“Of course.” Liv opened her familiar red notebook.
“And? Have you found anything like him in any of the Kept family records? Anything that could explain the existence of our mysterious hybrid, the elusive John Breed?”
I guess you’re right.
Liv spread out two sheets of parchment that I recognized immediately. The Duchannes and Ravenwood Family Trees. “There are only four likely occurrences—at least, according to the Council of the Far Keep.”
The council of what?
Later, Ethan.
Liv was still talking. “One of which is Sarafine Duchannes’ parents: Emmaline Duchannes, a Light Caster, and your father, Silas Ravenwood, a Blood Incubus. Lena’s grandparents.” Liv looked up, her cheeks reddening.
Macon dismissed the possibility. “Emmaline is an Empath, a Caster gift certainly not capable of resulting in a hybrid Incubus that can walk in the daylight. And obviously our hybrid is too young to be a result of that particular union.”
Lena shuddered, and I squeezed her hand.
They’re looking at all those crazy family trees, L. None of it means anything.
Not yet.
Lena rested her head against my shoulder, and I leaned closer to the door to listen.
“That leaves three possible candidates for producing a Dark Caster-Incubus hybrid. There is no Light and Light pairing, of course, since there are no…”
“Light Incubuses, as I was in my previous form? That is correct. Incubuses are Dark by nature. I know that perhaps better than anyone, Miss Durand.” Liv closed her notebook, looking uncomfortable, but Macon waved her off. “Don’t worry. I don’t bite. Never took to human blood. I found it all a bit distasteful.”
Liv continued. “If John Breed was some sort of mixed-blood Supernatural, it’s not by accident. It’s unprecedented, unrecorded, and as far as Dr. Ashcroft’s Keeping archives date back, unKept. It’s as if the record of any such birth has been completely struck from the Lunae Libri altogether.”
“Which proves what we already suspected. This boy is more than just an Incubus who can walk in the sunlight. No one would go to this much trouble to hide his lineage otherwise.” Macon rubbed his head with one hand. His green eyes were red, and it occurred to me that I had no idea whether or not he slept now that he was a Caster. For the first time, it looked like he needed to. “Five pairings. That’s progress, Miss Durand. Well done.”
Liv was frustrated. I recognized the look. “Hardly. We still haven’t found the genetic match. Without that information, it will be impossible to determine John’s abilities. Or how he fits into all this.”
“A valid point. But we have to focus on what we do know. John Breed is important to Abraham, which means the boy has a significant role in whatever he is planning.”
Liv held out her arm, the dials of her strange-looking homemade watch spinning on her wrist. Her selenometer, which gave her the only answers she trusted. “Truthfully, sir, I don’t know how much time we have to figure that out. I’ve never seen readings like these. I hate to say it—but it’s like the moon is about to come crashing down on Gatlin.”
Macon stood, clasping a heavy hand on her shoulder. I’d felt that pressure—a part of me could feel it now. “Never be afraid to speak the truth, Miss Durand. We’re a little past the point of pleasantries. We must simply press on. It’s all we can do.”
She straightened under his hand. “I’m not sure I know the protocol when facing the potential annihilation of the Mortal world.”
“I believe, dear girl, that’s entirely the point.”
“What?”
“Look at the facts. It appears that since the Claiming the Mortal world has been altered. Or, as you said yourself, the sky is falling. Hell on Earth, our charming Mrs. Lincoln might say. And the Caster world has been presented with a new species of Caster-Incubus we’ve never seen before. An Adam of sorts. Whatever purpose the hybrid boy serves, it’s not an accident. The timing is too perfect. It’s all part of a grand design—or, considering Abraham is undoubtedly involved, a grandiose design.”
Lena looked pale, and I grabbed her arm, propping her up next to me.
Let’s go.
She held her finger to her lips.
He’s the Adam?
L—
Ethan. If he’s the Adam…
Liv stared at Macon, her eyes wide. “You think Abraham somehow engineered this?”
Macon scoffed. “Hunting certainly doesn’t have the intellect for this sort of endeavor, and Sarafine alone doesn’t have the power. The boy, however indeterminate his origin, is Lena’s age? A little older?”
I don’t want to be the Eve.
You’re not.
You don’t know that, Ethan. I think I am.
You’re not, L.
I pulled her into my arms, and I could feel the heat of her cheek through the thin cotton of my shirt.
I think I was supposed to be.
Macon continued, but he seemed farther and farther away with every word. “Unless John Breed was pulled out of some other realm, he evolved here in the Mortal or Caster world. Which necessitates more than a decade and a half of ruthless cunning, at which Abraham excels.” Macon fell silent.
“Are you saying John was born in a Caster laboratory? Like some kind of supernatural test-tube baby?”
“In broad terms, yes. Perhaps not so much born as bred, one assumes. Which would explain why he is so important to Abraham.” Macon paused. “That sort of dull wit I would expect from my brother, not Abraham. I’m disappointed.”
“John Breed,” Liv said slowly. “Oh my God. It was right there in front of us, all along.” Liv sunk onto the ottoman across from Macon’s desk.
I held Lena tighter. When her thoughts came, they were a whisper.
It’s sick. He’s sick.
I didn’t know if she meant John or Abraham, but it didn’t matter. She was right. It was all sick.
Abraham’s gone, L.
Even as I thought the words, I knew I was lying. John might have been gone, but Abraham wasn’t.
“So we’re left with two questions, Miss Durand. How and, more important, why?”
“If John Breed is gone, it doesn’t matter.” Liv’s face was pale, and it occurred to me that she looked as exhausted as Macon did.
“Is he? I’m not entirely willing to make assumptions without a body.”
“Shouldn’t we turn our research to the more pressing issues—the infestations, the climate change? How to stop these plagues that Lena’s Seventeenth Moon seems to have brought on the Mortal world?”
Macon leaned forward in his chair. “Olivia, do you have any idea how old this library is?”
She shook her head doubtfully.
“Do you know how old any of the Caster libraries are? Across the pond and beyond? In London? Prague? Madrid? Istanbul? Cairo?”
“No. I suppose not.”
“In any of these libraries, many of which I’ve visited myself in the past few weeks, do you imagine there is one reference to how to restore the Order of Things?”
“Of course. There has to be. This must have happened at least once before.”
He closed his eyes.
“Never?” She was trying to say the word, but from where we stood, we almost couldn’t hear it.
“Our only clue is the boy. How did he come to be, and for what purpose?”
“Or the girl?” Liv asked.
“Olivia. That’s enough.”
But Liv wasn’t deterred that easily. “Perhaps you already know? How did she come to be, and for what purpose? Scientifically speaking, it would be relevant.”
Lena shut me out, willing her mind apart from mine, until I was alone in the passageway even as we clung to each other.
Macon shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was harsh. “Don’t say anything to the others. I want to be absolutely certain.”
“Before you tell Lena what she’s done,” Liv said flatly. It was a fact, but somehow she didn’t say it that way.
Macon’s green eyes held all the emotion his black ones never had. Fear. Anger. Resentment. “Before I tell her what she has to do.”
“You might not be able to stop this.” She looked down at her selenometer out of habit.
“Olivia, it’s not only the universe that could be destroyed. It’s my niece. Who is, as far as I am concerned, more important than a thousand lost universes.”
“Believe me, I know.” If Liv was bitter, she didn’t let on.
It felt like my heart stopped beating. Lena slipped out of my arms before I even realized she was gone.
I found Lena in her room. She didn’t cry, and I didn’t try to console her. We sat in silence, holding hands until it hurt, until the sun fell away—behind the words, behind the glass and the trees and the river. The night slid across her bed, and I waited for the darkness to erase everything.
9.15
Izabel
Are you sure we’re going the right way?” We had turned off the highway, south of Charleston. But the houses had changed from traditional Victorians with wraparound porches and white turrets stretching toward the clouds to—nothing. The houses were gone, replaced with miles of tobacco fields and an occasional weather-beaten barn.
Lena glanced at the sheet of notebook paper in her lap. “This is the way. Gramma said there weren’t a lot of other houses near my old… where my house used to be.” When Lena told me she wanted to see the house where she was born, it made sense—for about ten seconds. Because it wasn’t just the house where she took her first steps and scribbled on the walls with crayon. It was also the place where her father died. Where Lena could have died, when her mother set fire to the house, right before Lena’s first birthday.
But Lena insisted, and there was no talking her out of it. We hadn’t said a word to each other about what we’d overheard in Macon’s study, but I knew this had to be another piece of the puzzle. Macon thought Lena’s and John’s pasts held some kind of key to what was happening in the Caster and Mortal worlds. Which was the reason we were driving through the backwoods right now.
Aunt Del leaned forward from the backseat of the Volvo. Lucille was sitting in her lap. “It doesn’t look familiar to me, but I could be wrong.” That was an understatement. Aunt Del was the last person I would ask for directions, unless we were in the Tunnels. And lately I wasn’t sure if she could find her way around down there either. If visiting the charred remains of Lena’s birthplace had been a bad idea, bringing Aunt Del with us was an even worse one. Since Lena’s Claiming, no one seemed to be turned inside out as much as Lena’s aunt.
Lena pointed at my window. “I think it’s up here. Uncle M said to look for a driveway on the left.” A fence, with white paint peeling down the sides, guarded the road. There was a break in the fence a few yards ahead. “That’s it.”
As I turned between the crooked posts, I heard Lena’s breath catch. I took her hand, and my pulse quickened.
Are you sure you want to do this?
No. But I need to know what happened.