Beautiful Darkness

Wayward Soul

The first moment hung in the air, silent and awkward. The second erupted into noisy confusion. Link yelled at Liv, who yelled at me, and I yelled at Marian, who waited for us to stop.

"What are you doin' here?"

"Why did you leave me at the fair?"

"What is she doing here, Aunt Marian?"

"Come in." Marian pulled the paneled door open and stepped back to let us pass. The door banged shut behind me, and I heard her bolt the lock. I felt a surge of panic, or claustrophobia, which didn't make any sense because the room wasn't small. But it felt close. The air was heavy, and I had the feeling that I was standing someplace very private, like a bedroom. Like the laughter, it felt familiar, even if it wasn't. Like the face in the stone.

"Where are we?"

"One question at a time, EW. I'll answer one of yours, and you'll answer one of mine."

"What's Liv doing here?" I don't know why I was angry, but I was. Could anybody in my life be a normal person? Did everyone have to have a secret life?

"Sit. Please." Marian gestured to the circular table in the center of the room.

Liv looked irritated, and got up from her spot on the bed in front of an impossibly lit fireplace, the smoldering fire white and bright instead of orange and burning.

"Olivia is here because she is my summer research assistant. Now I have a question for you."

"Wait. That's not a real answer. I already knew that." I was every bit as stubborn as Marian was. My voice echoed across the chamber, and I noticed an intricate chandelier hanging from the high, vaulted ceiling. It was made of some kind of smooth, white polished horn, or was it bone? The ironwork held long tapered candles that lit the room with a delicate flickering light, illuminating some corners while leaving others dark and unexposed. In the shadows of the far corner, I noticed the spindles of a tall, ebony four-poster bed. I had seen a bed exactly like it somewhere before. Everything about today was one monster deja vu, and it was driving me crazy.

Marian sat back in her chair, undeterred. "Ethan, how did you find this place?"

What could I say with Liv standing next to me? I thought I heard Lena, sensed her? But my instincts led me to Liv instead? I didn't understand it myself.

I looked away. Black wooden bookcases ran from floor to ceiling, crammed with books and objects of curiosity that were obviously the personal collection of someone who had been around the world and back more times than I had been to the Stop & Steal. A collection of antique bottles and vials lined one of the shelves, like in an old apothecary. Another was stacked with books. It reminded me of Amma's room, without the stacks of old newspapers and jars of graveyard dirt. But one book stood out from the others: Darkness and Light: The Origins of Magic.

I recognized it -- and the bed, and the library, and the immaculate arrangement of beautiful things. This room could only belong to one person, who wasn't even a person. "This was Macon's room, wasn't it?"

"Possibly."

Link dropped a strange ceremonial dagger he had been playing with. It clattered to the floor, and he tried to put it back on the shelf, flustered. Dead or not, Macon Ravenwood still scared Link plenty.

"I'm guessing a Caster Tunnel connects it directly to his bedroom at Ravenwood." This room was almost a mirror image of his bedroom in Ravenwood, with the exception of the heavy drapes that blocked out the sunlight.

"It may."

"You brought that book down here because you didn't want me to see it after I had the vision in the archive."

Marian answered carefully. "Let's say you're right, and this is Macon's private study, the place where he collected his thoughts. Even so, how did you find us tonight?"

I kicked the thick Indian rug under my feet. It was black and white, stitched in a complicated pattern. I didn't want to explain how I found this place. It was confusing. And if I said it, it might be true. But how could it be? How could my instincts lead me to anyone but Lena?

Then again, if I didn't tell Marian, I'd probably never get out of this room. So I settled for half of the truth. "I was looking for Lena. She's down here with Ridley, and her friend John, and I think she's in trouble. Lena did something today, at the fair --"

"Let's just say, Ridley was bein' Ridley. But Lena was bein' Ridley, too. The lollipops might be workin' overtime." Link was unwrapping a Slim Jim, so he didn't notice me staring him down. I hadn't planned on telling Marian or Liv the details.

"We were in the stacks, and I heard a girl laughing. She sounded -- I don't know -- happy, I guess. I followed her here. I mean, her voice. I can't really explain it." I stole a glance at Liv. I saw the pink flush in her pale skin. She was staring at a particular spot of nothing on the wall.

Marian clapped her hands together, the sign of a great discovery. "I'm guessing the laughter was familiar."

"Yeah."

"And you followed it without a thought. More of an instinct."

"You could say that." I wasn't sure where this was going, but Marian had that mad scientist look in her eye.

"When you're with Lena, can you sometimes speak to her without words?"

I nodded. "You mean, Kelting?"

Liv looked up at me, shocked. "How could a regular Mortal possibly know about Kelting?"

"That is an excellent question, Olivia." The way the two of them were looking at each other irritated me. "One that deserves an answer." Marian walked to the shelves, rummaging through Macon's library like she was looking for car keys in her purse. Watching her flip through his books bothered me, even though he wasn't here to see it.

"It just happened. We sort of found each other in our heads."

"You can read minds, and you didn't tell me?" Link stared at me like he just found out I was the Silver Surfer. He rubbed his head nervously. "Hey, man, all that stuff about Lena? I was yankin' your chain." He looked away. "Are you doin' it now? You're doin' it, aren't you? Dude, get out of my head." He backed away from me and into the bookshelf.

"I can't read your mind, you idiot. Lena and I can hear each other's thoughts sometimes." Link look relieved, but he wasn't getting off that easy. "What were you thinking about Lena?"

"Nothin'. I was messin' with you." He pulled a book off the shelf and pretended to look through it.

Marian took the book out of Link's hands. "There it is. Exactly the book I was looking for." She opened the tattered leather volume, flipping through the crackling pages so quickly it was obvious she was looking for something specific. It looked like an old textbook or reference manual.

"There." She held the book out to Liv. "Does any of this sound familiar?" Liv leaned closer, and they started to turn the pages together, nodding. Marian straightened and took the book from Liv. "Now. How can a regular Mortal Kelt, Olivia?"

"He can't. Unless he's not a regular Mortal, Professor Ashcroft." They were smiling at me like I was a kid who had taken his first steps, or like someone was about to tell me I had a terminal illness, and the combined effect made me want to bolt.

"You mind letting me in on the joke?"

"It's no joke. Why don't you see for yourself?" Marian handed me the book.

I looked at the page. I was right about the textbook part. It was some kind of Caster encyclopedia, with drawings and languages I didn't understand on every page. But some of it was in English. "The Wayward." I looked up at Marian. "Is that what you think I am?"

"Keep going."

"The Wayward: the one who knows the way. Synonyms: dux,speculator,gubernator. General. Scout. Navigator. The one who marks the path." I looked up, confused.

For once, Link wasn't. "So he's like a human compass? As far as superpowers go, that's pretty lame. You're like the Caster equivalent of Aquaman."

"Aquaman?" Marian didn't read a lot of comics.

"He talks to fish." Link shook his head. "Not exactly X-ray vision."

"I don't have any superpowers." Did I?

"Keep reading." Marian pointed to the page.

"Since before the Crusades, we have served. We have had many names, and none. Like the whisper in the ear of China's first emperor as he contemplated the Great Wall, or the loyal companion at the side of Scotland's most valiant knight as he toiled for his country's independence, Mortals with great purpose have always had those who guided them. As the lost vessels of Columbus and Vasco da Gama had those who guided them to New Worlds, we exist to guide Casters whose paths hold great meaning. We are --" I couldn't make sense of the words.

Then I heard Liv's voice next to me, as if she had committed the words to memory. "The one who finds what is lost. The one who knows the way."

"Finish it." Marian was suddenly serious, as if the words were some kind of prophecy.

"We are given to the great, for great purpose, to great ends. We are given to the grave, for grave purpose, to grave ends." I closed the book and handed it back to Marian. I didn't want to know any more.

Marian's expression was difficult to read. She turned the book over and over in her hands and looked at Liv. "Do you think?"

"It's possible. There have been others."

"Not for a Ravenwood. Or a Duchannes, for that matter."

"But you said it yourself, Professor Ashcroft. Lena's decision carries consequences. If she chooses to go Light, all the Dark Casters in her family will die, and if she choose to go Dark ..." Liv didn't finish. We all knew the rest. All the Light Casters in her family would die. "Wouldn't you say her path holds great meaning?"

I didn't like the way this conversation was going, even though I wasn't completely sure where it was headed. "Hello? I'm sitting right here. Want to clue me in?"

Liv spoke slowly, as if I was a kid at the library for a read aloud. "Ethan, in the Caster world, only those with great purpose have a Wayward. Waywards don't come along often, maybe once in a century, and never by accident. If you are a Wayward, you're here for a reason -- a great or terrible purpose, all your own. You're a bridge between worlds for Casters and Mortals, and whatever you do, you have to be very careful."

I sat down on the bed, and Marian sat next to me. "You have a destiny of your own, like Lena. Which means things could become very complicated."

"You think these past few months haven't been complicated?"

"You have no idea of the things I've seen. The things your mother saw." Marian looked away.

"So you think I'm one of those Waywards? I'm a human compass or something, like Link said?"

"It's more than that. Waywards don't just know the way. They are the way. They guide Casters along the path they are destined to take, a path they might not otherwise find on their own. You might be the Wayward for a Ravenwood or a Duchannes. It's not clear which at the moment." Liv seemed to know what she was talking about, which didn't make sense. That's what my mind kept going back to as I stumbled over what they were saying.

"Aunt Marian, tell her. I can't be one of these Waywards. My parents are regular Mortals." Nobody said the obvious, that my mom had been a part of the Caster world, like Marian, only in a way no one would ever talk about, at least not to me.

"Waywards are Mortals, a bridge between the Caster world and ours." Liv reached for another book. "Of course, your mother was hardly what you could call a regular Mortal, any more than I am, or Professor Ashcroft."

"Olivia!" Marian froze.

"You don't mean --"

"His mother didn't want him to know. I promised, if anything were to happen --"

"Stop!" I slammed the book down on the table. "I'm not in the mood for your rules. Not tonight."

Liv fidgeted with her science experiment of a watch, nervously. "I'm such an idiot."

"What do you know about my mother?" I turned on Liv. "Tell me right now."

Marian crumpled into the chair next to me. The pink spots on Liv's cheeks flushed. "I'm so sorry." She shook her head, looking from Marian to me, helplessly.

Marian held up her hand. "Olivia knows all about your mother, Ethan."

I turned to Liv. I knew what she was going to tell me, before she said it. The truth had been pushing its way into my mind. Liv knew too much about Casters and Waywards, and she was here, in the Tunnels, standing in Macon's study. If I hadn't been so confused about what they thought I was, I would've realized what Liv was. I don't know why it had taken me this long to see it.

"Ethan."

"You're one of them, like Aunt Marian and my mom."

"Them?" Liv asked.

"You're a Keeper." The words made it real, and I was feeling everything and nothing at the same time -- my mom, down here in the Tunnels with Marian's massive ring of Caster keys. My mom with her secret life, in this secret world my father and I had never been, and could never be, part of.

"I'm not a Keeper." Liv looked embarrassed. "Not yet. One day, maybe. I'm training."

"Training to be more than the Gatlin County librarian, which is why you're here, in the middle of nowhere with your fancy scholarship. If there is one. Or was that a lie, too?"

"I'm a terrible liar. I do have a scholarship, but it's paid by a society of scholars that far predates Duke University."

"Or the Harrow School."

She nodded. "Or Harrow."

"What about the Ovaltine? Was that even true?"

Liv smiled ruefully. "I'm from Kings Langley, and I do love Ovaltine, but if I'm to be perfectly honest, I've come to prefer Quik since arriving in Gatlin."

Link sat down on the bed, speechless. "I don't understand a word she's sayin'."

Liv turned the pages of the book until a timeline of Keepers appeared. My mom's name stared back at me. "Professor Ashcroft is right. I studied Lila Evers Wate. Your mother was a brilliant Keeper, a tremendous writer. It's part of my coursework to read the notes left by the Keepers who have come before me."

Notes? My mom had notes Liv had seen, and I hadn't? I resisted the urge to punch a hole through the wall. "Why? So you don't make the mistakes they made? So you don't end up dead in an accident nobody saw and no one can explain? So you don't leave your family behind, wondering about your secret life and why you never told them about it?"

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 deja 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.

"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.