Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles 2)

If it wasn’t for Lena, I would be lying in the dirt in His Garden of Perpetual Peace right now. The second sealed cedar box in our family plot.

Had I felt things? Seen things? Had it changed me? I touched the hard line of the scar beneath my shirt. Was it really my scar? Or was it the memory of something that happened to the other Ethan Wate, the one who didn’t come back?

It was all a confusing blur, like the dreams Lena and I shared, or the difference between the two skies Liv had shown me, the night the Southern Star disappeared. Which part was real? Had I unconsciously known what Lena had done? Had I sensed it somewhere below everything else that had happened between us?

If she had known what she was choosing, would she have chosen differently?

I owed my life to her, but I didn’t feel happy. All I felt was brokenness. The fear of dirt and nothingness and being alone. The loss of my mom and Macon and, in a way, Lena. And something else.

The crippling sadness and the incredible guilt of being the one who lived.

Forsyth Park was eerie at dawn. I had never seen it when it wasn’t teeming with people. Without them, I almost didn’t recognize the door to the Tunnels. No trolley bells, no sightseers. No miniature dogs or gardeners trimming azaleas. I thought of all the living, breathing people who would wander through the park today.

“You didn’t see it.” Liv pulled on my arm.

“What?”

“The door. You walked right by it.”

She was right. We had walked past the archway before I recognized it. I almost forgot how subtly the Caster world worked, always hidden in plain sight. You couldn’t have seen the Outer Door in the park unless you were looking for it, and the archway kept it in perpetual shadow, probably a Cast of its own. Link went to work, ratcheting his shears into the crack between the door a

nd the frame as quickly as possible, prying it open with a groan. The dim recesses of the tunnel were even darker than the summer dawn.

“I can’t believe that works.” I shook my head.

“I’ve been thinking about it since we left Gatlin,” Liv said. “I think it makes loads of sense.”

“It makes sense that a crappy pair of garden shears can open a Caster door?”

“That’s the beauty of the Order of Things. I told you, there’s the magical universe and the material universe.” Liv stared up at the sky.

My eyes followed hers. “Like the two skies.”

“Exactly. One isn’t any more real than the other. They coexist.”

“So rusty metal scissors can take on a magic portal?” I don’t know why I was surprised.

“Not always. But where the two universes meet, there will always be some sort of seam. Right?” It made perfect sense to Liv.

I nodded.

“I wonder if a strength in one universe corresponds to a weakness in the other.” She was talking to herself as much as to me.

“You mean, the door is easy for Link to open because it’s impossible for a Caster?” Link had been having a suspiciously easy time with the Doorwells. On the other hand, Liv didn’t know Link had been picking locks since his mom gave him his first curfew, in about sixth grade.

“Possibly. It might account for what’s happening with the Arclight.”

“Or what about this? The Caster doors keep on openin’ because I’m a ragin’ stud.” Link flexed.

“Or the Casters who built these Tunnels hundreds of years ago weren’t thinking about garden shears,” I said.

“Because they were thinkin’ about my extreme studliness, in both universes.” He stuck the shears back in his belt. “Ladies first.”

Liv climbed down into the tunnel. “As if I should be surprised.”

We followed the stairs back down into the still air of the tunnel. It was completely quiet, without even an echo from our footsteps. The silence settled over us, thick and heavy. The air beneath the Mortal world had none of the weightlessness of the air above.

At the bottom of the Doorwell, we found ourselves facing the same dark road that had led us to Savannah. The one that had split into two directions: the forbidding, shadowy street we were on, and the meadow path suffused with light. Directly in front of us, the old neon motel sign was flickering on and off now, but that was the only difference.