Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles 3)

I took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

“And?” It was a question.

I knew the answer now. “I know who I am. And what I have to do.”

“Who are you?” The question hung in the air.

I looked up toward the sky, letting the sun fall on my face. I said the words I had been dreading, since the moment they first whispered themselves in the deepest, darkest reach of my mind.

“I am the One Who Is Two.” I shouted it as loud as I could. “I have one soul in the Mortal world and one soul in the Otherworld.” My voice sounded different. Sure. “The One Who Is Two.”

I waited in the silence. It was a relief to finally say it, like a crushing weight had been lifted off my back. Like I had been holding up the burning blue sky.

“You are. There is no other.” There wasn’t a trace of emotion in her voice. “The price must be paid to forge the New Order.”

“I know.”

“It is a crucible. A severe test. You must be sure. By the solstice.”

I stood there for a long time. I felt the cool air and the stillness. I felt all the things I hadn’t felt since the Order had changed.

“If I do this, then everything goes back to the way it was. Lena will be okay without me. The Council of the Far Keep will leave Marian and Liv alone. Gatlin will stop drying up and cracking open.” I wasn’t asking. I was bargaining.

“Nothing is certain. But—” I stood there and waited for the Lilum to answer. “There will be order again. A New Order.”

If I was going to die, there was one more thing I wanted. “And Amma won’t have to pay whatever price she owes the bokor.”

“That bargain was made willingly. I cannot alter it.”

“I don’t care! Do it anyway!” But I knew she wouldn’t, even as I said it.

“There are always consequences.”

Like me. The Crucible.

I closed my eyes and thought about Lena and Amma and Link. Marian and my dad. My mom. All the people I loved.

All the people I’d lost.

The people I couldn’t risk losing.

There wasn’t a lot to decide. Not as much I thought there would be. I guess some decisions are made before you make them. I took a step and found my way back into the light. “Promise me.”

“It is binding. An oath. A promise, as you call it.”

That wasn’t good enough. “Say it.”

“Yes. I promise.” Then she said a word that wasn’t in any language or even any kind of sound I could understand. But the word itself sounded like thunder and lightning, and I understood the truth in it.

It was a promise.

“Then I’m sure.”

A second later, I was standing in Lilian English’s parlor again, while she lay collapsed in the flowered chair. I could hear my father’s voice coming from the other end of the phone in her hand.

“Hello? Hello—”

My brain shifted to autopilot. I picked up the phone, hung up on my dad, and called 911 for the very Mortal Lilian English. I had to put the phone down without saying a word, because Sissy Honeycutt worked dispatch down at the station house, and she’d recognize my voice for sure. I couldn’t get caught at my unconscious English teacher’s house twice. But it didn’t matter. Now they had the address. They would send out the ambulance, like they did before.