Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

FLAME

Perry winces. “That’s not my preferred title. But… yeah. I’m born without knowledge of any of this”—he gestures around the group—“until one day, I’ll meet Aether. The guys will tell me this story, and then bam , the memories of my past lives come back.”

“We get drunk after that,” Aqua adds. “It helps Perry let go of his old life.”

“That’d take a truckload of tequila,” Bran mutters.

George chuckles. “Vodka is currently the drink of choice. Or Aqua’s usually got a spliff around somewhere. It helps take the edge off for him when he’s not in water.”

Bran doesn’t look impressed by the idea that we’re stoners who get drunk all the time. I’m a little tempted to lean into that scenario and hope it pushes him into writing us all off as unreliable and leaving, never to be seen again. It would make things a lot easier.

But Aether seems to think Bran and Cody need to know this… and I can’t help but be curious. Last time, with River, it was because River is Aqua’s “person.” We’re working with the theory that they’re fated, almost like Aether and Perry are. That’s never happened before, but then, we’ve never had to deal with humans before, not with things this bad. The industrial revolution was a snooze compared to the last fifty years.

So… whatever’s happening, I have to trust that Aether knows what he’s talking about.

“Perry is the one who gets to decide when it’s time to give up,” I interject, trying to get the conversation back on track. “He tells us when what we’re doing is no longer going to make a difference for good but merely prolong the agony. That’s when we stop, live out the course of a human life, and wait for the hard reset.” I try not to cringe at that analogy. I thought it would help a teenager relate if I used a technology term, but it feels so wrong. “Sometimes it takes hundreds or even thousands of years more,” I add. “So… just because Perry’s going to make the decision before he dies doesn’t mean humanity will become extinct in your lifetime.”

There’s a little silence while they digest that, then Bran slaps his knees and stands. “Well, this has been fun, but I?—”

“Sit down,” his brother orders. “I have questions still.”

Bran hesitates. “Cody?—”

“Please?”

Sighing, the burly firefighter gives in to his teenage brother. Something weird happens in my chest. Do I have heartburn? I’ve never had it before—didn’t think I could have it—but I’m not sure what else this could be.

I lean toward River and whisper, “What does heartburn feel like?”

He looks at me like I’m crazy.

“My first question,” Cody declares, drawing my attention back to him, “is, will you confirm that you absolutely are the elements incarnated and have elemental powers? It’s okay if this is a marketing gimmick—I won’t get mad.”

Hiding a smile at the patient way he phrased that, like a TV parent talking to toddlers, I reply, “This isn’t a marketing gimmick. Though, if you could not tell anyone else, that would be good. We don’t want attention.” I glare at George again. Goddamn him—what was he thinking, saving a human’s life so obviously? Did the man even have a bump on the head after, so people could assume he imagined it?

“So you’re claiming to be elements personified?” Bran’s skepticism is clear. “That’s… interesting. And so unprovable.”

“I can prove it!” Aqua volunteers.

“No!” George, Perry, River, and I exclaim.

“No tidal waves,” I add, and Aqua rolls his eyes.

“I wasn’t going to. But I can make it rain.” He looks over at Cody. “Would you like some rain?”

Cody and Bran both look out at the clear blue sky. “Rain?” Cody asks. “Really? When?”

Aqua shrugs. “Now. It’ll only take a second.”

Bran laughs. “Got sprinklers on the roof? Are they controlled by your phone?”

I turn to Aether. “Really?” Why are we trying to convince him of this when we usually spend so much time trying to stay hidden from humans?

Aether smiles at Bran. “What about a fireball? You tell us where and how big, and Flame will create a fireball. Then Aqua will make it rain over the fireball only.”

“I’m a firefighter ,” Bran explains with heavy-handed patience. “I don’t like fireballs all that much.”

“I don’t like having Aqua rain on my fire .” I glare at Aether and his damn plan to make it rain.

“I wanna see a fireball,” Cody argues. “Bran, you get to pick where. Somewhere that’s not flammable. No forests.”

Bran looks like he wants to argue, but after a second, he stands and looks around. “Over there.” He points to the entrance of the driveway. “It’s paved, and a small fireball, the size of my fist”—he holds up a clenched fist to demonstrate—“should be easy to put out.” From the look on his face as he locks eyes with me, he doesn’t expect that to be necessary anyway.

Without looking away, I create a fireball exactly where he asked for it to be. It takes some effort to keep it suspended in the air, unmoving, but not so much that I feel any strain.

“Holy crap!” Cody exclaims, and I smirk at Bran right before he whips around to look.

“Is it time for rain?” Aqua asks, and a second later, both Bran and Cody are out of their seats and racing down the steps from the deck.

The rest of us follow at a more leisurely pace. I say goodbye to my lovely fireball as Aqua’s damn rain extinguishes it.

“It’s wet,” Cody’s saying as we reach them. “The ground is wet.” He bends over to touch it, then looks up at the still-cloudless sky. “There’s water here.”

Bran turns to look at me, his face a little pale. “Do it again.”

I raise a brow. “I’m not a performing monkey, you know.” But nevertheless, I produce another fireball.

“That’s warm,” Cody whispers. “It’s giving off heat.”

Bran slowly reaches toward it, and just when I think he might burn himself, pulls his hand back, digs in his pocket, and pulls out a scrap of paper—an old receipt, maybe. He feeds that to the fireball, and he and Cody watch as it falls to the pavers and burns to ash.

“Do we want more rain? Let’s have more rain!” Aqua declares, and in the next moment, we’re all backing away from his not-so-controlled shower. “Oops! Sorry, I got excited.”

Shaking the horrid droplets off me—he’s lucky I only caught the edges—I sigh as yet another perfectly good fireball is sacrificed to water.

Bran lowers his gaze from Aqua’s tiny dissipating cloud and looks around. He squats down and inspects the paving, pressing on some places and tapping on others. He stands again, then begins prowling around the driveway, peering into the garden beds and studying the house.

“Is he okay?” Zephyr asks suddenly, tuning in at last.

I pat his arm. “Yeah. He’s trying to find a hidden blowtorch or something.” But I’m getting bored with this, so I cross to stand beside him and hold out my hands. “Wanna pat me down? Or I can strip, if you want. We can go across to the beach, or anywhere you choose. I’ll conjure all the fireballs you want so you can see it’s true.”

He shakes his head. “Be reasonable. Surely you can understand why I’m having difficulty with this. I thought you were the arsonist we’ve been chasing down for the last five years, and you do start fires.”

“He also puts them out,” George points out helpfully. “That’s why you see him so often at wildfires. He doesn’t start them; he gets them under control so you can put them out.”

Bran doesn’t seem convinced. “But?—”

“Firepit,” Perry says decisively. “Come on. Aqua, go get the matches.”

Aqua’s taken three steps toward the house before he stops and turns around. “We have matches?”

I shrug. “Don’t look at me. I don’t need them, and you leeches are always asking me to light the firepit and your candles.”

“We have matches for when Flame’s not home,” Perry explains. “In the junk drawer.” Aqua nods and takes off, and Perry turns his attention to our guests. “The firepit is around the back. You can light it the old-fashioned way, and then Flame will put it out.”

I really dislike this whole thing that’s happening today, where fires are being extinguished.

Cody bounces on his toes. “Personally, I don’t need convincing. But I wanna see Flame suck up a fire.” He makes a sound that closely resembles something being sucked into a vacuum cleaner, and I smother a grin. We rarely get to hang around with strangers, and never with teenagers. This kid is fun. He practically leads the way around the house.

His brother, on the other hand, hangs back, looking over his shoulder to where the fireballs and rain were. He’s not ready to believe it yet. If Aether wasn’t so dead-set sure they needed to know, I would have preferred he not believe it.

My stomach does that weird thing again. I’m going to need to find out what heartburn is, exactly.

Aqua meets us, proudly waving a box of matches. “I can start fires too!” he announces, then grimaces. “Though I don’t know why anyone would want to.”

I ignore him. It’s enough of a battle to keep him from splashing his disgusting water all over the place; I can handle a few insults. Besides, if he thought he was hurting my feelings, he’d be crushed.

River kisses his cheek and takes the matches, then hands them to Bran and gestures to the firepit. “All yours. Wood’s over there—do you want some help with that?”

Bran’s smile is polite but not at all trusting. “Thanks, but Cody and I will do it.”

Cody scrunches up his face. “We will?” His brother gives him a look, and he sighs. “We will.”

The firepit is just a hole we dug and lined with bricks—no need for anything fancy when I’m around, and sometimes the old-fashioned way is the best. We built the bricks up a little above ground level so we can put a metal grill on top if we want to cook out. When you can control the intensity of the flame, you don’t need more than that.

It doesn’t take them long to bring over the wood and kindling they need, and the rest of us sit comfortably around the firepit, enjoying the afternoon. I can tell Zeph’s in some kind of mood, because the breeze is doing all sorts of weird things. I especially like when he flips Aqua’s hair into his face and leaves him sputtering.

Soon, the first tiny tendrils of fire lick along the kindling, and Bran stands protectively over it, feeding it progressively larger sticks until the flame is established enough to take a solid log. It’s too warm of a day to need a fire, so the others draw their chairs back a little, but I bask in the heat and the crackling sounds. The tinge of woodsmoke that reaches me makes my nostrils flare, and I suck it in greedily.

It’s not until the fire is roaring away that Bran looks my way, a smirk on his face. He knows what I do—this is a good fire in full force. It’ll be about an hour before it burns down to embers, and until then, it would take a hose (or Aqua), a few buckets of sand (or George), or a fire extinguisher to put it out.

Or me.

“Please, be my guest,” Bran invites. “Perry said you’d put it out… using your ‘elemental’ power.”

I smile at him. “How long would you say, in your professional opinion, that fire would take to die down on its own?”

Bran gives the merry fire a smug glance. “Anywhere between sixty and ninety minutes.”

“And you’re satisfied there are no tricks here? You inspected the pit thoroughly?”

“I did. Stop stalling and just admit you can’t do it.” He pauses. “And then show me how you did the fireball thing. Do you have a permit for that?”

George laughs.

I don’t bother to get up. He’s standing on the other side of the pit, so he can see me and the fire clearly—there’s no way he can accuse me of doing something while he wasn’t looking. A little wistfully—it’s such a good fire, and so new—I draw the power out of the flames, going slow so Bran can see the change. His smugness turns to confusion, then shock, until he’s staring at the embers and blackened, partly burned log with a blankness that makes me wonder if we broke his brain.