Beautiful Chaos by Kami García, Margaret Stohl

worked the key into the lock. “Lena’s uncle gave it to me so I can meet him in his creepy study and learn how to be the good kind a Incubus.” It sounded like Macon, who hadspent years teaching himself the restraint necessary to feed off Mortal dreams instead of blood.
    I couldn’t help but think of the alternative—Hunting and his Blood Pack, and Abraham.
    The key worked, and Link heaved the round door open proudly. “See—Magneto. Told you.”
    Usually I would’ve made a joke, but tonight I didn’t. Link was a whole lot closer to being Magneto than I was.

    This Tunnel reminded me of a dungeon in an old castle. The ceiling was low, and the rough rock walls were wet. The sound of dripping water echoed through the passageway, although there was no sign of the source. I had been in this Tunnel before, but somehow it felt different tonight—or maybe it was me that had changed. Either way, the walls felt close, and I wanted to get to the end.
    “Hurry up or we’ll lose her.” I was actually the one slowing us down, tripping in the darkness.
    “Relax. She sounds like a horse walkin’ through gravel. There’s no way we’ll lose her.” It wasn’t an analogy Amma would appreciate.
    “You can really hear her footsteps?” I couldn’t even hear his.
    “Yeah. I can smell her, too. Follow the pencil lead and Red Hots.”
    So Link followed the smell of Amma’s crossword puzzles and her favorite candy, and I followed him until he stopped at the base of a crude set of stairs that led back up to the Mortal world. He inhaled deeply, the way he used to when one ofAmma’s peach cobblers was baking in the oven. “She went up there.”
    “You sure?”
    Link lifted an eyebrow. “Can my mom preach to a preacher?”

    Link pushed open the heavy stone door, and light flooded into the Tunnel. We were behind some old building, the door etched into the chipped brick. The air was thick and sticky with the distinct stench of beer and sweat. “Where the hell are we?”
    Nothing looked familiar. “No clue.”
    Link walked around to the front of the building. The smell of beer was even stronger. He peered into the window. “This place is some kind of pub.”
    There was a cast-iron placard next to the door: LAFITTE’S BLACKSMITH SHOP.
    “This doesn’t look like a blacksmith’s shop.”
    “That’s because it isn’t.” An elderly man in a Panama hat, like the one Aunt Prue’s last husband used to wear, walked up behind Link. He leaned heavily on his cane. “You are standin’ in front a one a Bourbon Street’s most infamous buildin’s, and the hist’ry a this place is as famous as the Quarter itself.”
    Bourbon Street. The French Quarter. “We’re in New Orleans.”
    “Right. Of course we are.” After this summer, Link and I knew the Tunnels could lead anywhere, and time and distance didn’t operate the same way within them. Amma knew it, too.
    The old man was still talking. “Folks say Jean and Pierre Lafitte opened a smithy here in the late seventeen hundreds as a front for their smugglin’ operation. They were pirates wholooted Spanish galleons and smuggled what they stole into N’awlins, sellin’ everything from spices and furniture to flesh and blood. But these days, most folks come for the ale.”
    I cringed. The man smiled and tipped his hat. “You kids pass a good time in the City That Care Forgot.”
    I wasn’t betting on it.
    The old man bent further over his cane. Now he was holding his hat out in front of us, shaking it expectantly.
    “Oh, sure. Okay.” I fumbled in my pocket, but all I had was a quarter. I looked at Link, who shrugged.
    I leaned closer to drop the coin into the hat, and a bony hand grabbed my wrist. “Smart boy like you. I’d be gettin’ myself outta this town and back down into that Tunnel.” I pulled my arm free. He smiled big, pulling his lips wide over yellowed, uneven teeth. “Be seein’ you.”
    I rubbed my wrist, and when I looked up, he was gone.
    It didn’t