Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles 4)

Corpses. Just like the ones in the river.

Floating upward, their green hair and blue lips looked like masks on their bloated dead bodies.

Like me, I thought. That’s what I look like, right now. Somewhere—where I still had a body.

I heard Angelus laughing. But I could barely hear, barely think. I wanted to vomit.

I backed away from the water. I knew he was trying to frighten me, and I resolved not to look at it again.

Keep your mind on Lena. Get to the page, and you can go home.

Angelus watched me, laughing harder. He called to me as if I was a child. “Don’t be afraid. Your final death doesn’t have to happen like this. Sarafine failed to achieve the tasks entrusted to her.”

“So you do know her name.” I cracked a smile.

He glared. “I know she failed me.”

“You and Abraham?”

Angelus stiffened. “Congratulations. I see you’ve been digging around in matters that are none of your concern. Which means you’re no smarter than the first Ethan Wate who visited the Great Keep. And no more likely to see the Duchannes Caster you love than he was.”

My whole body went numb.

Of course. Ethan Carter Wate had been here. Genevieve told me.

I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “What did you do to him?”

“What do you think?” A sadistic smile spread across Angelus’ face. “He tried to take something that did not belong to him.”

“His page?”

With every question, the Keeper looked more satisfied. I could tell he was enjoying this. “No. Genevieve’s—the Duchannes girl he loved. He wanted to lift the curse she brought upon herself and the Duchannes children who would come after her. Instead, he lost his foolish soul.”

Angelus looked down into the churning water. He nodded, and a single corpse rose to the surface. Empty eyes that looked too much like my own stared back at me.

“Look familiar, Mortal?”

I knew that face. I would’ve known it anywhere.

It was mine. Or actually, his.

Ethan Carter Wate was still wearing the Confederate uniform he died in.

My heart dropped. Genevieve would never see him again, not in this world or any other. He had died twice, like me. But he would never get back home. Never hold Genevieve in his arms, even in the Otherworld. He had tried to save the girl he loved, and Sarafine and Ridley and Lena and all the other Casters who would come after her in the Duchannes family.

He’d failed.

It didn’t make a guy feel better. Not about standing where I stood. And not about leaving a Caster girl behind, the way we both had.

“You will fail as well.” The words echoed across the cavern.

Which meant Angelus was reading my mind. At this point, it was the least surprising thing happening in the room.

I knew what I had to do.

I emptied my mind the best I could, picturing the old baseball diamond where Link and I used to play T-ball. I watched Link throw a bum pitch in the ninth inning as I stood on home plate punching my glove. I tried to picture the batter. Who was it? Earl Petty, chewing gum, since the coach had outlawed chaw?

I struggled to keep my mind on the game while my eyes did something else.