Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles 4)

“For your protection,” Xavier corrected. “That is what you meant, isn’t it, Angelus? Mortals are caught in the middle of the war. Or have you become something beyond Mortal?”

Angelus shook his head. “It’s clear we aren’t going to agree on this matter.” He started to speak the words of a Cast in low tones.

“What are you doing?” Xavier pointed at Angelus. “Casting? This is not right. We are the balance—we observe and Keep the records. Keepers do not cross the line into the world of magic and monsters!”

Angelus closed his eyes and continued the incantation.

Xavier’s skin seared and blackened, as if it was burnt.

“What are you doing?” he cried.

The charcoal color spread like a rash, the skin tightening as it turned impossibly smooth. Xavier screamed, clawing at his own skin.

Angelus spoke the final word of the Cast and opened his eyes in time to watch Xavier’s hair fall out in tufts.

He smiled at the sight of the man he was destroying. “It seems to me that you are crossing a line right now.”

Xavier’s limbs started to lengthen unnaturally, bones cracking and breaking. Angelus listened. “You should consider having a bit more sympathy for monsters.”

Xavier dropped to his knees. “Please. Have mercy….”

Angelus stood over the Keeper, who was almost unrecognizable. “This is the Far Keep. Removed from the Mortal and Caster worlds. The vows are the words I speak, and the laws the ones I choose.” He pushed Xavier’s devastated body over with his boot.

“There is no mercy here.”

The images faded, replaced by the swirling blue haze. For a second, I didn’t move. I felt like I had just witnessed a man’s execution—and he was standing right next to me. What was left of him.

Xavier looked like a monster, but he was a good guy, trying to do the right thing. I shuddered, thinking about what could have happened to Marian if Macon and John hadn’t gotten there in time.

If I hadn’t made a deal with the Lilum.

At least I knew enough not to regret what I did. As bad as things were, they could have been worse. I knew that now.

“I’m sorry, Xavier.” I didn’t know what else to say.

He put the Third Eye back on the shelf. “That was a long time ago. But I thought you should know what they are capable of, since you are so anxious to get inside. If I were you, I would run the other way.”

I leaned against the cold wall of the cavern. “I wish I could.”

“Why do you want so badly to get in there?”

I was sure he couldn’t think of one good reason. For me, one reason was all I needed.

“Someone added a page in The Caster Chronicles, and I ended up dead. If I can destroy it—”

Xavier reached his hands toward me as if he was going to grab me by the shoulders and shake some sense into me. But he drew them back before he touched me. “Do you have any idea what they’ll do to you if you’re caught? Look at me, Ethan. I’m one of the lucky ones.”

“Lucky? You?” I shut my mouth before I accidentally made it worse. Was he nuts?

“They’ve done this to others, Mortals and Casters alike. It’s Dark power.” His hands were shaking. “Most of them have gone mad, left to wander the Tunnels or the Otherworld like animals.”

It was exactly the way Link had described the creature that attacked him the night Obidias Trueblood died. But what Link had encountered wasn’t an animal. It was a man, or something that had been a man once—driven crazy as his body was mutated and tortured.

I felt sick.

The walls of the Far Keep were hiding more than The Caster Chronicles.

“I don’t have a choice. If I don’t destroy the page, I can’t get back home.” I could almost see his mind spinning. “There has to be a Cast—something in The Book of Stars or one of your books that could help me.”