Elemental Rush (Elemental 0.5) by Elana Johnson

scared.
    “Abnormal?” Felix asked, swaying gently with her.
    “Yes, something’s wrong. I’m not sure what, but I can feel it. More Elementals than there should be.”
    “But we’re breeding them,” Felix said gently, and that was definitely an abnormality.
    “I feel more than have registered.”
    Fear bolted through me. I had the information I’d come to find—and a lot more. I hadn’t thought anything would crack the bond I had with my brother, but seeing him make out with Alex—knowing that he was harboring her secrets—made a distinct fissure in my confidence in him.
    I looped two fingers in a small swirl and sent a whisper of air along the floor. It slid under the crack in the bedroom door and went into the outer chamber. I snapped my wrist and the air obeyed, sending something crashing to the floor.
    Felix jumped away from Alex, shielding her behind his massive frame. “Get dressed,” he hissed as he strode toward the bed. I noticed now that it was rumpled and that his sentry uniform lay discarded on the floor. He had it donned in less than ten seconds and was creeping toward the door by the time I looked back to Alex.
    The nightgown had been abandoned, and now Alex was shoving her arms through a type of vest. It was skin-colored and made her shoulders wider. It covered her chest and sloped into her waist. She yanked a tunic over that, and all traces of her womanly curves were gone. She pulled pants on, then covered it all with her crimson Council robe. In less than a minute, she’d gone from my brother’s feminine lover to the Supremist, most feared man in the Territories.
    “I hear nothing,” Felix said, half-turning back to Alex.
    I pushed the air along the floor again, sneaking it around his bare feet to the outer chamber. Then I slashed my hand back, bringing the air under the door once again. This time it whooshed against Felix’s skin.
    He leaped back, cursing. “An Airmaster.” He turned, grabbed his boots from the floor with one hand, and clenched Alex’s in the other. “Let’s go.” He hurried her out the back door, sealing me in her bedroom with the sound of a clicking lock.
    I wasted no time. I ran across the room to the balcony where Alex and Felix had been moments before. I jumped onto the railing and threw myself into the sky.

 
    I didn’t leave the city right away. I attended to my duties the next day, standing guard near the Supremist’s fortress as she gathered the townspeople to the market square. She gave some speech about equality and the need for educational reform. I didn’t listen to her.
    Instead, I watched the people. They shifted in nervous clumps. No one spoke, and when the Supremist finished her speech, they all turned and headed to work. The merchants set up their stalls and opened their wagons. The people shopped, though little was said beyond the discussion of prices.
    Not a single Elemental attended the meeting or lingered in the square. I didn’t know if there had been any survivors, but I knew if there were, they wouldn’t have hung around here. Clearly, the Supremist did not want Elementals in Tarpulin anymore.
    I wished I knew why. In the past, I’d have asked my brother for his speculations. Now, I regarded him with a wary eye, tensing when he moved closer to me. “Care for a sticky bun?” he asked. His voice grated against my eardrums, because I’d heard him speak softly, lovingly even, to Alex.
    He’d been keeping secrets from me, and that was something we’d vowed we’d never do. I felt something inside me wither, but I kept my face impassive. “Sure, I haven’t eaten yet.” I followed him into the market to his favorite baker, telling myself I needed to play the right part.
    I’d been trained in the art of espionage. Three of the best months of my sentry education were spent as an undercover agent inside the Elemental Academy. I labored as a training partner during the day, and at night I snuck around the school. My assignment had