I still couldn’t sense Alex very clearly, no matter how much I wanted to. I kept searching for him, and feeling that he was alive but getting nothing about his emotions. His energy was there though – his warm, familiar energy that I loved so much – and I ran my thoughts gently over it, wondering what he was thinking; whether he was still angry at me.

After what Seb had told me, I hoped that he was. That he never got over being angry, ever.

“I’m sorry,” said Seb again, for about the tenth time. “I really didn’t know. When you first asked me, I was sure that we didn’t, but...” He trailed off.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. I could hardly even imagine how Alex would have reacted if I’d tried to break things off with him because Seb had told me that we cause angel burn – I think he might have tried to kill Seb.

Even though it all fitted. Oh god, it all fitted – his migraines, his headaches. The worst ones always seemed to happen just a few hours after the two of us had been close together. I had a flash of lying on his bed in his arms, and closed my eyes tightly against the sudden pain. I wiped my cheek with the heel of my hand and tried to marshal my thoughts.

“The Council attack is the most important thing, for all of us,” I said. “So when we go back to the house, I can’t touch Alex, not at all – I have to stay as far away from him as I can. If he got a migraine during the attack—” I broke off; the thought was too terrible to contemplate.

Seb’s gaze on me was very still. “And if he tries to make up with you? What will you tell him is the reason for not touching him?”

“I don’t know,” I said softly. Alex had always refused to even consider the idea that I might cause angel burn. No matter what was happening with his aura, I knew he was unlikely to start believing it now. Even if he checked out his aura and saw the damage, I could just hear him saying that it didn’t matter; that we couldn’t be certain it was because of me.

“I don’t know,” I repeated – but really, there was only one option, wasn’t there? My brain flinched away from the thought of it. “Hopefully...hopefully he’ll still be angry at me, and it won’t even be an issue. We can just keep avoiding each other.”