Change [Book 1 of The Elemental Marks]

Chapter 4

"Will you come with me outside?"

When Carson asked this, it was very different from the way Damian had told them to leave only moments ago. Lina was beginning to question the similarities she had seen between the two when they arrived.

She could only nod. She didn't dare look back at the hard glare Damian was probably drilling into her from behind.

Carson's face softened. Lina might've called it relief, but that didn't make sense. None of this did. He was still looking right at her eyes, but not quite in them. What was he seeing?

Carson led them out the door. Once they made it out, Carson paused and glanced around. "Is there somewhere we can, sort of, get away?"

It took Lina a minute to figure out what he was asking. To talk, of course. Apparently she wasn't the only person he didn't trust to have audible runes on.

"Follow me," she said, heading down the hallway out. The first door before the main entrance was one Lina knew well: the Institute's music room.

She peeked in, making sure it was empty. Her worst fear was that Tommie would be here waiting, and that she would have to explain the strange boy following her and why she brought him here. Luckily, the room was desolate. She let Carson in and shut the door behind him.

Instead of looking around the room she had just led him into, Carson only looked at her. She waited, a bit on edge, waiting for him to say something. She realized this might have been the first time in her life she was in here alone with someone that wasn't Tommie. Here she was with a total stranger, hardly thinking twice about it. She was thinking twice now.

Carson let out a long sigh. "I've got this crazy hunch about you," he started. "Damian, I think, disagrees with me. But even if there's a chance it's true, I can't leave without giving you some insight."

"This all sounds like you're talking in a complicated code," she informed him. Or a cult. "If there's something you want to tell me, you'd be better off just saying it." Lina was already trying to put the pieces of it together herself. Water Girl, her eyes, Damian's institute. What could it possibly add up to? Her worst fear was that Carson wouldn't explain it, and she would be guessing about it forever.

Instead, he spoke. "Waterbender. That was the word Vic said to you. You're sure you have no idea what it means?"

She shook her head. "I'm sure I've never heard of it. What does it mean?"

"A waterbender is...a person. A Shadowhunter with a specific rune, one that's kept entirely secret. This rune...well, the secret aspect of it makes this all really hard. The most I can say is that, if you have this rune, you need to be careful. Waterbenders have a certain power, and it has the potential to cause you and others harm. In short, it gives you this sort of presence over water, any sort of water. It forces the liquid to do want you want, move how you want it to, even if you don't want it to do anything at all."

Lina's first instinct was to laugh, then tell him she couldn't even begin to wrap her head around what he just said. But as the words set in, she could almost picture it. Moving the water the way she wanted to only by her thoughts.

It was totally irrational, of course. No Shadowhunter, even with the most powerful rune, could do something like that. It sounded like...a demon's ability. It wasn't something the good guys should be able to do.

And anyway, it still didn't explain the Keplie situation. Some random fey just happened to think she could do this? And felt the need to leave the river to tell her?

"Did you get any of that?" Carson asked after a moment. He must've assumed her brain had shut down over that information. In reality, it went into overdrive.