But Obidias didn’t want to talk about himself. “When I heard about the circumstances that brought you to this side of the veil, I sent word to your aunt immediately. Your aunt and your mother.”

My Aunt Prue clicked her tongue impatiently.

That explained my aunt wanting to bring me here—and my mother not wanting her to. Just because you told any two people in my family the same piece of news, that didn’t mean they’d agree about what they’d heard. My mom used to say the people in the Evers family were about the most hog-minded, mule-stuck bloodline you could find—and the Wates were worse. A pack of wasps fighting over the nest—that’s what my dad called the Wate family reunions.

“How did you hear about what happened?” I tried not to stare at the snakes twisting beneath the black hood.

“News travels fast in the Otherworld,” he said, hesitating. “More importantly, I knew it was a mistake.”

“I told you, Ethan Wate.” Aunt Prue looked mighty satisfied.

If it was a mistake—if I wasn’t supposed to be here—maybe there was a way to fix it. Maybe I really could go home.

I wanted so badly for it to be true, the same way I had wanted this to be a dream I could wake up from. But I knew better.

Nothing was ever how you wanted it to be. Not anymore. Not for me.

They just didn’t understand.

“It wasn’t a mistake. I chose to come, Mr. Trueblood. I worked it out with the Lilum. If I didn’t, the people I loved, and lots of others, were going to die.”

Obidias nodded. “I know all of that, Ethan. Just like I know about the Lilum and the Order of Things. I’m not questioning what you did. What I’m saying is that you never should’ve had to make that choice. It wasn’t in the Chronicles.”

“The Caster Chronicles?” I had only seen the book once, in the archive when the Council of the Far Keep came to question Marian, yet it was the second time I’d heard the subject come up since I got here. How did Obidias know about it? And whatever any of it meant, my mom hadn’t exactly wanted to elaborate.

“Yes.” Obidias nodded.

“I don’t understand what that has to do with me.”

He was silent for a moment.

“Go on, tell him.” Aunt Prue was giving Obidias Trueblood the same forceful look she always gave me right before she made me do something crazy, like bury acorns in her yard for baby squirrels. “He deserves ta know. Set it right.”

Obidias nodded at Aunt Prue and looked back at me with those golden-yellow eyes that made my skin crawl almost as much as his snake hand did. “As you know, The Caster Chronicles is a record of everything that has happened in the world. But it is also a record of what might be—possible futures that have not come to pass.”

“The past, the present, and the future. I remember.” The three weird-looking Keepers I saw in the library and during Marian’s trial. How could I forget?

“Yes. In the Far Keep, those futures can be altered, transforming them from possible futures to actual ones.”

“Are you saying the book can change the future?” I was stunned. Marian had never mentioned any of this.

“It can,” Obidias answered. “If a page is altered, or one is added. A page that was never intended to be there.”

A shiver moved up my back. “What are you saying, Mr. Trueblood?”

“The page that tells the story of your death was never part of the original Chronicles. It was added.” He looked up at me, haunted.

“Why would someone do that?”

“There are more reasons for people’s actions than the number of actions that are actually set in motion.” His voice was distant, full of regret and sorrow I would never have expected from a Dark Caster. “The important thing is that your fate—this fate—can be changed.”

Changed? Could you save a life once it was over?

I was terrified to ask the next question, to believe there was a way I could get back to everything I lost. To Gatlin. To Amma.

Lena.

All I wanted was to feel her in my arms and hear her voice in my head. I wanted to find a way back to the Caster girl I loved more than anything in this world, or any world.

“How?” The answer didn’t actually matter. I would do whatever I had to, and Obidias Trueblood knew it.

“It’s dangerous.” Obidias’ expression was a warning. “More dangerous than anything in the Mortal world.”

I heard the words, but I couldn’t believe them. There was nothing more terrifying than staying here. “What do I have to do?”

“You’ll have to destroy your own page in The Caster Chronicles. The one that describes your death.”

I had a thousand questions, but only one mattered. “What if you’re wrong, and my page was there all along?”

Obidias stared down at what was left of his hand, the snakes rearing and striking even under the cloth. A shadow passed across his face.

He raised his eyes to meet mine.

“I know it wasn’t there, Ethan. Because I’m the one who wrote it.”

CHAPTER 11

Darker Things

The room went quiet, so quiet you could hear the house creak as the wind pushed against it. So quiet you could hear the snakes hiss almost as loudly as Aunt Prue’s asthma and my pounding heart. Even the Harlon Jameses slunk away, whimpering behind a chair.

For a second, I couldn’t think. My mind was completely blank.