The Mortal Heart

The Mortal Heart by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl




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Authors’ Note


The whole idea behind Beautiful Creatures: The Untold Stories was for the two of us to tell the stories we never had a chance to write in the Beautiful Creatures novels. These stories are our opportunity to answer the questions we’re asked most often by our readers, like: How did Lila fall in love with Macon? Why did Amma come to take care of Ethan? What is life like in Gatlin now? And we’re writing them for our pleasure as much as for yours.

The truth is, Ethan and Lena, John and Liv, Macon and Lila, Amma and Marian, Link and Ridley—not to mention the entire Wate, Ravenwood, and Duchannes families—they’re our families, too. Gatlin is our hometown as much as it’s the home of our characters, and our readers. When we’re not there we miss it, as we imagine (if you’re reading this) you do.

So read on. You can follow any of these stories without reading the others in the series. However, for our most committed readers (and honorary Casters), if you read all the stories, you’ll discover more than a few things you didn’t know about your favorite Mortals and Casters.

We look forward to sharing the next story with you and talking about all of them with you online. See you soon in the Gatlin County Library!

Love,

Kami & Margie





For all the Casters and Outcasters who love Gatlin as much as we do, this story is for you.





All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name.

—André Breton





I. Sunday in the Gatlin County Library


No time in the world passed slower than a Sunday at the Gatlin County Library. On Sundays, it seemed as if the whole town had better things to do than read a book. But Marian knew most folks in Gatlin never read anything but the Bible if they could help it.

At least my special deliveries keep me busy from Monday to Saturday, Marian thought, wrapping the next week’s illicit book deliveries in brown paper. She addressed this particular wrapped copy of The Beast and the Bodice to Mrs. Lincoln and put her Sharpie back in the drawer. Illicit by Gatlin standards could mean anything from a romance novel to Carl Sagan’s astronomy text, Cosmos. “Who is this fella Carl to be tellin’ folks that the Big Boom created the world, instead a the Good Lord Almighty?” Aunt Mercy, one of the Sisters, had asked Marian. It was the sort of question that took as long to answer as reading the book itself.

Common sense is not so common, as Voltaire would say. Marian shook her head as she unlocked the door to her private archive behind the checkout desk. That’s what life in Gatlin teaches you: The bar is low. For Casters and for Mortals alike.

Caster librarians, like Marian, preferred things quiet. Quiet meant no worlds were ending, no universes were crumbling, no Casters were being Claimed for Light or Dark. No supernatural judgments were being handed down from the Far Keep, and no Keepers were losing their jobs. All of which Marian had survived in the past.

She had started making tea but stopped and shivered at the thought of it—the chaos, the panic, the destruction.… Marian had spent more time trying not to remember the details of the past few years than she cared to admit.

Now things were finally different. The biggest problems in Gatlin County were pedestrian happenings, like boy-crazy Thaumaturge Ryan Duchannes using her powers to break and heal hearts at Gatlin’s junior high, or Incubus-turned-Caster Macon Ravenwood tracking the location of every Ravenwood on the eastern seaboard while refusing to say why. Aside from these blips on her otherwise quiet Keeper radar, Marian tried to stop and appreciate the gentler pace of a librarian’s life every chance she could.

But today it felt like the old Simplex wall clock’s hands were conspiring against her, and she waited impatiently over a pot of Earl Grey French Blue Mariage Frères tea. It was her good tea, loose-leaf and still in the tin Olivia Durand had hand-carried back from Paris; Marian generally saved it for holidays or occasions when she knew Ethan Wate’s Volvo would be pulling into her cracked asphalt parking lot. Which should be any minute now.