"But I can change things," I said. "I can change them now."

Aunt Jo looked uncertain. "I don't know, Skye. Others have been trying. For years. For millennia. Nothing has worked."

"I'm different." I stood up quickly, and the papers fluttered to the closet floor. "They're all telling me I'm special. That I'll be more powerful than any Rebel or any Guardian. I can do it, Aunt Jo. Aren't you the one who told me to follow my own star? Don't you want me to take your advice?"

"You should do what you feel is right," she said. "I'll always protect you. I will always, always be thinking of how to keep you safe."

She stood up, too. I didn't feel anymore like the little kid she'd taken in. I felt like I'd lived a hundred different lifetimes since then. But when she held out her arms to hug me, I rushed into them like I was six years old and she was the only person in the world who really cared.

I was lucky enough to know that it wasn't the case anymore.

When we pulled away, I bit my lip. "Aunt Jo," I admitted, "I love you and all. But I was kind of hoping that the notebook had belonged to my mom. I just don't have anything that belonged to her. I wish I did. It was nice to feel close to her for a little while."

Aunt Jo frowned, seemingly lost in thought. "You know," she said slowly, as if still thinking it through. "I do have something of your mom's, actually."

"You do?"

"I always forget that it belonged to her. I associate it with something else completely."

"What is it?" I asked breathlessly.

"It's right in here," she said, disappearing for a minute under a rack of sweaters. When she emerged, she was holding a large box, the kind you get from a dry cleaner for storing wedding dresses.

I gasped. "Is it her wedding dress?" I asked, reaching out for it. Aunt Jo batted my hand away.

"No," she said simply. "It wasn't her wedding dress. She gave it to me for mine."

"What!" I gaped. "I thought you said you never married."

Aunt Jo looked sad for a moment, then seemed to snap out of it and shook her head. "I didn't."

"Then what . . . ?"

She just pushed the box toward me. "Here," she said. "Open it."

I lifted the lid off the box with the edges of my fingers as if it was a photo I didn't want to smudge. Inside, tufts of tissue paper were layered on top of one another like a sugary, sweet cake. I gently moved each layer aside, and eventually my fingers touched fabric. But it didn't feel like any fabric I had ever worn. It didn't feel quite like fabric at all. I pulled out a long, flowing dress.

My jaw dropped.

It was the dress from my visions. But instead of streaked with salt and blood, it was ethereal, perfect.

The only word for it was diaphanous. The dress was a sweeping floor-length with layers of white melting into the sheerest blue silk and chiffon. I held it up to myself and grinned, suppressing images of the sand, the sword, the body crumpled on the ground. "What do you think?" I asked, twirling around. "Do I look like an angel?"

"I think you look just like your mom when it was hers," said Aunt Jo. She was beaming. "I never got to wear it, but you should save that. You know, for prom."

I pictured myself at prom in a couple of months, the beautiful gown sweeping the floor like a boat trailing stardust through a moonlit lake. It wasn't the kind of thing I would usually wear, but when I pictured myself in it, something clicked inside me and it felt right. Who would I be with at prom? My friends, of course. Cassie, in something fabulous with sequins and feathers. Dan and Ian, in tuxes. Would I go with Asher? Would we slow-dance together like a normal couple in front of the entire school, like we were the only two people in the world?

I closed my eyes and let myself imagine it. The soft material of the dress fell over my skin in drapes and folds, grazing the floor as I walked across it in dangerously high heels. There was a beautiful boy in a tuxedo standing on the other side of the dance floor. And as I walked to him, I knew in my heart that this was the person I was supposed to be with. This was my destiny, my one epic love. I reached out my hands to take his, and he pulled me into his arms. The music whirled and lilted as if being distorted.

But no matter how many times we twirled, I couldn't see his face.

"Babe," Aunt Jo said. "You okay? Do you like it?"

"Oh," I said. "I love it." She smiled, pleased, proud.

"Your mom would have wanted you to have it. And I certainly got no use out of it. It's angelic silk, sheer as clouds."

It was the only thing I had that belonged to my mom. I held the dress to my chest, and pretended she was the one who had given it to me.

"I'll wear it to prom," I said, leaning in to give Aunt Jo a kiss. "It's perfect. Thank you."

"She'd be proud of you, Skye," she said. "They both would."

I lay in bed that night and tried not to think about the connection between the beautiful dress and my violent vision. Instead, as I hovered somewhere between dreaming and waking, I wondered if Aunt Jo had left the notebook in the cabin by accidenta"or if she'd left it there on purpose.

The morning of the race dawned, bright and clear. Coach was skeptical about my miraculous recovery, but I managed to prove to him that I was fine.

After my discoveries from the night before, I felt more ready than I ever had to hold my power in the palm of my hand, like fire, like snow, like freezing rain. Aunt Jo was there, with Cassie, Dan, and Ian. The four of them had scrawled a different letter of my name in puffy paint on T-shirts that they wore over sweatshirts. Cassie was S, Dan was K, Ian was Y, and Aunt Jo held up the rear with E.

A little ways off, Asher stood with Gideon and Ardith. The two Rebels talked to each other, smiling as they watched me prepare. But Asher looked so serious, so wholly focused on what was going on in his head. What was he thinking? Probably he was just praying for me not to royally screw up. My pulse quickened as I thought of how embarrassing it would be to accidentally reveal my powers in front of everybody. The key, of course, was control.

As I scanned the crowd, I noticed Devin was there, too. Watching me. A spasm clenched my heart. The memory of our kiss still haunted me, but it wasn't that I longed to feel his lips on mine again or his fingers graze down my arms. Aunt Jo had reminded me how unrelenting the Order wasa"and how very little stood in their way. They would not have let that kind of transgression occur. Even if I was causing static in the frequency of destinya"they would have known, somehow. They always knew. They were always ready. There was no fooling them.

The morning was cold, but I shivered from fear. Had my kiss with Devin been genuine? Or, like everything else, had it only been some trick? The Order's attempt to shake me up, keep me vulnerable?

I tried to wipe everything clean and make my mind calm and focused. At the top of the mountain, I took a few deep breaths and stretched. I could do this. I was ready.

Ellie was racing first, and she crouched against her opponent at the starting line. The team cheered behind her. "Come on, El! You got this!" She frowned and leaned forward. Poles back. The whistle blew, and she and her competition from Holy Cross were off, a blur of school colors against the white snow. I found myself cheering along with the team. Soon I couldn't see them anymore, but when I heard the crowd cheer just minutes later, I knew without a doubt that Ellie had won. Her time would be hard to beat.

My number was up. I pulled my goggles down and glided forward to the starting point.

I was hovering on the edge.

I am hovering on the edge.

In the clear, cold light of day, the dreams that I'd had while unconscious came rushing back.

The dead of winter. Snow covering the slopes like it was trying to bury us all with it. I can hear the sound of my classmates' voices echoing off the mountains as they laugh and horse around.

No, not horse around. Cheer. Cheer for me. As I readied at the start, I could hear them cheering my name.

I looked down over the edge, into the chasm below.

Just like in the dream, I was torn. I was always torn. But now I felt like I was beginning to figure out an answer.

"Make a choice, Skye," I said to myself. "You can't stare off the edge of this cliff forever."

The whistle blew at the start, and we were off down the slope. I felt the tension of opposites rush through me, keeping me in control. I passed through patches of sunlight and then shadows cast by the trees. Light. And then dark. Control and chaos.

I knew then as well as I ever would that Aunt Jo was right: I couldn't have one without the other. Destroy the Rebellion and life would be governed by an impossible set of rules for eternity. Destroy the Order and no place on Earth would be safe from the never-ending cycle of destruction and renewal.

I was the only thing keeping them in balance.

The powers of light and dark were twining themselves together inside me, into a power that only I possessed. Mea"and no one else.

I couldn't make a choice between chaos and control. Not because it had been made for me. But because there was no choice to make. It wasn't one or the other. They were both inside me. They were both a part of me. I was nothing without both sides.

Take one away and I would fall.

I'd had the dream every night. And I never woke up to the relief that it was only a dream. Because for days, I hadn't woken up at all.

But I was awake now. I was out of the darkness, and suddenly my world was flooded with light.

And as I sliced across the finish line, I knew that I had done it.

Coach Samuelson stood in front of the crowd with his stopwatch. He nodded at me imperceptibly, but his eyes remained distant. Ellie's time had been better than mine. She had beat me out for captain.

But as I saw Asher break through the crowd and rush to swoop me up in his arms, I knew it didn't matter.

She could be captaina"that was what she wanted. I had found clarity at last.

And that was what I needed.

Chapter 25.

After the race, the whole gang of us went out for pizza.

I sat with Cassie, Dan, Ian, Asher, Gideon, and Arditha"and Aunt Jo, who beamed with happiness. A few tables away, Ellie and Maggie were sitting with a few of their friends and a couple of girls from the team.

"Be right back, guys," I said, sliding out of the booth. I walked over to them. Ellie looked up at me nervously.

"Hey, Skye," Ellie said. "Look, I'm sorrya""

"That was a great race." I cut her off. "You were amazing. You definitely deserve captain more than I do."

"I do?" She looked perplexed. "But I thought you wanted it."

"I did," I said. "I do. But . . . I can't just waltz back in here and expect everything to go back to normal." I shrugged. "Maybe it's good that it didn't go back to normal. Maybe things needed to change."

"Ooookay, Skye," Ellie said hesitantly, glancing at Maggie for support. "I guess? Thanks?"

"Good," I said. "You're welcome." I leaned my elbows on the table. Ellie and Maggie looked at each other. "El," I said. "Ian's into you. You should ask him out or something. He's kind of shy about it."

"Yeah," she said, her eyes glazing over as if she'd used too much brain power for one day. "Sure. Maybe. Okay."

"What was that about?" Ian looked nervous as I rejoined our table.

"Nothing. You may get a phone call soon or something. Just saying."

"Skye . . . " He looked livid. His face was red beneath his freckles, and even his ears had tinged pink. "What did you say to her!" Dan snorted next to him, trying to hold back laughter. Cassie elbowed him in the ribs.

"I just said you had the biggesta""

"Skye!" Ian was turning purple. "You didn't!"

"a"heart of anybody I knew," I said. "If you'd let me finish. Thank you."

Everyone laughed. Aunt Jo ordered another round of pizzas, and Asher threw his arm around me.

"You were amazing up there," he whispered into my ear, squeezing me.

I smiled at him. It was the happiest I'd felt in a long time.

"I have an idea," I said suddenly. Everyone continued talking. "Guys. GUYS!" All eyes turned to me. "I was thinking. Spring break is coming up. Aunt Jo, would you let us hike out to the cabin for a few days?"

"You have got to be kidding me," she said, shaking her head.

"Come onnn," I pleaded. "I think we get cell reception out there, and we'd promise to call if anything happened. We're super responsible."

"You're also terrible actors," she said, looking around at Cass and Ian, Dan and Asher. She sighed. "But I'll think about it."

The group began talking excitedly about plans, with Aunt Jo interjecting, "I haven't said yes yet!" at regular intervals. I leaned back in my seat, fitting snugly into the crook of Asher's arm. It would be fun to spend a few carefree days in the woods with my friends. But I had another reason for wanting to go back there. The cabin was where my parents had lived once. It was where the uprising had started. It was where a new faction of angels and half-angels had begun to form. Rebellions happen when your will to fight is strong enough. My parents and Aunt Jo weren't able to succeed. But my will was strong. And I had the power to back it up, now.

Aunt Jo and I had taken separate cars to the race that morning, and I drove home alone in the twilight, the tiny car whipping tightly around the bends in the mountain roads. I felt giddy and alive.

I pulled into the driveway, realizing I was used to seeing Asher waiting for me on the porch or just inside. But today the porch was empty. Aunt Jo's car wasn't in the driveway, either, which meant that she'd taken a detour past the store to check in. I felt a little relieved to have the chance to be alone for a while.

I glanced around, instinctively, for Guardians, even though it was stupid. If there were any Guardians nearby, they would be hiding, making themselves scarce. Haunting the woods. Thinking of the Guardians made me wonder how Devin felt about my coup on the mountain. Of course, my friends didn't know about that parta"they just thought I'd gotten the second best time of the day. Asher knew the real reason for my elation. I could only imagine that Devin had seen it, tooa"watched as I took control of both sides of my powers. I wondered if he was lurking somewhere now. Waiting for the right moment to say somethinga"if he was planning to say anything at all. It always made me a little sad to think of Devin. In those marathon training sessions behind my house, he'd pushed me so hard, you'd never have thought he was capable of moments of great tenderness. But he could surprise you. He'd surprised me.

He'd hurt me, too.

But how could I forget the good times? I couldn't just throw those to the wind and let them blow away forever. I held on to those moments between us like a special secret. Maybe one I didn't want to share with anyone. Not even Devin himself, if it came down to it. I'd rather let those moments live inside me, where no one could tell me that I was wrong or naive for wanting to see the best in people. Even killers.

I got to the front door and stopped short.

A tiny purple alpine flower from the field out back was tied around the doorknob with the same string I'd used to tie it to Devin's door. Was it an extended olive branch? Some acknowledgment? Of what? I remembered the Devin who'd been my teacher, who'd first told me about my parents. Who'd hugged me awkwardly in the parking lot at school when it had all seemed too overwhelming.

Was it too much to hope that he was proud of me for figuring it all out? What a long way I'd come from the parking lot that night.

What if that was all this flower was: not a threat or a message but a simple, thoughtful gesture? Even though he was controlled by higher powers, Devin had found a secret way to let me know the truth.