A Matter of Heart by Heather Lyons Read Free Book Online

scramble to find something
     appropriate. “I am so, so sorry,” I tell him. I can’t help but place a hand on
     his arm. He’s too young to have found love and then lost it forever.
    Earle’s smile is no longer
     charming. It’s now painfully brittle. “Can you promise me something, Chloe?”
    Okay . . . um . . . he wants
     something from me ? Not that I’m opposed to helping him, but what in the
     worlds could I do to help him with grief? I can barely manage my own at any
     given moment. Even still, I nod.
    He stares at the dirt below
     our feet. “I know what you’ve done with the Elders in the past, how you were
     able to trap some in Annar. I wasn’t there when you did it, I was on a mission,
     but the Guard still talks about it.”
    My heart sinks. No, no, no. Please,
     Earle, do not tell me that you lost someone to the Elders, too.
    His Adam’s apple bobs when
     he swallows. When he looks up, his eyes are fierce. “Don’t give up on getting
     them. Swear you’ll do whatever it takes to stop the killings.”
    There’s no hesitation, even
     though it scares the crap out of me to say it. “Of course.”
    “They killed him.” His eyes
     hold so much sadness and anger. “Like he was nothing. Took every last bit of
     soul out of him and left behind a shell. What does one do with that? How does
     one go on?” He laughs; it’s a gurgle that borders on a sob. “I haven’t figured
     it out yet. Work, they tell me. And time. And you know what?”
    I don’t even know what to
     say. My own eyes are wet.
    “It’s
     bullshit,” he whispers. And Kellan appears in front of us, kneeling down in
     front of his broken colleague, saying gentle things, no doubt working his mojo,
     so I take my hand back, off of Earle’s arm, and leave them alone.
    I am consumed by what
     Earle’s revealed to me for the next hour. Whatever Kellan did to him must’ve
     worked, because the Cyclone is no longer the damaged man I sat next to. He’s
     not smiling and laughing—not by a long shot—but he’s focused and back on task.
    He’s also taken lead, which
     means he’s scouting and nowhere near me and my careless words. I beat myself up
     mentally, especially in light of Caleb’s constant reminders over the last
     couple months to get to know the people that I work with. Know more than
     just their name , he’s always telling me. Being a Magical on a mission
     isn’t like working in some non’s office, where you stand around the water
     cooler and gossip about last night’s big game. Magicals are different. We’re a
     special, small group—it’s important to know and protect those around us. You
     never know when it’ll count the most .
    And, honestly, he’s right. Had
     I even spent five minutes going over the team’s bios, I might’ve known ahead of
     time that Earle had lost somebody—fairly recently, if I’m not mistaken—and
     questions like mine weren’t the best of ideas. So now I feel like a total heel.
    I want to ask Kellan how
     Earle is doing, but that would mean I’d be the first one to break radio silence
     and I’m not down with that, as immature as that makes me. I turn, instead, to
     one of the other Guard. This one is a woman. She’s got silver streaked black
     hair that’s truly beautiful. Caleb lets me know, without too much censure after
     my last gaffe, that her name is Nivedita. Since the pull is pretty strong, and
     I figure Kellan is close by, I end up whispering, “Is Earle okay?”
    Her features soften—they are
     less Amazonian now and more sympathetic. “Oh, to be sure, no. Not even
     remotely.” I like her voice, how her Elvin accent, so British-like, wraps
     around her words. “And that’s to be expected, isn’t it?”
    I nod. “Just what hap—”
    Before I can get the word
     out, the very person I was about to ask about literally comes flying through
     the air and crashes, hard, against a nearby tree.
    Nivedita screams his name
     and charges forward at the same