Beautiful Darkness

  The two pink spots appeared on Liv’s cheeks again. I was getting used to them. “So I can continue their work and keep their voices alive. So one day, when I become a Keeper, I’ll know how to safeguard the Caster archive—the Lunae Libri, the scrolls, the records of the Casters themselves. That isn’t possible without the voices of the Keepers who came before me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’re my teachers. I learn from their experiences, the knowledge they gathered while they were Keepers. Everything is connected, and without their records, I can’t make sense of the things I discover myself.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t understand? What the hell are we even talkin’ about?” Link spoke up from the bed.

  Marian put her hand on my shoulder. “The voice you heard, the laughter from the hall, I imagine it was your mother. Lila led you here, most likely because she wanted us to have this conversation. So you would understand your purpose, and Lena’s or Macon’s. Because you’re Bound to one of their Houses and one of their destinies. I just don’t know whose yet.”

  I thought about the face in the column, the laughter, and the feeling of déjà vu in Macon’s room. Was it my mom? I’d been waiting months for a sign from her, since the afternoon in the study when Lena and I found the message in the books.

  Was she finally trying to contact me now?

  What if she wasn’t?

  I realized something else. “If I am one of these Waywards—and I’m not saying I’m buying any of this—then I can find Lena, right? I’m supposed to take care of her because I’m her compass, or whatever.”

  “We don’t know that for sure. You’re Bound to someone, but we don’t know who.”

  I pushed back the chair and walked over to the bookcase. Macon’s book sat on the edge of the shelf. “I bet I know someone who does.” I reached for it.

  “Ethan, stop!” Marian shouted. My fingers had barely scraped the cover when I felt the floor give way into the nothingness of another world.

  At the last second, a hand grabbed mine. “Take me with you, Ethan.”

  “Liv, no—”

  A girl with long brown hair clung desperately to a tall boy, her face buried in his chest. The branches of a huge oak reached down around them, creating the impression they were alone instead of a few yards away from clusters of Duke University’s ivy-covered buildings.

  He cradled her tear-stained face gently in his hands. “Do you think this is easy for me? I love you, Jane, and I know I’ll never feel this way about anyone again. But we don’t have a choice. You knew there would come a time when we would have to say good-bye.”

  Jane lifted her chin, resolute. “There are always choices, Macon.”

  “Not in this situation. Not a choice that wouldn’t put you in danger.”

  “But your mother said there might be a way. What about the prophecy?”

  Macon slammed his palm against the tree, frustrated. “Damn it, Jane. That’s an old wives’ tale. There’s no way it doesn’t end with you dead.”

  “So we can’t be together physically—I don’t care about that. We can still be together. That’s all that matters.”

  Macon pulled away, his face twisted in pain. “Once I change, I’ll be dangerous, a Blood Incubus. They thirst for blood, and my father says I will be one of them like he is, and his father before him. Like all the men in my family, as far back as my great-great-great-grandfather Abraham.”

  “Grandfather Abraham, the one who believed the greatest sin imaginable was for a Supernatural to fall in love with a Mortal—to taint the supernatural bloodlines? And you can’t trust your father. He feels the same way. He wants to keep us apart so you’ll return to Gatlin, that god-awful town, and creep around underground like your brother. Like a monster.”

  “It’s too late. I can already feel the Transformation. I stay up all night listening to the thoughts of Mortals, hungering. Soon I’ll be hungering for more than their thoughts. Already, it feels like my body can’t hold what’s inside me, as if the beast might literally burst free.”

  Jane turned away, her eyes welling up with tears again. But Macon wasn’t going to let her ignore him this time. He loved her. And because he loved her, he had to make her understand why they couldn’t be together. “Even standing here, the light is beginning to burn through my skin. I can feel the heat of the sun with such intensity, all the time now. I’m changing already, and it will only get worse.”

  Jane buried her face in her hands, sobbing. “You’re saying this to scare me, because you don’t want to find a way.”

  Macon grabbed Jane’s shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “You’re right. I am trying to scare you. Do you know what my brother did to his Mortal girlfriend after the Transformation?” Macon paused. “He ripped her apart.”

  Without warning, Macon’s head jerked back, his golden-yellow eyes shining around strange black pupils, like the eclipse of twin suns. He turned his head away from Jane. “Don’t ever forget, Ethan. Things are never as they seem.”

  I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t see anything until the fog lifted. The vaulted ceiling of the study came into focus.

  “That was creepy, man. Like The Exorcist creepy.” Link was shaking his head. I held out my arm, and he pulled me up. My heart was still pounding, and I tried not to look at Liv. I had never shared a vision with anyone except Lena and Marian, and I wasn’t too comfortable doing it now. Every time I looked at her, all I could think about was the moment I walked into this room. The moment I thought she was Lena.

  Liv sat up, groggy. “You told me about the visions, Professor Ashcroft. But I had no idea they were so physical.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” It felt like I was betraying Macon by bringing Liv into his private life.

  “Why not?” She rubbed her eyes, trying to readjust.

  “Maybe you weren’t supposed to see it.”

  “What I see in a vision is totally different from what you see. You’re not a Keeper. No offense, but you have no training.”

  “Why do you say ‘no offense’ when you’re planning to offend me?”

  “Enough.” Marian looked at us expectantly. “What happened?”

  But Liv was right. I didn’t understand what the vision meant, except that Incubuses couldn’t be with Mortals any more than Casters could. “Macon was there with a girl, and he was talking about becoming a Blood Incubus.”

  Liv looked smug. “Macon was going through the Transformation. He appeared to be in a very vulnerable state. I don’t know why the vision showed us that particular moment, but it must be significant.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t seeing Hunting, not Macon?” Marian asked.

  “No,” we said, our voices overlapping. I looked at Liv. “Macon wasn’t like Hunting.”

  Liv thought for a moment, then reached for the notebook on the bed. She scribbled something and snapped it shut.

  Great. Another girl with a notebook.

  “You know what? You’re the experts. I’m going to let you two figure this one out. I’m going to find Lena before Ridley and her friend convince her to do something she’ll regret.”

  “Are you suggesting Lena is under Ridley’s influence? That’s not possible, Ethan. Lena’s a Natural. A Siren can’t control her.” Marian dismissed the idea.

  But she didn’t know about John Breed. “What if Ridley had help?”

  “What sort of help?”

  “An Incubus who can walk around in the daylight, or a Caster with Macon’s strength and the ability to Travel. I’m not sure which.” It wasn’t the best explanation, but I didn’t know what John Breed really was.

  “Ethan, you must be mistaken. There’s no record of an Incubus or a Caster with those abilities.” Marian was already pulling a book from the shelves.

  “There is now. His name is John Breed.” If Marian didn’t know what John was, we weren’t going to find the answer in one of those books.

&
nbsp; “If what you’re describing is accurate, and I find it hard to believe that it could be, I’m not sure what he might be capable of.”

  I looked at Link. He was twisting the chain on his wallet. We were thinking the same thing. “I have to find Lena.” I didn’t wait for a response.

  Link unlocked the door.

  Marian stood up. “You can’t go after her. It’s too dangerous. There are Casters and creatures of unfathomable power in those Tunnels. You’ve only been down here once before, and the sections you’ve seen are passageways compared to the larger Tunnels. They’re like another world.”

  I didn’t need permission. My mom may have led me here, but she was still gone. “You can’t stop me because you can’t get involved, right? All you can do is sit there and watch me screw things up and write about it so someone like Liv can study it later.”

  “You don’t know what you’ll find, and when you find it, I won’t be able to help you.”

  It didn’t matter. I was at the door by the time Marian finished. Liv was following me. “I’m going, Professor Ashcroft. I’ll make sure nothing happens to them.”

  Marian moved to the doorway. “Olivia. This isn’t your place.”

  “I know. But they’ll need me.”

  “You cannot change what is to be. You have to stay out of it. No matter how much it pains you. A Keeper’s role is only to record and bear witness, not to change what unfolds.”

  “You’re like a hall cop.” Link grinned. “Like Fatty.”

  Liv’s eyes narrowed. They must have truant officers in England, too. “You don’t need to explain the Order of Things to me, Professor Ashcroft. I’ve studied it since my K levels. But how can I witness what I’m never allowed to see?”

  “You can read about it in the Caster Scrolls, like the rest of us.”

  “I can? The Sixteenth Moon? The Claiming that could’ve broken the Duchannes curse? Could you have read about any of that in a scroll?” Liv glanced at her moon watch. “There’s something happening. This Supernatural with unprecedented power, Ethan’s visions—and there are scientific anomalies. Subtle changes I’ve picked up on my selenometer.”

  Subtle, as in nonexistent. I recognized a scam when I saw one. Olivia Durand was as trapped as the rest of us, and we were her ticket out. She wasn’t worried about Link and me in the Tunnels. She wanted to have a life. Like another girl I knew, not too long ago.

  “Remember—”

  The door closed before Marian could finish, and we were gone.

  6.15

  Exile

  The door slammed behind us. Liv straightened her worn leather knapsack, and Link grabbed a torch from the wall of the tunnel. They were ready to follow me into the great unknown, but instead we stood there, staring at each other.

  “Well?” Liv looked at me expectantly. “It’s not rocket science. You either know the way, or you—”

  “Shh. Give him a second.” Link clamped his hand over Liv’s mouth. “Use the force, young Skywalker.” This Wayward thing apparently carried some weight. They actually thought I knew where to go, which only left one problem. I didn’t.

  “This way.” I was going to have to make it up as I went along.

  Marian said the Caster Tunnels were endless, a world beneath our own, but I never really understood what she meant until now. As we turned the first corner, the passage changed, narrowing into damper and darker circular walls that felt more like a tube than a tunnel. I pressed against the walls to push myself forward, and my torch fell in the mud.

  “Crap.” I gripped the torch’s wooden handle between my teeth and kept going.

  “This sucks.” Link was muttering behind me as his torch burned out.

  Liv was behind him. “Mine’s out, too.” We were in complete darkness. The ceiling was so low, we had to duck beneath the muddy rock.

  “This is really freakin’ me out.” Link had never liked the dark.

  Liv called out from behind us. “Eventually you’re going to reach the…”

  I hit my head against something hard and splintery in the darkness. “Ouch!”

  “… Doorwell.”

  Link must have pulled his flashlight out of his pocket, because a flickering circle of light hit the round door in front of me. It was some kind of cold metal, not the splintering wood or crumbling stone of the other doors we’d seen. It looked more like a manhole cover in the wall. I pushed my shoulder against it, but it didn’t budge.

  “What now?” I called back to Liv, my stand-in for Marian on all Caster-related issues. I heard her flipping pages in her notebook.

  “I don’t know. Maybe push harder?”

  “You had to check your little book for that?” I was annoyed.

  “You want me to crawl up there and do it for you?” Liv wasn’t happy either.

  “Come on, kids. I’ll push Ethan, you push me, Ethan pushes the door.”

  “Brilliant,” Liv said.

  “Shoulder to shoulder, MJ.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Marian Junior. You’re the one who wanted an adventure. You got a better idea?”

  The door had no handle or valve. It fit into a perfect seam, a circle of metal in a circular doorway. Not even a slit of light escaped through the cracks. “Link’s right. We don’t have a choice, and we’re not going back now.” I wedged my shoulder against the door. “One, two, three. Push!”

  When the tips of my fingers touched the door, it swung open as if my skin was somehow the genetic recognition, the key that opened the door. Link smashed into me, and Liv tumbled on top of both of us. I cracked my head against what seemed like stone as I hit the ground. I felt so dizzy, I couldn’t see anything. When I opened my eyes, I was staring up at a streetlamp.

  “What happened?” Link sounded as disoriented as I was.

  I felt around the edge of the stones with my fingertips. Cobblestones. “I just touched the door, and it opened.”

  “Amazing.” Liv stood up, taking it all in.

  I was lying in a city street that looked like London or an old town right out of a history book. Behind me, I could see the round doorway, at the road’s end. There was a brass street sign next to it that said WESTERN DOORWELL, CENTRAL LIBRARY.

  Link sat up next to me, rubbing his head. “Holy crap. This is like one of those alleys where people got hacked up by Jack the Ripper.” He was right. We could have been standing in the mouth of an alley in nineteenth-century London. The street was dark, lit by only the dim glow of a few lampposts. The alley was framed on both sides by the backs of tall brick row houses.

  Liv stood up and made her way down the deserted cobblestone street, looking up at an old iron street sign: THE KEEP. “That must be the name of this particular tunnel. Unbelievable. Professor Ashcroft told me, but I never imagined. I suppose books couldn’t really do it justice, could they?”

  “Yeah, it looks nothin’ like the postcards.” Link pulled himself to his feet. “All I wanna know is, where’d the ceilin’ go?” The curved arch of the tunnel’s ceiling was gone, and in its place was a dark evening sky, as big and real and full of stars as any sky I’d ever seen.

  Liv pulled out her notebook and started writing. “Don’t you get it? These are Caster Tunnels. They’re not some supernatural subway system, so Casters can creep around under Gatlin borrowing library books.”

  “Then what are they?” I ran my hand along the rough brick on the side of the nearest building.

  “More like roads to another world. Or, in a way, a whole world all to themselves.”

  I heard something, and my heart jumped. I thought Lena was Kelting, reconnecting with me. But I was wrong.

  It was music.

  “Do you hear that?” Link asked. I was relieved. For once, the music wasn’t coming from inside my head. It was coming from the end of the alley. It sounded like the Caster music from the party at Ravenwood last Halloween, the night I saved Lena from Sarafine’s psychic attack.

  I listened for Lena, felt for her, remembering
that night. Nothing.

  Liv checked her selenometer and wrote something else in her notebook. “Carmen. I was transcribing one yesterday.”

  “English, please.” Link was still staring up at the sky, trying to figure it all out.

  “Sorry. It means ‘Charmed Song.’ It’s Caster music.”

  I took off, following the sound down the alley. “Whatever it is, it’s coming from down here.”

  Marian had been right. It was one thing to wander through the damp tunnels of the Lunae Libri, but this was something entirely different. We had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. I already knew that much.

  As I walked down the alley, the music grew louder, the cobblestones smoothed their way into asphalt beneath my feet, and the street changed from Old World London to modern-day slum. It was a street you could find in any big city, in some forgotten run-down neighborhood. The buildings looked like abandoned warehouses, iron grating covered the shattered windows, and the remnants of broken signs blinked fluorescent light into the darkness. There were cigarette butts and trash all over the street, and a strange sort of Caster graffiti—symbols I couldn’t begin to understand—on the sides of the buildings. I pointed it out to Liv. “Do you know what any of that means?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’ve never seen anything like it. But it means something. Every symbol in the Caster world has significance.”

  “This place is even freakier than the Lunae Libri.” Link was trying to play it cool in front of Liv, but he was having a hard time pulling it off.

  “Do you wanna go back?” I wanted to give him an out, but I knew he had as much of a reason to be down here as I did. His reason was just blonder.

  “Are you callin’ me a wuss?”

  “Shh, shut up—” I heard it.

  The Caster music drifted through the air, the seductive melody replaced by something else. This time, I was the only one who could hear the words.

  Seventeen moons, seventeen fears,

  Pain of death and shame of tears,