Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles 2)

6.20

Army of One

Macon was insistent. He was in no condition to go anywhere, but he knew we didn’t have a lot of time, and he was determined to go with us. I didn’t argue, because even a weakened Macon Ravenwood was more resourceful than four powerless Mortals. I hoped.

I knew where we had to go. The moonlight was still pouring through the ceiling of the coastal cave in the distance. By the time Liv and I helped Macon navigate the shoreline leading to the moonlit cave, one painstaking step at a time, he had finished asking me his questions and I was asking him mine. “Why would Sarafine call up the Seventeenth Moon now?”

“The sooner Lena is Claimed, the sooner the Dark Casters will have secured their fate. Lena is growing stronger every day. They know the longer they wait, the more likely she is to make up her own mind. If they know the circumstances surrounding my demise, I imagine they want to take advantage of Lena’s vulnerable state.”

I remembered when Hunting told me that Lena killed Macon. “They know.”

“It’s of the utmost importance that you tell me everything.”

Ridley fell into step alongside Macon. “Ever since Lena’s birthday, Sarafine’s been summoning power from the Dark Fire to become powerful enough to raise the Seventeenth Moon.”

“You mean that crazy bonfire she started back in the woods?” The way Link said it, I was pretty sure he imagined a trash can burning by the lake at night.

Ridley shook her head. “That wasn’t the Dark Fire. It was a manifestation, like Sarafine. She created it.”

Liv nodded. “Ridley’s right. The Dark Fire is the source of all magical power. If Casters channel their collective energy back into the source, it becomes exponentially more powerful. A sort of supernatural atomic bomb.”

“You mean it’s gonna blow up?” Link didn’t look as sure about hunting down Sarafine now.

Ridley rolled her eyes. “It won’t blow up, Genius. But the Dark Fire can do some serious damage.”

I looked up at the full moon and the beam of moonlight creating a direct path into the cavern. The moon wasn’t feeding the fire. The power of the Dark Fire was being channeled into the moon. That’s how Sarafine called the moon out of time.

Macon was watching Ridley carefully. “Why would Lena agree to come here?”

“I convinced her, me and this guy John.”

“Who is John, and how does he fit into all this?”

Ridley was biting her purple nails. “He’s an Incubus. I mean, a hybrid, anyway. Part Incubus and part Caster, and he’s really powerful. He was obsessed with the Great Barrier and how everything would be perfect if we got here.”

“Did this boy know Sarafine would be here?”

“No. He’s a true believer. Thinks the Great Barrier will solve all his problems, like it’s some kind of Caster Utopia.” She rolled her eyes.

I could see the anger in Macon’s eyes. The green reflected his emotions in a way the black never had. “How is it that you and a boy who isn’t even a full-blooded Incubus were able to talk Lena into something so absurd?”

Ridley looked away. “It wasn’t hard. Lena was in a bad place. I think she believed there was nowhere else for her to go.” It was hard to look at the blue-eyed Ridley without wondering how she felt about the Dark Caster she was only a few days ago.

“Even if Lena felt responsible for my death, why would she think she belonged with the two of you, a Dark Caster and a Demon?” Macon didn’t say it with spite, but I could tell the words stung Ridley.

“Lena hates herself and thinks she’s going Dark.” Ridley glanced at me. “She wanted to go to a place where she wouldn’t hurt anyone. John promised he’d be there for her when no one else would.”

“I would have been there for her.” My voice echoed off the rock walls surrounding us.

Ridley looked right at me. “Even if she went Dark?”

It all made sense. Lena was guilt-ridden and tormented, and John was there with all the answers, in ways I couldn’t be.

I thought about how long he and Lena had been alone together, how many nights, how many dark Tunnels. John wasn’t a Mortal. Her touch wouldn’t kill him with its intensity. John and Lena could do anything they wanted—all the things Lena and I could never do. An image crept into my mind, the two of them curled up together in the darkness. The way Liv and I had been in Savannah.

“There’s something else.” I had to tell him. “Sarafine didn’t do this alone. Abraham has been helping her.”

Something passed across Macon’s face, but I couldn’t pin it down. “Abraham. That’s no surprise.”