Lena glared at her and turned up both palms, a protective stance. “Yeah? What do they say about the bad apple?”
“Nothing. No one has ever lived to say it.” Then Mrs. Lincoln turned to Link and me in her calico dress and miles of petticoats, with her hair braided down her back. She looked right at us, her golden eyes blazing. “I’m so sorry, Ethan. I hoped our first meeting would be under different circumstances. It’s not every day that you meet your daughter’s first boyfriend.”
She turned to Lena. “Or your daughter.”
I was right. I knew who she was, and what we were dealing with.
Sarafine.
A moment later, Mrs. Lincoln’s face, her dress, her whole body literally started to split down the middle. You could see the skin on either side pulling away like the crumpled wrapper of a candy bar. As her body split down the center, it started to fall like a coat being shrugged from someone’s shoulders.
Underneath was someone else.
“I don’t have a mother,” Lena shouted.
Sarafine winced, as if she was trying to look hurt because she was Lena’s mother. It was an undeniable genetic truth. She had the same long, black, curly hair as Lena. Except, where Lena was frighteningly beautiful, Sarafine was simply frightening. Like Lena, Sarafine had long, elegant features, but instead of Lena’s beautiful green eyes, she had the same glowing yellow eyes as Ridley and Genevieve. And the eyes made all the difference.
Sarafine was wearing a dark green corseted velvet dress, kind of modern and Gothic and turn-of-thecentury, all at the same time, and tall black motorcycle boots. She literally stepped out of Mrs.
Lincoln’s body, which fused back together within seconds, as if someone had sewn up the seam.
Leaving the real Mrs. Lincoln collapsed in the grass with her hoopskirt flipped up, revealing her kneehigh support hose and her petticoats.
Link was in shock.
Sarafine straightened, shaking free of the weight, shuddering. “Mortals. That body was just insufferable, so awkward and uncomfortable. Stuffing its face every five minutes. Disgusting creatures.”
“Mom! Mom, wake up!” Link pounded his fists against what was obviously some kind of force field.
No matter what a dragon she was, Mrs. Lincoln was Link’s dragon, and it must have been hard to see her tossed aside like a piece of inconsequential human trash.
Sarafine waved her hand. Link’s mouth was still moving, but he wasn’t making a sound. “That’s better.
You’re lucky I didn’t have to spend all my time in your mother’s body over the last few months. If I had, you’d be dead by now. I can’t tell you the number of times I nearly killed you out of boredom at the dinner table, droning on about your stupid band.”
It all made sense now. The crusade against Lena, the Jackson Disciplinary Committee meeting, the lies about Lena’s school records, even the weird brownies on Halloween. How long had Sarafine been masquerading as Mrs. Lincoln?
In Mrs. Lincoln.
I had never really understood what we were up against until now. The Darkest Caster living today.
Ridley seemed so harmless in comparison. No wonder Lena had been dreading this day for so long.
Sarafine looked back at Lena. “You may think you don’t have a mother, Lena, but if that’s true, it’s only because your grandmother and your uncle took you from me. I’ve always loved you.” It was disconcerting how Sarafine could move so easily from one set of emotions to another, from sincerity and regret to disgust and contempt, each emotion as hollow as the next.
Lena’s eyes were bitter. “Is that why you’ve been trying to kill me, Mother?”
Sarafine tried to look concerned, or maybe surprised. It was hard to tell because her expression looked so unnatural, so forced. “Is that what they told you? I was simply trying to make contact—to talk to you. If it hadn’t been for all their Bindings, my attempts would never have put you in any danger, a fact they knew. Of course, I understand their concern. I am a Dark Caster, a Cataclyst. But Lena, you know as well as anyone, I had no choice in that matter. It was decided for me. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you, about my only daughter.”
“I don’t believe you!” Lena spat. But she looked unsure of herself, even as she said it, like she wasn’t sure what to believe.
I checked my cell phone. 9:59. Two hours until midnight.
Link slumped against the tree, his head in his hands. I couldn’t look away from Mrs. Lincoln, lifeless in the grass. Lena was looking at her, too.