Liam—all the champions of a new utopia. Won't that be wonderful?"

My heart swells at the prospect of being with Liam. Of working together for a shared purpose. Then it snags on the ball of sorrow still festering inside me. That was supposed to be Tyler. And Tyler is dead.

The storms here. The waterspout in California. Randy must be behind all of it.

"You killed Tyler, didn't you?!" I yell. "Why should I believe anything you say?"

"Some sacrifices are necessary for the good of the whole," Randy says, still completely at ease, though the gridlines around him have begun to quiver. "That boy was too hotheaded and curious, by half. He'd only get in the way of our plans in the end. Besides, you don't miss him. You have Seal Boy now. That is, until the authorities arrest him for the murder of my son."

Heat collects in my palms, the symbols on them flaring. "You damn liar! You know Liam didn't touch Wade. Your bastard son beat his sister, then Wade and his goons chased Liam into the ocean."

Randy lifts an eyebrow, his gaze snapping toward me. This whole time, he hasn't been looking directly at me. Is it possible he can't actually see me? That I'm invisible to him?

What if he can only sense my location through the disruption of the energy grid? That has to be it. When my palms flared, he could see it in the grid's reaction. But when I'm inside of a ward, it's like I'm not there.

I wonder if this has always been the case, or if my own magic has intensified from my experience in the Garden, strengthening the wards. Either way, it's something I can use.

He smiles and shakes his head, as if the memory of Wade beating Aurora to a pulp and then hunting Liam like an animal amuses him. "My little fledgling. See how you're learning? But you can't stay on your little patch of soil forever, sweetheart. Your da will miss you. He really does need your help, you know, with all that salttain you can just conjure up with the wave of a wrist. It's so much harder to cultivate outside of the Garden, isn't it? He's going to require a lot more than what you've been able to gather. And Liam gets himself in more trouble by the day. Boy can really use a get-out-of-jail-free card. Or should I say, get out of hot water?"

Randy laughs at his own lame joke. I cringe. He's goading me. He wants me to get angry. But why?

As I peer frantically into the distance, desperate for a way to escape, something glinting in the sun catches my eye. It's another ward, the outline limned in glowing gridlines. If only I could sneak past this flaming asshole to reach it.

Help, I think, calling to Tyler and the spirits of the Garden. Help me get away from this devil.

As if in response, my palms flare with blue light—and again, Randy's gaze narrows and sharpens.

"Nice work," he says. "You're an apt learner. But in the hands of a novice, such power is a danger to you and everyone around you. Come closer and let me see you. I can take you under my wing, Rosalie. Teach you how to harness and master the vast energy at your disposal."

Yeah, right. The words of the phantoms still circle in my mind. I pull in a calming breath and the lights in my palms subside. Randy's gaze scatters. I'm invisible to him again.

What does he really want with me? Am I a threat he wants to neutralize, lured here like a mouse in a trap? Or does he want to harnessme, somehow, to increase his own powers?

Fat chance I'm going to stick around to find out.

I focus on the gridlines, willing the other ward to bend toward me. A narrow path pulls free like taffy, connecting this ward to the other.

I run like mad across the soaked grass.

Randy turns slowly, perplexed by my absence.

Then the ground crumbles beneath me, as if it's made of cake.