But most of the time she hated having to take care of Imogen after all of the years of living in her shadow. She was Imogen’s shadow, flimsy and quiet, always where people expected her to be.

And then Haven got an idea. If she was going to be in charge of Imogen, she might as well have a little fun. She asked her sister to take her to the Grays.

Haven put on shadow clothes — quiet sneakers, a dark-green sweatshirt. She told Imogen to do the same. Haven moved like she would never be seen. Imogen had always moved like everyone was looking at her, and they usually were. But that night her sister was a murmur in the woods, leading Haven to the clearing filled with witches.

All Haven wanted to do was scare them. She wanted to punish the weird girls of Tempest, just a little bit. They did what they wanted, kissed who they wanted, called on magic like that was something you could just do. Like there would be no consequences.

Haven had seen what happened if you said you were a witch.

If you lost control.

Danny: Now

You know what happened,” Haven says, her voice so thin it has an edge that I could easily get cut on.

Imogen vanishes behind the monstrous redwood. It feels like she’ll never come around the far side.

It’s just me and Haven.

I keep one hand on the dowsing rod, afraid to move closer to Haven. Afraid to turn my back on her and run. “I need you to tell me what comes next, Haven. Because my guesses right now don’t look very good.”

“I’m not bad,” Haven says, the words shivering out between locked teeth.

“I never said you were.”

“A person can’t spend every minute trying to be good and then turn out to be bad,” Haven says, but the words are muttered, and they sound like they’re mostly for her own benefit.

“You can fix this,” I say, feeding her a lie and a truth at the same time. There’s no changing what happened to Sebastian and Neil. She can let me walk away, though. She can bring her sister back. “Don’t you want to help Imogen?”

Haven turns even paler than before, her freckles standing out darkly, her breath coming harder and harder until I think she’s going to have a massive panic attack. “Imogen. Imogen. Imogen,” Haven says, each repetition more biting. Haven points at me, one skinny finger straight at my face. “The storm was supposed to stop you. You didn’t pay attention. That makes it your fault.”

“That was you?” I ask. “The storm?”

“No,” Haven says, twitching under the weight of my accusations. She locks her arms across her body. “No no no.”

But I know now. She’s been using her sister’s magic.