"The sky. Stars. The moon. It's pretty amazing."
"Now look." She pulled me away from the lens, and I looked up at the sky. Though it was still dark, I couldn't make out nearly half the stars I had seen through the telescope.
"The lights aren't as bright." I looked back to the telescope. Once again, the sky burst into sparkling stars. I pulled back from the lens and stared out into the night. The real sky was darker, dimmer, like lost, lonely space. "It's weird. The stars look so different through your telescope."
"That's because they're not all there."
"What are you talking about? The sky's the sky."
Liv looked up at the moon. "Except when it's not."
"What does that mean?"
"Nobody really knows. There are Caster constellations, and there are Mortal constellations. They aren't the same. At least, they don't look the same to the Mortal eye. Which unfortunately is all you and I have." She smiled and switched one of the settings. "And I've been told the Mortal constellations can't be seen by Casters."
"How is that possible?"
"How is anything possible?"
"Is our sky real? Or does it only look real?" I felt like a carpenter bee the moment he found out he'd been tricked into thinking a coat of blue paint on the ceiling was the sky.
"Is there a difference?" She pointed up at the dark sky. "See that? The Big Dipper. You know that one, right?" I nodded.
"If you look straight down, two stars from the handle, you see that bright star?"
"It's the North Star." Any former Boy Scout in Gatlin could tell you that.
"Exactly. Polaris. Now see where the bottom of the cup ends, the lowest point? Do you see anything there?" I shook my head.
She looked into her scope, turning first one dial, then a second. "Now look." She stepped back.
Through the lens, I could see the Big Dipper, exactly as it looked in the regular sky, only shining more brightly. "It's the same. Mostly."
"Now look at the bottom of the cup. Same place. What do you see?"
I looked. "Nothing."
Liv sounded annoyed. "Look again."
"Why? There's nothing there."
"What do you mean?" Liv leaned down and looked through the lens. "That's not possible. There's supposed to be a seven-pointed star, what Mortals call a faery star."
A seven-pointed star. Lena had one on her necklace.
"It's the Caster equivalent of the North Star. It marks due south, not north, which has a mystical importance in the Caster world. They call it the Southern Star. Hold on. I'll find it for you." She bent over the scope again. "But keep talking. I'm sure you aren't here for a lecture on faery stars. What's going on?"
There was no point in putting it off any longer. "Lena ran away with John and Ridley. They're down in the Tunnels somewhere."
Now I had her attention. "What? How do you know?"
"It's hard to explain. I saw them in this weird vision that wasn't a vision."
"Like when you touched the journal in Macon's study?"
I shook my head. "I didn't touch anything. One minute I was staring at my reflection in the mirror, and a second later all I could see was stuff flying past me like I was running. When I stopped, they were standing in an alley a few feet away, but they couldn't see or hear me." I was rambling.
"What were they doing?" Liv asked.
"Talking about some place called the Great Barrier. Where everything will be perfect and they can live happily ever after, according to John." I tried not to sound bitter.
"They actually said they were going to the Great Barrier? Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Why?" I could feel the Arclight, suddenly warm in my pocket.
"The Great Barrier is one of the most ancient Caster myths. A place of powerful old magic, long before there was Light or Dark -- a sort of Nirvana. No logical person believes it really exists."
"John Breed does."
Liv looked up at the sky. "Or so he says. It's rubbish, but it's powerful rubbish. Like thinking the Earth is flat. Or that the sun orbits the Earth." Like Galileo. Of course.
I had come here looking for a reason to go back to bed, back to Jackson and my life. An explanation for why I could see Lena in my bathroom mirror that didn't mean I was crazy. An answer that didn't lead back to Lena. But I found the opposite.
Liv kept talking, oblivious to the sinking stone in my stomach, and the one burning in my pocket. "The legends say if you follow the Southern Star, you'll eventually find the Great Barrier."
"What if the star isn't there?" With that one thought, another began to stir, and then another, all coming loose in my mind.
Liv didn't answer because she was frantically adjusting her telescope. "It has to be there. There must be something wrong with my telescope."
"What if it's gone? The galaxy changes all the time, right?"
"Of course. By the year three thousand, Polaris won't be the North Star anymore, Alrai will be. It means 'the shepherd' in Arabic, since you asked."
"By the year three thousand?"
"Exactly. In a thousand years. A star can't suddenly disappear, not without a serious cosmic bang. It's not a subtle thing."
" 'This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.' " I remembered the line from a T. S. Eliot poem. Lena couldn't get it out of her head, before her birthday.
"Yes, well, I love the poem, but the science is a bit off."
Not with a bang but a whimper. Or was it not with a whimper but a bang? I couldn't remember the exact words, but Lena had written it into a poem on the wall of her bedroom when Macon died.
Had she known where this was going all along? I had a sick feeling in my stomach. The Arclight was so hot, it was singeing my skin.
"There's nothing wrong with your telescope."