Chosen by Christine Pope (free children's ebooks pdf txt) 📕

in the direction of the office. But they weren’t — instead, they seemed to originate in the living room.

That didn’t make any sense. Even if the unthinkable had happened and another survivor had shown up on our doorstep, I should have heard something, no matter how deeply asleep I was. If nothing else, Dutchie would have barked her head off. But she was passed out on the floor of the bedroom, so conked she looked like someone had drugged her.

Frowning, I slipped out into the corridor, the tile floor icy against my bare feet. It wasn’t quite pitch dark, since, in our rush to get to the bedroom, Jace and I had left the pillar candles burning on the coffee table and on the mantel. Because of that, as I approached I could make out clearly enough who was in the living room.

Only…my brain couldn’t quite grasp what it was seeing. Two men. At least, they looked like men, but…they couldn’t be. Not hovering in midair, approximately a foot and a half above the floor, as if they had no need of solid ground.

One of them was Jace. Or rather, he resembled Jace, except somehow older and harder, his jaw and eyes stern. His hair seemed longer than its current inch or so below shoulder length, almost as long as mine, and floated around him, appearing to wave in an unseen wind, a wind that stirred the branches of the Christmas tree and made all the flames in the pillar candles on the mantel and coffee table dance and sway. Just as when he’d fallen asleep, his chest and arms were bare, but now thick cuffs of silvery-blue metal surrounded his wrists, and he wore full-legged pants made of a shimmering dark blue fabric, possibly silk.

The other man…or whatever he was…stood in profile to me, so I couldn’t get all that good a look at him. And actually, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. There was something cruel in his hawkish profile, in the set of his jaw and mouth. His hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail and banded with reddish metal — copper, maybe, or even rose gold. More reddish metal gleamed at his wrists, and his pants, similar in construction to the ones Jace wore, were a dark burnt-umber sort of shade.

Stranger than his presence, and even stranger than the way he floated above the floor, however, was the way odd little flames seemed to dance around his feet and swirl in the air directly above his head, as if he were somehow made of fire, and had only taken on physical form so he could have this conversation.

I flattened myself against the wall, glad of my bare feet, which had made no sound as I approached, and the relative darkness of the hallway where I hid. Jace…that oddly altered Jace…and the stranger would have had to look directly at me to see me at all, and it seemed clear enough that they were occupied with one another, not sparing a glance for the supposedly sleeping house around them.

“…wasted enough time here already,” the stranger was saying. His voice was deeper than Jace’s, harsh, and something about it made chills go up and down my spine. “It is time to come join the rest of us.”

“Surely a few days more won’t matter,” Jace replied. “After Christmas has passed — ”

The stranger made a sound of disgust. “Christmas? What foolishness is this? That day means nothing to us, and you have coddled the woman long enough. Tell her the truth, or as much of it as you deem necessary, but we will not wait much longer.”

“What is the rush?” Jace crossed his arms and stared directly into the other man’s eyes, something I didn’t think I’d have had the courage to do. “What does it matter if we wait out the winter here, and then come to you in the spring?”

For the briefest second, the stranger hesitated, his hands tightening into fists at his sides, even as the flames dancing around his feet and above his head flared brighter, shifting from warm orange to an acid yellow. From annoyance…or something else? “Because it may not be safe to do so. We are disturbed by some of the developments among the Immune. They’ve gathered in a place not far from here, and although we do not know how they are managing it, they are blocking us from scrying them, or indeed from coming within miles of their compound so we might finish them off.”

“The Immune”? I thought. Other survivors? And what the hell does he mean by “finish them off”?

“That is troubling,” Jace said, and it seemed the unseen wind that swirled around him gained in force, wildly blowing at his hair and causing the flames of several of the candles to almost snuff themselves. “No one has been able to get close?”

“No. There is one road in and one road out, both heavily guarded. Several of the Chosen volunteered to investigate, since they would be able to get far closer to the Immune than we would, but we have had no contact with any of them since, and it is feared they have been lost.”

It was hard for me to tell for certain, but it almost seemed as if Jace winced when he received that particular piece of information, as if it was more painful to him than the rest of what he had just heard. “That is a grievous loss.”

The stranger shrugged. Clearly, he was not overly concerned about the loss of these “Chosen,” whoever they might be. “They volunteered for the mission. Their partners will find replacements, if they wish.”

From the set of his shoulders, it appeared that Jace wasn’t quite so blithe about the fate of the Chosen who had disappeared. “How long has it been? Perhaps you are not giving them enough time.”

“Two weeks, as such things are counted here. Time enough.” The stranger straightened, his eyes on a level with Jace’s. “I am telling you this because your safety here is not guaranteed. Better for you to be with the rest of us.” Then he paused, and my heart seemed to stop in my chest as he glanced over in my direction. “Your paramour is awake. It seems she was not quite as deeply asleep as you thought. You will have some explaining to do, I think.”

That appeared to be his parting shot, because after he made that remark, the flames which had been licking at his feet seemed to grow and swell, rising until they engulfed him. Then they went out, and Jace was alone in the living room.

His eyes met mine, and I saw him draw in a breath, then lower himself to the floor. As he did so, his appearance shifted back to the Jace I knew…or thought I knew. At the same time, the lamp in the corner of the room flared to life, although neither of us had touched a light switch.

“Jessica,” he said, his arms reaching out to me as he began to move in my direction.

“Don’t,” I retorted, still hugging the wall. “Stay back.”

He stopped at once, but I could see the pleading in his dark eyes. “Jessica, I can explain — ”

“Oh, you’d better explain.” The cool plaster of the wall against my back gave me a little courage. At least this way, he’d have to face me, couldn’t sneak up on me from behind. “Who — what are you?”

His shoulders seemed to droop then. He looked so pitiful that, under normal circumstances, I would have gone to him at once and put my arms around him, attempted to comfort him. But there would be no comfort here. Not after what I had just seen.

“Please, come and sit down,” he said. “We must have this conversation, but we don’t need to have it like this.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Jessica.” This time he sounded different, his voice deeper, the way it had been when he was speaking with that — whoever he was. At the same time, he backed off, going to sit down on the couch. “Look. Here I am. You can sit in that chair. I promise I won’t move unless you say it’s all right.”

For a second or two, I didn’t do anything, only watched him through narrowed eyes. He was sitting there quietly, his hands planted on his knees. He certainly didn’t look as if he intended to launch at me, but how could I trust him when it was clear he was definitely not who he had pretended to be?

Then again, I did want answers, and if he might be more inclined to give them if I sat down as he’d asked, then that seemed to be what I should do. Not taking my eyes off him, I crossed over to the chair and sank into it. Actually, that did feel a bit better, although the spurious sensation of relief could have had something to do with the rug under my bare, icy feet and the warmth of the fire as it reached out to heat the room.

I pulled in a breath. “So…this you I’m looking at right now. Is it the real you, or the other one?”

In answer, his features seemed to shift and harden, becoming those of the man I’d seen floating above the floor a few minutes earlier. Still handsome…in a way, more handsome, because those features had somehow become more chiseled, more refined, even though he was recognizable as the Jace I’d thought I had known. “This is my true aspect,” he said.

Right then, I wasn’t sure which was upsetting me more — knowing that Jace wasn’t real, was some sort of disguise worn by this…being — or the casual way he flipped from one appearance to the other. I tightened my fingers on my knees, feeling the soft nap of the robe I wore and realizing that now it was giving me absolutely no comfort. “And your true name?”

“Jasreel.”

So he was still Jace, in a way…although I doubted I’d ever feel comfortable enough to call him that again. The thought made incongruous tears sting my eyes, and I swallowed. Could I mourn the loss of something I’d never truly had?

Maybe, at some point. Right then, I had to man up and get some answers.

“So what are you?” I asked, my voice deliberately