No one seemed particularly keen on the idea when I finally got around to sharing it. In fact, Mags even seemed a bit appalled that the idea even existed.
"Your father went slumming?" she exclaimed.
I chafed at the condescension in her voice, but I said nothing about it. "No. He wanted to see the Naturals' plight for himself."
"That's valid," Cath said, interrupting Mags' next remark. "The only thing I cannot understand is what your father was doing, toying with fate that way. As powerful as we are, there seems to be no accounting for what we do with it."
She was right, of course. If only I'd had my mother to ask what my father was like when he was young. I saw flashes of his recklessness, moments where he believed himself invincible and quickly found he was not.
"That place my father described," I said. "I think it might still be there. It seemed so unusual that it has to be."
"Don't count on it." Cath shook her head, but the restlessness in her eyes betrayed her. She was as unsettled about this as I was.
"So then..." Celia said after a short tense silence. "What'll we do?"
"Like it or not, I'll bet a couple brave souls will have to go there and see it for themselves," Cath answered finally, fingering her teaspoon. "It's dangerous, but..."
"Someone has to do it," I finished for her. We would have to face it, whatever it was that we met there. And that was the end of that.
||
It took much planning, discussion, and going round and round the subject to finally decide who would venture into the slums. We gathered together in James's drawing room, mostly because his father was half-deaf and wouldn't have suspected a thing anyway. At least, that was his reasoning for it.
"Well, Emma, obviously," Cath said, giving me a meaningful look. "She's the one who read about it, and knows where it is."
I said nothing to that. Of course there were no two ways around my going. My father had made the bed, now it appeared I would have to lie in it.
"I'll accompany her," Sebastian said, drawing himself up. "It's not safe, nor is it proper, for a young lady to be wandering around in a place like that all by herself."
"So will I." James sat up straighter as well. "Can't leave my best mate's back unguarded."
"And you won't be going bloody anywhere without me," Cath said fiercely, and that was what caught my attention. The boys and I could protect ourselves – we'd done it before, and we'd do it again, if the need arose – but the more people we brought along, the more danger we'd be in.
"No, Cath," I said firmly, even when she protested. "You're a true friend for offering, and I appreciate your loyalty. But if there's too many of us, we'll have less of a chance of catching the Naturals off-guard, and you know what happens when they know they've been caught."
She sighed heavily. "They'd think it was an ambush, or such a thing like that. And then they panic."
"Yes, we..." I certainly would have liked to have her along, because where my confidence failed me, hers seemed to grow. "We don't want too much of a mess."
"I suppose you have a point," she said, shaking her head, before glancing at the other girls. "Celia, Mags, Sam, would you give us just a moment please?"
Grumbling, they pushed themselves to their feet and skulked out to the foyer. Once Cath seemed sure they weren't going to return, she turned back to us, her eyes grey and restless – clouds tossed before a rainstorm.
YOU ARE READING
Bring Forth a Fire (Book 1)
Fantasy(✔️)**Book 1 of the Elemental Chronicles** One secret can change a life. After the untimely death of her father in a mysterious fire, sixteen-year-old Emma Haywood finds herself sent off to the remote Allerton-which is, as far as her grandmother is...