The Mortal Heart(6)

Lila Jane knew better than anyone that once the questions took root in her mind, there was no power on Earth that could stop her from finding the answers.

She exhaled, a ripple of excitement expanding through her chest. “And this book? You still have it?” She found herself closing the distance between them. It was more than just the pull of a strangely exotic-looking college boy with a slow Southern drawl; she was on the hunt now, and it wasn’t for a date. It was for meaning—and not just the kind that could be found by translating a few Latin words.

Freedom in Light? It’s not just a prayer. It means something bigger than that. It has to—I can feel it.

“You mean the spell book, if that’s what you want to call it? Of course. Right here in my bag.” He nodded—perhaps a bit smugly, she thought.

It felt like a dare, and she took it. Though, deep down, Lila Jane Evers knew she was the one daring herself.

“Well then.” She tossed her head defiantly.

“Well what?” He looked amused.

“Well then, what are you waiting for, Mr. I-Carry-Around-Nineteenth-Century-Texts-in-My-Bag? Let’s go take a look.”

He paused for a long moment, as if he hadn’t been expecting her response. “Are you sure, Jane? I’m sorry… I mean, Lila Jane?”

“You can call me Jane. My grandfather does.” She shrugged. “So does my best friend.” She didn’t feel like Lila Jane; she felt like Jane, the heroine in a story yet to be written. Lila Jane lived in small towns and did small things. Jane went off with strange classmates in the night to study mysterious parchments—even spells, if that was what they were.

“And I’ve never been more sure about anything in my entire life,” she added.

It was the truth.

As sure as Lila Jane had been that someone was following her, now she was equally sure about the rightness of the boy in front of her.

Of him, and what he could show her.

Suddenly, she wanted to know everything he knew—about the Lux and about anything else he might have seen from his seat in the back of the class.

He drew a pale bare hand out of his jacket pocket. “I’m Macon. Macon Ravenwood.”

She took his hand. It was freezing cold, colder than the night around them, which made no sense, considering it had been in his pocket. “What a grand old Southern name you have, Macon.”

He didn’t smile. “You have no idea. But there’s an all-night coffee shop a few blocks from here, if you have a craving for… research. We could call a cab.”

“Let’s walk. It’s not that cold, and I’ve never been afraid of the dark.”

He raised an eyebrow.

When she finally pulled her tingling hand away from his, she slid it back into her giant pocket with all the other things that couldn’t be explained, and followed Macon into the darkness of Chapel Drive.

Twenty minutes later, in a vinyl booth at the back of a nameless diner, Lila Jane Evers and Macon Ravenwood argued about history and syntax and Latin and Greek, over an old book and nearly as ancient coffee.

They didn’t notice the time until the sun came up again—but by then, even the least perceptive busboy could tell it was too late for both of them.

Lila Jane Evers and Macon Ravenwood were in love.





III. Brotherly Love


Just after dawn, Macon made his way to the Outer Door behind the Perkins Library, which led into the Caster Tunnels—the magical labyrinth of passageways that ran below the Mortal world. He quickly double-checked the surrounding area, but as usual, there was no one. Mortals rarely wandered around behind the library at this hour and even when they did, they never paid attention to what was happening around them.

Except Lila Jane Evers, he thought with a smile. She was easily the smartest and most perceptive Mortal girl he’d ever met. And the most beautiful.

Finally speaking to her, after watching her from the back of the lecture hall more times than he could count, had thrown him off-balance. Jane was no ordinary girl.

But she’s still a Mortal, which makes her off-limits.

Macon slipped through the Doorwell and stepped down into the shadows until his foot found the invisible stair below, as he knew it would. He needed the peace and quiet of his study in the Tunnels to think, and to continue his research. It was the reason he chose to walk instead of Traveling. Materializing whenever and wherever he wanted to go was one of the few perks of being an Incubus—at least if you were born into the Ravenwood line of Blood Incubuses. Maybe one day it would become less disturbing, but Macon found that difficult to imagine.