“Unacceptable,” Marian barked. “Completely unacceptable.”
She stood alongside Gramma and Aunt Del in the kitchen of Wate’s Landing, looking like the three Fates of Gatlin County, or maybe the Furies. Whichever ones are more powerful and more dangerous to tick off, Ethan thought. The rest of the awkward friends-and-family council—Link, Liv, John, Lena, and Ethan—surrounded Ridley at the table. Nox paced behind her like some kind of Incubus guard dog.
Marian folded her arms in front of her in her most irritated librarian pose. “Even for you, Ridley. Try to show a little respect.”
“It’s true.” Gramma nodded firmly. “Right or wrong, you have no business being here, child. Not at the moment. You’re out of sorts, which makes you more dangerous than you know.”
Aunt Del sighed. “It’s not your fault, darling. It’s just… this is a very Mortal wedding. It’s not for you. Not when you’re all… like this.”
“Why is this all sounding so familiar?” Ridley cocked her head. “Is it just because you’ve been saying it my entire life?”
“This isn’t about you, Ridley. This isn’t even about the Casters. This weekend is about Ethan’s family, and they’ve been through enough already. I’m not letting anyone ruin this, too.” Marian took a step closer to the Siren, though Ethan wasn’t sure what she thought she was going to be able to do to the tragically twisted creature Ridley had become at the hands of Silas Ravenwood.
Whatever she was now, it was nothing less than a modern Caster tragedy. And a really annoying one, Ethan thought.
“Don’t be such a stiff, Mare.” Ridley kicked her boots up onto the Wates’ ancient kitchen table, the one Amma had scrubbed within an inch of its life, day in and out. The moment Rid’s boots hit the wood, lightning struck the tree outside the kitchen window—right where Amma used to hang her old spirit bottles for protection—and the windows rattled.
The rain began to pour.
Ethan smiled to himself.
Nobody messed with Amma’s kitchen, not even now.
“Calm down.” Ridley begrudgingly put her feet back on the floor. “You people really should learn how to take a joke.” She raised her voice. “All of you.”
Thunder rumbled overhead.
“Whatever.” Rid rolled her eyes.
“That was… pretty incredible,” Liv said, scribbling in her notebook from across the table as the thunder abated. “Interdimensional connectivity… between this reality and the Otherworld…”
“Oh, please.” Gramma snorted. “After sass like that, I’d say Amma was showing some restraint.”
Aunt Del sighed. “Ridley’s just testing the boundaries. They say she’ll grow out of it.” Then Del looked hazy. “Or maybe, she did grow out of it?” She was a little fuzzy on the befores and afters, like most Palimpsests, who saw time not so much as a flowing river as one great big puddle. “Or something.”
Marian didn’t say a word, but she didn’t take her eyes off Ridley, either.
“Still,” Liv said. She shook her head and kept on writing. “Otherworld causality… provoking elemental response.” She could never help but be excited about witnessing the intricacies of the Caster world, even when she was in the middle of certain doom. Ethan had always liked that about her.
The patter of rain against the roof grew louder now.
“The pie!” Link said, standing straight up from his chair at the table. “The rain! Forget the Otherworld! Think about the other pies—”
Ethan shook his head.
Link stuck his head out the screen door. “It’s raining! Save the dessert buffet, people!” The outburst surprised exactly no one, considering how many song lyrics Link had written about food (from pie to all forms of barbecue) in his short but storied career.
Lena rapped on the glass with one knuckle and the rain instantly stopped. “There. Can we try to stay focused?”
“Yeah. We have toasts to get back to. With, you know, the invited guests,” John said.
“I was invited.” Ridley scowled, unwrapping another cherry lollipop.
Liv yanked it out of her hand and passed it to John, who dropped it on the floor and ground it to powder beneath his boot.
“Very mature,” Ridley said.
“Like she said, we were invited,” Nox said, standing uncomfortably in the doorway.
“You actually weren’t invited to drive your motorcycle through the fence I had to paint all last week,” Ethan said, feeling less and less sorry for Rid and Nox by the minute.
“That was a miscalculation,” Nox said, looking embarrassed. “Besides, I’m not the one who was Ripping. Don’t look at me.”
“Thanks,” Ridley said, glaring.
“Wait a minute,” Link said, sounding incredulous. “You mean to tell me you can Rip now?” Nobody else seemed to have picked up on it, but there it was, right in front of them. Whatever had been done to her, Ridley had some kind of Incubus blood now.
Rid shrugged. “I can hold my own.”
Nox looked away.
It took a moment for the news to sink in.
“If she can Rip, it means Silas has been experimenting with Incubus blood again,” John said. “And we all know how well that worked out for me.”
“It also means Silas has been experimenting with Ridley’s blood again,” Liv pointed out. “And we all know how well that worked out for her.”
And? What else can she do? What has Silas done to her, out there in California? Ethan shuddered.
“Which means she’s still thick as thieves with Silas,” Ethan said, looking at Lena.
Link nodded. “And so this whole little reunion we’re enjoying is probably a trap. She’s probably leading him straight to us.”
“God. Paranoid much?” Ridley looked at Link, annoyed. “Are you finished, Sherlock?”
Lena began, “I think what everyone is trying to say is—”
“Oh my gawd, do Short Straw and his sidekicks actually need you to translate for them now?” Rid clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Because I can speak stupid.”
“Yeah, you’re fluent all right.” Link snorted.
“Better be. I learned it from you, Babe,” she shot right back.
“Ridley,” Liv said, looking up from her notebook. “Let Lena finish.”
“Why? So I can hear things I don’t care about and people who don’t matter?” Ridley sighed loudly.
“Yes. Now shut your trap and let everyone talk,” Link said forcefully. “I know you’re not right in the head, but these are your friends, dumbbucket. They care about you, no matter what you say about them.”
“Them?” She snorted. “Are you sure that’s what you mean, Shrinky Dink?”
He turned red. “We all care, you little idiot.”
She glared at him. “I’m sorry, could you step back? The Mortal stench is really starting to get to me.”
“I don’t smell.” Link was even redder now.
“The one who denied it supplied it,” Rid said.
As she spoke, she held out her hand and the pile of ground sugar power and the white paper stem—the remnants of the lollipop John had crushed beneath his boot—streamed back up through the air to her fingers, re-forming again into the cherry lollipop it once was. She popped it into her mouth. “Now, where were we?”
Everyone stared.
That was new.
Ethan could feel the familiar tug of Rid’s Persuasion, but like the rest of the people in the kitchen, he had long ago learned to ignore it—barring her more extreme displays. It was like having a mosquito bite you knew better than to scratch, because it was just going to get bigger and bigger if you did. And everyone who lived in Gatlin knew how to power through a mosquito bite or two, no matter how annoying they could be.
Especially this one.
“Amazing,” Liv said, scribbling. “Evolving… abilities…”
Lena stared at her cousin. “The rest of you can go back to the party. I’ll handle this.”
“Really? You’re going to handle me?” Ridley laughed.
“First, you’re going to put everything back the way you found it. That gate. The fence. The party. Everything.”
“What?”
Gramma nodded approvingly. “That’s right. We clean up after ourselves. Like your mother and I always taught you.”
“Of course. Do that.” Aunt Del looked relieved. “You’re done playing with the Mortals, now clean up.”
Marian harrumphed.
“Fine,” Ridley said, sucking on her lollipop. Ethan felt a wave of energy pass through the kitchen walls, radiating out into the yard surrounding the house. “They now think they’ve seen a slightly sleazy singing telegram involving a biker chick in red leather and a hot dude on a Harley.” She shrugged. “They’ll probably be talking about that longer than they would have the actual Rip. Just so you know.”
Nox sighed. “Great.”
“And the fence?” Ethan looked out the window. The fence and the gate were perfectly restored, only they were bright red. “Seriously?”
“Ugh,” Ridley said, sticking her lollipop back into her mouth. “How can you live like this?”
Ethan looked again, and now the wood was white. “That’s more like it.”
“Don’t mention it.” Rid waved him off.
Lena was relieved. “Now I’ll take Rid to see Macon. He’s going to want to talk to her, anyways.” She glared at her cousin. “Didn’t you know we’ve been looking for you, for months now?”
Rid sighed. “I heard. I just didn’t care. I’ve been busy. I have—”
“I know, we all know. Three million followers,” John interrupted.
“Almost four now,” Rid said.
“Ridley,” Nox said, giving her a strange look.
“Let’s go tell Uncle Macon all about what you’ve been up to,” Lena said, soothingly.
“Tell them,” Nox said, looking at Ridley. “Why we came. You’ve messed with them enough.”
“Rude, rude, rude,” Ridley said. “Nobody ever appreciated me in Gat-dung. Don’t you start hassling me, Nox.” She stood up and pulled open the refrigerator. “Also, this food sucks. Things have really gone downhill since—”
No.
Ethan slammed the door before she could finish. The chocolate milk Rid was holding dropped to the floor and exploded across the wood.
“Whoa, Psycho.” Rid looked at Ethan in disbelief. “I was going to say, since I left.”
“Sure you were,” he said.
She wagged her lollipop at him. “I’m not sure who you mistake me for, but I’m not Team Silas, little Mortal. You do know that, right?”
“We don’t know who or what you are anymore, Rid,” Ethan answered, looking her in the eye.
“If I wasn’t on your side, would we have come all this way to warn you that Silas is coming to crash your wedding?” Ridley was suddenly serious.
“What?” Lena looked startled.
“What are you saying, child?” Gramma was pale. Aunt Del grabbed the edge of the counter, but Marian’s expression was unreadable.
Rid shrugged. “Or would I have bothered to tell you that Uncle Macon’s stupid little Bindings to protect this dung heap aren’t holding?”
“That’s impossible,” Liv said, putting down her pen. “Those Bindings are some of his finest work. I watched him put them in place myself.”
Rid ignored her. “Or would I have mentioned that an Incubus takedown of epic proportion is headed your way, all thanks to your not-quite-Incubus friend Wesley Lincoln?” She wiped chocolate milk off her hands and onto her pants.
“Abraham Ravenwood got what was coming to him,” Link said, defensively.
“You don’t have to tell me that. I don’t care,” Ridley said. “Not about you or them or any of it. But the Ravenwood side of my family might feel a little differently. What do you think, Cuz? Grammy-Gramms? Mom?”
The air in the kitchen had gone ice cold, which Ethan knew was a reflection of how Lena was feeling.
“We need Macon. Now.” Lena grabbed Link and Ethan by the hands. “Let’s take the short way.”
John grabbed Liv and Marian.
Nox grabbed Ridley—but Gramma grabbed her other arm just as quickly. “Not so fast,” Gramma said. “I’m sticking with you, Darling.”
Ridley looked surprised.
Then the universe Ripped open, and the kitchen was left with only rattling windows and a spreading puddle of chocolate milk.