“All magic,” Aurora affirmed. “I’ve seen what you can do, Jinx. And while I might not know as much about it as I would like, I’m certain that all the lies I was taught as a child are just that. What you do is not evil or against nature any more than what I can do. So whether our abilities came from the goddess or something else entirely—we should be treated the same, you and I.”

“Then count me in,” Jinx said.

Surprisingly, Sly was the next to follow. She still did not appear any friendlier toward Aurora than she had been to Roar, and she did place a condition on her participation. “No more lying,” Sly insisted. “From this point on, we deserve your trust and your truth.”

“You will have it,” Aurora promised.

Ransom was the last to speak, and he too glanced at Kiran before he answered. “I was getting a bit bored anyhow,” he said. “Little bit of treason ought to break things up nicely.”

She waited, unsure if she wanted to address Kiran in front of the group, or wait until they could be alone to talk. But he surprised her by stepping forward and addressing the group as a whole. “Well, now that you have all agreed. You should know I volunteered our remaining magic supplies to the cause when I met with Zephyr last night.”

Aurora’s mouth dropped open.

“You did what?”

He’d been vehemently against her taking part, and now he volunteered his own services? She had not thought he could be more infuriating than he’d been when he first started training her, but this surpassed even that. All the torment he’d put her through the night before, and now he was simply on board?

But when he looked at her with those same cold, unfeeling eyes, she knew that he wasn’t doing this for her.

“I have been waiting a long time to punish the Lockes for what they did to my sister. To punish Stormlings for what they’ve done to thousands of families just like mine. This seems like it might be my best chance.”

If Aurora’s heart had not already been broken, that would have done the trick. He looked at her as if she and the Lockes were the same. And after the way she had acted, thinking only of herself, and not what would happen to her mother or Nova or the hunters she had made her unwitting accomplices—perhaps she deserved that.

“Well then,” she said to the group. “We meet the rebellion under the cover of the next storm. So be ready.”

Thirteen Years Earlier