Her brows knitted. “It can’t be any worse than this.” Her voice cracked on the last word and she quickly looked away, dipping her chin. “I . . . I miss you, Seth. I really miss you, and I lo— I just miss you so much.”

My hand tightened around her sweater. The words I miss you too burned through my tongue, scalded my entire body.

Her glistening gaze drifted back to mine. “Nothing?” she whispered, and then she let out a shaky laugh. “I just . . . want to understand what I—” Her voice shook. “I just want to know what I did wrong.”

What she did wrong? Shocked into silence, I could only stare at her. She thought she’d done something wrong? That this was on her? She hadn’t done a damn thing wrong. She was an angel.

Thick lashes lowered. “Okay. All right.” When she reopened her eyes, she was looking down. “I . . . Um, I have to go . . .” Josie’s voice trailed off and then she was hurrying away, rushing down the walkway and disappearing behind the vine-covered statues.

And I was standing there, holding her sweater in my tight grip when I wanted to be holding her.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Josie

Whitish-red flames crackled over my knuckles, spitting tiny sparks into the air above my hand. I stared at the fire, a little awed over the fact that this was something I could create out of thin air and that I could actually control it.

And well, that was pretty damn amazing.

I wasn’t going to think about the fact that it had taken three weeks of working with Laadan to get to this point where I was now an official firestarter. Three. Long. Weeks.

Laadan was an excellent teacher and incredibly patient, even when I’d singed her eyelashes on more than one occasion. Deacon had been helping out on and off, and he wasn’t as terrible as he’d made it seem. Deacon could control fire. Marcus had been right. Working on controlling one element helped with the other three.

Two days ago was the last time I’d incorrectly summoned the wrong element, but that had been a fluke. I’d been distracted, because as I stood in front of Laadan, focusing on summoning the element of earth, I’d seen Seth on the closest walkway.

I’d accidentally knocked Laadan over.

Seth . . .

My chest ached and the flames faded out. I’d barely seen him since the day in the gardens. I couldn’t believe I’d even tried to talk to him after he’d been such a jackass, but I’d been desperate to know what had gone wrong between us. Sort of still was. What had I done wrong?