“I wanted to keep trying,” he said. “After your mom and dad died. But Josephine insisted against it. She had you to look after. She promised your mother she would protect you from all this. That you would grow up like a normal kid.” He smiled ruefully. “I guess you know now. Looks like the Order got their way after all.”
“Aaron,” I said. “You know why my parents were trying to protect me, right? About my powers—the mix of dark and light?”
He nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
“I have powers that I inherited from my father—dark ones. And I also have powers that I inherited from my mother. Gifted powers. I can see things too, just like she could.”
“Oh,” he said, his eyes softening into awe. “Is that so?”
“Yes, and no matter how much they want me to, I can’t join either side, the Rebellion or the Order. I’m starting my own group. I’m going to finish what my parents started.”
“Skye,” he said seriously. “We failed. Your mom saw a fourth Rogue in those visions of hers, but she couldn’t tell us who it was.”
“I can use my own visions. I can find out who it is. But we need you, Aaron. And,” I added, trying not to smile, “so does Aunt Jo.” I hoped I sounded subtle.
He looked up. “She does?”
“Please come back to River Springs with us. We’ll figure this out. We’ll find a way to keep the Order and the Rebellion in balance, prevent any more lives from being destroyed. We can only do it with your help.”
He stood up and stretched, leaned against the kitchen counter with his back to me. I saw his back rise and fall in a sigh.
“It’s not that easy. That was my old life. It’s taken a lot for me to put it behind me.”
“But wouldn’t it be worth it?”
“You don’t understand,” he said, turning around. He had that same fierce look in his eyes as Asher and Aunt Jo. “That life, it follows you. My wife—”
I flinched. What was I thinking? Of course Earth had to have a mother.
“My late wife,” he corrected. “She was followed by Guardians, every day. She didn’t know it, of course. Didn’t know what they were. They tracked her as a threat to me—to keep me in line, to prevent me from ever going back to Josephine and James, finishing what we began. Or from starting some kind of uprising on my own.” He looked pained. “I couldn’t live like that, with the constant fear anymore. I went back to River Springs, to beg your aunt to think about joining forces again. She said no, and by the time I got back, my wife—” He broke off, his voice going for a moment. “They killed her.”
I sucked in a breath. “No,” I whispered.
He nodded.
“Earth found her, in the car with the windows up. Those bastards made it look like she did it herself, but I knew it was them. The kid’s learned to grow around the pain, push it down. But she’s a special one. Strange, but special.” He looked at me. “I think you two have quite a bit in common.”
“I could teach her,” I said. “I know she has powers. She must. I can show her how to use them.”
“I told her about the angels at a young age. Didn’t want to lie to her about how her mom died, you know?”
“Please come,” I said. “It’s safe with us. We’re protected.”
“Are you?” He looked skeptical. “How protected are you, really?”
I felt a chill spread across my skin, prickling it with goose bumps.
“You don’t know what they’re capable of,” he whispered.
I stood up quickly, suddenly scared to be away for too long. “I have to get back,” I said. “You’ll come, right? Isn’t this what you wanted?”
He sighed deeply. “Just give me some time to think,” he said. “For my daughter.”
When I got to the door, I paused. “They killed my parents, too,” I said without looking at him. “I don’t know about you, but I have to fight.”
Raven and I stood on the sidewalk in front of the house. A light still glowed in the kitchen window, but otherwise it was dark. We could see Aaron’s silhouette behind the curtains, sitting with his head in his hands.
What are you doing, Skye? I asked myself. Is this worth it?
But I knew that it was—that any small pain I caused now would save us all from the greater pain that would be caused when the Order and the Rebellion clashed.
“Well, that was productive,” Raven said. “You caught up with Aaron Ward, and I got to read a bedtime story.”
I pressed my fingers into my eyes and breathed deep.
“Skye,” she said. “Are you okay? I swear I’m not being bitchy when I say this, but you look awful.”
“It’s been a long day,” I said. “Let’s just go home.”
But even as I said it, the edges of my world began to blur out of focus, into something darker, hotter.
Tiny, dark stars bloomed into life in the air around us. They smoldered like the glowing embers of a fire, igniting the air, causing smoke to unfurl in plumes.
“Skye?” Raven’s voice faded into the snap and crackle of flames.
My heart beat faster.
My vision began to swim, to fill with thick, black smoke, as the rest of the street faded away.
Please make her be all right, I found myself thinking.
Who?
Flames exploded around me, shattering glass, filling the air with acrid, heavy smoke so thick it felt solid. Sirens shrieked somewhere off in the distance, and someone was yelling. Wooden beams above me glowed bright with fire, raining sparks and ashes down around me, and glossy papers burned and fluttered to the ground. Panic and smoke filled my throat and lungs. All I could think—the one thought that rang through my every fiber—was I have to save her.
“Skye!” Raven’s voice pierced my thoughts, and the vision dissolved into wisps of smoke. Sycamore Street was quiet and dark. A dog barked in the distance. “Are you okay? Was it a vision?”
I blinked. “There was a fire. I had to save someone.”
“Did you see who?”
I shook my head.
“Well.” She paused. “There’s no use standing around here, is there? Can you fly?”
“Yeah,” I said, suddenly itching to get back home. Aaron’s words burned like those flames in my mind.
You don’t know what they’re capable of.
“Let’s go.”
We took to the sky. It was dark now, but clear and scattered with stars. The moon shone a path for us toward the mountains, toward home.
And then, all of a sudden, it was less clear.
“Is that smoke?” Raven asked, coughing.
Smoke.
“Can we get closer?” I urged. The smoke was gathering in the sky in billows of soot. We descended. “It’s coming from downtown,” I said. “See?”
Through the rising smoke, I could make out the buildings along Main Street, a crowd gathering. And then my heart lurched as I pinpointed exactly where the fire was coming from.
“It’s Into the Woods,” I said, my voice going hoarse. “It’s Aunt Jo’s store.”
8 
The fire raged.
Main Street was clogged with fire trucks and police cars. Raven and I touched down around the corner so that no one could see, and ran down the block toward the commotion. It was impossible not to think of the night of my seventeenth birthday—the night Asher and Devin showed up at Love the Bean, and the boiler had exploded. Shattered glass covered the street, and angry smoke poured from the front windows.
I could feel the heat pressing into me the closer I got to Into the Woods.
“Skye!” I whipped around. Raven pointed across the street—Aunt Jo’s pickup truck.