Cast Into Darkness by Janet Tait Read Free Book Online Page B

her own agenda: find Brian and give him back his stupid stone. Oh, and get rid of her resurgent, post-teleport headache.
    Kate ran up the stairs to Brian’s room—the last one on the left, past hers. The door hung partly open, but no backpack lay on the hardwood floor, no broken-in leather jacket slung across his old captain’s chair. The just-made perfection of the white linens on his untouched bed further proved that he hadn’t been by yet. She tried the game room next, its billiards table covered, Xbox silent in the corner. Then she checked the kitchen, bustling with staff preparing lunch. She even braved her father’s den, its old brick fireplace banked for the summer. Nothing.
    She stomped across the big corridor leading from the den to the family room and jerked open the bifold glass doors to the pool area. The blast of heat that greeted her wilted her hair and made sweat spring to her skin. Oh yes, summer in the Hamptons.
    A few of the caster kids, most of them a year or two younger than Kate, hung out at the pool, their laughter mingling with the scents of chlorine and tanning lotion. Classes at the family’s caster training school—the one she’d attended until she’d turned twelve, failed her magic test, and been consigned to eternal Nulldom—must have gotten out early. She scanned the crowd. No Brian.
    “Great,” Kate muttered. “Just great.”
    She stared past the pool at the long, brown two-story building framed by two tall oaks, slightly to the right of the tennis court. The Sanctum—training ground, center for the caster school, and general hangout for casters at her family’s estate. Clever that it looked like a stable or oversized gym from the outside—except for the lack of windows and the single, large, locked door. Not that Victor’s security spells let Normals see anything her father didn’t want them to see.
    The Sanctum was the one place she pretended didn’t exist, the place that made her stomach do a little flip-flop every time her eyes passed by it. The one place she never, ever went. Not anymore. If Brian practiced magic in the Sanctum, he might as well be light-years away.
    Her hand brushed her pocket, the stone a heavy lump. Sure, she could read a book or go swimming, but the problem of the stone would keep preying on her mind. Until she found Brian and gave the damn thing back.
    She squared her shoulders and set off across the lawn, the Sanctum in her sights.
    Kate dodged a grubby boy, maybe ten or eleven years old, barreling out from around the corner of the house. His dark head turned to watch the girl chasing him. “You missed me!”
    “No, I didn’t. Got you, you dirty Null!” A little girl in red shorts, a pink T-shirt, and white tennis shoes sped after him, a slim hand outstretched toward her quarry, pretending to throw a spell.
    “Whatever! I get to be the Hamilton agent this time. You have to play the Makris.” They ran past Kate and toward the hill leading to the beach with barely a glance at her.
    Students from one of the Affiliate families that owed allegiance to hers. The boy was a Torres, one of Alex’s cousins. The girl, a Hashimoto.
    The younger kids always scurried underfoot like that—playing Caster Wars in the woods or down by the beach when they weren’t in school. A tight smile crossed Kate’s face. That game never changed.
    She rounded a large clump of trees and reached the lawn that extended about twenty feet in front of the Sanctum. The breeze from the ocean blew salty air through the trees, cooling the sweat on her skin.
    When she got closer to the Sanctum, she could see that the square, white “In Use” sign hung on the door. She knew better than to go up and knock. No one interrupted training. Ever.
    Better wait for Brian someplace safe. Her stomach tightened as she turned the corner of the rough, stone building and wandered into the tree-lined plaza beyond. A few tables sat scattered over the lawn, one piled high with the backpacks casters