Chapter Text
LENA
dark dawn,
worse better,
far nearer,
alone together,
like two people from separate words,
that found each other in the rain,
like two hands tied with red yarn,
pulled from a beaten up sweater
Sometimes a person can struggle with happiness. It may sound stupid, but when you've been beaten down all your life, you learn to be alert. Those brief moments of peace just become the unbearable anticipation for the next hit the Wheel of Fate lays on you. Happiness was deceitful. It makes you put your guard down.
That's why I was having problems relaxing in Mrs. Doherty's class, despite everything being absolutely perfect. I passed all my exams, I finished all my assignments and the last classes ahead of me were just pleasantries at this point. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the sky wasn't falling for a change, and yet I still felt this weird tension all over my body, like something was about to snap.
Maybe I'm just bad at relaxation. Everything was fine. Better than fine even. My third year in Halloway went by with no problem, and now it was slowly coming to a close. Summer break was two days away.
Don't take this the wrong way, I love college. I love it to bits. But just because I adore studying, didn't mean I didn't like other things. Burying my feet in the sand, feeling the cool breeze in my hair, the touch of the waves splashing around me, I'm only human. (Or so it would seem.)
As great as learning more about creative writing was, there were things I love more than literature. My friends. My family. And of course—
"Earth to Lena, you're daydreaming again."
I snapped my head so fast to the side, I made Gaby jump in her seat.
Right, I was in a middle of a lecture. Mrs. Doherty was talking about the concept of the Jungian shadow in fiction, and it was a really interesting subject, which I just couldn't focus on for some reason.
Gaby giggled, and my brow furrowed. She was one of my favorite people, but she knows how to push my buttons. Still, try as I might, it was hard to be mad at her, she was like a ray of sunshine. She wore seashells as earrings, and always walked around the hall in those long cardigans, and bemoaned that she was too shy to talk to guys, despite the fact they were tripping over each other to get to her.
"I wasn't daydreaming," I told her flatly.
"Yeah you were." She wiggled her eyebrows at me. "Thinking about spending the summer with your Cowboy?"
It was a nickname my study group used for my boyfriend, because of his school mascot, a goofy angry bison. They swear it had nothing to do with the fact we were both from South Carolina.
"Why are you always like this?" I rolled my eyes at her, but I was holding back a smile.
"You know why. She's just jealous." Marcy chuckled from the row above us, leaning in to join the conversation.
Marcy was my roommate. She was a Mortal, but in my hometown they'd probably call her a witch anyway. She always wore black, even as lipstick, and her room was full of books about mythology, and painted-up skulls, and posters of monsters on the wall. I liked her immediately. First time we met, I lifted my nails covered in black polish and said that we matched, and she just smiled warmly and told me to stick with her, and she'd make sure no one messes with me.
She had an impish smile, which was the one she was giving me right now.
"I mean, who wouldn't be jealous? Ethan's like a total dreamboat. And everyone knows it."
"Plus he's from Marshall! That gives him that mystique, you know?" Gaby concurred.
I just stared at them both trying to look disgusted, while also fighting the urge to laugh.
"Don't talk about my boyfriend like that. Ever."
"We'll stop when he stops being so hot!" Marcy teased.
"Marcy, it's not summer yet!" Mrs. Doherty said from the podium. "I'd appreciate if you'd let me finish."
"Sorry, Mrs. D! Just... getting in touch with my Jungian shadow?"
Mrs. Doherty laughed.
"Jung would've argued that you let your shadow control you. A true merging can only happen if the conscious self is in charge. Otherwise, you become a slave to your basest instincts."
"Like how Dr. Jekyll describes the animal in him growing stronger, while his spiritual side grew drowsy," I said.
Mrs. Doherty beamed.
"Yes, exactly! Robert Louis Stevenson's book is the perfect example, Lena, because Hyde is not a separate entity..."
Marcy pouted at me, and I smiled smugly, pushing her head back. She pretended to look hurt, but I could see her smiling. It was all in good fun. This wasn't Stonewall Jackson High. Which honestly was a culture shock. I'm so used to people laughing at me when I told them I write poetry, or talking behind my back about my clothes. Here I had fellow students coming to me, asking for writing advice, or begging me to tell them where I got those 'cute outfits' from.
I have become quite popular as the go to source of poetry knowledge. It was my specialty. But if you wanted an indepth discussion on sexism in literature, Gaby was the girl you asked. She put to words things I didn't even think about. Marcy on the other hand loved singing the praises of horror. She said it can examine the human condition in a way no other genre could.
I rested my head on my elbow, thinking about how in just a few days the summer would start. As much as I'd hate to admit it, they had a point. I was looking forward to being with Ethan.
We made an effort to spend time together, but when you lived the best and worst years of your life practically joined at the hip with someone, you tended to feel their absence.
We went to rival colleges, 90 minutes apart from each other, I went to Halloway, and he went to Marshall. We hanged out on weekends, went to parties together, and Kelted every night, trying to steal as much time as we could, but it would be nice to just have him all to myself.
The very thought made me feel all gooey and sweet, like a cinnamon roasted apple. If I closed my eyes it's like I was already there.
We'd spend the first month of summer break visiting Gatlin and going with all my relatives to Barbados, and I would show him all the beautiful sights I found growing up. After that, somewhere far away, just the two of us. Paris, Moscow, Dresden. Didn't really matter where.
Ethan had this map in his dorm room, the one he worked on since he was nine, with every place he wanted to see. It's the kind of keepsake only boys who had to live their whole life in one place had. For someone like me, who moved from place to place since she was little, there was only one place on the map I wanted to find, but I had no idea where it was. Yet.
Still, in the years we've been together, I added my fair share of marks on the map. There were still places I wanted to see, even if we scratched off Emily Dickenson's house off the list on our first week in Massachussets.
Mrs. Doherty finally finished her lecture, letting us go an hour early, and now me and Gaby were on our way to the basement, along with every other student with green or gold eyes.
Halloway Park College was pretty old, but what lied beneath was even older.
A Caster college.
After all, Massachussets had quite a sordid history with witchcraft. Many people executed at the Trials were Casters. Others were just humans. The superstitious didn't see the difference, as long as it was someone easy to blame. Someone different.
Jokes on them. We were still here and doing fine.
"Think Blakemore will go easy on us?" Lyvia Torres pondered, crossing her arms, as we entered the Tunnels. Lyvia was a Dark Caster, which was becoming a lot more common on the campus lately. Some of the students were uneasy around her at first, but that quickly changed when they actually got to know her. Lyvia was, to her own chagrin, a huge sweetheart. She once saved Marcy from a mugging. (And Marcy had a crush on her ever since.)
"You tell us, you're the Diviner," Evan Shepard, butted in.
"That's not how my powers work. Also, give me back my pen!"
Lyvia grabbed at Evan, who waved her pen out of her reach. He was an Evanescent, a Caster with the power of making objects disappear and reappear wherever he wanted.
Yes, Evan the Evanescent. We also found it funny, especially Evan himself. I guess the Wheel of Fate had a sense of humor.
"You have two! I need it for class, I forgot mine. Blakemore is gonna bust my balls if I don't make notes again!"
"Maybe if we ask nicely, Gabriella will use that Power of Persuasion of hers to charm him into not being a hardass for a change." A tall Dark Caster guy chuckled with his deep voice and shot Gaby a look that made her ears turn pink.
"Tha—that would be a gross misuse of my powers!" Gaby raised her chin up indignantly, although she was still blushing. "I am a modern Siren and I don't charm people without their permission."
"Doesn't that kinda go against the whole point of being a Siren?" The Dark Caster guy raised an eyebrow at her. He looked amused. "You're like a shark trying to be a vegetarian."
"How do you know there aren't sharks that eat plants?" I said. "Maybe we just haven't discovered them yet."
He gaped at me with an open mouth and shook his head at his friends.
"Light Caster chicks are so weird, man."
"So, have you guys heard?" Whitney Cross, a Thaumaturge, turned around to look at us, speaking in a hushed whisper, like we were talking about some big secret.
"Heard what?" Gaby asked, her ears perking up.
"Is this about someone seeing a hybrid Caster around the campus?" Lyvia asked, leaning a little to be on our level. She was very tall.
"So you've heard!"
"Well, we didn't!" Evan chimed in. "What's this about a hybrid Caster?"
"Wait, like a real hybrid Caster?" Janice McAllister waved her hand in front of her eyes and they turned from gold to violet. She was an Illusionist, like my cousin Larkin used to be.
"That's what I heard! One of those crazy experiments by the Syndicate, with purple eyes and different powers." Whitney's face scrunched up, "Think we're safe?"
Evan scoffed. "No way that's real. There is no Syndicate. It's all a bunch of made up stories, like aliens, or the Lockness monster, or whatever it is the Mortals are believing in now."
"They said the same thing about Sarafine, and she's real. Was at least," Lyvia pointed out. I stiffened. She said Sarafine in the same tone Mortal kids say the Boogeyman.
"Uhm... Sorry, Lena." Her voice was quiet as she said it, "I didn't mean to... you know..."
I stared at her a moment, feeling numb.
"It's... fine," I sighed.
Evan didn't seem to notice the mood has changed.
"Oh, yeah! If those hybrid things really do exists, we have nothing to worry about. We have Lena Duchannes on our side! She'll send them packing in no time flat, like she did with with the Ravenwoods!"
I looked down at my trainers.
"You really need to learn when to shut up, Evan." Lyvia scowled.
"What? What did I say?"
"How do you know they're bad?" I said.
Everyone looked at me.
"What?"
"How do you know they're bad? That hybrid Caster? Maybe they just want to study here."
Whitney looked away, unwilling to look me in the eyes. She was still a bit weirded out by them, the Light Caster green and Dark Caster gold together. There was no other Caster like that.
"Lena... I know you always see the good in people and all, but those hybrid Casters are different. I doubt they'd ever want to study here."
"Oh, don't tell us, I bet you met plenty of them!" Evan was mocking her. Whitney didn't like that.
She gritted her teeth. "If you have to know, my mom and I had to move last summer, because a bunch of thugs with purple eyes started harassing her! They said she was spreading filth by letting me be friends with Mortals. They wrote all this awful shit on our house. Slashed her tires. Sent threatening phone calls."
Whitney's fists were clenched so hard her knuckles were white. Lyvia put a hand on her shoulder.
"My friends had some run-ins too. Everyone in the Tunnels was still getting used to Darkborns, and then those guys showed up. They carry themselves like they own the place, act like they're better than everybody. The Syndicate messed with their heads. Made them believe all this crazy stuff. They say Mortals need to be dealt with so they can inherit the world above." Lyvia's voice was tired, and the shadows under her eyes dark. How many speeches like this did she hear? "They're what everyone thinks Dark Casters are."
The other Dark Casters in the group went quiet. I knew what they were thinking. A lot of Light Casters still thought everyone who's Dark was automatically evil. That wasn't true, but it wasn't true for hybrid Casters either!
My cousin Ridley wasn't evil. No matter how much she insisted she was.
She was forcefully pumped with Caster powers and Succubus blood by Silas Ravenwood, aided by that Syndicate of his. She was his Patient 13. The previous ones did not survive.
If you didn't count my friend John, Ridley would be the first hybrid Caster. The first with violet eyes at least. They weren't bad, or twisted, or hated Mortals in any case, but I knew my classmates wouldn't believe that.
Maybe the Caster world just wasn't ready for change. Or maybe I was wrong, and John and Ridley were just the lucky ones, and Silas ruined the minds and souls of all those other people he experimented on.
I was so lost in that horrible thought, I didn't even notice when we reached the rusted wrought iron doors in the dark college basement.
Prof. Blakemore was already sitting at his desk, looking distinguished as always. He would give my Uncle Macon a run for his money with how sharply dressed he was with his suit pants and pull over. His head was shaved, exposing a bunch of scars that looked like some animal raked it's claws through his head. Evan often joked that he was Professor X, and we were his X-Men. Ethan probably would've liked that comparison.
"Glad to see everyone made it. I thought for sure at least half of you would skip out on this last class." Some of my classmates laughed nervously. Nobody would even dare skip Blakemore's classes. That's like sticking your hand in an ant-hill. It didn't matter that Blakemore was just a Keeper, no Caster would ever dare mess with him.
There was no final exam. He always said that his lectures aren't about grades, they're about teaching us our history. He told us about how first Sirens appeared in Ancient Greece as Evos who gradually lost their ability to morph as they honed their ability to influence people. He explained how early Casters traveled around Europe, trying to escape christianization, leading to myths about witches and healers. He recounted stories of Evanescents in the courts of kings and queens, dazzling them with their magic tricks.
Caster history, turns out, was even more breathtaking than I could've ever imagined.
But for everything that we knew about ancient Casters, there were ten other things we didn't. There were so many gaps. Casters always had to hide, live on the run, keep to the shadows. There might still be records, sure, in one of the many Caster libraries in America or across the globe, but to comb through all of them would take a lifetime, or even several. How many of those libraries were destroyed in wars and natural disasters? How many ancient texts stolen and lost? How many books burned down by the Keepers themselves under the rule of the old, corrupt Far Keep?
Even my family history was full of questions and dead ends. My uncle spent years studying our past, and he was nowhere near closer to figuring out our full family tree.
"... Now here's the most fascinating part. Ancient Sumerian texts seem to hint at an existence of a deity worshiped by all Lilum, Succubuses and Incubuses alike." Professor Blakemore went to the next slide, and I gasped. The carving showed a woman, standing on top of a wheel. One of her hands was holding a flame, another a scale. There were spikes piercing her head, forming a crown. "We found depictions of this deity on Succubian staffs from Ancient Rome. There's even a name for this type of imagery. Regina Daemoniorum. The Queen of Demons."
"Lilum."
The class went quiet. Everyone was staring at me.
"Sorry? Miss Duchannes?"
Did I say that out loud?
"Lilum, sir."
"Yes, that's what I said."
"No. The word 'Lilum' derives from her. It's her name, sir."
He looked at me with eyebrows raised. "Really?"
He didn't sound like he doubted me. But there was a hint of confusion in his eyes.
"Well... At least that's what I've heard." Because my boyfriend talked to her in person. "I'm probably remembering one of my uncle's books."
"Ah, yes. I have heard Mr. Ravenwood has quite an extensive collection." He smiled. "If you ever find that book, I would love to read it."
"I'll... try looking for it."
Professor Blakemore went back to his lecture, but everyone was too busy staring at me to pay attention.
"Psst, Lena." Lyvia leaned in closer to me. "How do you really know about this whole Lilum lady?"
"Are you kidding? She probably met her face to face." Evan smirked. "Lena Duchannes vs. the Queen of Demons."
"It's 'the Demon Queen', and I've never met her."
"Sure you didn't." Evan winked at me.
I felt my cheeks burning up. It was true. I've never talked to Lilum once. Ethan did. He went on her Crucible. He made the deal that would save the world. I just helped.
I was so grateful when the lecture finally ended. Evan still was winking at me as he left the auditorium. What a mess.
I closed my notebook, and was ready to leave, when Professor Blakemore stopped me.
"Lena? One more thing."
I turned back to look at him. He was still sitting at his desk, putting on his reading glasses.
"Professor, I'm so sorry for interrupting you. About that book—"
"It's not about that." He waved it off. "I wanted to ask for your assistance."
"Assistance?"
He nodded.
"Some Casters who might study here next year have scheduled a visit. I figured, who better to show them around than our most famous student?"
"Famous?" I laughed, tucking some stray curls behind my ear. "I'm not a celebrity, Professor Blakemore."
"Sure you are." He said in that deadpan voice, not even looking up from his papers. "You wouldn't believe the amount of phone calls and letters the dean's office gets regarding you. A lot of Light Casters seem under the impression your presence would add a lot of prestige to their parties."
This wouldn't be the first I hear of it. Ravenwood also received it's fair share of phone calls and letters. Not all of them were as pleasant though. Turns out rewriting the most sacred ancient rules of the universe and toppling the most powerful Incubus crime empire in recent history made you a lot of enemies. But also a lot of... admirers. I shuddered at the thought.
"Well?" Professor Blakemore snapped his fingers, bringing me back to reality. "They're waiting in the main hall."
"Right, sorry! I'm going." I run for the door, not wanting to make him irritated.
"Oh, and Lena."
I stood in the door.
"Yes, professor?"
He looked up at me and his gaze softened. It looked almost sad.
"Stay safe."