Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles 4)

“The Greats, right?” I hoped so.

She nodded. “If they answer.”

If they answered? Was there a chance they wouldn’t?

Amma pointed to the ground at my feet. “Lena, I need you to bring me the Book.”

I lifted the dusty leather volume and felt the power pulsing through it like a heartbeat.

“The Book’s not gonna want to go,” Amma explained. “It wants to stay here, where it can cause trouble. Like your cousin there.” Ridley rolled her eyes, but Amma only looked at me. “I’ll call the Greats, but you need to keep a hand on it till they take it.”

What was it going to do? Fly away?

“Everyone else, make that circle. Hold hands nice and tight.”

After Ridley and Link bickered about holding hands, and Reece refused to hold hands with Ridley or John, they finally completed the circle.

Amma glanced over at me. “The Greats haven’t been exactly happy with me. They may not come. And if they do, I can’t promise they’ll take the Book.”

I couldn’t imagine the Greats being upset with Amma. They were her family, and they had come to our rescue more than once.

We just needed them to do it one more time.

“I need the Casters to concentrate everything you got inside the circle.” Amma bent down and filled the shot glass with Wild Turkey. She drank the shot and then refilled it for Uncle Abner. “I don’t care what happens—you send the power my way.”

“What if you get hurt?” Liv asked, concerned.

Amma stared back at Liv, her expression twisted and broken. “Can’t get any more hurt than I am already. You just hold on.”

Uncle Macon stepped forward, dropping Aunt Del’s hand. “Would it help if I assisted you?” he asked Amma.

She pointed a shaky finger at him. “You get outta my circle. You can do your part from there.”

I felt a surge of heat from the Book, as if its anger flared to meet Amma’s.

Uncle Macon stepped back and joined hands with everyone else. “One day you will forgive me, Amarie.”

Her dark eyes narrowed to meet his green ones. “Not today.”

Amma closed her eyes, and my hair began to curl involuntarily as she spoke the words only she could.

“Blood a my blood,

and roots a my soul,

I’m in need a your intercession.”

The wind began to whip around me within the circle, and lightning cracked overhead. I felt the heat of the Book joining with the heat of my hands, the heat I could command—to burn and destroy.

Amma didn’t stop, as if she was talking to the sky.

“I call you to carry what I cannot.

To see what I cannot.

To do what I cannot.”

A green glow surged from Uncle Macon’s hands and spread around the circle from one hand to the next. Gramma closed her eyes, as if she was trying to channel Macon’s power. John noticed and closed his eyes, too, and the light intensified.