Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles 2)

“They actually said they were going to the Great Barrier? Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Why?” I could feel the Arclight, suddenly warm in my pocket.

“The Great Barrier is one of the most ancient Caster myths. A place of powerful old magic, long before there was Light or Dark—a sort of Nirvana. No logical person believes it really exists.”

“John Breed does.”

Liv looked up at the sky. “Or so he says. It’s rubbish, but it’s powerful rubbish. Like thinking the Earth is flat. Or that the sun orbits the Earth.” Like Galileo. Of course.

I had come here looking for a reason to go back to bed, back to Jackson and my life. An explanation for why I could see Lena in my bathroom mirror that didn’t mean I was crazy. An answer that didn’t lead back to Lena. But I found the opposite.

Liv kept talking, oblivious to the sinking stone in my stomach, and the one burning in my pocket. “The legends say if you follow the Southern Star, you’ll eventually find the Great Barrier.”

“What if the star isn’t there?” With that one thought, another began to stir, and then another, all coming loose in my mind.

Liv didn’t answer because she was frantically adjusting her telescope. “It has to be there. There must be something wrong with my telescope.”

“What if it’s gone? The galaxy changes all the time, right?”

“Of course. By the year three thousand, Polaris won’t be the North Star anymore, Alrai will be

. It means ‘the shepherd’ in Arabic, since you asked.”

“By the year three thousand?”

“Exactly. In a thousand years. A star can’t suddenly disappear, not without a serious cosmic bang. It’s not a subtle thing.”

“ ‘This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.’ ” I remembered the line from a T. S. Eliot poem. Lena couldn’t get it out of her head, before her birthday.

“Yes, well, I love the poem, but the science is a bit off.”

Not with a bang but a whimper. Or was it not with a whimper but a bang? I couldn’t remember the exact words, but Lena had written it into a poem on the wall of her bedroom when Macon died.

Had she known where this was going all along? I had a sick feeling in my stomach. The Arclight was so hot, it was singeing my skin.

“There’s nothing wrong with your telescope.”

Liv studied her selenometer. “I’m afraid something is off. It’s not just the scope. Even the numbers don’t follow.”

“Hearts will go and Stars will follow.” I said it without thinking, as if it was any old song stuck in my head.

“What?”

“Seventeen Moons. It’s nothing, just a song I keep hearing. It has something to do with Lena’s Claiming.”

“A Shadowing Song?” She looked at me in disbelief.

“Is that what it is?” I should’ve known it would have a name.

“It foreshadows what’s to come. You’ve had a Shadowing Song this whole time? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I shrugged. Because I was an idiot. Because I didn’t like to talk about Lena with Liv. Because horrible things came out of that song. Take your pick.

“Tell me the whole verse.”

“There’s something about spheres, and a moon before her time appears. Then it says the part about the stars following where the hearts go.… I can’t remember the rest.”

Liv sank down onto the top step of the porch. “A moon before her time appears. Is that exactly what the song said?”