Her fingers spread over my hips, and I tip forward slightly, anticipating the warmth but still not ready for how good it feels, sounds rushing out of my mouth before I can stop them. I don’t need to see Rush smile now. I can feel it. I can feel everything. It takes Rush a minute to find a beat that she likes, her hands pulsing on my hips. When Rush gives me a feeling so good that it’s like crying from relief, I stare up past the forever-trees, to the pinpricks of stars, shaking as I take in the light of long-gone places.

I whisper her name — the one she chose — and try not to think of Imogen right there, helping her find it.

The last of the rain comes in ragged drips as we pull on our clothes. I stop to kiss freckles of rain off Rush’s back, her shoulders, before she shrugs on her sweater, and all I can think is how strange the timing of that storm was. My thoughts are waterlogged. My skin is still soaked. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get dry again.

“Imogen was a water witch.” The words came out of my mouth unbidden.

Rush doesn’t say anything back. She’s too busy pulling her boots, looping the silver laces and knotting them tight. When I look at her, I want to keep her safe. And all I can think is: What if Imogen caused the storm? What if she was the source of the salt water in the hermit’s tree?

What if You’re going to get hurt wasn’t a warning, but a promise?

Imogen saw the same thing June did when she fell, and she was on the hunt for Emma Hart. What if Imogen believed that the way to cut through, to get to Emma, was less about a knife than the fear that came from falling out of a tree?

Near-death fear?

She cast a ward to keep her friends safe. She didn’t really want to hurt them.

She just wanted Emma Hart.

With the Grays protected, she could have brought the wind, hoping that their fear and magic would open the way for her. But Sebastian was unprotected, and the widowmaker found his heart. She could have tried the same thing with the hermit — but Imogen’s magic was difficult to control. It got away from her sometimes, like the day she almost killed Haven on the Eel River.

“What’s wrong?” Rush asks, putting a hand to my wrist, over the blue spot where veins sit too close to skin.

“Nothing new,” I whisper. The pieces have all been there, even if I’m connecting them for the first time. Maybe I’ve brought Rush — all of the Grays — into the depths of the Lost Coast so they can see who Imogen really is. So they can finally let her go.