“You might be surprised. You might say you’ll find your mind somewhat . . . changed.”
“I doubt it. I won’t let your mind tricks work on me. I’m going to overthrow you. I’m going to make you wish you’d never tried to get me to choose.”
“You don’t understand, Skye,” his voice was suddenly hard-edged and brutal. “You were lucky that we let you choose. I could have taken you by force right at the start. But that wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t in the stars. No, you had to want us. Devin was as good a way to make that happen as any. I could have made him do much worse to you than he did. And he was easily disposable. The Rebellion can have him.”
“Liar. You didn’t need him. You could have gotten to me before I was strong, when you had the chance. But you didn’t, because I don’t think you can.”
“Then you,” he said, “are sorely misled. Others have tried to do what you’re doing. Your mother tried. Look how well that turned out for her.”
“Stop it,” I said.
“She didn’t get very far—the Order made sure of that.”
“Leave my mother out of this.”
“Your mother . . . she was so—gifted really is the right word for it, isn’t it? Even for one of my most trusted. It hurt when she left me for your father, Skye. It really did. So good, so talented at controlling fate, influencing minds, manipulating the lives of paltry humans. It was such a betrayal when your father convinced her that this wasn’t the life for her. Such a shame. It’s not for everybody, I suppose. Many jump. And many . . . Well, many get their wings torn off in the night.”
“Stop it!”
“Oh, you can handle hearing the truth. She was easily replaced. They all are. Your mother, Raven, Devin. As long as time beats on, as life begins and ends, the Order will persist. New Gifted will rise up, with new, stronger powers. New Guardians will carry out their bidding. It’s so easy, really, Skye. Just like a machine. Tick tock. Tick tock. The great, beating tide of time draws in and out. Surf beating against the rocks of the beach at the end of the world.”
The beach at the end of the world.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “I can change things.”
“What makes you think you’ll meet a luckier fate? What makes you think you’ll beat us this time?”
“Because!” I shouted. “I’m stronger than my mother. I have powers that she never dreamed of having. I have her talents AND I believe in free will. Because of me, time stands still and destiny is unreadable. I can see the future and cause the earth to shake and trees to fall and mountains to move and the sky to come tumbling to the ground in great waves of hail and snow. I can do so much more than anything you’ve ever seen! And I won’t stop until I beat you!”
“Perhaps,” he said. His voice was too calm, unnerving. “You could be stronger. But you have a weakness. The same weakness that your mother had. And it’s the reason that the Order will find a way to get you. It’s the reason we’ll win, every time.”
I clenched my jaw. “What weakness?”
“Your heart,” he said. “Your dogged need to see the best in everyone. Your belief in love. It’s your great undoing.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “It’s what makes me strong.”
“Is it really? It’s what made you trust Devin, the very thing that made you vulnerable to his sword. It’s what made you align with the Rebellion, despite the fact that you knew they didn’t care about you—that they only wanted to use you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I spat. “They were my friends.”
“Were they? And what about your Rebel boyfriend? Where is he now? He was ordered to kill someone he knew you cared about. And what was he doing at that fire, Skye? Could it be that he was a part of the attack on your Aunt Jo?” I felt the blood drain from my face. “I don’t foresee this ending very well for you, my dear.”
“You don’t know that,” I said, panic rising in my throat like bile. “You can’t see that. I’ve blurred out your ability to see how this will end. You don’t know what Asher’s capable of doing.”
“Hmm, don’t I?” He paused. “Either way.” His voice was razors and sharp lines. “It’s your love for him, it’s your wish for him to be good, that will prevent you from seeing the truth about him. You want so badly to believe, to love him, all of them, to not be alone at the end of the world with the terrible burden you bear. But it’s what’s keeping you from staying safe. From fighting true and fierce. Your love will leave you ready for the taking.” He laughed, a cold, hard laugh. “Everyone you love will leave you, eventually.”
“That’s not true,” I whispered. Though I believed it less now.
“No,” he said. “Even you know that’s a lie.”
A lie . . . a lie. Everyone you love will leave you. Maybe he was right. It was why I’d always worked so hard to keep people out, to not trust anyone more than I had to. You couldn’t rely on people. There was no telling when they might leave you.
“See?” Astaroth said. “You’re catching on. Don’t you want to finally be free from worrying about all this? Isn’t it better to cut Asher out—forever? He’s probably plotting their next attack right now. He’s still a Rebel. He hasn’t changed.”
Changed.
I blinked.
You might find your mind somewhat changed.
If my mother was right, my mind was changed. A portal was created between my mind and an angel’s, every time they tried to influence my mental energy. Astaroth had been infiltrating my mind, trying to shake me up, make me question what I thought was right and true. Was it possible that a portal had been created between us? That his mind was changed, too?
Because if that was true . . . maybe there was a way I could see what he was planning.
Fighting with every inch of my energy to continue to push him out, I got up and started to leave.
“Where are you going?” he said. “Don’t think you can end this just by walking away.”
“I’m not walking away,” I said calmly, opening the window and climbing out onto the moonlit roof.
“I’ll always be able to get into your mind, Skye. You can’t hide from me.”
“So follow me, then.”
Out on the roof, I spread my wings, just in case.
And what I’d hoped would happen did. Even though it pained me to do it, I steeled myself and felt my mind touch the cold, sickening steel of his—and slip through the rift.
It was dark, cold, like floating in space. There was an emptiness in him, and I felt it too, was swimming in it.
Images began to crystalize out of the void. Images I recognized. The small, twinkling lights I’d seen in another vision, blinking on and off. The sweep of a dress against the hardwood floor of a gymnasium. A dress that I recognized.
Because Aunt Jo gave it to me.
I’d seen it in my visions, stained with blood. And I saw it now against the backdrop of my school gym.
For prom.
I heard Astaroth’s thoughts:
The battle will not end until one side has claimed her—or one side has killed her. It is the day of reckoning. The end of days—or the beginning.
I opened my eyes with a start. I was lying in bed, gasping. Sweat soaked through my T-shirt. The window was open, night air blowing the curtains back, and Earth was sitting up in her sleeping bag, staring at me curiously.
The battle we’d been waiting for. The battle over me.
It was going to take place on prom night.