Call Forth the Waves Read Free Page B

more than happy to come back out to play.
    “I’ve got this,” I said and stepped away from Jermay.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “Fighting fire with fire.”
    When someone like me surrenders to the touch in our blood, our eyes turn black as a warning. I’d seen it happen when Winnie used her voice in full force to kill Warden Arcineaux. This time, I felt the darkness rise from inside me . I let it come.
    I held my arms out and up like wings, pictured them dripping with burning feathers, and welcomed the heat in my chest. Being Nye’s prisoner had revealed connections between my abilities and my sisters’ that I never knew existed. I was a firebird rising from the ashes. No, more powerful . I was Celestine ready to take flight. I slammed my hands together in front of me, and off the current flew a fiery raptor, feet out to catch its prey, beak open to devour.
    “Get him,” I said. My golem flew straight for Warden Files.
    Fear of fire was primal, even and especially to a man who thought he was strong enough to control it. Files ran for the door, but my phoenix got there first and blocked his exit. He backed down the entry tunnel toward the main room, and me.
    I pictured my sister Vesper, who could dance on air and starlight, and create a chill wind sharp enough to cut through bread or steel. My father had said her abilities were temperamental and uncontrollable, that there was no use in trying to steer a gale. But wind was nothing but air plus energy, and energy always had direction. I imagined my long, dark hair was Vesper’s performance wig, and I made it fly.
    Warden Files sailed off his feet and along the tunnel to the door, bouncing off the floor and walls to land in a heap outside with his men and one very angry flaming bird that was the worst of my temper brought to life. The door slammed shut, held in place by Vesper’s memory.
    “Well, that’s new. Remind me never to make you angry,” Jermay said, stunned.
    “Nah, I like it when you make me angry,” I told him, and then I ran for Evie.
    The first hints of fatigue crept in like spider cracks in a brittle window. Creating a golem took a lot of concentration and energy, but I refused to succumb. Not yet. If I could get my hands on Evie’s collar, I could break it, like I did with Anise’s. One touch was all it would take. I skidded onto the floor beside my captive sister and put my hands on either side of her neck.
    “Run,” she said weakly.
    “We’ll both run,” I told her. As soon as I got that thing off her, we’d both fly.
    Nothing happened. The collar didn’t crackle beneath my fingers like Anise’s had. It didn’t pop open. It didn’t work.
    “Open!” I told it. “My father made you. You know my voice. I command you to open!”
    That was all it had taken to get Anise’s collar off. I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong, but I couldn’t picture the circuits or feel the energy flowing through this one. Everything was jumbled and garbled. Nothing made sense.
    “It’s okay,” Evie told me. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
    She kept repeating those words with tears streaming down her face, her voice caught in a loop caused by a rare moment free of commands.
    “It’s okay,” she said again, and pushed my hands away.
    “No! Anise! Help me get her up! We can take you with us. We can—”
    “Hound!” Warden Files shouted from the tunnel.
    My ability to command Evie’s collar wasn’t the only touch that had failed me. The wind was gone; my phoenix had evaporated, allowing the warden to reenter the Hollow.
    Files was singed and wounded and too angry to issue real orders, but still Evie shot to her feet with a faltering jerk, heaved off the floor against her will. She shoved me as hard as she could before he had a chance to tell her to do something else. Samson appeared in the gap between us, forcing me backward.
    “I can’t stop him,” Evie said. “You have to run. Anise, get her out of here!”
    Samson walked me