The Marked Girl

by Lindsey Klingele

  “Is everyone okay?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Liv said. “Where are Shannon and Merek?”

  “Still at the hospital.”

  Kat raced down the stairwell. “The earth moved again,” she said, her voice shakier than Liv was used to hearing it.

  “Another portal?” Joe said.

  No, Liv wanted to say, but couldn’t find her breath.

  “Where’s Cedric? And Peter?” Joe asked. He picked his way across the living room toward Liv.

  No, no, no.

  Kat looked pale. “Cedric would never—”

  “Cedric would never what?”

  Everyone turned to see Cedric walk in through the front door. His eyes were wild, desperate. They scanned the damage, took in the figures in the room. “Where’s Emme?”

  “Liv, Cedric . . . look.” Joe pointed to the opposite wall of the room. Someone had taken a marker and written over the white wall in large letters. Liv held her breath as she silently read the words, and her worst suspicions were confirmed.

  Dear Cedric, it began, I hope you understand why I had to do this. Peter came willingly, and I hope the rest will follow. I promise he will be all right. We all will, so long we do what Malquin says. Please forgive me, your Emme.

  Beneath her message was a shorter one, scrawled out in messy letters:

  Liv and Daisy, this was something I had to do. I hope to see you both soon.

  Liv’s knees buckled beneath her, and she took an involuntary step back to steady herself. Cedric walked slowly to the wall and ran his hand over Emme’s words.

  “How could she do that?” Cedric asked. His voice was low, as though he was talking to himself. “How could she just . . . leave?”

  No one answered.

  They all gathered closer to the words on the wall, and Liv focused on her brother’s messy scrawl. She remembered the gleam in his eyes when he’d talked about being special . . . had Emme overheard him talking in the hospital waiting room? Did she know then he would be an easy target? His handwriting on the wall was heartbreakingly familiar. It was the same as it had been when Peter was small.

  “I’m going after them,” Liv said. She was surprised by the force of her own voice.

  Cedric spun around. “No.” He looked around the room, as if searching for support—first to Kat, then to Joe.

  “That’s exactly what Emme wants you to do, Liv,” Joe said. “That’s why she convinced Peter to go with her—she knew you’d follow and she could hand you over to Malquin. But you can’t.”

  “Yes, I can. He’s my brother. I just got him back, and I’m not losing him again.”

  “We already agreed,” Cedric said, moving closer to Liv. “Malquin only needs two scrolls. If he has Peter, and he gets you . . . we cannot let that happen.”

  “He’s right,” Kat said. Cedric nodded.

  “You can’t stop me.” Liv moved closer to Cedric. She straightened and looked up into his eyes. They burned with intensity, but she didn’t care—hers felt just as bright.

  “I’m a scroll, remember? I can open a portal anytime I want. I’ll go alone if I have to, to get Peter back. I will.”

  “Liv,” Joe started, walking up toward her. She spun to face him.

  “I will. You’ll have to chain me up, Joe, I swear. And even then, I’ll find a way.” Liv put every ounce of conviction she had behind her words. “He’s my family, Joe. My brother.”

  Joe flinched, and Liv knew she’d hit the right nerve. He’d let his own brother go, all those years ago, back when Malquin was just John. Liv knew the kind of person that Joe was, and knew how it must have eaten him up inside to not go after his brother. He’d had two once, and lost them both.

  When Joe spoke, he was quiet. “If you open the portal alone, it will chew you up, just like it did to John.”

  “Not if we do it right, if we all open it together and use . . . blood.” Liv looked to Cedric briefly, then barreled on. “I’ll be the only one who crosses through, but if the three of us open it together, it should work right. I saw how Malquin did it.”

  “But Peter didn’t,” Joe said. His expression was all sympathy, which Liv could barely tolerate. “He must have opened a portal for him and Emme alone, without knowing the right things to do. There’s no way to know if he . . . survived.”

  The pit of fear in Liv’s stomach spread. She shook her head. “No. He’s alive, he has to be.” She couldn’t accept that he wasn’t. That she had found Peter again, after all these years, to have only a few hours with him . . . it wasn’t possible that he was gone, forever. It wasn’t.

  “I have to find him,” she managed to say.

  “So you could get hurt, too? Even if the three of us open a portal safely and you cross through, you’ll be all alone—”

  “She’s not going alone,” Cedric said. When he looked at Liv, his eyes weren’t just hard. They were angry. She never imagined he could look at her that way. She forced herself to look away. “We will go with her, obviously.”

  “What about Merek?” Kat said.

  Cedric kept his eyes, and his anger, on Liv. But his words were directed at Joe. “Is there any additional news on Merek’s condition?”

  “The doctors want to keep him under observation for a few days. I won’t be able to get him out until he can walk on his own, which might be a while . . .”

  “We don’t have time,” Liv whispered. She held Cedric’s stare. “We know Merek will be okay, at least. But Peter? If he’s . . . hurt, I need to find him and bring him back now.”

  “What about me?” Daisy suddenly stepped up. “I want to go. He’s my brother, too.”

  Liv exchanged a panicked look with Joe, then turned to her sister. “I can’t risk you, too. Besides, you have people here who care about you.”

  Daisy rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath, but her face looked unsure.

  “I know it might not seem that way, but your parents do care. They cared enough to adopt you, to raise you.”

  Daisy swallowed.

  “You can’t just leave them behind,” Liv said. She walked over to Daisy and pulled her into a hug. “Besides, I won’t be long. I’ll find Peter and be back here before you know it.” Her words caught in her throat as Daisy gripped her back, hard.

  She hoped she sounded convincing.

  THE HOLE IN THE SKY, PART TWO

  They walked down the beach for a long time, following the narrow strip of sand between water and cliff. Joe led the way, followed by Liv and the others. The nearest neighbor to Daisy had a fire engine parked outside, and Liv hoped the morning’s earthquake hadn’t caused too much trouble. She thought of the ruined buildings surrounding the burned warehouse in Venice. Joe had told her they were mostly boat storage units, and no people had been on the scene other than the Knights and wraths. Still, Liv didn’t want too much more destruction on her hands.

  After a half hour of walking, they stopped in front of a long stretch of cliff.

  “This seems to be pretty isolated,” Joe said. “Minimal damage.”

  Liv nodded, but she knew there was no way any of them could be sure that was true. So much harm had already been done. She looked to Daisy, who looked so young, so small standing there. If she left, how could she be sure Daisy would stay safe?

  Was it worth it to go?

  Her eyes met Cedric’s then. He stared her down, his blue eyes nearly translucent in the bright morning light. And she realized what it must be like for him, all the time—having to make the hard decisions.

  Liv wished she had a script she could follow, beats laid out to let her know she was on the right track. But there was no way to know which choice was right until after it was already made. The only way to decide, in the moment, was to determine which path was the one she could live with the least, and then take the other one.

  Liv turned back to Joe. “Let’s do this.”

  “Wait,” Daisy said, stepping toward Liv. “I have something for you.” She thrust out a small
black backpack. “It’s an earthquake kit.”

  Liv smiled. “Thanks, but if this actually works, you might need that more than me.”

  Daisy pushed the backpack into Liv’s hands. “It has water and a flashlight and walkie-talkies, just in case you run into . . . stuff.” Her voice wavered, and for a moment, she looked uncertain, younger than thirteen.

  Liv smiled and put on the backpack. “Thanks, Daisy.”

  Daisy shrugged, then stood taller, suddenly looking more like herself. “No big deal. We have, like, four more of them back at the house.”

  Liv looked to Joe. He gave a brief nod and stepped between Liv and Daisy, so the three of them faced an empty stretch of air between the surf and the cliff.

  “You remember the words Malquin spoke?” Joe asked Liv.

  “Yes,” she said. She didn’t know how she’d ever forget. “And there’s the second thing we need.”

  “Blood.” Cedric’s voice was flat. “Our blood.”

  Liv nodded. “So I can go through without being hurt. Hopefully.”

  Kat handed Cedric a knife. He quickly put it against his palm and slit downward. A drop of his blood leaked out through his clenched fingers and spilled to the sand.

  Fighting the rising bubble of fear in her stomach, Liv reached out toward Cedric. She took his injured hand in hers—the first time they’d touched since the pier. And possibly the last time they would. Sure, he’d agreed to take her to Caelum, but she knew his resolution from the pier still stood. He’d keep his distance.

  The blood felt warm against her palm, and she pulled her hand back quickly.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Liv turned back to Joe and Daisy. She thought about the swirling portal in the warehouse, the surging, open blackness.

  She breathed in deep. “Repeat after me. Echgo libratum, echgo indux vitte.”

  She felt it immediately, a light buzzing under her skin that surged quickly. Magic.

  “Echgo libratum, echgo indux vitte.”

  Liv heard Joe’s deep voice and Daisy’s higher one joining in. Or no—not heard, but felt. Their voices were energy, mixing with her own. She repeated the words over and over in her mind, no longer even sure she was saying them out loud. The world around her took on a brief technicolor focus, then went fuzzy around the edges.

  Then she could see it—a small hole right in front of her, a pinprick. It slowly opened upward. Or rather, it tore. Through the air, it shimmered and grew, until it expanded outward in a rough circle. The portal. She had created it.

  Liv exhaled. She’d done it.

  She felt exhausted, spent. All the energy she’d brought up inside of herself had been expelled, and was now swirling around in thin air before her.

  A tear in the world.

  Cedric stepped up behind Liv—she could feel his presence there without turning around.

  “Time to go,” he said.

  Joe and Daisy stepped aside, and Kat assumed their place. Her face was bright as she looked at the portal.

  “Home,” she said, a smile on her lips. She turned to Cedric. “See you there.” She took off at a light run and jumped through the portal.

  Cedric was next. He turned to Joe. “Thank you, for all your help. With Merek and . . . everything.”

  “Of course,” Joe said. He met Liv’s eyes.

  “Look after each other, and Shannon. Till I get back,” she said. It hit her how sad it was she had so few people to say good-bye to. And would Shannon understand why she’d had to leave her behind? “Tell her—”

  Liv’s words were cut off by a huge, smashing noise. The ground shook beneath her, but right before she fell to the sand, she saw that a large portion of the nearby cliff was cascading downward.

  “We have to go, now,” Cedric said.

  The ground shook again, and was followed by another noise—but this wasn’t the crashing of rocks. It was a wheezing, straining noise, like air being let out of a balloon.

  “What is that?” Joe asked. “The portal?”

  Liv didn’t know—she hadn’t heard the noise when the portal was open at the warehouse. She barely had time to shake her head before Cedric reached for her.

  “Liv,” he said. She grabbed his hand. Together, they moved to the swirling black hole.

  Liv turned her head once, to say good-bye to Daisy and Joe. But they weren’t looking at her anymore. They were staring at the sky above them . . . the sky that was roiling, darkening, changing from light blue to orange and then red. Thick clouds moved impossibly fast across the ocean, and with their burnished color, they looked like a spreading fire.

  “Wha—”

  Liv’s voice was swallowed by the great expanse of darkness as Cedric pulled her farther into the portal. The last thing she saw was the fear on Daisy and Joe’s faces as they stared at the impossibly vivid sunset.

  Liv’s final, confused thought was, But it’s the middle of the day . . .

  Then, there was nothing.

  THE NEW WORLD

  Liv was lying on the ground. Hard ground, familiar ground.

  It didn’t work, she thought. I’m still home.

  Relief flooded through her, then shame. She hadn’t realized how big a part of her wanted to stay on Earth until she’d failed to leave it.

  Liv opened her eyes to see a bright sky. It was whitish-gold and clear.

  Her ears were ringing, and she focused on her own breathing. What could she feel? Her body beneath her, intact. She raised her palm to her face and saw streaks of dried blood there. Cedric’s blood.

  Liv started to sit up, and her muscles groaned. She felt as though she’d just done five hundred sit-ups. She was lying next to a crop of spiky blue flowers. They were larger than any flower Liv had ever seen in person. What were they?

  She sat up farther.

  And gasped.

  There, in front of her, was a giant mountain range, with points that reached up into the sky. They seemed to go on forever—farther than Liv could see—before fading away into a white haze. And ten feet away from her, punching a hole through the air right in front of the picturesque vision of the mountain range, was a dark portal.

  This wasn’t home.

  Liv slowly struggled to her feet. She was in a giant meadow full of blue flowers, some of which grew up to her waist. Everything was large, and wrong somehow. Like she was in a dream. But the pain in her body told her she was awake.

  “Are you okay?”

  Liv turned at the sound of the voice, and saw Cedric standing near her.

  “I think . . . I think so,” Liv said. She looked around again. “Holy crap.”

  A few steps from Cedric, Kat was spinning in place, grinning. She bent down to the ground and picked up a handful of dark soil.

  Cedric turned to Liv, and though she knew he was still angry with her, his blue eyes were shining.

  “Welcome to Caelum.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Acknowledgments, wow. This may be the closest I ever get to giving some version of an Emmy award speech, so bear with me. At least no orchestra can play me off when I start to ramble—

  —and I’m being told to hurry this along, so okay. First and foremost, my deepest thanks to Reiko Davis, my kind and talented agent, who not only thought my writing was worth spending time on, but who made it better and stronger from the beginning. I would literally not be writing these words without you, and yet I feel like there aren’t words strong enough to express your awesomeness.

  Also awesome beyond words—Jess MacLeish, my cool, amazing editor, who knows what words to cut, what words to leave in, and what restaurants to go to in New York. This book is so much better because you worked on it. Thanks also to the entire HarperTeen team for all the work put in at every stage of bringing this manuscript from a file on my laptop out into the world.

  Special thanks to my very first readers, Sarah Ratner and Ariana Jackson; your suggestions and also your words of encouragement were really crucial at the beginning stages
of all this. Eric Luper and Elissa Sussman also provided fantastic notes that helped me shape early drafts. Thanks also to the other members of my writing group, Christopher Bosley and Elysse Applebaum, for the support, for making me a better writer, and for the donuts.

  A lot of people provided guidance as I worked on this book, both on a personal and professional level. Thanks so much to Erica Phillips for listening to me blather on about every single step of this journey, and for telling me I deserved it even when I didn’t think that was true, and thanks to Josh Sathre, who got me my first TV job in LA, for which I will always be grateful. And big thanks to Chuck Pratt, for offering encouragement, giving me a job, and teaching me how to always write to a killer act break.

  So much thanks and love for my family and friends in Michigan, the magical place that will always be my home no matter where else I go in this life. My grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins—you are far too many to name (seriously, that would take up a whole other book)—but you are each so important to me. And to Erica Blalock, Daina Graves, Lisa VanderPloeg, Paula DuBose, and Kim Syrios—I wouldn’t be who I am without you.

  No life is complete without sisters, and mine definitely wouldn’t be without Alli Klingele and Sarah Boyle, my best friends and partners in crime. Worlds of thanks to my parents, Steve Klingele, Robyn Boyle, and Toby Boyle, who taught me how to be a human, and who let me read as many books as I could ever want.

  And finally, to Phil—I always thought getting a book published would be the best thing to ever happen to me (and honestly, it’s pretty great), but it’s nothing compared to getting to spend every day with you. So thank you for that, and for every other little thing.

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