Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles 4)

“You’re sure you’ll be all right in there?”

Is it really any different for anyone else? Even Ridley? Especially Ridley?

John poked me in the side. “Earth to Lena. Just make some kind of noise so I know you heard me, before I throw you to that lion in there.”

I tried to focus. “Go. I’m fine.”

“Five minutes. That’s all you have,” he said.

“Got it. I’ll only need four.”

He disappeared, and I was alone to deal with my cousin. Dark or Light. Good or evil. Or maybe just somewhere in between.

I needed a better look. I grabbed a cask of wine, pulling it over to the space beneath the window that was cut into the wall. I climbed up and the cask wobbled, threatening to topple, but I managed to balance myself.

I still couldn’t see.

Oh, come on.

I closed my eyes and twisted my hands into the air next to me, pushing myself up toward the ceiling. The light in the room began to flicker.

That’s it.

I wasn’t much for flying, but this was more like levitating. I rose, wobbling, until my Chucks were hovering a few inches above the cask.

Just a little farther. I needed one good look to let me know if my cousin was forever lost, if she had joined the Darkest Incubus alive and would never come home to me again.

One last look.

I pulled myself up, barely level with the small window.

That’s when I saw the bars swerving down from the ceiling, all the way around Ridley in every direction. It was some kind of gold prison. A literal gilded cage.

I couldn’t believe it. Ridley wasn’t lounging on a chaise in the lap of luxury in Abraham’s place. She was trapped.

She turned, and our eyes locked. Rid leaped to her feet, rattling the bars in front of her. For a second, she looked kind of like a damaged Tinkerbell, with a lot of black mascara running down her face, and even more smeared red lipstick.

She’d been crying, or worse. Her arms looked bruised, especially around the wrists. They were marked by some kind of ropes or chains. Shackles, maybe.

The room around her clearly belonged to Abraham—at least that’s what I thought, considering it looked like a mad scientist’s dorm room, with a lone bed next to a crammed bookshelf. A tall wooden table was covered with technical equipment. The place could have belonged to a chemist. Even stranger, the two sides of the window didn’t seem to correlate exactly, in terms of physical space. Looking through the speakeasy window was like looking through a dirty telescope, and I couldn’t tell exactly where the other end lay. It could have been anywhere in the Mortal universe, knowing Abraham.

But that didn’t matter. It was Ridley. It was a terrible thing to see anyone like that, but for my careless, carefree cousin, it seemed especially cruel.

I felt my hair begin to twist in the familiar Caster breeze.

“Aurae Aspirent

Ubi tueor, ibi adeo.

Let the wind blow

Where I see I go.”

I began to twist into nothingness. I felt the world give way beneath me, and when I tried to reach my feet out to touch solid ground, I realized I was now standing next to Ridley.

On the outside of the golden cage.

“Cuz! What are you doing here?” she called out to me, reaching her long pink fingernails through a space in the bars.