Don’t ask.

Can you believe, after everything, that the Book is still coming between us? I know you’re going to find it. One day. You will.

And I’ll be waiting.

I’m not sure if thinking about Lena makes the time pass faster or slower. But it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t stop thinking about her if I tried. Which I have—playing chess with these creepy figures Xavier collects. Helping him catalog everything from bottle caps and marbles to ancient Caster volumes. Today it’s stones. Xavier must have hundreds of them, ranging from raw diamonds as big as strawberries to chunks of quartz and plain old rocks.

“It’s important to keep careful records of everything I have.” Xavier added three hunks of coal to the list.

I stared at the rocks in front of me. Gravel, Amma would say. Just the right shade of gray for Dean Wilks’ driveway. I wondered what Amma was doing right now. And my mom. The two women who raised me were in two totally different worlds, and I couldn’t see either of them.

I held up a handful of dusty driveway gravel. “Why do you collect these, anyway? They’re just rocks.”

Xavier looked shocked. “Stones have power. They absorb people’s feelings and their fears. Even their memories.”

I didn’t need anyone else’s fears. I had enough of my own.

I reached into my pocket and took out the black stone. I rubbed the smooth surface between my fingers. This one was Sulla’s. It was shaped like a thick teardrop, while Lena’s was rounder.

“Here.” I held it out to Xavier. “You can add it to your collection.”

I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need it to cross the river again. I would either find my way back home or I would never leave here. Somehow I knew that, even if I didn’t know anything else.

Xavier stared at the stone for a long minute. “You keep it, dead man. Those aren’t—”

After that, I couldn’t make out what he was saying. My vision started to blur, Xavier’s leathery black skin and the stone in my palm shifting until they started to bleed together into a single dark shadow.

Sulla sat at an old wicker table, an oil lamp illuminating the small room. A spread was laid out in front of her, the Cards of Providence lined up in two neat rows, each stamped with a black sparrow in the corner—Sulla’s mark. A tall man sat across from her, his smooth head gleaming in the light.

“The Bleeding Blade. Blind Man’s Rage. Liar’s Promise. The Stolen Heart.” She frowned and shook her head. “Can tell you, none a this is good. What you’re chasin’, you ain’t never gonna find. And it’ll be worse if you do.”

The man ran his huge hands over his scalp nervously. “What’s that supposed to mean, Sulla? Stop talking in circles.”

“It means they’re never gonna give you what you want, Angelus. The Far Keep doesn’t need a spread to know you’ve been breakin’ their rules all along.”

Angelus pushed away from the table violently. “I don’t need them to give me what I want. I have other Keepers behind me. Keepers who want to be more than scribes. Why should we be forced to record history when we can be the ones who make it!”

“Can’t change the cards—that’s all I know.”

Angelus stared at the beautiful woman with the golden skin and delicate braids. “Words can change things, Seer. You just have to put them in the right book.”

Something caught Sulla’s eye, and she was distracted for a moment. Her granddaughter crouched behind the door, listening. On any other night, Sulla wouldn’t have minded. Amarie was seventeen, older than Sulla was when she learned to read cards. Sulla didn’t want the girl to see this man. There was something evil inside him. She didn’t need the cards to see that much.

Angelus started to stand, his huge hands clenched into fists.

Sulla tapped a card at the top of the spread, with a pair of golden gates inked across the face. “This one here’s a wild card.”

The man hesitated. “What does it mean?”

“Means sometimes we make our own fate. Things the cards can’t see. Depends on which side a the gate you choose.”

Angelus picked up the card, crumpling it in his hand. “I’ve stood outside the gates long enough.”

The door slammed, and Amarie stepped out from her hiding place. “Who was that, Grandmamma?”

The older woman picked up the crumpled card, smoothing it with her hands. “He’s a Keeper from up north. A man who wants more than any man should have.”

“What does he want?”

Sulla’s eyes met Amarie’s, and for a second she was not sure if she would answer the girl. “To tamper with fate. Change the cards.”

“But you can’t change the cards.”

Sulla looked away, remembering what she’d seen in the cards the day Amarie was born. “Sometimes you can. But there’s always a price.”

When I opened my eyes, Xavier was standing above me, his features twisted in concern. “What did you see, dead man?”

The black stone was warm in my hand. I squeezed it tighter, as if it could somehow bring me closer to Amma. To the memories locked within its shiny black surface. “How many times has Angelus changed The Caster Chronicles, Xavier?”

The Gatekeeper looked away, wringing his long fingers nervously.

“Xavier, answer me.”

Our eyes met, and I saw the pain in his. “Too many times.”