Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles 3)

The Bindings. It wasn’t keeping something out of Ravenwood; it was keeping someone in. Just like I thought.

“When did she let you out?”

“Sometime in August, I guess.”

I remembered the day Lena and I came in here to go down into the Tunnels—the rip I thought I’d heard.

“August? You’ve been in here for two months?” Lena was losing it. “You’re the one who’s been helping Ridley. That’s how she’s Casting!”

John laughed, but it sounded like bitterness more than anything. “Helping her? Thanks to your uncle’s library, she’s been using me as her own personal genie. Consider this dump my bottle.”

“But how did she keep Macon from finding you?” Liv was writing down every word.

“An Occultatio, a Concealment Cast. Of course, she made me do it.” He banged the wall with his fist, revealing the black tattoo that snaked its way around his upper arm. Another reminder that he was Dark, no matter what color his eyes were. “Lena’s uncle has a book about almost everything—except how to get out of this place.”

I didn’t want to listen to him complain about the way he’d been treated. I’d hated John since the first time I saw him last spring, and now he had shown up to ruin our lives again. I looked over at Lena, whose face was unreadable, her thoughts closed off.

Was this the way she felt about Liv?

Except Liv hadn’t tried to kidnap my girlfriend and lead most of my friends to their deaths. “That’s funny, because I’ve got a few bottles hanging on a tree in my front yard, and I’d love to stuff you into one of them,” I said.

John appealed to Lena. “I’m trapped. I can’t get out of here, and your nutbag cousin promised to help me. But she needed me to do a few things for her first.”

He ran his hand through his hair, and I noticed he didn’t look as cool as I remembered. In his wrinkled black T-shirt and five o’clock shadow, he looked like he’d been watching soap operas and eating a lot of Doritos. “Ridley’s not a Siren—she’s a

n extortionist.”

“But how have you been helping her if you can’t leave Ravenwood?” Liv asked. It was a good question. “Have you been teaching her to Cast?”

John laughed. “Are you kidding? I turned cheerleaders into zombies and some party into a rumble. You think Ridley could pull off a Furor? She can barely tie her own shoes as a Mortal. Who do you think has been doing her math homework all year?”

“Not me.” Lena was softening, I could tell, and it was killing me. He was like a painful, nasty infection that wouldn’t go away. “Then how is she Casting, if you didn’t teach her?”

John pointed to the belt around Lena’s waist. “That thing.” He yanked on an empty belt loop, at the top of his jeans. “It acts as a conduit. Ridley wears the belt, and I do the Casting.”

The creepy scorpion belt. No wonder she never took it off. It was her lifeline to the Caster world and John Breed—the only way she could have any power of her own.

Liv shook her head. “I hate to say it, but it all makes sense now.”

It did make sense, but that didn’t change anything for me. People lied. And John Breed was a liar, as far as I was concerned. I turned to Lena. “You don’t actually believe any of this? There’s no way we can trust him.”

Lena looked from Liv to me. “What if he’s telling the truth? He knew about the cheerleaders. And the party. I think I agree with Liv. It all makes sense.”

You two are going to start agreeing now?

Ethan. It was a Cast. A Furor Cast makes people uncontrollably angry.

Sure seemed real to me.

I looked at John, skeptical. “There’s no way to know for sure.”

John sighed. “I’m still in the room, you know.”

Lena glanced at the door. “Well, there is one way.”

Liv looked at her, nodding. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Hello?” John looked at me. “Are they always like this?”