"It'll be ready in just a few minutes," Aunt Jo warned.

"Can Asher stay for dinner?" I asked.

"Yeah?" he said eagerly. "Can I stay? I've been dreaming about your lemon bars every night."

She looked like she might be about to give in. Then Asher smiled his charming smile at her, and her face hardened.

"Oh, not tonight. Skye needs her rest! Besides, Asher, you're over here so often, I bet your parents are wondering if we kidnapped you." Asher's smile faded into a scowl, and his eyebrows knocked together.

"No," he said. "I doubt they're thinking that."

"Well, either way, I think we'll all call it a night early tonighta"okay?" She looked at me pointedly.

"Fine," I muttered. I took Asher's hand, and we walked out onto the deck. It was excruciating to put all of my weight on my ankle, but I couldn't let him know anything was wrong. I tried to smile through the pain.

Once we were alone outside, Asher laced his fingers through mine and kissed me. "You sure you're okay?" he asked. I nodded. And even if I wasn't, I wouldn't have told him just then.

The sky had faded from dusk to darkness, and it looked like someone had flung up a handful of stars like confetti. I breathed deep and closed my eyes. Asher stepped closer to me, squeezing my hands softly in his and bringing my arms around his waist. I nestled into him and felt him shiver under my touch.

"You don't feel any warmer," he said. "Not like you usually do. You okay with this?" His voice was low and scratchy and familiar and thrilling all at once. Though my eyes were closed, I could feel my energy focusing, the stars move above me, forming constellations, rearranging themselves.

"Fine," I said.

He moved closer still, and my breath grew shallow as I struggled to maintain control of my powers.

"And this?" he whispered, lowering his face until his lips were barely grazing mine. My skin grew warm, and I could feel the pain flare up in my ankle, shooting through the rest of me. I let out a sharp gasp, and Asher stepped away quickly.

"Too much?" he asked.

"Skye!" Aunt Jo called, too loudly, from the doorway. "Dinner!"

"Crap," I muttered.

"Come on," I heard Asher groan under his breath, running a hand through his hair.

I looked up at him and ran my thumb along his chin. "See you tomorrow?" I asked.

"Count on it." He jogged down the stairs of the deck to the field below, and before my eyes could adjust, I'd lost him in the darkness.

As I turned around to go inside, I glanced upward. The stars had arranged themselves into a tiny heart. I smiled to myself, suppressing the pain in my ankle, and went inside for dinner.

While Aunt Jo was clearing the dishes, I hobbled frantically to the downstairs bathroom. There was no way I could climb the stairs to my room just yet. I locked the door behind me, sat down on the lid of the toilet, and brought my foot up onto my knee.

Okay, I thought. You can do this. I tried to remember what Devin had done to me when I was in the infirmary after the avalanche. He'd wrapped both hands around my ankle, and the pain had flared up, fantastically intense before subsiding into nothingness.

I wrapped my own hands around my ankle. I closed my eyes and tried to let the energy flow through my fingertips. What had Asher told me that very first night we'd kissed in my room?

Just pretend that everything inside you is lots of unfiltered electricity. Imagine what you want to do with it. And then imagine flipping a switcha"and turning it on.

With my eyes still closed, I focused on the energy, curling it up into a ball of light in my hands. Flip the switch, I thought.

The ball of light grew brighter and more vibrant as I held it steady. I brought it toward my ankle and spread it over the pain, like a salve. I directed every ounce of energy I had, flowing through the tips of my fingers, and suddenly I felt an intense pain flair up in my leg, blinding, overwhelming. A white-hot flash burned through me. "Ow," I gasped, hoping Aunt Jo couldn't hear me.

And then, just like that, the pain faded away. A cooling relief tingled up from my ankle, flooding through the rest of my body. I tried to catch my breath.

I had done it! My ankle felt finea"better than fine. Amazing.

"Skye?" Aunt Jo called. "You feel okay, hon?"

"Fine!" I called. I danced around silently. It had worked! I'd healed myself. I looked up into the bathroom mirror, and my eyes flashed silver and intense. For once, I didn't look away or feel uncomfortable. I didn't wish that they were just a normal gray like anyone else's. I was proud of what my silver eyes meant. My light and dark powers had woven together, to help me when I needed them. I'd drawn on them both to fix what was broken. And now I was ready. Ready to fight, to win, to take utter control of who I was. I wasn't afraid of my powers anymore.

I went to turn the doorknob when my mind suddenly went blank, and I found myself, once again, walking down the darkened upstairs hallway. I managed to stay upright, to let the wisp of a vision flow through me. The door to Aunt Jo's bedroom loomed at the end of the hall. Empty.

And then I was back in the downstairs bathroom again, my hand still gripping the doorknob. Devin's last words to me echoed in my mind.

Did it ever occur to you that your visions might be telling you something important? What if they're not just dreams? What if what you're seeing is the future?

My hand gripped the doorknob tighter, so tight that my knuckles were turning white. The blood drained from my face.

"Not prophecies," he'd said. "The Sight."

My mind spun and my heart raced. As I turned the knob and slipped out into the hall, the sound of water and dishes clattering echoed from the kitchen. Now was my chance. The upstairs hallway would be dark. Aunt Jo's bedroom, empty.

With the noise from the kitchen as my cover, I tiptoed up the stairs. If I strained my ears, I could just hear her humming softly as she worked. I'd seen this happen before. When she started singing, it meant she was lost in thought, her mind shut off from the rest of the world.

I had only a couple of minutes, if I was lucky.

I moved quickly and silently up the stairs and down the hall, the memory of my vision blurring with reality.

I glanced to my right, at the door to my bedroom, which was slightly ajar. Light spilled out into the dark hallway, illuminating my path. To my left was the bathroom. The door was open and the lights were off. I peeked over the railing of the stairs. The whole house was dark and silent. Directly ahead of me was her bedroom.

I walked toward it, as if pulled by an invisible string. The walls on either side of me were smooth under my hands as I let them guide me in the semidarkness.

The door to Aunt Jo's bedroom wasn't closed all the way.

I pushed it open, carefully, silently, and turned on the light.

Her room was empty.

As I knew it would be.

The bed was unmade. Clothes were draped over the chair in the corner. I turned toward the closet.

Slowly, slowly, I reached my hand out to open it.

I knew what I was looking for.

In the corner of the closet, I spotted the stepladder. Downstairs, I heard the rush of water from the faucet in the kitchen sink. I didn't have much time.

I climbed onto it, peering over the shelves above my head. That's where I spotted it.

The shoe box. The same one from my vision. The one I'd been looking for.

As if time was moving in slow motion, I opened the lid. . . .

I sat down on the floor of the closet and peered inside. With hands that trembled slightly, I picked up a small velvet box, and opened it to find a glittery diamond ring. I snapped the lid shut and moved on to the next artifacta"an old photograph, yellowing slightly at the edges from weathering years inside a shoe box in a closet. In the photo, a couple leaned against a tree, oblivious to the camera. His hair was dark and wild, and his head was tilted down toward hers, as if they were sharing a secreta"or were about to kiss. The woman smiled up at him, the corners of her eyes crinkled in laughter. Blond wisps of hair had come loose from her ponytail and were blowing in the wind.

Wait a minute.

I looked closer. The woman was Aunt Jo!

I squinted to inspect the guy. He was gorgeous in a dangerous sort of way, that was undeniable. But there was also something familiar about him. I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

I put the photograph back and moved on to the next item in the box. A stack of papers were tied together with a piece of fishing twine. I lifted them out of the shoe box and carefully undid the knot. The pages all had jagged edges, as if someone had ripped them hastily from a notebook. The missing pages. My throat was dry, and as the twine fell away, I realized what I felt was more than just the thrill of discovery. I was nervousa"nervous that what I was about to read contained some valuable clue to a past that had forever seemed so hidden from me.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the quiet little closet, I could hear my heart beating. Its rhythm grew faster as I stared down at the first page. It was filled with the same looping handwriting I'd been staring at every night, in the notebook that was now hiding underneath my pillow. My handwriting. My mother's.

My eyes welled with years of grief. The words sprawled across the page as if speaking directly to me.

The Order knows about our new faction. They're coming to stop it.

I flipped to the next page, my heart in my throat.

We've moved into the cabin, are hiding here. Mer thinks it will happen any day now, but she and Sam continue to plan the uprising. There's no way we can know, with the Order, how it will happen. Mer has lost that gift. But she says we have to live our lives and what they see will come to pass. The two of them always knew that no place would be safe for a union of the Order and the Rebellion. They would have no real home. Neither would Skye, a mix of both worlds but truly from neither. Neither would the other Rogues. Neither would I. It's what bonds us together. It's what drives the uprising.

We're all nomads. Wandering, searching for peace. But the Order will never let us find it. They will never leave us alone, not until we've either been extinguisheda"or become one of them. They'll come for us, but it will never stop us from trying.

Mer and Sama"my mom and dad. But why would she be writing about herself in the third person? And the part about the Rogues made no sense. I flipped the page.

Mer and Sam gave me a home, something I've never had before. In return, they asked me one favor, one small favor in all of this. When the Order comes, when they crush our fledgling mission and destroy its founders, take Skye. Keep her away from them. Raise her so she'll never know. Protect her from her lineage. And from herself.

Wait. What was I reading? Whose notebook was this? I definitely hadn't written these words. And the more I read, the more I realized, with a heavy sinking in my chest, that neither had my mom. Even as I turned the last page, my hands trembling, I had a feeling I knew whose handwriting I was staring at.

Because when she finds out, she'll never stop fighting for their cause. She'll have the powers of Light and Dark combineda"her mother and her father. No one knows what her powers will be. Both sides will try to claim her, but they'll be wrong. What the Rogues understanda"what Skye will, too, one daya"is that to choose one over the other is to deny the very root of who she is: a balance of both. They're watching, waitinga"they'll come for her, too, when the terms of the pact have come to pass. And then she'll either fight to change the course of the universea"or they'll try to kill her. Just like they're trying to kill her parents.

My breath caught in my throat as I turned the last page.

We've left the cabin. It's no longer safe here. I'll spend the rest of my life protecting her from herself. I swear it.

And that could only mean one thing.

The book had never belonged to my mom. The loopy handwriting looked familiar because I'd seen it on Post-it notes on the fridge, on parental permission forms for school, on every report card and every doctor's note I'd gotten for the past eleven years. I knew it well, because it was my handwriting, too. I'd spent my whole life copying it.

"Oh my god," I said out loud. "It's Aunt Jo's."

She knew. She'd known all along.

And more important than thata"she was a Rogue.

Chapter 24.

"Skye?"

I looked up, and Aunt Jo was standing there. The sadness in her eyes made her wrinkles even more defined. Like she'd aged immeasurably over the course of just a few days.

I had a handful of pages from her notebook and no excuse. I'd discovered her secreta"and by virtue of that fact, she'd discovered mine. I was caught. We both were.

"I guess it's time we talked," she said quietly. She rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and sat down on the floor of the closet next to me.

"How could you not tell me?" I asked, my voice coming out choked. "You let me go through all this alone."

"I know," she said.

"If I had known, I could have at least been prepared! I could have known what to expect, or tried to run away, ora""

"Skye," Aunt Jo said calmly. "You couldn't have run away. And you wouldn't have known what to expect. The Order would have found you no matter what you did or where you went. If they'd marked you, they would have tracked you downa"just like they tracked your parents."

"Buta""

She reached over and took my hands in hers.

"I made a promise to them that I would protect you. And I was going to keep that promise if it killed me, too. They knew what they were up against when they took on the Order. They knew they were going to die. Protecting you was their only wish."

"I still don't understand why they didn't want me to know. They could have warned me. They could have let you tell me. Why keep it a secret? Why let me find out for myself, the hard way?"

"Because you wouldn't have been able to change anything." I'd never before heard such urgency in her voice. "You would have grown up with dread and fear in your heart, that every step you took, every choice you made, was being watched. It would have driven you insane."

"So it's better to turn seventeen and find out I've been stalked my whole life by angels? To find out I have powers that could sway the course of destiny?"

"No, better that you got to have a normal childhood, make amazing friends, and get to make your own choicesa"not based on what you think would keep the Order at bay for one more day."

"I still don't . . . ," I began, a huge sob racking my lungs. "This whole time. I kept it from you to protect you, when you were protecting me. You could have helped me!"

"If I had helped you, you would have done exactly what your mother was afraid ofa"something drastic and probably foolisha""

"Thanks," I said. "You're making this much bettera""

"I mean that in running away from your lifea"or facing it before your powers began to emerge and you were readya"you would have done something to change the course of the universe. Or the Order would have killed you and you'd have died trying to change something you never could. Even then, your parents knew how special you were going to be. They wanted to protect you for as long as possible."

The torn edges of the notebook blurred in my hands. I blinked, fighting back the tears.