Chapter 2

NICHOLAS

Dad's glowing eyes bulged, his body trembling slightly. I could hear the sound of his heart thrashing in his chest all the way from where I stood.

It was the first time I had ever seen him like this. My father had stared down rogue mages, stood in the presence of royals, sailed through storms, and once pulled me out of a frozen lake with his bare hands without so much as flinching.

I didn’t have time to ask what he meant, because out of nowhere, the strange man reappeared again.

This time behind my father.

“Dad!”

My father spun, and the water in the room moved with him. It rushed up from the pipes, the fish tank in the corner, the water from outside, everything. It formed a swirling wall around us, the same way he’d taught me when I was twelve.

The Phantom lifted a hand almost lazily. The wall of water shattered into mist. Wind whipped through our living room, dragging the mist into a blinding white storm that cut at my cheeks and stung my eyes.

“Get back!” my father shouted.

I didn’t. I stood beside him, ready to fight. My father drew water back into his palms and pressed it into spears of ice, dozens of them hovering in the air.

I took the water on the floor and spun it into a coil that would wrap around the man’s legs.

Dad’s spears hit first. Mine followed a second behind, channeling every bit of rage and fear I had behind them.

The man only flinched slightly before recovering quickly. He slashed his hands sideways, and the spears turned. They bent in midair, as if he’d manipulated the air around them, and they started flying back towards us.

I threw up a shield of water in panic, and my father dropped to his knees.

One of the spears grazed my left shoulder, and I groaned as heat and pain spread quickly around the spot.

Dad’s face went tight.

“Run,” he told me. “Now.”

“I’m not leaving you!”

Then I did the only thing I could think of. I drew all the water from our surroundings, and I pulled it into a crushing ring around the man. If I couldn’t hurt him, then I could trap him.

The ring closed as the water tightened. He groaned as he wiggled through the tight hold, trying desperately and failing to get out.

For one wild second, I felt that I’d actually done it.

But then he stilled. A second later, he closed his fist.

The ring burst, and the force of it threw me back across the room. I hit the wall and slid down it, gasping.

Suddenly, my lungs wouldn’t fill with air. Something invisible pressed against my chest, and when I tried to stand, my legs failed to respond.

My arms were locked at my sides. My fingers wouldn’t move. I couldn’t even summon a single drop of water.

The air around me hardened into a cage I couldn’t see, holding me upright against the wall, so tight I could barely breathe.

“Stop!” I screamed, or tried to. It came out as a rasp. “Let me go!”

He didn’t even look at me.

My father was standing now. Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow, and his hands shook, but he drew in the last of the water in the room anyway and wrapped it around himself like armor.

“Five years,” I heard the man say, in that same chilling, whispery voice he used earlier. “I’ve been waiting for this for five years.”

Dad moved on wobbly legs, planting himself between the man and me.

“Whatever you want,” he said, his voice low and steady, “take it from me. Leave my son out of this.”

The man tilted his head, and then started walking toward him.

“Where is she?”

Dad shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I strained against the invisible hold until my vision swam. I poured everything I had, summoned every ounce of power in my veins, but it was futile. It was like trying to defeat a storm.

He moved through my father’s last defense like it was a curtain.

Wind folded in around my father, tightened, and lifted him off his feet.

And in that moment, with my father’s eyes meeting mine, filled with something that wasn’t fear anymore but a terrible, aching tenderness, I couldn’t look away.

The cloak snapped around the man like a living thing. The air sang with his power. It was monstrous. It was beautiful. Some small, traitorous part of me thought: I’ve never seen anything this remarkable.

By the time it was all over, my father lay still on the floor.

I screamed until my throat gave out. I didn’t remember the words I said. Maybe there weren’t any. I only remember the hatred. It was a living thing, hot and ugly and absolute, and it filled me so completely that for a moment there was no room for grief.

The man stood over my father’s body for a long time. Then he turned his head toward me. I couldn’t see his face, only that deep, bottomless shadow beneath the hood, but I felt his stare like a hand against my skin.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “It needed to be done.”

Then just like that, he was gone.

The hold on my body broke all at once. My legs gave out and I crashed to the floor, and I crawled across the wet boards to my father. His face was so still.

I pressed my forehead to his chest and sobbed until I couldn’t tell where the water on the floor began and where my tears ended.

I don’t know how long I stayed there. When I finally lifted my head, the grief had gone cold and hard inside me and ice settled in my chest.

“I’ll find you,” I whispered into the cold, silent room. “Wherever you hide. Whatever you are.” My hand closed around my father’s as the water on the floor trembled in answer. “I’ll find you, Phantom, and I will destroy you for this.”