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.