John held up a fist. “You’re only a quarter Incubus, you big stud, and I did you a favor. No one would’ve ever called you a big stud if you’d kept eating those things.”
“No one calls him that now,” Ethan said.
“What are you saying?” Link was indignant.
“I’m saying, you used to be kinda sorry, Stay Puft, and now the chicks are lining up. You’re welcome.” John sat back.
“Oh, please,” Ridley said. “As if his head could get any bigger.”
“That’s not the only thing that’s bigger.” Link winked, and everyone groaned. Ridley rolled her eyes, but he didn’t care. “Oh, come on. Like you didn’t see that one comin’.”
Lena sat up straight, looking over the fire at the faces of her five closest friends in the world.
“All right. Forget this. Forget good-bye. So what if we’re going to college tomorrow?” Lena glanced at Ethan.
“And England.” Liv sighed, taking John’s hand.
“And Hell,” Link added, “if you ask my mother.”
“Which no one is,” Rid said.
“What I mean is, we don’t have to do this the Mortal way,” Lena said. Ethan stared at her strangely, but Lena kept going. “Let’s make a pact instead.”
“Just no blood oaths,” John said. “Which would be the Blood Incubus way.”
Link perked up at the thought. “Is that another camp thing? ’Cause we definitely didn’t get to do that at church camp.”
Lena shook her head. “Not blood.”
“Maybe like a spit promise?” Link looked hopeful.
“Eww,” Rid said, shoving him off his log.
“Not a spit promise.” Lena leaned in, holding her hand over the fire. The flames reflected against her palm, turning orange and red and even blue.
Rid shivered. Her cousin was up to something, and with powers as unpredictable as Lena’s, that wasn’t always a good idea.
The embers glowed under Lena’s fingertips. “We need to mark this occasion with something a little stronger than s’mores. We don’t need to say good-bye. We just need a Cast.”
CHAPTER 2
Symptom of the Universe
The six friends had talked circles around the idea, until the moon had risen and the fire had all but died, and even then Link wasn’t really sure what was going on.
They’re just feeling low, he thought. Don’t think there’s a Cast for that. Still, he wasn’t going to be the one to break the news. If Lena and Liv wanted to pretend there was something anyone could do to change the fact that they were all getting the hell out of Gatlin tomorrow, Link wasn’t going to pop that bubble. He’d learned to stay out of the way when it came to Casters and their Casts.
“Here’s what we want: something that says that no matter where we go, no matter what we do, we will always, always be there for each other.” Lena nudged Ethan in the moonlight. “Right?”
“Do you really have to ask?” Ethan mumbled, sleepily nuzzling her neck. “We don’t need a Cast for that.”
“Anywhere? Even across an ocean?” Liv asked, squeezing John’s hand.
Link looked away. It was a long-established fact that John was basically following Liv halfway across the world like a whipped dog so Liv could finish studying at Oxford while completing her Keeper training. It was nothing like what Link had ever had with Rid, even back when they did have something.
But tonight John and Liv were happy as clams because they were staying together, while you couldn’t chisel Ethan and Lena apart with a spatula the size of Link’s Beater. They were headed to schools in the same state but different cities; that was the compromise they had reached with their families. Link couldn’t even remember the names, though he’d pretended to listen to a thousand conversations about them—the schools, their dorms, their reading lists. Blah, blah, blah. All he knew was they’d be at rival schools in sleepy old towns up in Massachusetts (or Michigan, or maybe Minnesota—heck, what was the difference?) ninety minutes apart. You would think it was nine hundred miles, the way they’re acting.
Whipped as Thanksgiving potatoes.
Still, Link smiled at the sweet stupidity of it all. Who was he to judge? If anybody had a shot, it was Ethan and Lena. Even John and Liv had managed to keep it together. It was only Link and Ridley who were Gatlin’s biggest basket case of a relationship.
Ex-relationship, he reminded himself.
“Nothing’s going to change.” Lena’s tone turned serious. “We won’t let it. We’ve been through enough together to know that the people you care about are the only thing that matters.”
Link caught Ridley’s eye in the flickering firelight, in spite of everything. Ridley looked away, pretending to listen to what Lena was saying, as if she cared. Anything to ignore me, Link thought. That’s her trick, same as always, and she still thinks I don’t know what she’s up to.
Just like the old days.
“So, you think a Cast will keep us together?” Ridley asked, pretending to listen. “Can’t we just, I don’t know, send postcards?”
Lena ignored her. “Maybe Marian would have an idea.”
“Or maybe she wouldn’t. Because it’s a bad idea,” Ridley said.
“No, wait. I think I’ve got it.” Liv’s braids were coming undone, and she sounded exhausted. But the sparks in her eyes burned as bright as the remnants of the campfire. “A Binding Cast. It’s how Ravenwood protects itself and keeps those who would do harm out, right? Binds a person to a place? Couldn’t it also Bind six people together? Theoretically.”