Lena looked confused. “You mean about dating Mortals?”
John winced again, cringing this time. “No, it wasn’t like that. The way I was raised was because I was different. The man who raised me was the only father I’ve ever known, and he didn’t want me to hurt anyone.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone either.”
“You’re different. I mean, we are.”
John grabbed Lena’s hand and pulled her next to him. “Don’t worry. We’ll find your cousin. She probably ran off with that drummer from Suffer.” He was right about the drummer, just not the one he was betting on. Suffer? Lena was hanging out with John’s kind, in places called Exile and Suffer. She thought that’s what she deserved.
Lena didn’t say anything else, but she didn’t let go of his hand. I tried to force myself to follow them, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have control. That much was obvious from this bizarre vantage point, so close to the ground. I was always looking up at them. It didn’t make any sense. But it didn’t matter, because now I was running again, through a dark tunnel. Or was it a cave? I could smell the sea as the black walls streaked by.
I rubbed my eyes, surprised to be walking behind Liv instead of lying on the ground. It was crazy to think I could be watching Lena in one place and following Liv through the Tunnels at the same time. How was it possible?
The strange visions, with the off-kilter perspective and the flashing images—what was happening? Why was I able to see Lena and John? I had to figure it out.
I looked down at my hands. I wasn’t holding anything except the Arclight. I tried to think back to the first time I saw Lena this way. It was in my bathroom, and I didn’t have the Arclight then. The only thing I’d been touching
was the sink. There had to be a common thread, but I couldn’t see it.
Ahead, the tunnel opened up into a stone hall, where the entrances to four tunnels converged.
Link sighed. “Which way?”
I didn’t answer. Because when I looked down at the Arclight, I saw something else just beyond it.
Lucille.
Sitting in the mouth of the tunnel opposite us, expectantly. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the silver tag Aunt Prue had given me, with Lucille’s name engraved on it. I could still hear Aunt Prue’s voice.
See you still got that cat. I was just waitin’ for the right time ta let her offa that clothesline. She knows a trick or two. You’ll see.
In a split second, everything fell into place and I knew.
It was Lucille.
The images speeding past me every time I found my way to Lena and John. The ground so close, closer than it could ever be if I was standing. The strange vantage point, as if I was lying on my stomach looking up at them. It all made sense. The way Lucille kept disappearing and reappearing randomly. Only it wasn’t random.
I tried to remember the times Lucille had vanished, ticking them off in my head one by one. The first time I saw Lena with John and Ridley, I was staring into my bathroom mirror. I didn’t remember Lucille disappearing, but I remembered she was sitting on the front porch the next morning. Which didn’t make any sense, because we never left her outside at night.
The second time, Lucille had bolted in Forsyth Park when we got to Savannah, and she didn’t show up until after we left Bonaventure—after I had seen Lena and John when I was at Aunt Caroline’s. And this time, Link noticed Lucille was gone when we came back down into the Tunnels, but now here she was, sitting in front of us, right after I had just seen Lena.
I wasn’t the one seeing Lena.
Lucille was. She was tracking Lena, the same way we were following the maps or the lights or the pull of the moon. I was watching Lena through the cat’s eyes, maybe the same way Macon had watched the world through Boo’s. How was it possible? Lucille wasn’t a Caster cat any more than I was a Caster.
Was she?
“What are you, Lucille?”
The cat looked me in the eye and cocked her head to the side.
“Ethan?” Liv was watching me. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” I shot Lucille a meaningful look. She ignored me, sniffing the tip of her tail gracefully.
“You realize she’s a cat.” Liv was still staring at me curiously.
“I know.”