“Hi.”
“Where’s the rest of your crew?”
“Why . . . ?” He looked wary, like it might be a trap.
I put my hand on his arm and smiled up at him. I could feel the warmth under his skin. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I just want to talk.”
The locker door shut before I’d finished blinking, and soon we were sitting on the purple velvet couch in the back of Love the Bean—the one where I’d taught him how to make small talk all those months ago.
I sipped on my favorite—a chai latte—iced, now, for the warm weather.
“I’m confused,” he said. “I thought we weren’t speaking.” He took a sip of his ginseng green tea. “That you were mad.”
At the hurt and hesitation in his voice, I looked up—and suddenly, my script and everything I’d planned to say evaporated.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” I said, letting the side of my knee touch his. “I guess I’m not ready to just say good-bye and never speak again.” He let his knee linger near mine. “Even if we’re fighting against each other now.”
His voice dropped, low in my ear. “Skye, I meant what I said. About doing what I can to make it up to you.”
I glanced at him, and my heart shuddered. I couldn’t help it—my body still reacted to being this close to him, whether my heart and mind wanted to or not. I had always felt a magnetic pull toward Devin. It made it hard for me to stay away, even when he was yelling at me to do better, even when he was frustratingly impassive and hard to read. A montage of our stolen moments together flashed before me:
The snowball fight this winter that had ended in me falling on top of him, my hands on either side of his head, the steam of his breath against my cheek and his rare laughter in my ears—
Waking up next to him in his bed, the pull toward him strong even then, as he lay on his side, watching me, a shy smile playing on his lips—
That moment in the woods—
And then it was like the force of the world was at his wings, pulling him toward me. And his lips touched mine, and his hands were running through my hair, and his body was pushing me up against a tree that was hidden in shadows. And he kissed me.
“Skye?”
“Huh?” I blinked. Devin took a sip of his tea, and watched me.
I steeled myself. I had to put all that behind me now. Because if I understood Astaroth correctly, none of it—not a single moment—was real.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I put my hands on his shoulders and stared deep into his eyes. Devin cocked his head, just slightly, and that look of hope I’d seen in the woods returned.
“For what?” he asked, surprised.
“It’s just that I have to know.”
The blue pools of his irises suddenly opened up, expanding until the inky centers edged out everything else, and I was swallowed by them.
I was back in the tiny, cramped hallway outside the bathroom at Love the Bean.
And I was staring directly into Asher’s fiery gaze.
My heart leaped. I knew I missed him, but I didn’t realize how desperately until I found myself face-to-face with him again. I wanted to reach out to him, to wrap my arms around his neck, but I was trapped within the confines of Devin’s memory.
This is the night of my birthday, I realized.
“You want to play by the rules? Fine. Be a good little Guardian. But I’m going to talk to her.”
“Don’t!” Devin said helplessly, grabbing his arm. “It’s not time. She only just turned seventeen today. We have to wait.”
Asher’s eyebrow shot up, his eyes glinting. “Nothing interesting ever happened by waiting, Dev,” he said. “I can’t wait anymore. This girl is special. We’ve been waiting for too long, and I don’t want to miss another minute of the fun.”
He brushed past Devin, toward the door, and into the night, where I was about to meet Asher for the first time.
Devin turned to watch him go. In the memory, he clenched his fists at his side. She’s going to fall in love with him, he thought. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I can’t compete with that. I didn’t feel calm radiating from him—what I felt was frustration. That he couldn’t be as bold as Asher. That he couldn’t fight for what he wanted, too.
What I always took for shyness and cool reserve was his oath. He always wanted to talk to me. But he was bound by honor, too. I realized, strangely, that Devin and I had more in common than I’d ever realized.
The memory wrinkled and refolded, straightened itself out.
He was in a parking lot at dusk. I recognized it—it was the parking lot outside of school. And I was there, walking beside him, his jacket pulled tightly around my shoulders. Through Devin’s eyes, I could feel him pulling back, his face a mask, allowing nothing in and nothing out.
I was crying. I felt something stir within him as he reached out and put his arm around me gently, pulling me in to his chest.
“It’s all right, Skye,” he said softly. “That’s the reason I’m here. To watch over you, to protect you.”
I remember this memory. It was right after he and Asher first told me the truth about my parents. That I was half Guardian, half Rebel, a human girl with powers of light and dark in her veins.
“The fight . . .” I heard myself say into his chest. “That night at the Bean . . . during my birthday . . . was that about me?”
“Yes. Asher made contact with you before we were supposed to. It upset the balance of things and has been causing chaos ever since. It’s like I’ve tried to tell you. He’s dangerous.”
I felt myself flinch in his arms. I remembered exactly what I’d thought when he said those words. Was Asher dangerous because he made Devin so angry? Or because I didn’t yet know who, or what, he really was? Or was he dangerous because he made me feel things I’d never felt before—not about anyone else?
In Devin’s memory, I was sobbing quietly in his arms. I felt something spasm in his chest. And then I heard his thought.
If only I was allowed to break the rules—everything might be different now.
He touched my cheek. “You’re so special. In ways . . . I wasn’t expecting.”
He told me I was going to have to meet my destiny. That it would be easier if I embraced it.
“For whom?” I asked.
“For everyone.”
Through the memory, I could feel his frustration, and then, as we stood and faced each other, a curl of despair—a cold emptiness—entered his body like a sharp intake of breath.
What was that?
The memory faded, and I found myself sitting on the faded purple velvet couch at Love the Bean again, still looking into Devin’s pool-blue eyes. I blinked.
The way he was looking at me, it was clear that he knew exactly what I’d seen. It was almost like he’d been transported back to the memory with me. But there was also something else in his eyes: regret.
My plan had worked. There was a connection between our minds—a rift, through which I’d found a portal to his memories. It wouldn’t have been possible if Devin hadn’t been influencing my mind and my emotions for as long as I’d known him.
And now, I knew for sure.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said, his voice low.
“Not you, too,” I whispered.
“If I hadn’t been bound to the rules of the Order, things would have turned out differently.” He squeezed my hand tighter. “Your heart might belong to me now, of its own free will. Instead of him.” I looked down at my hands.
“No,” I said quietly. “No. I don’t think it would.”
“Skye—”
“It doesn’t matter anyway, does it? We can’t change the past.”