Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles 2)

“But.” I had to know the end, even if it hurt to hear.

“But your mother followed Macon to Gatlin, through the Tunnels. She couldn’t bear to be away from him, and she swore to find a way they could be together. A way Casters and Mortals could spend their lives together. She was obsessed with the idea.”

I understood. I didn’t like it, but I understood.

“The answer to that question did not lie in the Mortal world but in the Caster world. So your mother found a way to become part of it, even if she couldn’t be with Macon.”

We started walking again. “You’re talking about her job as a Keeper, right?”

Marian nodded. “Lila found a calling that allowed her to study the Caster world and its laws, its Light and its Darkness. A way to look for the answer.”

“How did she get the job?” I didn’t think there was a Caster Yellow Pages, but since Carlton Eaton delivered our Yellow Pages aboveground and the Caster mail below, who knew?

“At the time, there was no Keeper in Gatlin.” Marian paused, uncomfortable. “But a powerful Caster requested one, since the Lunae Libri resides here and, at one time, The Book of Moons.”

Now it all made sense.

“Macon. He asked for her, didn’t he? He couldn’t stay away, after all that.”

Marian wiped her face with a handkerchief. “No. It was Arelia Valentin, Macon’s mother.”

“Why would Macon’s mother want my mom to be a Keeper? Even if she felt sorry for her son, she knew they couldn’t be together.”

“Arelia is a powerful Diviner, capable of seeing fragments of the future.”

“Like a Caster version of Amma?”

Marian wiped her face. “I guess you could think of it that way. Arelia recognized something in your mother, her ability to find the truth—to see what is hidden. I think she was hoping your mother would find the answer, a way Casters and Mortals could be together. Light Casters have always hoped for that possibility. Genevieve wasn’t the first Caster to fall in love with a Mortal.” Marian looked off into the distance, where families were beginning to lay out their picnics on the sloping grass. “Or maybe she did it for her son.”

Marian stopped walking. We had made another circle and were standing at Macon’s grave. I could see the angel weeping in the distance. Only the grave looked nothing like it had at his funeral. Where there had only been dirt, now there was a wild garden shaded by two impossibly tall lemon trees, flanking either side of the headstone. In the shade, a bed of spreading jasmine and tangles of rosemary grew over his grave. I wondered if anyone had visited him today to notice.

I pressed my hands against my temples, trying to keep my head from exploding. Marian laid her hand gently on my back. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but it doesn’t change anything. Your mother loved you.”

I shrugged Marian’s hand away. “Yeah, she just didn’t love my dad.”

Marian jerked my arm, forcing me to face her. My mother may have been my mom, but she was also Marian’s best friend, and I wasn’t going to get away with questioning her integrity in front of Marian. Not today, or any day. “Don’t you say that, EW. Your mother loved your father.”

“But she didn’t move to Gatlin for my dad. She moved here for Macon.”

“Your parents met at Duke when we were working on our dissertation. As the Keeper, your mother was living in the Tunnels underneath Gatlin, traveling between the Lunae Libri and the university to work with me. She wasn’t living in the town, in the world of the DAR and Mrs. Lincoln. So she did move to Gatlin for your father. She moved out of the darkness and into the light, and believe me, it was a big move for your mom. Your father saved her from herself when none of us could. Not me. Not Macon.”

I stared at the lemon trees shading Macon’s grave, and past them, to my mom’s gravesite. I thought about my dad kneeling there. I thought of Macon, braving the Garden of Perpetual Peace, if only so he could rest one tree over from my mom.

“She moved into a town where no one accepted her, because your father wouldn’t leave, and she loved him.” Marian held my chin between her thumb and her fingers. “She just didn’t love him first.”

I took a deep breath. At least my whole life wasn’t a total lie. She loved my dad, even if she loved Macon Ravenwood, too. I took the Arclight from Marian’s hand. I wanted to hold it, to have a piece of both of them. “She never found the answer, the way Mortals and Casters can be together.”

“I don’t know if there is a way.” Marian put her arm around me, and I leaned my head on her shoulder. “You’re the one who might be a Wayward, EW. You tell me.”

For the first time since I saw Lena standing in the rain, almost a year ago, I didn’t know. Like my mom, I hadn’t found any answers. All I had found was trouble. Was that what she found, too?

I looked at the box in Marian’s hands. “Is that why my mom died? Trying to find the answer?”

Marian took my hand and pressed the box into it, wrapping my fingers around it with hers. “I’ve told you what I know. Draw your own conclusions, but I can’t interfere. Those are the rules. In the great Order of Things, I don’t matter. Keepers never do.”

“That’s not true.” Marian mattered to me, but I couldn’t say it. My mom mattered. That part I didn’t have to say.

Marian smiled as she lifted her hand, leaving the box in mine. “I’m not complaining. I chose this path, Ethan. Not everyone gets to choose their place in the Order of Things.”