But while I initiated things between us, it didn’t stay that way. Perry was there for me. Laughing with me. Wanting me. I know, for a time anyway, that he was as swept away by me as I was by him. But that started to change as soon as Liv and Roar left for Rim. With our foursome split in half, Perry began to drift away from me.

The hints were subtle at first. He’d draw away from a kiss too soon, or fall silent when I spoke to him about our future. Then the signs grew into bigger things. Misunderstandings. Arguments that never felt like they were resolved. I saw the direction we were heading. I just didn’t want to believe it.

But I believe it now. Perry and I had a beginning. We were bound to have an end. And I understand that we were great together sometimes, but what we had was flawed and maybe a little forced. Maybe it was something that I really wanted, but that wasn’t actually there.

Maybe the magic wasn’t in us. It was in my eyes.

Chapter 7

7

Why do you get to go outside, but I can’t?” Clara asks me that evening.

“I have to,” I answer.

Clara blinks her wide blue eyes at me. “But I haven’t been outside in months and months and months.”

“You aren’t missing anything.”

“Yes, I am! I want to run on the sand! And it’s so dark in here.”

“It’s dangerous out there, Clara.”

Wylan and his band aren’t the only things I want to protect her from tonight. Outside, the Aether is raging, dropping funnels only a few miles from the cave. When the wind blows in from the right direction, it carries the smell of smoke from forest fires. It’s a measure of Perry and Reef’s concern that they’re sending us out there tonight. They wouldn’t put the patrol at risk unless they had legitimate fears about Wylan returning.

Clara crosses her arms and makes a sulky face, like she is five instead of eight. She thinks it’ll melt me, seeing her act so young. Like the sweet, innocent little sister I lost. But my reaction is the opposite. At some point in the past year she learned to manipulate people, and that makes me want to hit something.

“Then why are you going?” she asks.

I’m not going to tell her about Wylan, so I drop a kiss on her head. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Brookie, please take me with you,” she says, her eyes filling with tears.

Those aren’t an act. They’re real, and my throat tightens up. “Clara, I have to do this. You know I wouldn’t leave you otherwise.”