Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles 3)

“The lock is melted, but I think I can open it.” I looked around and picked up a piece of broken rock. I lifted the rock to get some leverage, when suddenly the metal hinges scraped open. “What the—?” I looked up at Lena, and she shrugged.

“Sometimes my powers still work the way I want them to.” She kicked at a puddle. “Other times, not so much.”

Even though the box was burnt and dented on the outside, it had protected the contents: a silver bracelet with an intricate design, a worn paperback copy of Great Expectations, a photo of Sarafine in a blue dress, with a dark-haired boy at a school dance. There was a cheesy backdrop behind them, like the one Lena and I had posed in front of at the winter formal. There was another photo, tucked under the bracelet—a baby picture of a little girl. I knew it was Lena because the child looked exactly like the baby Sarafine had been holding in her arms.

Lena touched the edge of the baby picture and lifted it above the box. The world around us started to fade, the sunlight quickly turning to darkness. I knew what was happening, but this time it wasn’t happening to me. I was following Lena into the vision, the way she had followed me the day I sat in church with the Sisters. Within seconds the muddy ground turned to grass—

Izabel was shaking violently. She knew what was happening, and it had to be a mistake. It was her deepest fear, the nightmares that had haunted her since she was a child. This wasn’t supposed to happen to her—she was Light, not Dark. She had tried so hard to do the right things, to be the person everyone wanted her to be. How could she be anything but Light, after all that? But as the devastating cold tore through her veins, Izabel knew she was wrong; it wasn’t a mistake. She was going Dark.

The moon, her Sixteenth Moon, was full and luminous now. As she stared at it, Izabel could feel the rare gifts her family was so sure she possessed—the powers of a Natural—being twisted into something else. Soon her thoughts and heart would not be her own. Sorrow, destruction, and hate would force everything else out. Everything good.

Izabel’s thoughts tortured her, but the physical pain was unbearable, as if her body was tearing itself to shreds from the inside. But she forced herself to her feet and ran. There was only one place she could go. She blinked hard, her vision clouded by a golden haze. Tears burned her skin. It couldn’t be true.

By the time she made it to her mother’s house, her breath was ragged. Izabel reached above the door and touched the lintel. But for the first time it didn’t open. She pounded on the door until her hands were cut and bleeding, then she slid to the ground, her cheek resting against the wood.

When the door opened, Izabel fell, her face slamming against the marble floor of the hallway. Even that didn’t compare to the pain raging through her body. A pair of black laceup boots was barely inches from her face. Izabel clutched at her mother’s legs frantically.

Emmaline pulled her daughter up from the floor. “What happened? What is it?”

Izabel tried to hide her eyes, but it was impossible. “It’s a mistake, Mamma. I know how it looks, but I’m still the same. I’m still me.”

“No. It can’t be.” Emmaline grabbed Izabel’s chin so she could see her daughter’s eyes. They were as yellow as the sun.

A girl not much older than Izabel came down the winding staircase, taking the steps two at a time. “Mamma, what’s going on?”

Emmaline whirled around, pushing Izabel behind her. “Go back upstairs, Delphine!”

But there was no way to hide Izabel’s glowing yellow eyes. Delphine froze. “Mamma?”

“I said go upstairs! There’s nothing you can do for your sister!” Their mother’s voice was defeated. “It’s too late.”

Too late? Her mother didn’t mean that—she couldn’t. Izabel wrapped her arms around her mother, and Emmaline jumped as if she’d been stung. Izabel’s skin was as cold as ice.

Emmaline turned, holding Izabel by the shoulders. Tears already marked the woman’s face. “I can’t help you. There’s nothing I can do.”

Lightning streaked across the black sky. A bolt tore down, splitting the huge oak that shaded their house. The splintered trunk crashed down, taking out part of the roof with it. A window shattered upstairs, and the sound of glass breaking echoed through the house.

Izabel recognized the unfamiliar look on her mother’s face.

Fear.

“It’s a mistake. I’m not—” Dark. Izabel couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

“There are no mistakes, not where the curse is concerned. You are Claimed Light or Dark; there is no in between.”

“But Mamma—”

Emmaline shook her head, pushing Izabel across the threshold. “You can’t stay here. Not now.”

Izabel’s eyes went wild. “Gramma Katherine isn’t going to let me live there anymore. I have nowhere else to go.” She was sobbing uncontrollably. “Mamma, please help me. We can fight this together. I’m your daughter!”

“Not anymore.”

Delphine had been silent, but she couldn’t believe what her mother was saying. She couldn’t turn her sister away. “Mamma, it’s Izabel! We have to help her!”

Emmaline looked at Izabel, remembering the day she was born. The day Emmaline had silently chosen her child’s true name. She had imagined the moment she would share it with Izabel—staring into her daughter’s green eyes and tucking her black curls behind her ear as she whispered the name.

Emmaline stared into her daughter’s glowing yellow eyes, then turned away.