A Radiant Sky (18 page)

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.”

“Listen to me, I can explain! It’s not what you think.”

“Isn’t it?”

He didn’t have an answer. He just sat there on the couch, his mouth slightly open, as if I’d just taken away the last precious thing he had. But I didn’t feel bad. He had done it to me.

Now he knew how it felt.

On the drive home, I tried to see the road through the tears that had sprung to my eyes, blurring my world until I finally had to pull over. I leaned my head against the steering wheel and cried. And it wasn’t just for Devin—though I felt torn up inside about it. It was for Asher too,
still so far away, who loved me, and who I loved, but who I questioned, because that was the way my heart worked.

And I cried for me. Because I had committed to this path, and I would stick with it, but every day that passed it got harder, and I didn’t know if it was the right one anymore.

17

T
he next morning was sunny and bright. My mood was the opposite.

I woke with a headache that must have been residual from my crying jag. When I looked in the mirror, my stomach sank. My face was blotchy and red, and my eyes looked like bees had attacked me in my sleep. Perfect.

I did the best I could with moisturizer and makeup and came stomping downstairs wearing black skinny jeans and my heavy boots. My life philosophy was something along the lines of, when life starts feeling out of control, put on a pair of motorcycle boots and kick it in the shins.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes all it did was make Aunt Jo give me the raised-eyebrow look she was giving me now.

“Tell the biker gang I need you home by ten tonight,” she said drily.

I ignored the look and the comment and went to the fridge to forage for a cucumber. I took it out, cut a few slices, tilted my head back, and placed them over my eyes to wait for the de-puffing magic to work.

“Those are for eating,” Earth pointed out from the kitchen table. “That’s a waste of food.”

“I’ll eat them after,” I muttered.

“I think Skye’s having a bad day,” Aunt Jo said to Earth. “Why don’t you go upstairs for a bit so I can talk to her?”

“Fine. But I’m really good at talking.” She sighed and mumbled something under her breath as I heard her patter to the doorway, then stop. “You should take an umbrella today. It’s going to rain.”

I didn’t even bother removing the cucumbers or looking at her. “It’s totally sunny out!” I yelled. “It’s not going to rain!”

“I’m just saying—”

“And if it does I’ll make it go away!”

The little girl said nothing, and I instantly felt bad for yelling at her.

“Take one anyway,” she said quietly, and then I heard her patter out of the room.

“You okay?” Aunt Jo came up beside me. I felt a hand on my back. The fact that she wasn’t making a funny comment about how hard it is to raise teenagers unnerved me. A few months ago, she would have made a joke, and I would have said something snarky and evasive, and I never would have thought to take actual advice from a grown-up. But everything was so different now. Aunt Jo had gone from being someone I kept secrets from to someone who understood my secrets maybe better than anyone.

“No,” I said, taking the cucumbers off my eyes. “I’m not okay. Look at me! I’m a mess! I’m hideous! No wonder Asher is fighting against me, he’s probably decided to just give up looking for a way for us to be together, and is off right now gallivanting with some stunning Rebel and plotting my destruction. Astaroth is right. How the hell am I supposed to do this?” I could feel the tears coming again, hot and angry and frustrated, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. “I can’t save the world! I’m just some stupid teenager with a crush and puffy eyes.”

Aunt Jo took the cucumbers from me and put them on the counter. Then she took my hands in hers.

“Everyone has bad days, Skye,” she said. “And no matter what anyone tells you, anyone who has ever done anything brave or risky or flat-out revolutionary has never
not
questioned if what they were doing was right.” She smiled at
me and sighed. “I’m not saying that you don’t have a lot on your plate right now. But think of it this way. Today—right now? It’s only puffy eyes. And the swelling will go down, I promise.”

“I look like a Botox accident,” I said.

“You look beautiful. Now get to school, and stop pouting. Maybe today will be the day we’ll find James.”

“We can only hope,” I said. I sniffed and patted my face dry. “Okay. I think I’m ready to face . . .” I motioned toward the outside world. “That.”

“That’s my fighter.” I walked to the hall and grabbed an umbrella from the bin by the door. “And Skye?” Aunt Jo followed me out.

“Yeah?”

“Remember what I said, about following your own star?” I nodded slowly, not sure what I was about to agree with. She hesitated. “You don’t have to wait for him, you know.”

“Aunt Jo,” I said. “There’s no one else I could ever want.”