Beautiful Chaos(126)

“You left her a note?” I asked.

“It just said good-bye… and some other stuff. It didn’t say where I was going.”

I shook my head. “She’s Liv. You didn’t know she’d figure it out?”

She held up her wrist. The dials were practically exploding off her selenometer. “The One Who Is Two? You didn’t think I would instantly know it was you? If you hadn’t walked in on me writing about it, I would never have even told you.”

“Liv.”

“I’ve been trying to find a way around this for months now.” She closed her eyes.

He reached out for her. “I’ve been trying to find a way around you.”

“You don’t have to do this.” Liv shook her head, and John pulled her close against his chest, kissing her forehead.

“Yeah. I do. For once in my life, I want to be the guy who does the right thing.”

Liv’s blue eyes were red from crying. “I don’t want you to go. We only just—I never had a chance. We never had a chance.”

He put his thumb on her lip. “Shh. We did. I did.” He looked out into the night, but he was still talking to her. “I love you, Olivia. This is my chance.”

She didn’t respond, except for the tears running down her face.

He took a step toward me, pulling me up by the arm. “Take care of her for me, will you?”

I nodded.

He leaned closer. “If you hurt her. If you touch her. If you let anyone break her heart, I will find you and kill you. And then I’ll keep hurting you from the other side. Understand?”

I understood better than he knew.

He let go of me and took his jacket off. He handed it to Liv. “Keep it. To remember me by. And there’s something else.” He reached into one of the pockets. “I don’t remember my mother, but Abraham said this belonged to her. I want you to have it.” It was a gold bracelet with an inscription in Niadic, or some other Caster language only Liv would know how to read.

Liv’s knees buckled, and she started sobbing.

John held her so tight that the tips of her toes were barely touching the ground. “I’m glad I finally met someone I wanted to give it to.”

“Me, too.” She could barely speak.

He kissed her gently and stepped away from her.

He nodded at me.

And threw himself over the edge of the railing.

I heard her voice, echoing through the darkness. The Lilum.

The Balance is not paid.

Only the Crucible can make the sacrifice.





12.20





The Wrong One


When I opened my eyes, I was back in my bedroom. I stared up at my blue ceiling, trying to figure out how I got here. We had ripped, but it couldn’t have been because of John. I knew that much, because he was lying on my bedroom floor, unconscious.

It must have been someone else. Someone who was more powerful than an Incubus. Someone who knew about the Eighteenth Moon.

Someone who had known everything, all along—including the one thing I was just starting to figure out for myself, right now.

Liv was shaking John, still sobbing. “Wake up, John. Please, wake up.”

He opened his eyes for a second, confused. “What the hell?”

She threw her arms around him. “Not hell. Not even heaven.”

“Where am I?” He was disoriented.

“My room.” I sat up and leaned against the wall.

“How did I get here?”

“Don’t ask.” I wasn’t about to try to explain that the Lilum had somehow transported us here.

I was more worried about what it meant.

It wasn’t John Breed.

And there was someone I had to talk to.





12.21





Plain English


I knocked on the door and stood waiting in a pale yellow circle of porch light. I stared at the door, shifting my weight uncomfortably, my hands jammed in my pockets. Wishing I wasn’t there. Wishing my heart would stop pounding.

She was going to think I was crazy.

Why wouldn’t she? I was beginning to think so myself.

I saw the bathrobe first, then the fuzzy slippers and the glass eye.

“Ethan? What are you doing out there? Are you with Mitchell?” Mrs. English peeked outside, patting her plastic curlers as if there was a way to make them look more attractive.

“No, ma’am.”

She looked disappointed and switched to her classroom voice. “Do you have any idea how late it is?”

It was nine.

“Can I come in for a minute? I really need to talk to you.”

Well, not you. Not you exactly.

“Now?”

“It’ll only take a minute. It’s about The Crucible.”

Just not the one you taught us about.

That finally got her, like I knew it would.


I followed her into the parlor for the second time, but she didn’t remember. The collection of ceramic figurines on the mantel over the fireplace was lined up perfectly again, as if nothing had ever happened there. The only giveaway was the spidery plant. It was gone. I guess some things were too broken to fix.

“Please have a seat, Ethan.”