Beautiful Darkness (48 page)

Link jogged ahead to catch up with her. “So what're you really doin’ here, Rid?”

“It's pathetic to admit, but I'm here to help you and your merry band of fools.”

Link stifled a laugh. “Yeah, right. The lollipops don't work anymore. Try again.”

The grass was higher as we neared the trees. We were walking so fast the blades cut against my shins, but I didn't slow down. I wanted to know what Ridley was up to as much as Link did.

“I don't have an agenda, Hot Stuff. I'm not here for you. I'm here to help my cousin.”

“You don't care about Lena,” I snapped.

Ridley stopped and turned to face me. “You know what I don't care about, Short Straw? You. But for whatever reason, you and my cousin have a connection, and you may be the only person who can convince her to turn around before it's too late.”

I stopped walking.

Liv looked at her coldly. “You mean before she gets to the Great Barrier? The place
you
told her about?”

Ridley's eyes narrowed, and she glanced at Liv. “Give this girl a prize. Keeper does know a thing or two.” Liv didn't smile.
“But I wasn't the one who told her about the Barrier. It was John. He's obsessed with it.”

“John? You mean the John you introduced her to? The guy you convinced her to run away with?” I was shouting, and I didn't care if the whole Blood pack heard me.

“Slow down, Short Straw. Lena makes her own decisions, whether you believe it or not.” Ridley's voice lost some of its edge. “She wanted to go.”

I remembered watching Lena and John, listening to them talk about a place where they could be accepted for who they were. A place where they could be themselves. Of course Lena wanted to go there. It was what she had dreamed about her whole life.

“Why the sudden change of heart, Ridley? Why do you want to stop her now?”

“The Barrier is dangerous. It's not what she thinks.”

“You mean Lena doesn't know Sarafine is trying to pull the Seventeenth Moon out of time? But you knew, didn't you?” Ridley looked away. I was right.

Ridley was picking at the purple polish on her nails, a nervous habit Casters and Mortals shared. She nodded. “Sarafine isn't doing it alone.”

My mother's letter to Macon flashed through my mind. Abraham. Sarafine was working with Abraham, someone who was powerful enough to help her call the moon.

“Abraham,” Liv said quietly. “Well, that's lovely.”

Link reacted before I did. “And you didn't tell Lena? Are you really that crazy and screwed up?”

“I —”

I cut her off. “She's a coward.”

Ridley straightened, her yellow eyes glowing with rage. “I'm
a coward because I don't want to end up dead? Do you know what my aunt and that
monster
would do to me?” Her voice was shaky, but she tried to hide it. “I'd like to see you face those two, Short Straw. Abraham makes Lena's mom look like your little kitty cat.”

Lucille hissed.

“It doesn't matter, as long as Lena doesn't get to the Barrier. And if you want to stop her, we need to get moving. I don't know the way there. I just know where I ditched them.”

“Then how did you plan to get to the Great Barrier?” It was impossible to tell if she was lying.

“John knows the way.”

“Does John know Sarafine and Abraham are there?” Had he been setting Lena up all along?

Ridley shook her head. “I don't know. The guy's hard to read. He's got … issues.”

“How are we going to convince her not to go?” I had already tried to talk Lena out of running away, and it hadn't gone well.

“That's your department. Maybe this will help.” She tossed me a battered spiral notebook. I would have recognized it anywhere. I had spent enough afternoons watching Lena write in it.

“You stole her notebook?”

Ridley tossed her hair. “
Steal
is such an ugly word. I borrowed it, and you should be thanking me. Maybe there's something useful in all that disgusting, sentimental dribble.”

I unzipped my backpack and slid the notebook inside. It felt weird to hold a piece of Lena in my hands again. Now I was carrying Lena's secrets in my backpack and my mother's in my
back pocket. I wasn't sure how many more secrets I could handle.

Liv was more interested in Ridley's motives than Lena's notebook. “Hold on. Now we're supposed to believe you're one of the good guys?”

“Hell no. I'm bad to the bone. And I could give a rat's ass what you believe.” Ridley shot me a look out of the corner of her eye. “In fact, I'm having a hard time figuring out what you're doing here in the first place.”

I stepped in before Ridley used another lollipop to get Liv to offer herself to Hunting as a snack. “So that's it? You want to help us find Lena?”

“That's right, Short Straw. We may not like each other, but we have common interests.” She turned toward Liv but spoke to me. “We love the same person, and she's in trouble. So I defected. Now let's get a move on before my uncle catches the three of you.”

Link stared at Ridley. “Man, I didn't see this comin’.”

“Don't make more of it than it is. I'll be back to my own bad self as soon as we get Lena to turn back.”

“You never know, Rid. Maybe the Wizard will give you a heart if we kill the Wicked Witch.”

Ridley turned away, digging the spikes of her sandals into the mud. “Like I'd want one.”

6.19

W
e tried to keep up with Ridley, who was weaving in and out of the trees. Liv was behind her, consulting the map or her selenometer constantly. She didn't trust Ridley any more than the rest of us did.

There was something bothering me. A part of me believed her. Maybe she really cared about Lena. It was unlikely, but if there was a chance Ridley was telling the truth, I had to follow her. I owed Lena a debt I could never repay.

I didn't know if there was a future for us. If Lena would ever again be the girl I fell in love with. But it didn't matter.

The Arclight was heating up inside my pocket. I pulled it out, expecting to see a pool of iridescent color, but the surface was black. Now all I could see was my reflection. The Arclight seemed more than broken. It had become completely random.

Ridley's eyes widened when she saw it, and she stopped
walking for the first time in a long while. “Where'd you get that, Short Straw?”

“Marian gave it to me.” I didn't want Ridley to know it had been my mother's, or who had given it to her.

“Well, that might even the odds a little. I don't think you can get my Uncle Hunting in there, but maybe one of the members of his pack.”

“I'm not exactly sure how to use it.” I almost didn't tell her, but it was true.

Ridley lifted an eyebrow. “Little Miss Know-It-All couldn't tell you?” Liv's cheeks flushed. Ridley took her time unwrapping a stick of pink gum and folded it into her mouth. “You have to touch him with it.” She stepped closer to me. “Which means you have to get close.”

“Whatever.” Link pushed past her. “There are two of us. We can swing it.”

Liv tucked her pencil behind her ear. She had been taking notes. “Link might be right. I wouldn't want to get near any of them. But if we had no choice, it would be worth a try.”

“Then you have to lay the Cast. You know, speak the incantation and all.” Ridley was leaning against a tree, smirking. She knew we didn't know the Cast. Lucille was sitting at Ridley's feet, studying her.

“I'm guessing you aren't going to tell us what it is.”

“How should I know? It's not like there are a lot of those things around.”

Liv spread the map out in her lap, carefully smoothing it. “We're going the right way. If we keep going east, this path should eventually lead to the shore.” She pointed to a dense cluster of trees.

“Where? That forest?” Link looked dubious.

“Don't be scared, Hot Rod. I'll take Hansel, you take Gretel.” Ridley winked at Link, like she still had power over him. Which she did, but it had nothing to do with her gifts as a Siren.

“I'll be all right on my own. Why don't you have another piece a gum?” Link pushed past her.

Maybe Ridley was like chicken pox; you could only catch it once.

“How long can it take to pee?” Ridley threw a rock in the direction of a clump of bushes, anxious to get going again.

“I can hear you.” Link's voice came from the bushes.

“Good to know at least some of your bodily functions are working.”

Liv looked at me and rolled her eyes. The longer we walked, the more Link and Ridley went at it.

“You're not makin’ it any easier.”

“You need me to come back there and help you?”

“You're all talk, Rid,” Link called from behind the bushes. She started to get up, and Liv looked shocked. Ridley smiled and sat down again, satisfied.

I studied the sphere in my hands as the color changed from black to an iridescent green. Nothing useful, just colors that seemed on perpetual overload. Maybe Link was right. Maybe I had broken it.

Ridley looked confused, or interested. It was hard to tell. “What's with the light?”

“It's like a compass. It lights up if we're going the right way.” At least, it used to.

“Hmm. I didn't know they did that.” She was bored again.

“I'm sure there are a lot of things you don't know.” Liv smiled innocently.

“Careful, or I might convince you to take a swim in the river.”

I watched the Arclight. There was something different about it. The light began to pulse with a brightness and speed I hadn't seen since we left Bonaventure Cemetery. I turned to show Liv. “L, look at this.”

Ridley's head whipped toward me, and I froze.

I had called Liv “L.”

There was only one L in my life. Even though Liv didn't notice, Ridley did. Her eyes were wild as she sucked on her lollipop. She was staring right at me, and I could feel my will slipping away. I dropped the Arclight, and it rolled across the mossy forest floor.

Liv crouched over the Arclight, sitting on her heels. “That's strange. Why do you suppose it's flashing green again? Another visit from Amma, Arelia, and Twyla?”

“It's probably a bomb.” I heard Link's voice, but I couldn't say a word. I dropped to the ground at Ridley's feet. It had been a while since she had flexed her Siren powers on me. I had a fleeting thought before my face hit the mud. Either Link was right, and he was immune to her now, or she was really holding back. If that was true, it was something new for her.