There was one place we could go, no matter how badly our worlds were spiraling out of control. The place where it had all started for Lena and me. The place that was ours.
The morning after Marian’s trial, we went to find it again.
The crumbling garden at Greenbrier was still black and charred, but you could see where the grass had started to grow. The tiny stems weren’t green, though. They were brown, like everything else in Gatlin County. The invisible walls that protected Ravenwood from being ravaged didn’t extend here.
Still, it was our place. I led Lena through the garden to the hearthstone where we first discovered Genevieve’s locket. It seemed like it had all happened years ago, instead of the year before.
Lena sat on the stone, pulling me down after her. “Do you remember how beautiful it was here?”
I looked at her, the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. “It still is.”
“Do you think about what it would be like if this was all gone? If we can’t fix this, and there’s no New Order?”
I barely thought about anything else, beyond heat and bugs and dried-up lakes. What would be next? A flood? “I don’t know if it would matter. Maybe we’d be gone, too, and we wouldn’t even know the difference.”
“I think we’ve both seen enough of the Otherworld to know that’s not true.” She knew I was trying to make her feel better. “How many times have you seen your mom? She knows what’s happening, maybe better than anyone.”
There was nothing I could say. Lena was right, but I couldn’t let her shoulder the burden of all this alone. “You didn’t do this intentionally, L.”
“I don’t know if that makes me feel any better about destroying the world.”
I pulled her against my chest, feeling the gentle rhythm of her heartbeat. “The world isn’t destroyed. Not yet.”
She picked at the dry grass. “But someone’s life will be. The One Who Is Two has to be sacrificed to create the New Order.” Neither one of us could forget it, though we hadn’t gotten any closer to figuring it out.
And if the Eighteenth Moon really was on John’s birthday, then we had only five days left to find the One. Marian’s life—all our lives—hung in the balance.
Him.
Her.
It could be anyone.
Whoever it was, I wondered what they were doing now—if they had any idea. Maybe they weren’t worried at all. Maybe they would never even see it coming.
“Don’t worry. John bought us some time. We’ll think of something.” She smiled. “It was cool to see him doing something for us, instead of against us.”
“Yeah. If he was.” I don’t know why, but I still couldn’t give that guy a break. Even if Lena was willing to give Liv a chance.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lena sounded annoyed.
“You heard Macon. What if he was using the opportunity to siphon off all of your powers?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we have to take it on faith.”
I didn’t want to do that. “Why should we?”
“Because people change. Things change. Everything and everyone we know has changed.”
“What if I don’t want to?” I didn’t.
“It doesn’t matter. We change whether we want to or not.”
“Some things don’t,” I said. “We don’t get to decide how the world works. Rain falls down, not up. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. That’s the way it is. Why is that concept so hard for you Casters to understand?”
“I guess we’re sort of control freaks.”
“You think?”
Lena’s hair curled. “It’s hard not to do things when you can do them. And in my family, there’s not much we can’t do.”
“Really?” I kissed her.
She smiled underneath my lips. “Shut up.”
“Is it hard not to do this?” I kissed her neck. Her ear. Her lips.
“How about this?” She opened her mouth to complain, but no words came out.
We kissed until my heart was faltering. Even then, I’m not sure we would have stopped, but we did.
Because I heard a rip.
Time and space opened up. I saw the tip of his cane as Abraham Ravenwood slipped through a hole in the sky, the air slamming shut behind him.
He was wearing a dark suit and his stovepipe hat, which made him look like Abraham Lincoln’s father. “Did I hear something about the New Order?” He took off his hat and tapped the brim, shaking off nonexistent dust. “Turns out, broken suits me just fine. And I’m sure my boy John will feel the same way, once he’s back where he belongs.”
Before I had a chance to respond, I heard the sound of footsteps in the dirt. A second later, I saw her black motorcycle boots.
“I would have to agree.” Sarafine was standing outside the stone arch, her black hair as curly and wild as Lena’s. Even though it was a hundred degrees, she was wearing a long black dress with strips of fabric crisscrossing her body. It reminded me of a straitjacket.
Lena—