Chapter 33

When I pry openmy eyes, it's to darkness, the boat swaying beneath me. Now I'm blindfolded, hands bound behind my back and ankles lashed. I tug at my bonds, but there's no give.

My palms burn as if they've been held over a flame. The back of my head pulses with pain. I sniff the air. No rain. No scent of salt and brine. I must be imprisoned in the cabin, the boat anchored, going nowhere. Beyond the sealed space, the wind's howl is muted.

It could be worse. Wade could've stabbed me and tossed me in the ocean. Still, I walked right into a trap.

I tense at the sound of soft footsteps on vinyl. The smooth cadence of Randy Lambert's voice breaks the silence. "Poor timing for an ocean sail, wouldn't you say, sweetheart? Best to wait out inclement weather, is my advice."

I force myself to remain calm. Or at least to sound like it. "Did you see your son? Is this how you thank me for finding him?"

Randy barks out a chuckle. I strain to listen, to determine if Wade is still on the boat with us, but hear nothing.

"Oh, yes. I'm deeply grateful. Indebted. So relieved to find that my treasured son is, in fact, alive." Randy's voice drips with sarcasm.

I try to gauge his meaning, but my brain is scrambled. Dampness clings to the nape of my neck and I wonder if Wade cracked my skull open.

"You sound thrilled." It takes all my effort to keep the panicked edge out of my voice. "So why am I tied up?"

"Wasn't me, sweetheart. I was out patrolling the waters, making sure our local sailors were safe. The weather is so changeable around here. And of course, I was concerned about you. You seemed to just—vanish into thin air."

"Okay. So, let me go and we're even. I'm not interested in your little project. You can keep the salttain."

Randy is silent. Again, I try to shrug out of my bonds, and again, I get nowhere. And where are Liam, Aurora, and Evan? What if he's done something to them?

"Poor little Landsider. Your mother had you sealed up in a fancy glass-and-marble coffin. She kept you ignorant of your past. Of your power. Of mine. You have no knowledge of our history or the rules of the game you're playing."

He's toying with me. Buying time. If he wanted me dead, he'd have drowned me the night he sank The Big Easy.

"What game?" I say.

Randy bends down to whisper in my ear. "He was a decent young man. Unlike your current companion. Did you notice the resemblance, by the way?"

"What the fuck do you mean?"

Randy laughs. "Oh sweetheart, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Liam's mother Lila is a promiscuous bitch. But she was legally married. And had one son before giving birth to her abominations."

My breath freezes in my lungs. I can barely pull in enough air to speak. It can't be. "You're a liar. Liam has no idea who Tyler is. Wouldn't he know the name of his own brother?"

Randy leans in close. "Not if his family called him by a different one. Tyler's real name was Fionn O'Donnell."

Fury erupts in my chest. I writhe and struggle against my bonds, to no avail. Had Tyler had his entire identity stripped away, his only family made to forget him?

The deck creaks with Randy's steps. His voice reaches me from farther away. "No need to get yourself worked into a lather. When Fionn's father died and Lila couldn't care for him because of her curse, he was sent away to California—to protect him from me, I believe. How foolish to settle him near you and your mother. I tracked him there through your very public and flamboyant father, who made little effort to cover his tracks. I'm sure he found solace in your friendship, but the boy you called Tyler was about to ruin decades of my very hard work."

"You fucking bastard! How?" I scream myself hoarse until the tears soak my blindfold. Oh my god. Fionn. Tyler's real name was Fionn.

And he was Liam's half-brother. Did Mom know this? Did my dad?

"I'm sorry for your loss, sweetheart. Curiosity killed the cat and such. Tyler was, shall I say, protective. And curious. Always asking questions, feeding me information. His particular talent for seeing through and unraveling glamours and spells was quite useful. Too bad he also saw through mine."

Tyler was spying on me for Randy?Swept up in his story, Randy chuckles and continues. "The boy did love that boat. It was the only place he'd agree to meet with me as he came to mistakenly believe that my persuasive power was weaker out at sea. But finding someone like you has been the culmination of my life's work. My singular mission. And I was so very close. I couldn't let him blow it for me."

His voice is mesmerizing but not enough to erode my fury. What is he saying? That Tyler was going to warn me? That he thought I was in danger?

The cabin is charged with energy, as if filled with the fluttering wings of a hundred hummingbirds. My palms ache. Pain climbs my wrists to my forearms.

He keeps talking, like a man at confession. "There were many false starts. Many, many, mistakes. I had so little to go by. Only rumors and legends, the scraps of books I'd been able to piece together. Eventually, I realized it wasn't knowledge, but another individual I was looking for. A person whose power formed a polarity to mine. The power of the universe unleashed by the reaction between two opposing forces."

Struggling to think through my tears, I review the history I've gleaned from the journals. Snippets of Liam's stories. None of it makes sense.

Randy keeps talking, giving his classic villain speech. A captive audience, I have no choice but to listen. "As a young man, I was banished from this island, the only home I'd ever known. I made it my mission to travel and learn our people's true history, not the nonsense we're taught. I've devoted my life to upending the tyranny of those who have kept us restrained and toothless. To returning Atlantis to its former glory."

He's crazy. But he's also a textbook narcissist. My best approach is to feign interest and keep him talking. Filling in details. I choke down my grief and pour on my best impression of a fascinated acolyte. "Really? How so? And what does this have to do with my family?"

Randy rises from the bench and paces. "The Bouchard dynasty always kept one foot in the regular world and the other on our throats. Hoarding their power. Dominating. Thinking they could have the best of everything. Your mother wanted it both ways: to wield the power of our heritage and keep you safe under lock and key."

My mouth goes dry. My mother kept so much from me. But Rosalie the scientist—the information gatherer—grabs the wheel from Rosalie, the terrified child. I manage to keep my voice level. "She was protecting me. Preparing me, in her own way."

"Clever those Bouchard sisters were. For a time their skills were a match for mine. They steered me down dead ends and blind alleys, making me believe I'd found that singular soul who'd inherited the perfect opposing power to my own. For awhile, I thought it might be Fionn, but the only talent he had was for undoing charms."

My heart aches over the news that Tyler could see through Randy, just like I can, and knew what was coming. He knew all along.

"I even took in an imbecile child from one of the outer islands and adopted him because I believed he had the qualities I was searching for," Randy says, his voice careless.

There's a sharp intake of breath. Someone else is sitting across from us in the cabin. Probably Wade, forcing himself to keep quiet.

"When he came of age, I realized my mistake," Randy continues. "All he was good for was chasing skirts and stealing whatever wasn't nailed down. Then Fish Boy did me the favor of getting rid of him. But like a dog digging up a bone, you had to go and drag him home."

I gasp. There's a wail from across the cabin, then a strangled sob. Wade is listening, hearing every word. And the monster doesn't even care.

Randy rips the blindfold from my face and unties my bonds. I stare down at my palms. They throb with soft blue radiance.

I steal a glance at Wade. He sits with his hands bound, tears tracing chalk-white streaks through the grime that coats his face. My chest tightens. He'd have left me for dead, but I can't help but feel pity for him. Nobody should have to hear his own father admit they kidnapped him from his real parents and wish he'd died.

"I went through a whole lot of trouble to find and get you here, sweetheart." Randy's aqua-green eyes pierce the dimness. His voice booms, ricocheting off the hull, amplified like a concert speaker. My teeth rattle. My eyes ache. "I could have just taken you, but that would have set the Bouchard women on my trail. And I sure as hell couldn't have risked letting you come with Fionn and have him see through all my schemes. Even so, I wasn't sure if you were the wildcard, the natural wonder I needed to help me lift our people from our sham existence and restore us to our true position as the dominant species on Earth."

Outside the small porthole, dark clouds gather like billowing smoke. Rain slams the glass. The boat bobs and rolls. Wade watches, sniffling and trembling, trying to hold back tears.

"Think of the irony, sweetheart." Randy's voice drops into its usual silken tones. "Here you are, a pampered Landsider princess, a believer in the science of our inferiors, the offspring of a fool and a scheming plunderer, the niece of the woman who almost defeated me. Imagine your father—bumbling around giving speeches and writing meaningless papers about saving the environment when the key to saving the planet and reawakening our past glory was right here at our fingertips.

"Imagine my ire as I watched you gain access to the places my family has been shut out of for eons. You, the child of my enemies, are the one I've been searching for. The one soul who, along with me, can restore our former greatness."

Anger bubbles up into my throat. He killed Tyler. And Tyler's family doesn't even know. Wade hangs his head, a condemned man accepting his fate.

I sit up straighter and suck in a long deep breath. "There are people on this island—all over this planet—who need help. Yet, with all this power at your disposal, what you care about is some threadbare mythology of a long-dead culture?"

As I say this, the symbols on my hand blink and sting.

"How dare you speak of things you don't understand!" Randy's voice is a thunderous assault. "We don't need to live like vermin. Our people once possessed the power to control the elements. We were masters of the land and sea!"

Waves pummel the boat. The air crackles with energy, until I'm certain one spark will ignite the explosion that will blow us all to smithereens. "Because of one fatal mistake," Randy hisses, "we've been reduced to groveling and hiding, denying who we are for eons. The great people of Atlantis, subsisting on fish and souvenirs. We should have dived into the sea and fossilized ourselves with the sediment from our nation's ruins.

"Use that big brain of yours, sweetheart, the one filled with Landsider science. Start thinking with that instead of your forlorn little heart. Instead of being adversaries, you and I can work together. We can lift our homeland from the depths to its rightful prominence. The prophecy of your existence sustained me through my darkest years. It gave me faith that one day there would come two souls whose opposing powers can raise Atlantis from its resting place beneath the sea."

My scalp goes tight, my stomach leaping into my throat.

Randy Lambert is even more of a madman than I thought.

I cut a glance at Wade. Something glints on the carpet near his sodden sneakers—his knife. His foot inches toward it and I shake my head, trying to warn him that a little knife is no match for a man who can make storms.

But Wade's hurt, his rage, wins out. I'm not sure how he thinks he's getting that knife into a position to cut his wrists free, but somehow he's got it wedged between his knees. I breathe in, my fear escalating until it concentrates in my palms like two hot pokers.

Randy pivots to face Wade. His voice goes low and melodic, soothing as waves breaking on the shore. "You'd use that on me, son? After all I've done for you? Your parents sold you to me. They couldn't afford to raise you, so I bought you. Raised you like you were my own. You lacked for nothing. Just like Brody."

Wade's features droop like soggy dough. Tears drip down his cheeks, clearing the dirt from his face. The knife drops to the carpet.

The cabin fills with the sharp tang of sulfur as Randy springs forward. A jet of blue radiance, brighter than the center of a flame, flares from his hands and shoots toward Wade.

The fury inside me builds to a crescendo. My palms burn with a heat I can't contain.

I pull back, frantic to rein in the raging energy. But the heat explodes from my hands in twin jets of white fire, enveloping Randy in a vaporous cocoon. The light ensnares him, trapping him in a cage of his own blue heat.

The fireball blows a hole in the hull. I stagger to my feet, weak-kneed and wobbly, my ankles still bound. Water rushes into the cabin through the broken hull. Dimly, I hear screaming, unsure if it's my own or Wade's.

What remains of the cabin breaks apart. Paralyzed, I watch Randy's body drift by, stiff as a plank, wide eyes staring from his charred face.

In a terrifying replay of the night Tyler perished, the ocean's pull sucks me through the broken hull like marrow from a bone. I catch a glimpse of a burned and bleeding Wade as he flails and paddles, leaving a trail of crimson bubbles as he propels himself to the surface and the sea devours me at last.