My heart in my throat, I took the folded-up printout from the white pages out of my pocket and opened it.
Third from the top:
Aaron Ward, 144 Sycamore Street, Rocky Pines, CO.
There was a phone number listed next to it. I took out my cell phone and dialed. The phone rang a couple of times, and then a little girl’s voice picked up.
“Hi, you’ve reached the Wards. We’re not here right now . . .” In background, I heard a man’s voice prompt:
“But if you leave a message . . .”
“Oh, right. But if you leave a message,” she continued, “we’ll call you back!”
I opened my mouth to leave a message, but thought better of it and hung up quickly. What exactly was I planning to say?
As I stood up and slung my bag over my shoulder, a thought suddenly occurred to me. What if the girl had a mom? How could I not have thought of it before? What if Aaron Ward had a whole new family out in Rocky Pines, and was perfectly happy to never see Aunt Jo again?
What if he didn’t want to come back?
Below me, the bell rang for the end of the period. That meant I had ten minutes until the next one began. I had the whole rest of the day to figure out what to do about Aaron. I didn’t have to have an answer right now.
I kicked the brick aside and let the door close behind me, then snuck back down the stairs and into the crowded hallway.
Someone grabbed me from behind.
By instinct, I elbowed them in the stomach and turned around.
“Jeez,” Ian panted. “I was going to tell you to watch your back, but it looks like I didn’t need to warn you after all.”
“Sorry!” I cried. “Are you okay?”
“You might have broken a rib. Other than that, some wounded pride maybe. Nothing a little flattery won’t fix.”
“Your freckles are looking especially handsome today, Ian.”
“That’s a good start.”
“How about this? I think I know where Aaron Ward is. Will you come with me to find him?”
Ian batted his eyelashes. “Li’l old me?”
“I haven’t asked anyone else. Not even Cassie.”
Ian grinned. “Okay, my pride has totally healed. I’ll definitely come.”
“You’re the best!”
“Hey,” Ian said, his face growing serious. “Speaking of that, can I talk to you for a second?”
I glanced at the clock. “I’m going to be late for—”
“Just a minute.”
“Okay,” I said. “What’s up?”
“It was driving me crazy all night. The name James Harrison—it sounded so familiar. I thought he was a politician. A president or something.”
“I think you’re thinking of James Madison,” I said.
“Yeah, I realized that. I was racking my brain. Finally when I got home, I asked my mom if maybe he was an old doctor or a family friend or something.”
I paused. Suddenly, my heart was pounding.
“What did she say?” I asked.
Ian took a deep breath and met my gaze.
“He was my dad.”
5 
“What?”
The white noise of the hallway was ringing in my ears.
“That was my dad’s name,” Ian said. “He left, you know. I don’t know if I ever told you. I had just turned seven. The timing works.” No, he had never told me. And he knew it.
“How come you never said anything?”
“Look, the third Rogue you’re looking for—that could be my dad.”
Ian never talked about his family. I knew he lived with his mom, but he never talked about her. We hadn’t been friends since kindergarten like me, Cassie, and Dan. We’d all started at Northwood freshman year, and he and Dan had become buddies through track. We’d been to his house a couple of times, but mostly we all congregated at mine.
“I—I didn’t know that,” I said. “I guess I—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ian cut me off quickly. “I just thought you would want to know, in case it helps.”
I hesitated before asking the next question. “Ian,” I said. “You know this means . . . that you could be part . . .” I wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. How do you just blurt out to someone who has spent his whole life thinking he was just a normal human that he . . . well . . . might not be?
Asher and Devin did the same to you, I reminded myself. And look how it changed your life forever.
“I know what it means,” he said quietly. He looked up at me and smiled grimly. “I gotta get to class.”
Before I could say anything else, he started to walk away.
“Ian!”
“What?” He turned around.
“You’d be okay if . . . we looked for him? If we found your dad?”
The look on his face was hard to read. “I kind of have to be, huh?” he said. “I’m not going to get in the way of your plan.”
I caught up to him and threw my arm around his neck. “Thank you. You really have no idea how much this means to me.”
“No problem, Skye. It’s cool.”
I narrowed my eyes, again wondering if he was telling the truth. But he just patted me on the back and dashed off down the hall.
“So, after school?” I called.
“I’m working at the Bean,” he shot over his shoulder. “Tomorrow?”
I nodded as he ran off, but I couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable.
First Aunt Jo’s ex-fiancé, then Ian’s dad. Two guys with a lot of unfinished business back in River Springs. And why River Springs? What was it about this place that drew my parents, that seemed to draw so much angelic activity? My heart fell into my stomach. I had my work cut out for me—getting these guys back to town was going to be harder than I realized.
What if the universe didn’t want me to bring these three powerful Rogues back together, after all?
I was so lost in thought that I didn’t pay attention to where I was going, and knocked into someone on my way to class. When I looked up, I was staring right at Devin.
“Oh,” I said. He looked down, and our eyes met. His were blue pools of light. Like Raven, the frosted layer of ice that usually shut him off from me, from the world, had all but melted. And when he looked at me, I could see the confusion that he felt, too.
“Skye,” he said. “Hey.”
He seemed so uncharacteristically at ease, so comfortable in his own skin. He looked radiant, his face glowing and warm, his hair even blonder. He wore a plaid button-down flannel and khaki-colored work pants that hung off his hips. Such a contrast to Asher’s olive skin and dark hair, thermals and jeans, boots and beat-up army jackets. Everything about Devin now exuded light.
So that’s what happens when you give someone the ability to feel.
I glanced down, grasped the handle of my book bag so tight that my knuckles turned white.
Since my seventeenth birthday, Devin and I had been through more than I had with anyone else in my life. I’d gone from bristling at his unrelenting pressure for me to manifest my powers to near-death when those very powers inspired the command for him to kill me. He had to follow it, was programmed that way. He didn’t mean it and never could. He had taught me how to embrace who I was, to feel proud of what I could do. He showed me how to use my powers of the light, and he was the one who figured out what my visions meant—that my mother was a Gifted One. But ever since his betrayal, he held me at arm’s length. Who knew what he was capable of under the Order’s ruthless thumb?
The last time I had seen him, he had told me how much he loved me. But his words, so perfect, seemed so empty. Telling someone you loved them didn’t make it true. Showing me—proving it—that’s what would make me believe. Even when Devin jumped from the Order and became a Rebel, Asher had been holding a sword to his throat, threatening to kill him if he didn’t.