Angelus swept out of the room, the other Keepers right behind him.
I let out the breath I was holding. “Where are they going?”
“They have to give you a chance, or they will be perceived as unjust.”
“Perceived as unjust?” Was he serious? “Are you saying no one’s caught on to that before?”
“The Council is feared. No one questions them,” Xavier said. “But they are also proud.
Especially Angelus. He wishes his followers to believe he is giving you a chance.”
“But he’s not?”
“That depends on you now.” Xavier turned to me with something resembling a sad expression
on what was left of his human face. “I can’t help you. Not beyond this, my friend.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m not going back there. I can’t,” he said. “Not to the Chamber of the Chronicles.”
Of course. The room that housed the book. It had to be close.
I looked at the row of doors beyond us, bordering one side of the room. I wondered which one
led to the end of my journey—or to the death of my soul.
“You can’t go back there? And I can? Don’t chicken out on me now.” I lowered my voice.
“You just took on Angelus. You made a deal with the Devil. You’re my hero.”
“I am no hero. As I said, I am your friend.”
Xavier couldn’t do it. Who could blame the guy? The Chamber of the Chronicles must have
been some kind of house of horrors for him. And he had put himself in enough danger already.
“Thanks, Xavier. You’re a great friend. One of the best.” I smiled at him. The look he gave me
in return was sobering.
“This is your journey, dead man. Yours alone. I can go no farther.” He put his arm on my
shoulder, pressing heavily.
“Why do I have to do everything alone?” As soon as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true.
The Greats had sent me on my way.
Aunt Prue made sure I got a second chance.
Obidias told me everything I needed to know.
My mom gave me the strength to do it.
Amma watched for me, and believed it when she found me.
Lena sent me The Book of Moons, against all odds and all the way from the other side of the
universe. Aunt Marian and Macon, Link and John and Liv—they were there for Lena when I
couldn’t be.
Even the River Master and Xavier had helped me move forward, when all along it would have
been so much easier to give up and go back.
I had never been alone. Not for a minute.
I may have been a Wayward, but my way was full of people who loved me. They were the
only way I knew.
I could do this.
I had to.
“I understand,” I said. “Thanks, Xavier. For everything.”
He nodded. “I will meet you again, Ethan. I will see you when next you cross the river.”
“I hope it’s not for a long time.”
“I hope this as well, my friend. For you more than me.” His eyes seemed to twinkle for a
second. “But I will keep busy collecting and counting until you return.”
I didn’t say anything as he slipped through the shadows and back into the world where nothing
ever happened and the days became the same as nights.
I hoped he would remember me.
I was pretty sure he wouldn’t.
One by one, I touched the row of doors in front of me with my hand. Some felt as cold as ice.
Some felt like nothing, like plain wood. There was only one that pulsed beneath my fingertips.
Only one burned at my touch.
I knew it was the right door, before I saw the telltale Caster circles carved into the rowan
wood, just like the Temporis Porta.
This was the doorway to the heart of the Great Keep. The one place any son of Lila Jane Evers
Wate would instinctively find his way, whether or not he was a Wayward.
The library.
Pushing my way through the massive doors directly across from the Temporis Porta, I knew it
was time to face the most dangerous part of my journey.
Angelus would be waiting.
The doors were just the beginning. The moment I stepped into the inner chamber, I found myself
standing in an almost entirely reflective room. If it was supposed to be a library, it was the strangest
one I’d ever seen.
The crumbling stones beneath my feet, the stubbled cave walls, the ceiling and floor that grew
into stalactites and stalagmites as the room circled back upon itself—they all seemed to be made of
some kind of transparent gemstone, cut into a thousand impossible facets that reflected the light in
every direction. It looked like I was standing in one of the eleven jewelry boxes in Xavier’s
collection.
Except less claustrophobic. A small opening in the ceiling let in enough natural light to catch the
whole room in a dizzying glow. The effect reminded me of the tidal cave where we’d first met
Abraham Ravenwood, on the night of Lena’s Seventeenth Moon. In the center of this room, there
was a pond of water the size of a swimming pool. The body of milky white water churned as if
there was a fire beneath it. It was the color of Sarafine’s sightless opaque eyes, before she died….
I shuddered. I couldn’t think about her, not now. I had to focus on surviving Angelus.
Defeating him. I took a deep breath and tried to get my bearings. What was I dealing with?
My eyes fixed on the bubbling white liquid. In the center of the pool, a small stretch of earth
rose above the water, like a tiny island.
In the center of the island was a pedestal.
On the pedestal was a book, surrounded by candles that flickered with strange green and gold
flames.
The book.
I didn’t need someone to tell me which book it was, or what it was doing here. The reason
there was an entire library devoted to only one book, and with a moat around it.
I knew exactly why it was here, and why I was.
It was the only part of this whole journey I understood. The only thing that was perfectly clear
from the moment Obidias Trueblood told me the truth about what had happened to me. It was The
Caster Chronicles, and I was here to destroy my page. The one that killed me. And I had to do it
before Angelus could stop me.
After all I’d learned about being a Wayward and finding my way—this was where it led. There
was no way left to go, no more path to find.
I was at the end.
And all I wanted was to go back.
But first I had to get to that island—to the pedestal and The Caster Chronicles. I had to do what
I’d come here to do.
A shout from across the room startled me. “Mortal Boy. If you leave now, I will leave you
your soul. How’s that for a challenge?” Angelus appeared on the other side of the pool. I wondered
how he got over there, and I wished there were as many ways to leave this room as there were to
enter it.
Or at least, as many ways home.
“My soul? No, you won’t.” I stood at the edge of the pool and chucked a rock into the
bubbling water, watching it disappear. I wasn’t stupid. He would never let me go. I would end up
like Xavier or Sarafine. Black wings or white eyes—it didn’t make a difference. In the end, we were
all bound in his chains, whether you could see them or not.
Angelus smiled. “No? I suppose that’s true.” He gestured with his hand, and at least a dozen
rocks rose into the air around him. They fired themselves at me, one after another, hitting with
uncanny accuracy. I flung my arms across my face as a rock sailed past.
“Very mature. What are you going to do now? Tie me up and stick me in your old boneyard?
Blind and chained like an animal?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t want a Mortal pet.” He twisted his finger, and the water began
to spin into a kind of whirlpool. “I’ll just destroy you. It’s easier for all of us. Though not much of
a challenge.”
“Why did you torture Sarafine? She wasn’t a Mortal. Why bother?” I shouted.
I had to know. It felt like our fates were tied together somehow—mine, Sarafine’s, Xavier’s,
and those of all the other Mortals and Casters Angelus had destroyed.
What were we to him?
“Sarafine? Was that her name? I had almost forgotten.” Angelus laughed. “Do you expect me
to concern myself with every Dark Caster who ends up here?”
The water churned violently now. I knelt and touched it with one hand. It was freezing cold
and sort of slimy. I didn’t want to swim through it, but I couldn’t tell if there was another way
across.
I looked up at Angelus. I didn’t know how this whole challenge thing was going to take shape,
but I thought it was better to keep him talking until I figured it out. “Do you blind every Dark Caster
and make them fight to the death?”
I looked back at the water. It rippled where I had touched it, turning clear and calm.
Angelus folded his arms, smiling.
I kept my hand in the water as the transparent current spread across the pool, though my hand
was going numb. Now I could see what was really beneath the milky surface.
Corpses. Just like the ones in the river.
Floating upward, their green hair and blue lips looked like masks on their bloated dead bodies.
Like me, I thought. That’s what I look like, right now. Somewhere—where I still had a body.
I heard Angelus laughing. But I could barely hear, barely think. I wanted to vomit.
I backed away from the water. I knew he was trying to frighten me, and I resolved not to look
at it again.
Keep your mind on Lena. Get to the page, and you can go home.
Angelus watched me, laughing harder. He called to me as if I was a child. “Don’t be afraid.
Your final death doesn’t have to happen like this. Sarafine failed to achieve the tasks entrusted to
her.”
“So you do know her name.” I cracked a smile.
He glared. “I know she failed me.”
“You and Abraham?”
Angelus stiffened. “Congratulations. I see you’ve been digging around in matters that are none
of your concern. Which means you’re no smarter than the first Ethan Wate who visited the Great
Keep. And no more likely to see the Duchannes Caster you love than he was.”
My whole body went numb.
Of course. Ethan Carter Wate had been here. Genevieve told me.
I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “What did you do to him?”
“What do you think?” A sadistic smile spread across Angelus’ face. “He tried to take something
that did not belong to him.”
“His page?”
With every question, the Keeper looked more satisfied. I could tell he was enjoying this. “No.
Genevieve’s—the Duchannes girl he loved. He wanted to lift the curse she brought upon herself and
the Duchannes children who would come after her. Instead, he lost his foolish soul.”
Angelus looked down into the churning water. He nodded, and a single corpse rose to the
surface. Empty eyes that looked too much like my own stared back at me.
“Look familiar, Mortal?”
I knew that face. I would’ve known it anywhere.
It was mine. Or actually, his.
Ethan Carter Wate was still wearing the Confederate uniform he died in.
My heart dropped. Genevieve would never see him again, not in this world or any other. He had
died twice, like me. But he would never get back home. Never hold Genevieve in his arms, even in
the Otherworld. He had tried to save the girl he loved, and Sarafine and Ridley and Lena and all the
other Casters who would come after her in the Duchannes family.
He’d failed.
It didn’t make a guy feel better. Not about standing where I stood. And not about leaving a
Caster girl behind, the way we both had.
“You will fail as well.” The words echoed across the cavern.
Which meant Angelus was reading my mind. At this point, it was the least surprising thing
happening in the room.
I knew what I had to do.
I emptied my mind the best I could, picturing the old baseball diamond where Link and I used
to play T-ball. I watched Link throw a bum pitch in the ninth inning as I stood on home plate
punching my glove. I tried to picture the batter. Who was it? Earl Petty, chewing gum, since the
coach had outlawed chaw?
I struggled to keep my mind on the game while my eyes did something else.
Come on, Earl. Knock it out of the park.
I glanced at the pedestal, then at the corpses floating at my feet. More bodies continued to rise,
bumping into one another like sardines packed in a can. It wouldn’t be long until they were so close
that I wouldn’t even be able to see the water.
If I waited, maybe I could use them as stepping stones….
Stop! Think about the game!
But it was too late.
“I wouldn’t try it.” Angelus watched me from the other side of the pool. “No Mortal can
survive that water. You need the bridge to cross, and as you can see, it’s been removed. A security
precaution.”
He held his hand in front of him, twisting the air into a current I could feel all the way across
the water.
I had to brace myself to stay on my feet.
“You will not retrieve your page. You will die the same dishonorable death as your namesake.
The death all Mortals deserve.”
“Why me, and why him? Why any of us? What did we ever do to you, Angelus?” I shouted at
him over the wind.
“You are inferior, born without the gifts of Supernaturals. Forcing us to stay in hiding while
your cities and schools fill with children who will grow to do nothing more than occupy space.
You’ve turned our world into our prison.” The air picked up, and he twisted his hand further. “It’s
absurd. Like building a city for rodents.”
I waited, picturing that stupid baseball game—Earl swinging, the crack of the bat—until the
words formed, and I spoke them. “But you were born a Mortal. What does that make you?”
His eyes widened, his face a mask of pure rage. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.” I turned my mind to the vision I’d seen, forcing myself to remember the
faces, the words. Xavier, when he was just a Caster. Angelus, when he was just a man.
The wind increased, and I stumbled, the edge of my sneaker splashing at the edge of the pool
of bodies. I braced myself, willing my feet not to slip.
Angelus’ face had turned even paler than before. “You know nothing! Look what you
sacrificed—to save what? A town full of pathetic Mortals?”
I closed my eyes, letting the words find him.
I know you were born a Mortal. All those experiments can’t change that. I know your secret.
His eyes widened, hate raging across his face. “I am not a Mortal! I never was, and I never will
be!”
I know your secret.
The wind picked up, and rocks flew again through the air—harder this time. I tried to shield
my face as they pelted my ribs, smashing against the wall behind me. A trail of blood ran down my
cheek.
“I will tear you to shreds, Wayward!”
I screamed over the din. “You may have powers, Angelus, but deep down, you’re still a
Mortal, just like me.”
You can’t harness Dark forces like Sarafine and Abraham, or Travel like an Incubus. You
can’t cross that water any more than I can.
“I am not Mortal!” he screamed.
Nobody can.
“Liar!”
Prove it.
There was a second, one terrible second, when Angelus and I stared across the water at each
other.Then, without a word, Angelus flung himself into the air, lunging across the corpses in the pool
—as if he couldn’t contain himself a moment longer. That’s how desperate he was to prove he was
better than me.
Better than a Mortal.
Better than anyone else who ever tried to walk on water.
I had been right.
The rotting corpses were packed so tight that he ran right over their bodies until they started to
move. Arms reached for him, the hundreds of bloated hands rising up out of the water. This was
not like the river I had crossed to get here.
This river was alive.
An arm slithered over his neck, weighing him down.
“No!”
I shuddered as his voice echoed against the walls.
The corpses tore at his robe desperately, pulling him down into the abyss of loss and misery.
The same souls he had tortured were drowning him.
His eyes locked on mine. “Help me!”
Why should I?
But there was nothing I could do, even if I’d wanted to. I knew those corpses would drown
me. I was Mortal, just as Angelus was—at least part of him.
Nobody walks on water, not where I come from. Nobody except the guy in the picture frame
in Sunday school class.
Too bad Angelus wasn’t from Gatlin; he would’ve known that.
His hands clawed at the surface of the water until there was nothing left but a sea of bodies
again. The stench of death was everywhere. It was suffocating, and I tried to cover my mouth, but
the distinct odor of rot and decay was too strong.
I knew what I’d done. I wasn’t innocent. Not in Sarafine’s death, and not in this one either. He
was reading my mind and I had pushed him to this, even if his hate and pride had propelled him into
the pool.
It was too late.
A rotted arm slid around his neck, and within seconds he disappeared under the sea of bodies.
It was a death I wouldn’t have wished on anyone.
Not even Angelus.
Maybe just him.
Within moments, the pool turned milky white again, though I knew what was lurking
underneath.
I shrugged. “Wasn’t much of a challenge after all.”
I had to find the bridge, or something I could use to cross.
The splintering plank wasn’t well hidden. I found it in an alcove only a few yards from where
Angelus stood moments ago. The wood was dry and cracked, which wasn’t reassuring,
considering what I had just witnessed.
But the book was so close.
As I slid the plank over the surface of the water, I could practically feel Lena in my arms and
hear Amma hollering at me. I couldn’t think straight. All I knew was I had to get across that water
and get back to them.
Please. Let me cross. All I want is to go home.
With that thought, I took a breath.
Then a step.
Then another.
I was five feet from the edge of the water now, maybe six.
Halfway across. There was no turning back now.
The bridge was surprisingly light, though it creaked and wobbled with my every step. Still, it
had held up so far.
I took a deep breath.
Five more feet.
Four—
I heard a crash like a wave behind me. The water began to thrash. I felt a shooting pain in my
leg as it gave way beneath me. The old board snapped like a broken toothpick.
Before I could scream, I lost my balance, falling into the deadly water. Only then there wasn’t
any water—or if there was, I wasn’t in it.
I was in the arms of the rising dead.
Worse.
I was face to face with the other Ethan Wate. He was as much a skeleton as he was a man, but
I recognized him now. I tried to pull away, but he grabbed me around the neck with a bony hand.
Water poured out of his mouth, where his teeth should have been. I’d had nightmares less
terrifying.
I turned my head to keep corpse drool from my face.
“Could a Mortal Cast an Ambulans Mortus?” Angelus pushed past the dead who crowded
around me, pulling my arms and legs in every direction with such force I thought my limbs would
rip right out of their sockets. “From under the water? To wake the dead?” He stood triumphantly on
the land, in front of the book. Looking crazier than I’d thought even a crazy-looking Keeper could.
“The challenge is over. Your soul is mine.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t speak. Instead, I found myself staring into Ethan Wate’s empty
eyes.
“Now. Bring him to me.”
At Angelus’ command, the corpses rose from the stinking water, pulling me with them up onto
the shore. The other Ethan tossed me onto the dirt like I was weightless.
As he did, a small black stone rolled out of my pocket.
Angelus didn’t notice. He was too busy staring at the book. But I saw it clear enough.
The river’s eye.
I had forgotten to pay the River Master.
Of course. You couldn’t just expect to cross the water anytime you wanted. Not around here.
Not without paying a price.
I picked up the rock.
Ethan Wate, the dead one, whipped his head toward me. The look he gave me—if that’s what
you’d call it, considering the guy barely had eyes—sent a shiver down my spine. I felt sorry for
him. But I sure didn’t want to be him.
Between the two of us, we owed each other that much.
“So long, Ethan,” I said.
With my last remaining bit of strength, I hurled the rock into the water. I heard it hit, making
only the tiniest sound.
You wouldn’t have noticed it unless you were me.
Or one of the dead.
Because they disappeared a few seconds after the rock hit the water. About as quickly as it
took a rock to sink all the way down to the bottom of a pool of bodies.
I fell back on the tiny stretch of dry land, exhausted. For a second, I was too scared to move.
Then I saw Angelus standing there, glued to the book, reading in the light of the flickering
green and gold flames.
I knew what I had to do. And I didn’t have long to do it.
I pulled myself to my feet.
There it was. It was open on the pedestal, right in front of me.
In front of Angelus, too.
THE CASTER CHRONICLES
I reached for the book, and it burned my fingers.
“Don’t,” Angelus growled, grabbing my wrist. His eyes were shining, as if the book had some
strange hold on him. He didn’t even look up from the page. I’m not sure he could.
Because it was his page.
I could almost read it from where I stood, a thousand rewritten words, one crossed out over
the next. I could see the quill, ink-stained at the tip, almost twitching in his fingers next to the book.
So this was how he’d done it. How he’d forced the supernatural world to bend to his will. He
controlled the story. Not just his, but all of ours.
Angelus had changed everything.
One person could do that.
And one person could change it back.
“Angelus?”
He didn’t answer. Staring into the book, he looked more like a zombie than the corpses did.
So I didn’t look. Instead, I closed my eyes and pulled on the page, as hard and as fast as I
could.
“What are you doing?” Angelus sounded frantic, but I didn’t open my eyes. “What have you
done?”
My hands were burning. The page wanted to rip free from me, but I wouldn’t let go. I only
held on tighter. Nothing was going to stop me now.
It came off in my hands.
The ripping sound reminded me of an Incubus, and I half expected to see John Breed or Link
appear next to me. I opened my eyes.
No such luck. Angelus reached for the page, shoving me in one direction while pulling my arm
in another.
I grabbed a dripping candle from the pedestal stand and lit the bottom of the page on fire. It
began to smoke and flame, and Angelus howled with rage.
“Leave it! You don’t know what you’re doing! You could destroy everything—” He threw
himself at me, punching and kicking, almost ripping my shirt off. His nails raked my skin, again and
again, but I didn’t let go.
I didn’t let go when I felt the flames sear their way down to my fingers.
I didn’t let go when the ink-smeared page crumbled into ash.
I didn’t let go until Angelus himself crumbled into nothing, as if he was made of parchment.
Finally, when the wind had blown every last trace of the Keeper and his page into oblivion, I
found myself staring at my burnt, blackened hands.
“My turn.”
Ducking my head, I flipped through the delicate pages of parchment. I could see dates and
names at the top, penned by different hands. I wondered which ones Xavier had written. If Obidias
had changed anyone else’s page. I hoped he wasn’t the one who changed Ethan Carter Wate’s.
I thought of my namesake and shuddered, fighting to keep the bile down.
That could have been me.
Halfway through the book, I found our pages.
Ethan Carter’s was right before mine, the two pages clearly written by different hands.
I skimmed Ethan Carter’s page until I reached the part of the story I already knew. It read like
a script of the vision I had witnessed with Lena, the story of the night he died and Genevieve used
The Book of Moons to bring him back. The night that started it all.
I stared at the edge where the page met the binding. I almost tore it out, but I knew it wouldn’t
have made a difference. It was too late for the other Ethan.
I was the only one who still had a chance to change his fate.
Finally, I turned the page to find I was staring at Obidias’ script.
Ethan Lawson Wate
I didn’t read my page. I couldn’t risk it. I could already feel the pull of the book on my eyes,
powerful enough to Bind me to my page, forever.
I looked away. I already knew what happened in the end of this revision.
Now I was changing it.
I tore the page, the edges pulling away from the binding in a flash of electricity stronger and
brighter than lightning. I heard what sounded like thunder in the sky above me, but I kept tearing.
This time, I kept the candles as far from the parchment as I could.
I pulled until the words came loose, disappearing like they had been written in invisible ink.
I looked down at the page again and it was blank.
I let it drop into the water around me, watching as it fell through the milky depths, vanishing
into the endless shadow of the chasm.
My page was gone.
And in that second, I knew I was, too.
I stared at my Chucks beneath me
until they were gone
and I was gone
and it didn’t matter anymore….
because
there
was
nothing
beneath
me
now
and
then
no
me
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