Beautiful Chaos (33 page)

“It’s ash. And rowan, I think,” Liv said. I could hear her scribbling in her notebook. “There isn’t a single ash or rowan tree within miles of Gatlin. They’re supernatural trees. They protect creatures of Light.”

“Which means?”

“Which means these doors are probably from somewhere far away. And they could lead to somewhere equally far away.”

I nodded. “Where?”

She pressed her hand into a design along the carved lintel. “I haven’t a clue. Madrid. Prague. London. We have rowan trees in the U.K.” She started copying the symbols from the doors onto a page.

I pulled on the handle with both hands. The iron latch groaned, but the doors didn’t open. “That’s not the question.”

“Oh, really?”

“The question is, what are we doing here? What are we sup
posed to see?” I pulled on the handle again. “And how do we get on the other side?”

“That’s three questions.” Liv studied the doors. “I think it’s like the lintel at Ravenwood. The carvings are a kind of access code to get inside.”

“Figure it out. We have to find a way in.”

“I’m afraid it may not be that easy. Wait. Is that a word up there?” She brushed the dust off the doorway. Some kind of inscription was carved into the frame.

“If it’s a Caster doorway, I wouldn’t be surprised.” I rubbed the wood with my hand, and it splintered beneath my fingers. Whatever it was, it was ancient.

“ ‘
Temporis Porta.’
Time Door? What does that mean?” Liv asked.

“It means we don’t have time for this.” I leaned my forehead against the doors. I could feel a surge of heat and energy where the ancient wood touched my face. It was vibrating.

“Ethan?”

“Shh.”

Come on. Open. I know there’s something I’m supposed to see.

I focused my mind on the doors in front of me, the way I had on the Arclight the last time we were trying to find our way through the Tunnels.

I’m the Wayward. I know I am. Show me the way.

I heard the distinct sound of wood beginning to crack and splinter.

The wood shook as if the doors were going to collapse.

Come on. Show me.

I stood back as they swung open, split by light. Dust fell from
their seal as if this entrance hadn’t been opened in a thousand years.

“How did you do that?” Liv was staring at me.

“I don’t know, but it’s open. Let’s go.”

We stepped inside, and the dust and the light dissolved around us. Liv reached out her hand, and before I could take it, I disappeared—

I was standing alone in the center of a huge hall. It looked the way I imagined Europe, maybe England or France or Spain—somewhere old and timeless. But I couldn’t be sure. The farthest the Tunnels had ever taken me was the Great Barrier. The room was as big as the inside of a ship, tall and rectangular, made entirely of stone. I don’t think it was a church, but something like a church or a monastery—vast and holy and full of mystery.

Massive beams crossed the ceiling, surrounded by smaller wood squares. Inside each square was a gold rose, a circle with petals.

Caster circles?

That didn’t seem right.

Nothing about this place was familiar. Even the power in the air—buzzing, like a downed electrical wire—felt different.

There was an alcove across the room, with a small balcony. Five windows ran the length of the wall, stretching higher than the tallest houses in Gatlin, framing the room with soft light that crept through the billows of sheer fabric hanging over them. Thick golden drapes hung at their sides, and I couldn’t tell if the breeze blowing through the windows was a Caster or a Mortal one.

The walls were paneled and curved into low benches near the floor. I had seen pictures like these in my mom’s books. Monks and acolytes sat on benches like this to pray.

Why was I here?

When I looked up again, the room was suddenly full of people. They were wedged onto the entire length of the bench, filling the space in front of me, crowding and pushing from all sides. I couldn’t see their faces; half of them were cloaked. But all of them were buzzing with anticipation.

“What’s going on? What are we waiting for?”

No one answered. It was as if they couldn’t see me, which didn’t make sense. This wasn’t a dream. I was in a real place.

The crowd moved forward, murmuring, and I heard the banging of a gavel.
“Silentium.”

Then I saw familiar faces, and I realized where I was. Where I had to be.

The Far Keep.

At the end of the hall, Marian was hooded and robed, her hands tied with a golden rope. She stood in the balcony above the room, next to the tall man who showed up in the library archive. The Council Keeper, I heard people around me whisper. The albino Keeper was standing behind him.

He spoke in Latin, and I couldn’t understand him. But the people around me did, and they were going crazy.
“Ulterioris Arcis Concilium, quod nulli rei—sive homini, sive animali, sive Numini Atro, sive Numini Albo—nisi Rationi Rerum paret, Marianam ex Arce Occidentali Perfidiae condemnat.”

The Council Keeper repeated the words in English, and I understood why the people around me were reacting this way.
“The Council of the Far Keep, which answers only to the Order of Things, to no man, creature, or power, Dark or Light, finds Marian of the Western Keep guilty of Treason.”

There was a piercing pain in my stomach, as if my whole body had been sliced with a giant blade.

“These are the Consequences of her inaction. The Consequences shall be paid. The Keeper, though Mortal, will return to the Dark Fire from which all power comes.”

The Council Keeper removed Marian’s hood, and I could see her eyes, ringed with darkness. Her head was shaved, and she looked like a prisoner of war. “The Order is broken. Until the New Order comes forth, the Old Law must be upheld, and the Consequences paid.”

“Marian! You can’t let them—” I tried to push through the crowd, but the more I tried, the faster people surged forward, and the farther away she seemed.

Until I hit something, someone unmoving and unmovable. I looked up into the glassy stare of Lilian English.

Mrs. English? What is she doing here?

“Ethan?”

“Mrs. English. You have to help me. They have Marian Ashcroft. They’re going to hurt her, and it’s not her fault. She didn’t do anything!”

“What do you think of the judge now?”

“What?” She wasn’t making any sense.

“Your paper. It’s due on my desk tomorrow.”

“I know that. I’m not talking about my paper.” Didn’t she understand what was happening?

“I think you are.” Her voiced sounded different, unfamiliar.

“The judge is wrong. They’re all wrong.”

“Someone must be at fault. The Order is broken. If not Marian Ashcroft, then who is to blame?”

I didn’t have the answer. “I don’t know. My mom said—”

“Mothers lie,” Mrs. English said, her voice void of emotion. “To allow their children to live the great lie that is Mortal existence.”

I could feel my anger building. “Don’t talk about my mom. You don’t know her.”

“The Wheel of Fate. Your mother knows about that. The future is not predetermined. Only you can stop the Wheel from crushing Marian Ashcroft. From crushing them all.”

Mrs. English disappeared, and the room was empty. There was a smooth rowan doorway in front of me, recessed into the wall as if it had always been there. The
Temporis Porta.

I reached for the handle. The second I touched it, I was on the other side again, standing in the Mortal tunnel, staring at Liv.

“Ethan! What happened?” She hugged me, and I felt a flicker of the connection that would always be between us.

“I’m fine, don’t worry.” I pulled back. Her smile faded, her cheeks turning bright pink as she realized what she had done. She swung her arms behind her back, clutching them awkwardly, like she wished she could make them disappear.

“What did you see? Where did you go?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but I know it was the Far Keep. I recognized two of the Keepers who came to the library. But I think it was the future.”

“The future? How do you know?” The wheels were already spinning in Liv’s mind.

“It was Marian’s trial, which hasn’t happened yet.”

Liv was twisting the pencil tucked behind her ear. “
Temporis Porta
means ‘Time Door.’ It could be possible.”

“Are you sure?” After what I’d seen, I hoped it was more of a warning—some sort of possible future that wasn’t set in stone.

“There’s no way to know, but if the
Temporis Porta
is some kind of portal, which seems likely, then you could have been seeing something that hasn’t happened yet. The actual future.” Liv started scribbling in her red notebook. I knew she wanted to remember every detail of this conversation.

“After what I saw, I hope you’re wrong.”

She stopped writing. “I suppose it wasn’t good, then?”

“No.” I stopped. “If that really was the future, we can’t let Marian go to that trial. Promise me. If they come again, you’ll help me keep her away from the Council. I don’t think she knows—”

“I promise.” Her face was dark and her voice cracked, and I knew that she was trying not to cry.

“Let’s hope there’s some other explanation.” But even as I said it, I knew there wasn’t. And so did Liv.

We retraced our steps, through the dirt, the heat, and the darkness, until I couldn’t feel anything except the weight of my world collapsing.

10.13

T
hat night, after the visit from the Far Keep, Marian went into her house and didn’t come out again, as far as I could tell. The next day, I stopped by to see if she was okay. She didn’t answer the door, and she wasn’t at the library either. The day after that, I brought her mail up to the porch. I tried to look in her windows, but her shades were drawn, and the curtains, too.

I rang the bell again today, but she didn’t answer. I sat down on her front steps and leafed through her mail. Nothing out of the ordinary—bills. A letter from Duke University, probably about one of her research grants. And some kind of returned letter, but I didn’t recognize the address. Kings Langley.