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around, pulling down the hood of his jacket. The light reflecting off the snow caused his blond hair to blur into a halo around his head.
    Devin.
    I wasn’t at all prepared for the wave of emotions that overtook me when our eyes met. He looked so helpless, like he had that night in the clearing. Not at all like the evil monster he’d become in my head. “Skye,” he said. “I missed you.”
    “How can you say that?” My voice was shaking. “How can you talk like you didn’t try to kill me?”
    “I’m sorry. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t.” He reached out his hand. It was trembling ever so slightly, as if he was willing it not to. “Take it,” he said. “Take my hand.”
    “No.” I couldn’t. Not after what he’d done. “I will never trust you again.”
    “You will,” he said. “The Gifted can see it. They know you will.”
    “Then prove it!” I yelled. My voice rose above the howling of the wind and snow. “Prove to me I can trust you!”
    “You know the Rebellion isn’t the place for you. You have too much chaos in your life already. You want order, Skye. You want rules and serenity. You know I can give you that. You’ll look for reasons to trust me again.”
    I paused, the wind whipping my black hair in every direction. We stared each other down. The ice glistened on the walls around us.
    “You’re lucky this is just a dream,” I said. “If this were real life, I’d hurt you, just like you hurt me.”
    “Are you sure it’s just a dream?” he asked. His voice was low, level, calm as always.
    “Yes,” I said. “I’ve had this one before. In a minute, you’re going to warn me.”
    “Warn you? About what?”
    “You know,” I said through gritted teeth, waiting for it, bracing myself, “what you have to warn me about.”
    And just like that, a searing pain sliced through my stomach, and the walls of the cave became wings, writhing and alive, white as the snow and stained with my own blood.
     
    I woke up gasping, clutching my stomach. I wondered if a day would ever come when I wouldn’t be afraid of dying.
    I thought about home. I was afraid to find out what had happened to Cassie. Afraid to face Aunt Jo. And since turning seventeen, I’d been afraid of my powers—terrified of becoming as powerful as everyone said I would be.
    But I didn’t want to be a person who was governed by fear anymore.
    I was going to have to go home.
    I lay awake in bed as the sky changed from inky night to stormy gray. Thunder churned outside my window and lightning flashed silently across the clouds. I knew, somehow, that my fear was causing the storm. I didn’t know how to calm myself down, to shut off my mind—or my powers. They all just blended together. The turmoil of being me.
     
    When the sky was light enough to count as morning, I turned from the window to the door. The rocking chair was empty. Asher was gone.
    As quietly as possible, I got out of bed and tiptoed to the top of the stairs. There were voices coming from below, and I held my breath so I could hear them.
    “. . . have to leave here.” Asher’s voice was low and insistent. “What if she told them? It’s not safe.”
    “But where do we go? We can’t take her back to the Rebel camp. She’ll destroy it; she’s too wild. Uncontrollable.”
    “You saw her with the icicles. She’s learning. . . .”
    “No, it’s too risky. But if we take her home—”
    “There are Guardians everywhere,” Asher said darkly. “It’s not safe anyplace.”
    I couldn’t believe they were talking about what to do with me, like I was just some doll they could pack up in a suitcase and carry away. Like I had no say in the matter. I thought we were done with all that. But it looked like I was wrong.
    If I was really as powerful as they said, then it was time I took control of my own destiny once and for all. I pounded down the stairs. Asher and Ardith looked up, startled.
    “I’m feeling better,” I said loudly. “I’m ready to go home