Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles 3)

“Why don’t you show them?” Lena smiled at him, and the drapes closest to the altar caught fire. The whole room was beginning to fill with smoke.

“And Macon Ravenwood, he’s—messed up. Okay, I don’t really know what he is. It’s a long story. There’s this ball, and this fire, and some bad, bad Casters…. But you’ve probably read all about that, haven’t you?” John snapped. “In your little Caster spy book.”

Between Marian and Angelus, I didn’t know who looked more surprised.

“Anyway, back to Macon. Powerful guy. He likes to do this trick—come on, don’t be shy.” Macon closed his eyes, and a green glow flared above him. The crowd tried to rush back toward the walls, but there was too much smoke.

“Which leaves me. I’m not a Natural.” John nodded in Macon’s direction. “I’m not whatever he is either.” John grinned. “But the thing about me is, I’ve touched both of them. So now I can do whatever they can do. It’s kinda my thing. Bet you don’t have a Caster like that in your little book, do you?” As the Keeper tried to pull away, John yanked him even closer. “So, Angelus. Let’s go for a spin and see what a strange guy like you can do.”

The Keeper was furious and backed away, holding up his hand, fingers pointed at John. John imitated him, exactly.

There was a flash of light, like lightning—

We were all standing back on the other side of the Temporis Porta.

Even Marian.

12.13

The Day After Forever

Was that real?” Lena whispered. I pointed to the doors, where smoke was snaking out from under the bottom of the wood.

I grabbed Marian and hugged her, at the same time Liv did. I backed away, awkwardly, and Lena took my place.

“Thank you,” Marian whispered.

Macon clapped his hand on John’s arm. “I can’t decide if that was a brilliant act of pure selflessness back there, or if it was simply an attempt to collect all our powers for yourself.”

John shrugged. “I noticed you didn’t give me any skin.” I remembered the cuff of Macon’s shirt pulled down over his hand.

“You aren’t quite ready to share my power. Either way, I owe you greatly. You showed real courage back there. I won’t soon forget it.”

“Oh, come on. Those guys were jerks. It was nothing.” He walked away from Macon, but I could see the pride on his face. I could see it on Liv’s face even more clearly.

Marian took Macon’s arm, and he started helping her back through the tunnel. At the rate they were going, even the short span of the dirt tunnel was going to be a long hike.

“This is ridiculous,” said John, and in a rip we were all gone.

In seconds, we were in Macon’s study.

“What are Angelus’ powers, exactly?” I was still trying to figure out what we had witnessed.

“I don’t know, but he certainly didn’t seem to want us to find out.” Macon was deep in thought.

“Yeah. He got us out of there pretty fast. I didn’t get to touch him,” John said.

“I feel horrible. Do you think I torched that beautiful old room?” Lena was lost in a different thought entirely.

John laughed. “No, I did.”

“It’s an evil room,” Macon said. “We can only hope you did.”

“Why would that guy Angelus involve himself so closely with this case? What could this be, like one page in The Caster Chronicles?” John asked.

Macon helped Marian into a chair. “He loathes Mortals.”

She was still shaking. Macon pulled a blanket from the foot of his bed and wrapped it around her. I remembered Marian doing the same for the Sisters the night of the Vex attack. The worlds—they weren’t two separate universes anymore, Caster and Mortal. It was all crashing together now.