Beautiful Darkness

  Hunting lowered his eyes and nodded. I couldn’t help but wonder why John Breed was so important to Abraham, who didn’t seem to care about anyone.

  Macon watched Abraham carefully. “It’s touching to see how concerned you are about your boy. I certainly hope you find him. I know how painful it is to lose a child.”

  The cavern started to shake again, and rocks fell around our feet. “What have you done with John?” In his rage, Abraham seemed less like a harmless old man and more like the Demon he truly was.

  “What have I done with him? I think the question is what have you done to him?” Abraham’s black eyes narrowed, but Macon only smiled. “An Incubus who can walk in the sunlight and retain his strength without feeding… it would require a very specific coupling to produce those qualities in a child. Wouldn’t you agree? Scientifically speaking, you would need Mortal qualities, yet this boy John possesses the gifts of a Caster. He can’t have three parents, which means his mother was—”

  Leah gasped. “An Evo.” Every Caster in the room reacted to the word. The surprise spread like a ripple, a new kind of coldness in the air. Only Amma looked impassive. She folded her arms and fixed her eyes on Abraham Ravenwood as if he was just another chicken she was planning on plucking, skinning, and boiling in her banged-up pot.

  I tried to remember what Lena told me about Evos. They were metamorphs, with the ability to mirror human form. They didn’t just step inside a Mortal body, like Sarafine. Evos could actually become Mortals for short periods of time.

  Macon smiled. “Precisely. A Caster that can take on human form long enough to conceive a child, with all the DNA of a Mortal and a Caster on one side and an Incubus on the other. You have been busy, haven’t you, Grandfather? I didn’t realize you were matchmaking in your spare time.”

  Abraham’s eyes grew blacker. “You are the one who muddied the Order of Things. First, with your infatuation with a Mortal, and then by turning on your own kind to protect this girl.” Abraham shook his head, as if Macon was nothing more than an impetuous boy. “And where has it left us? Now the Duchannes child has cleaved the moon. Do you know what this means? The threat she poses to all of us?”

  “The fate of my niece is none of your concern. You seem to have your hands full enough with your own science experiment of a child. Although, I have to wonder what you’re doing with him.” Macon’s green eyes glowed as he spoke.

  “Be careful who you speak to that way.” Hunting took a step forward, but Abraham put up his hand, and Hunting stopped. “Killed you once, I’ll kill you twice.”

  Macon shook his head. “Nursery rhymes, Hunting? If you are planning a career as Grandfather’s minion, you’re going to have to work on your delivery.” Macon sighed. “Now then, tuck your tail between your legs and follow your master home like a good dog.” Hunting’s expression hardened.

  Macon turned to Abraham. “And Grandfather, as much as I would love to compare lab notes, I think it’s time you leave.”

  The old man laughed. A cold wind began to circle around him, whistling between the rocks. “You think you can order me around like an errand boy? You will not call my name, Macon Ravenwood. You will cry my name. You will bleed my name.” The wind grew around him, blowing his string tie awkwardly across his body. “And when you die, my name will still be feared, and yours will be forgotten.”

  Macon looked him in the eye, without the slightest hint of fear. “As my mathematically gifted brother clarified, I’ve already died once. You’re going to have to come up with something new, old man. It’s getting tiresome. Allow me to see you out.”

  Macon fluttered his fingers, and I heard a ripping sound as the night opened behind Abraham. The old man hesitated, then smiled. “My age must be catching up with me. I almost forgot to collect my things before I leave.” He reached out his hand, and something emerged from behind one of the crevices in the rock. It vanished, reappearing in his hand. I held my breath for a second when I saw it.

  The Book of Moons.

  The Book we believed had burned to ash, in the fields of Greenbrier. The Book that was a curse all its own.

  Macon’s face darkened, and he held out his hand. “That doesn’t belong to you, Grandfather.” The Book twitched in Abraham’s hand, but the darkness surrounding him deepened, and the old man shrugged with a smile. A second ripping sound echoed across the cavern as he disappeared, taking the Book and Hunting and Sarafine with him. By the time the echo died, the shallow tides washed away even the imprint of Sarafine’s body in the sand.

  At the sound of the rip, Lena started to run. By the time Abraham was gone, she was across the rocky cave floor and halfway to Macon. He leaned against the rough wall until Lena threw herself into his chest, and Macon swayed as if he was going to fall.

  “You’re dead.” Lena spoke into his dirty, ripped shirt.

  “No, sweetheart. I’m very much alive.” He drew her face up to look at him. “Look at me. I’m still here.”

  “Your eyes. They’re green.” She touched his face, shocked.

  “And yours are not.” He touched her cheek, sadly. “But they are beautiful. Both the green and the gold.”

  Lena shook her head in disbelief. “I killed you. I used the Book, and it killed you.”

  Macon stroked her hair. “Lila Jane saved me before I crossed over. She imprisoned me in an Arclight, and Ethan released me. It wasn’t your fault, Lena. You didn’t know what would happen.” Lena began to sob. He stroked her wild black curls, whispering, “Shh. It’s all right now. It’s over.”

  He was lying. I could see it in his eyes. The black pools that kept his secrets were gone. I didn’t understand everything Abraham had said, but I knew there was truth in it. Whatever had happened when Lena Claimed herself wasn’t the solution to our problems, but a new problem all its own.

  Lena pulled away from Macon. “Uncle Macon, I didn’t know this was going to happen. One minute I was thinking about Dark and Light—about what I really wanted. But all I could think about was that I don’t belong anywhere. After everything I’ve been through, I’m not Light or Dark. I’m both.”

  “It’s all right, Lena.” He reached out for her, but she stood on her own.

  “It’s not.” She shook her head. “Look what I’ve done. Auntie Twyla and Ridley are gone, and Larkin…”

  Macon looked at Lena as if he was seeing her for the first time. “You did what you had to do. You Claimed yourself. You didn’t pick a place in the Order. You changed it.”

  Her voice was hesitant. “What does it mean?”

  “It means you are yourself—powerful and unique—like the Great Barrier, a place where there is no Dark or Light, only magic. But unlike the Great Barrier, you are both Light and Dark. Like me. And after what I saw tonight, like Ridley.”

  “But what happened to the moon?” Lena looked at Gramma, but it was Amma who spoke up, from the rocky ledge.

  “You split it, child. Melchizedek’s right, the Order a Things is broken. Can’t say what’ll happen now.” The way she said broken made it clear that broken wasn’t something we wanted the Order to be.

  “I don’t understand. You’re all here, but so were Hunting and Abraham. How is that possible? The curse—” Lena faltered.

  “You possess both Light and Darkness, a possibility the curse did not account for. None of us did.” There was pain in Gramma’s voice. She was hiding something, and I sensed things were more complicated than she was letting on. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”

  The sound of water splashing echoed through the cavern. I turned in time to see Ridley’s blond and pink hair whip around the corner. Link was right behind her.

  “Guess I really am a Mortal.” Ridley said it with her usual brand of sarcasm, but she looked relieved. “You always have to be different, don’t you? Way to go and screw things up again, Cuz.”

  I heard Lena’s breath catch, and for a second she didn’t move.

  It was all too much. Macon was alive, when Lena believed sh
e’d killed him. She had Claimed herself and remained both Dark and Light. As far as I could tell, she had broken the moon. I knew Lena would fall apart moments from now. When she did, I would be there to carry her home.

  Lena grabbed Ridley and Macon, practically strangling them in her own kind of Caster circle, seeming neither Light nor Dark. Just very tired, but no longer very alone.

  6.22

  The Way Back Home

  I couldn’t sleep anymore. I had crashed hard last night, on the familiar pine-board floor of Lena’s room. We had both passed out, still wearing our clothes. Twenty-four hours later, it was weird to be in my own room, in a bed again, after sleeping between tree roots on muddy forest floors. I had seen too much. I got up and shut my window, in spite of the heat. There were too many things out there to be afraid of, too many to fight.

  It was a wonder anyone in Gatlin slept at all.

  Lucille didn’t have that problem. She was kneading a pile of dirty clothes in the corner, fluffing up her bed for the night. That cat could sleep anywhere.

  Not me. I flipped over. I was having a hard time getting comfortable with comfortable.

  Me, too.

  I smiled. Floorboards creaked, and my door swung open. Lena was standing in my doorway, in my faded Silver Surfer T-shirt. I could see the tip of pajama shorts underneath. Her hair was wet and she was wearing it down again, the way I liked it best.

  “This is a dream, right?”

  Lena closed the door behind her, the slightest twinkle in her gold and green eyes. “Do you mean your kind of dream or mine?” She pulled up the covers and climbed in next to me. She smelled like lemons and rosemary and soap. It had been a long road for both of us. She tucked her head under my chin and leaned against me. I could feel her questions and her fears, beneath the covers with us.

  What is it, L?

  She burrowed deeper into my chest.

  Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive me? I know things won’t be the same—

  I tightened my arms around her, remembering all the times it felt like I’d lost her forever. Those moments wound themselves around me, threatening to crush me under their weight. There was no way I could be without her. Forgiving her wasn’t a question.

  Things will be different. Better.

  But I’m not Light, Ethan. I’m something else. I’m… complicated.

  I reached under the covers and brought her hand to my mouth. I kissed her palm where the swirling black patterns hadn’t disappeared. It almost looked like Sharpie, but I knew it would never fade.

  “I know what you are, and I love you. Nothing can change that.”

  “I wish I could go back. I wish…”

  I pressed my forehead against hers. “Don’t. You’re you. You chose to be yourself.”

  “It’s scary. My whole life, I’ve grown up with Dark and Light. It feels strange not to fit in anywhere.” She flopped onto her back. “What if I’m not anything?”

  “What if that’s the wrong question?”

  She smiled. “Yeah? What’s the right one?”

  “You’re you. Who is that? Who does she want to be? And how can I get her to kiss me?”

  She raised herself on her arms and leaned over my face, letting her hair tickle me. Her lips touched mine, and it was back—the electricity, the current that ran between us. I had missed it, even as it burned my lips.

  But something else was missing.

  I leaned over and opened the drawer of my nightstand, reaching inside. “I think this belongs to you.” I let the chain fall into her hand, her memories spilling between her fingers—the silver button she had fastened on a paper clip, the red string, the tiny Sharpie I gave her on the water tower.

  She stared into her hand, stunned.

  “I added a couple of things.” I untangled the charms so she could see the silver sparrow from Macon’s funeral. It meant something so different now. “Amma says sparrows can travel a long way and always find their way back home. Like you did.”

  “Only because you came to get me.”

  “I had help. That’s why I gave you this.”

  I held up the tag from Lucille’s collar—the one I carried in my pocket while we were searching for Lena and I was watching her through Lucille’s eyes. Lucille looked at me calmly, yawning from the corner of the room.

  “It’s a conduit that allows Mortals to connect with a Caster animal. Macon explained it to me this morning.”

  “You had it all this time?”

  “Yeah. Aunt Prue gave it to me. It works as long as you have the tag.”

  “Wait? How did your aunt end up with a Caster cat?”

  “Arelia gave Lucille to my aunt so she could find her way around the Tunnels.”

  Lena started to untangle the chain, untying the knots that had formed since she lost it. “I can’t believe you found it. When I left it behind, I never thought I’d see it again.”

  She hadn’t lost it. She had taken it off. I resisted the urge to ask her why. “Of course I found it. It’s got everything I’ve ever given you on it.”

  Lena closed her hand around it and looked away. “Not everything.”

  I knew what she was thinking about—my mother’s ring. She had taken off the ring, too, but I hadn’t found it.

  Not until this morning, when I discovered it lying on my desk, as if it had always been there. I reached into the drawer again and opened Lena’s hand, pressing the ring into it. When she felt the cool metal, she looked up at me.

  You found it?

  No. My mom must have. It was sitting on my desk when I woke up.

  She doesn’t hate me?

  It was a question only a Caster girl would ask. Had the ghost of my dead mother forgiven her? I knew the answer. I found the ring lying inside a book Lena loaned me, Pablo Neruda’s Book of Questions, the chain serving as a bookmark under the lines “Is it true that amber contains / the tears of the sirens?”

  My mother had been more of an Emily Dickinson fan, but Lena loved Neruda. It was like the sprig of rosemary I found in my mom’s favorite cookbook last Christmas—something of my mother’s and something of Lena’s, together, as if that was always how it was intended to be.

  I answered Lena by fastening the chain around her neck, where it belonged. She touched it and stared into my brown eyes with her green and gold ones. I knew she was still the girl I loved, no matter what color her eyes were. There was no one color that could paint Lena Duchannes. She was a red sweater and a blue sky, a gray wind and a silver sparrow, a black curl escaping from behind her ear.

  Now that we were together, it felt like home again.

  Lena leaned into me, grazing my lips gently at first. Then she kissed me with an intensity that sent heat buzzing up my spine. I felt her find her way back to me, to our curves and our corners, the places our bodies fit together so naturally.

  “Okay, this is definitely my dream.” I smiled, running my fingers through her incredible mess of black hair.

  I wouldn’t be so sure about that.

  She ran her hands across my chest as I breathed her in. My mouth wandered down her shoulder, and I pulled her closer until I could feel her hipbones digging gently into my skin. It had been so long, and I had missed her so much—the taste of her, the smell of her. I held her face in my hands, kissing her even more deeply, and my heart began to race. I had to stop and catch my breath.

  She looked into my eyes, leaning back on my pillow, careful not to touch me.

  Is it any better? Are you—am I hurting you?

  No. It’s better.

  I looked at the wall and counted silently, steadying my heart.

  You’re lying.

  I slid my arms around her, but she wouldn’t look at me.

  We’ll never really be able to be together, Ethan.

  We’re together now.

  I ran my fingers lightly down her arms, watching goose bumps spring up under my touch.

  You’re sixteen, and I’ll be seventeen in two weeks. We have time.


  Actually, in Caster years, I’m already seventeen. Count the moons. I’m older than you now.

  She smiled a little, and I crushed her in my arms.

  Seventeen. Whatever. Maybe by eighteen we’ll figure it out, L.

  L.

  I sat up in bed, staring at her.

  You know, don’t you?

  What?

  Your real name. Now that you’re Claimed, you know it, right?

  She tilted her head to the side, with a half-smile. I grabbed her up into my arms, my face hovering just above hers.

  What is it? Don’t you think I should know?

  Haven’t you figured it out yet, Ethan? My name is Lena. It’s the name I had when we met. It’s the only name I’ll ever have.

  She knew it, but she wasn’t going to tell me. I understood why. Lena was Claiming herself again. Deciding who she was going to be. Binding us back together with the things we had shared. I was relieved, because she would always be Lena to me.

  The girl I met in my dreams.

  I pulled the cover up over our heads. Though none of my dreams went remotely like this, in a matter of minutes, we were both sound asleep.

  6.22

  New Blood

  For once I wasn’t dreaming. It was Lucille’s hissing that woke me up. I rolled over, Lena curled up next to me. It was still hard to believe she was here and she was safe. It was the thing I had wanted most in the world, and now I had it. How often did that happen? The waning moon outside my bedroom window was so bright, I could see her eyelashes touching her cheek as she slept.

  Lucille leaped off the bottom of my bed, and something moved in the shadows.

  A silhouette.

  Someone was standing in front of my window. It could only be one person, who wasn’t actually a person at all. I bolted upright in bed. Macon was standing in my room, and Lena was under the covers in my bed. Weakened or not, he was going to kill me.

  “Ethan?” I recognized his voice the second I heard it, even though he was trying to be quiet. It wasn’t Macon. It was Link.

  “What the hell are you doing in my room in the middle of the night?” I hissed, trying not to wake Lena.