“Beautiful,” Liv said.
As everyone watched, the lumps—more like orbs—rose into the air, spinning and hovering above the flames. Boo whined at Lena’s feet.
“Whoa,” Link said.
Lena reached forward with a finger, closer and still closer, until the blue orbs burst into a shower of sparks and vanished.
“Is that it? The finale?” Ethan studied the dying embers.
“I don’t know.” Lena grabbed a stick and poked tentatively at the ash.
“Look. It’s still sparking.” Liv leaned closer.
Lena dug in the hot ash with her fingers. “There.” She held something up. “Six of them. One for each of us.”
“What is that thing?” Ethan was staring. Everyone was. It wasn’t an everyday sight, not in Gatlin County or the whole Mortal world. There was a tiny ring in Lena’s hand, delicate and translucent. If you looked at it from a distance, it resembled some sort of delicately blown glass.
Lena slipped the ring on her finger. It fit perfectly, and the light inside it flared brightly and then died out.
“Go on. It won’t hurt you.” She stared at her finger as she spoke.
Ethan reached for a ring, then paused. “You think.”
“I know,” Lena said. “The whole point of a Binding Cast is protection.” She didn’t sound sure.
Ethan took a breath and slipped a ring on his finger. John followed suit, then Liv.
Rid slowly did the same.
Five rings were on five fingers. The sixth just sat there, glowing in the embers. Waiting.
“Hey, man.” Ethan elbowed Link. “Take it.”
“Give me a minute, Frodo. I gotta think about this.” Link ran his hand through his hair.
“Really? We’re going to start that now?” John shook his head.
But one look from Rid and the sixth ring went on before Link could say another word.
Personally, Ridley thought the whole ring thing was kind of stupid. She didn’t make Link wear his to please her cousin. To be honest, she didn’t remotely understand the concept of peer pressure that Mortals talked about all the time. Who would ever do something because someone else wanted them to do it? When someone wanted Ridley to do something, she almost automatically wanted to do the exact opposite.
Binding Rings included.
But given the brief history of her friends in Gatlin County, Ridley didn’t feel like taking any chances. Nobody could argue that lightning wouldn’t strike twice. Not for the Casters and Mortals of Gatlin County.
Not even Ridley.
If a stupid ring from a Natural would keep bad things from happening, she’d wear it. She’d wear one on every finger if it helped her get out of the trouble she had gotten herself into this summer.
Everyone else was going off to start their future tomorrow. Ridley was going to try to undo her past.
CHAPTER 3
Master of Puppets
In the shadows of the Underground, anything can look evil.
That was what the guy standing on the edge of an ancient New York City subway platform thought. He was eighteen years old, and he still dreaded coming down here. He shook the unruly lengths of caramel-colored hair away from his gold-flecked eyes.
It’s impossible to know the difference between darkness and Darkness down here, even for a Dark Caster like me.
And Lennox Gates was plenty Dark.
The pale girl sitting on the edge of the platform across the tracks from him was not plagued by the same philosophical questions. Slumping inside a fitted black leather jacket quilted in diagonal stripes, she looked like a futuristic criminal. Her hair was buzzed down to an inch, except for a stripe of spiky blue that ran down the center of her head. Only her baby face looked innocent.
Dangerous, but innocent.
Lennox thought about her future. He wished he hadn’t seen it, but he couldn’t stop himself from picking up on the things he did, every time he accidentally looked into a fireplace, a lit candle, or even a flickering lighter. Her future, like so many others, had come to him in bursts, like the flash on a camera, streaming a high-speed flood of information he couldn’t control. He had seen anguish and guilt, blood and betrayal.
Love.
The Dark Caster Necromancer was in for a wild ride.
Leaning against one of the support beams, her eyes milky white and opaque instead of their normal Dark Caster gold, she didn’t look conscious. He felt bad about their arrangement, though she’d agreed to the contract. It had been her idea to wipe it from her mind, for security reasons. Like so many Necromancers, she didn’t want to know what she was saying or who was saying it. Though the girl wouldn’t remember any of this, he would—every dull, wasted moment.
Why did I have to inherit this mess, along with everything else they left me?
The ring of candles surrounding her on three sides had burned down to waxy puddles. Spirals of smoke drifted up toward her blank face. Her legs dangled over the edge of the tracks, kicking involuntarily to an unknown rhythm.
It’s a good thing these tracks are abandoned. If a train came by, those legs would be cut from her body, Necromancer or not, Lennox thought. As good as she was, she couldn’t protect herself in this state. She relied on him, and he could never forget it.
Occupational hazard of her job.
He slid a cigar from the inside pocket of his black trench and considered it. He hated the smell of cigars—and the smell of this one in particular.
Occupational hazard of mine.
He stared at the cigar as if he wanted it to disappear—as if he wanted to disappear right along with it. But he couldn’t. He was the last of his family line, and there was still work to be done, even if he didn’t want any part of it.