Between the two of us, we owed each other that much.

“So long, Ethan,” I said.

With my last remaining bit of strength, I hurled the rock into the water. I heard it hit, making only the tiniest sound.

You wouldn’t have noticed it unless you were me.

Or one of the dead.

Because they disappeared a few seconds after the rock hit the water. About as quickly as it took a rock to sink all the way down to the bottom of a pool of bodies.

I fell back on the tiny stretch of dry land, exhausted. For a second, I was too scared to move.

Then I saw Angelus standing there, glued to the book, reading in the light of the flickering green and gold flames.

I knew what I had to do. And I didn’t have long to do it.

I pulled myself to my feet.

There it was. It was open on the pedestal, right in front of me.

In front of Angelus, too.

THE CASTER CHRONICLES

I reached for the book, and it burned my fingers.

“Don’t,” Angelus growled, grabbing my wrist. His eyes were shining, as if the book had some strange hold on him. He didn’t even look up from the page. I’m not sure he could.

Because it was his page.

I could almost read it from where I stood, a thousand rewritten words, one crossed out over the next. I could see the quill, ink-stained at the tip, almost twitching in his fingers next to the book.

So this was how he’d done it. How he’d forced the supernatural world to bend to his will. He controlled the story. Not just his, but all of ours.

Angelus had changed everything.

One person could do that.

And one person could change it back.

“Angelus?”

He didn’t answer. Staring into the book, he looked more like a zombie than the corpses did.

So I didn’t look. Instead, I closed my eyes and pulled on the page, as hard and as fast as I could.

“What are you doing?” Angelus sounded frantic, but I didn’t open my eyes. “What have you done?”

My hands were burning. The page wanted to rip free from me, but I wouldn’t let go. I only held on tighter. Nothing was going to stop me now.

It came off in my hands.

The ripping sound reminded me of an Incubus, and I half expected to see John Breed or Link appear next to me. I opened my eyes.

No such luck. Angelus reached for the page, shoving me in one direction while pulling my arm in another.

I grabbed a dripping candle from the pedestal stand and lit the bottom of the page on fire. It began to smoke and flame, and Angelus howled with rage.

“Leave it! You don’t know what you’re doing! You could destroy everything—” He threw himself at me, punching and kicking, almost ripping my shirt off. His nails raked my skin, again and again, but I didn’t let go.

I didn’t let go when I felt the flames sear their way down to my fingers.

I didn’t let go when the ink-smeared page crumbled into ash.

I didn’t let go until Angelus himself crumbled into nothing, as if he was made of parchment.

Finally, when the wind had blown every last trace of the Keeper and his page into oblivion, I found myself staring at my burnt, blackened hands.

“My turn.”

Ducking my head, I flipped through the delicate pages of parchment. I could see dates and names at the top, penned by different hands. I wondered which ones Xavier had written. If Obidias had changed anyone else’s page. I hoped he wasn’t the one who changed Ethan Carter Wate’s.

I thought of my namesake and shuddered, fighting to keep the bile down.

That could have been me.

Halfway through the book, I found our pages.

Ethan Carter’s was right before mine, the two pages clearly written by different hands.

I skimmed Ethan Carter’s page until I reached the part of the story I already knew. It read like a script of the vision I had witnessed with Lena, the story of the night he died and Genevieve used The Book of Moons to bring him back. The night that started it all.

I stared at the edge where the page met the binding. I almost tore it out, but I knew it wouldn’t have made a difference. It was too late for the other Ethan.

I was the only one who still had a chance to change his fate.

Finally, I turned the page to find I was staring at Obidias’ script.

Ethan Lawson Wate

I didn’t read my page. I couldn’t risk it. I could already feel the pull of the book on my eyes, powerful enough to Bind me to my page, forever.

I looked away. I already knew what happened in the end of this revision.

Now I was changing it.

I tore the page, the edges pulling away from the binding in a flash of electricity stronger and brighter than lightning. I heard what sounded like thunder in the sky above me, but I kept tearing.

This time, I kept the candles as far from the parchment as I could.

I pulled until the words came loose, disappearing like they had been written in invisible ink.

I looked down at the page again and it was blank.

I let it drop into the water around me, watching as it fell through the milky depths, vanishing into the endless shadow of the chasm.

My page was gone.

And in that second, I knew I was, too.

I stared at my Chucks beneath me

until they were gone

and I was gone

and it didn’t matter anymore.…

because

there

was

nothing

beneath

me

now

and

then

no

me

CHAPTER 35

A Crack in the Universe