Beautiful Chaos

The Verdict

A few hours later, Lena was shaking me.

Wake up. You have to wake up, Ethan—

I sat up with a start. “I’m awake!” Only I looked around, confused, because it wasn’t Lena shaking me, it was Liv. Even though I could still hear the echo of Lena’s voice lingering in my head.

“Ethan. It’s me. Please—you’ve got to wake up.”

I looked at her through half-open eyes. “Am I dreaming?”

Liv frowned. “I’m afraid not. This is real.”

I rubbed my hand through my hair, confused. It was still pitch-dark outside, and I couldn’t even remember dreaming. I only remembered Lena’s voice and the urgent feeling something was wrong. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Marian. She’s gone. Come on.”

Things were starting to fall into place. I was in my room. Liv was in my room. I wasn’t dreaming. Which meant—

“Wait. How did you get in here?”

Liv looked embarrassed. “I hitched a ride.” She pointed to the scorpion belt around her waist and glanced behind her.

An Incubus was sitting in the corner of my bedroom.

Great.

John picked up my jeans from the floor and tossed them at me. “Hurry up, Boy Scout.” For a guy who didn’t have to sleep, he was as grouchy in the middle of the night as I was.

Liv blushed, turning around, and a few seconds later I heard the familiar ripping sound. Only for the first time, it was for me.

“Where are we?”

Nobody answered. Then I heard John’s voice in the darkness. “No clue.”

“Don’t you have to know where you’re going to rip? Isn’t that the way it works?” I asked.

“Is that some kind of Mortal word for Traveling? Real clever.” He sounded annoyed, which I was used to by now. “Sort of. Usually.”

The shadows were shifting, and I rubbed my eyes, trying to see in the dark. I stretched out my hands, but I couldn’t feel anything.

“Usually?”

“I was following the signal.”

“What signal?”

My eyes adjusted from the darkness of Traveling to the darkness of wherever we had Traveled to. As the blurry shadows lightened from black to gray, I realized we were crammed into a tiny space.

Liv looked at John. “An Ad Auxilium Concitatio. It’s an ancient Homing Cast, like a Caster SOS. But only a Cypher can detect one.”

John shrugged. “I hung out with one at Exile with Rid and—” He didn’t finish, but we all knew who he was talking about. “I picked up some Cypher skills.”

I shook my head. Cyphers? There was so much about Lena’s world I would never understand, no matter how hard I tried.

“You’re a handy guy,” I said, annoyed.

“Who sent it?” Liv asked.

“I did.” Lena was standing behind us in the darkness. I could barely see her face, but her green and gold eyes were shining. She looked over at John. “I was hoping you would pick it up.”

“Glad I’m good for something.”

“The Far Keep is trying Marian for treason. It’s going on right now.” Lena sounded grim. “Uncle Macon went after Marian, but he wouldn’t let me come. He said it was too dangerous.”

Marian was on trial. It was really happening, the way I was afraid it would, ever since the day Liv and I found the Temporis Porta.

Everything I’d been feeling—the doubt, the panic, the wrongness—caught up with me in a crashing wave that nearly knocked my feet out from under me. Like I was drowning. Or falling.

“Don’t worry.” Liv tried to sound reassuring. “I’m sure she’s fine. This whole thing is my fault, not hers. The Council will have to admit that, sooner or later.”

John held up his hand. “Ignis.” A warm yellow flame flickered from the center of his palm.

“New party trick?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Fire was never really my thing. Guess I picked it up from hanging out with Lena.” Normally I would have punched him. At least, I would have wanted to.

Lena grabbed my hand. “These days I can’t even light a candle without torching the place.”

Light flooded the room, and I didn’t have time to hit him, because now I knew exactly where we were. Again.

I was on the other side of the pantry door. Ten feet under my kitchen, in my own house.

I grabbed the old lantern and took off down the crumbling tunnel, toward the door in the ceiling no one ever opened, to the place where the ancient doors would be waiting for me.

“Wait up! You don’t know where this tunnel ends,” John called after me.

“It’s all right,” I heard Liv say. “He knows where he’s going.”

I heard their footsteps behind me, but I only ran faster.

I started banging on the Temporis Porta as soon as I reached it. This time it didn’t open. Splinters dug into my skin, but I didn’t stop pounding on the thick wood.

Nothing I did mattered.

I rested my face against the wood. “Aunt Marian, I’m here! I’m coming.”

Lena came up behind me.

Ethan, she can’t hear you.

I know.

John shoved me aside and touched the surface of the doors with his hand. Then he yanked it away as if the wood burned. “That’s some serious mojo.”

Liv grabbed his hand, but there wasn’t a mark on it. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do to open those doors, unless they want to be opened.” She was talking about the last time they opened—for me. But they weren’t opening this time.

Liv examined the side of the doors, where the carvings were clearest.

“There has to be a way.” I threw myself back against the thick, carved planks. Nothing. “We have to think of something. Who knows what they might do to Marian.”

Liv looked away. “I can imagine. But we can’t help her if we can’t get inside. Give me a minute.” She pulled her red notebook out of her worn leather backpack. “I’ve been trying to figure out these symbols since the first time we saw them.”

Lena shot me a look. “The first time?”

Liv didn’t look up. “Didn’t Ethan tell you? He found these doors weeks ago. They let him pass, but they left me behind. And he wouldn’t tell me much about what he saw on the other side. But I’ve been studying the doors ever since.”

“Weeks ago?”

“I haven’t the exact date,” Liv answered.

Ethan?

I can explain. I was going to tell you the night at the Cineplex, but you were already mad because I had invited Liv to the party.

Secret doors? With your secret friend? And something secret you found behind them? Why would that make me mad?

I should’ve told you. It’s not like you’re worried about Liv.

I wasn’t getting off that easy. I tried not to look at Lena, focusing on a page of sketches in Liv’s red notebook. “That’s it.” I recognized the symbols in her notebook.

Liv held the paper up against the symbols carved into the doors, moving it from one wooden panel to the next, as she compared them. “See the recurring pattern in these three circles?”

“The Wheel,” I said automatically. “You said they were the Wheel of Fate.”

“Yes, but perhaps not only the Wheel of Fate. I think each circle might represent one of the Three Keepers. The Council of the Far Keep.”

“The ones who showed up in the archive?” Lena asked.

She nodded. “I’ve read everything I could find about them, which isn’t much. From what I can determine, the Three Keepers must have been the ones who visited us.”

I thought about it. “It makes sense. The first time I went through those doors, I ended up at the Far Keep.”

“So you think these signs stand for the three of them?” John looked over at me. “Those freaks that wanted to take Liv?”

I nodded. “And Marian.” He seemed more concerned about Liv than Marian, which didn’t surprise me, but it still made me angry. Like just about everything that came out of his mouth.

Liv ignored us both, pointing to the first circle, the one with the fewest spokes. “I think this one represents what’s happening now, the present. And this”—she pointed to the second circle, the one crossed with more spokes—“symbolizes what has been. The past.”

“Then what’s that one?” John pointed to the last circle, the one with no spokes.

“What will never be, or what will always be.” Liv traced the drawing with her finger. “In other words, the future.”

“If each of these symbols represents one of the Keepers, then which is which?” I asked.

Lena studied the circle with the most spokes. “I think that huge guy is the past. He was carrying that empty hourglass when we saw him in the archive.”

Liv nodded. “I agree.”

I reached out and touched the circles. They were hard and cool, different from the texture of the rest of the wooden door. I moved my hand to the empty circle, with no spokes. “The woman from the Council, the one who looked albino. She’s what hasn’t happened yet, right? The future? Because she’s nothing. I mean, she was practically invisible.”

Liv reached up to the circle with the fewest spokes. “Which would make the tall one the present.”

The light in the room flickered, and John looked frustrated. “This sounds like a whole lot of crap. What will be? What won’t be? What are you talking about?”

“What will be and what will not be are equally possible and impossible,” Liv explained. “I guess you could say they are the absence of history, the place The Caster Chronicles cannot touch. You can’t tell a story or Keep a record of what hasn’t happened yet. That’s Keeper 101.” Liv sounded dreamy, and I wondered what she knew about The Caster Chronicles.

“The Caster what?” John shifted the light from one hand to the other.

“It’s a book,” Lena said, without taking her eyes off the doors. “The Keepers had it with them when they came to see Marian.”

“Whatever.” John looked bored. “If you’re talking about the future, how about we call it that?”

Liv nodded. “But you have to remember, we’re not just talking about the Mortal future. We’re talking about everything unknown, for Casters and Mortals. Including the unknown realm, the place where the Demon world touches our own.”

“Demon world?” I felt the prickling of recognition. I had to tell Liv. “I know the place where the Demon world touches ours. I mean, I don’t know it, but I know her. The Lilum. The Demon Queen.”

Liv went pale, but it was John who was the most freaked out. “What are you talking about?”

“The Lilum thing—”

“There’s no Lilum here.” Liv was shaking her head. “The very presence of the Lilum in our world would mean the total destruction of existence itself.”

“What does that have to do with her?” I asked.

“Her? Is that who you were talking about? The she who told you about the Eighteenth Moon was the Lilum? The Demon Queen?” Liv knew from the look on my face that she was right.

“Great,” John muttered.

Liv froze. “Where is the place, Ethan?” She closed her eyes, which made me think she knew what I was going to say.

“I don’t know for sure. But I can find it. I’m the Wayward. The Lilum said it herself.” I touched the circles again with my hands, over and over, feeling the rough wood beneath my fingers.

The past. The present. The future that will be, and the future that will not.

The way.

The wood began to hum beneath my hands. I touched the carved circles again.

The color drained from Liv’s face. “The Lilum said that to you?”

I opened my eyes, and everything was clear. “When you look at the door, you see a door, right?”

Liv nodded.

I looked at her. “I see a path.”

It was true. Because the Temporis Porta was opening for me.

The wood turned to mist, and I slid my hand right through. Beyond it, I could see a path leading into the distance. “Come on.”

“Where are you going?” Liv grabbed my arm.

“To find Marian and Macon.” This time, I made sure to grab Liv and Lena before I stepped inside the door. Liv grabbed John’s hand.

“Hold on.” I took a breath and ducked into the mist—