Beautiful Chaos(32)

“I prefer suspended.”

“And there’s a trial?”

She set her teacup on the table between us and closed her eyes. “Yes. At least, that’s what they are choosing to call it. Don’t think Mortals have a monopoly on hypocrisy. The Caster world is not exactly a democracy, as you might have noticed. The whole free will bit gets a little sidelined in the interest of the rule of law.”

“But you had nothing to do with that. Lena broke the Order.”

“Well, I appreciate your version of events, but you’ve lived in Gatlin long enough to know how versions have a way of changing. Nevertheless, I expect you’ll have your day on the stand.” The lines on Marian’s face had a habit of deepening from lines into shadows when she was really worried. Like now.

“But you weren’t involved.” It was our longest running battle. From the moment I learned Marian was a Keeper—like my mother before her—I knew the one rule that mattered. Whatever was happening, Marian stayed out of it. She was an observer, responsible for keeping the records of the Caster world and marking the place that world intersected with the Mortal one.

Marian kept the history; she didn’t make it.

That was the rule. Whether her heart would allow her to follow it was a different story. Liv had learned the hard way that she couldn’t follow the rule, and now she could never be a Keeper. I was pretty sure my mom had felt the same way.

I picked up the letter again. I touched the thick black wax seal—the same as the seal of the state of South Carolina. A Caster moon over a palmetto tree. As I touched the crescent moon, I heard the familiar melody and stopped to listen. I closed my eyes.



Eighteen Moons, eighteen Sheers,



Feeding off your deepest fears,



Vexed to find as Darkness nears,



Secret eyes and hidden ears…





“Ethan?” I opened my eyes to see Marian looming over me.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s never nothing. Not with you, EW.” She smiled a little sadly at me.

“I heard the song.” I was still tapping my fingers against the sides of my jeans, the melody stuck in my head.

“Your Shadowing Song?”

I nodded.

“And?”

I didn’t want to tell her, but I didn’t see how I was going to get out of it, and I couldn’t manage to make up another version in the space of three seconds. “Nothing good. The usual. A Sheer, a Vex, secrets and darkness.”

I tried not to feel anything, not the lurching in my stomach or the chill spreading through my body while I said it. My mom was trying to tell me something. And if she was sending the song, it meant it was something important. And dangerous.

“Ethan. This is serious.”

“Everything’s serious, Aunt Marian. It’s hard to figure out what I’m supposed to do.”

“Talk to me.”

“I will, but right now I don’t even know what to tell you.” I stood up to leave. I shouldn’t have said anything. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening, and the more Marian pushed, the faster I wanted to get away. “I’d better get going.”

She followed me to the door of the archive. “Don’t be gone so long this time, Ethan. I’ve missed you.”

I smiled and hugged her, looking over her shoulder into the Gatlin County Library—and almost jumped out of my skin.

“What happened?”

Marian looked as surprised as I did. The library was a catastrophic, floor-to-ceiling disaster. It looked like a tornado had struck while we were in the archive. Stacks were leveled, and books were thrown open everywhere, along the tabletops, the checkout counter, even the floor. I’d only seen something like this once before, last Christmas, when every book in the library opened to a quote that had to do with Lena and me.

“This is worse than last time,” Marian said quietly. We were thinking the same thing. It was a message meant for me. Just as it had been then.

“Uh-huh.”

“Well. There we go. Are you feeling Vexed yet?” Marian reached for a book sitting on top of the card catalog. “Because I certainly am.”

“I’m starting to.” I pushed my hair out of my eyes. “Wish I knew the Cast for reshelving books without actually having to pick them all up.”

Marian bent and handed me the first. “Emily Dickinson.”

I opened it as slowly as a person can open a book, and found a random page.

“ ‘Much Madness is divinest Sense…’ ”

“Madness. Great.” What did it mean? And, more important, what did it mean for me? I looked at Marian. “What do you think?”

“I think the Disorder of Things has finally reached my stacks. Go on.” She opened another book and handed it to me. “Leonardo da Vinci.”

Great. Another famous crazy person. I handed it back to her. “You do it.”

“ ‘While I thought that I was learning how to live, I’ve been learning how to die.’ ” She closed the book softly.

“Madness and now death. Things are looking up.”

She put one hand around my neck and let the book slide from her other. I’m here with you. That’s what her hands said. My hands didn’t say anything except that I was terrified, which I was pretty sure she could tell from how hard they were shaking. “We’ll take turns. One reads while the other cleans.”