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help Gail’s injured husband. Aunt Patrice had bustled Briar and Norine in her car to follow. 
    “Mrs. Goodman was positively covered in blood,” Norine said, her voice caught between sympathetic and excited. “Do you think Bill Goodman is dead?”
    “Hush, Norine,” Aunt Patrice said from behind the steering wheel. She was struggling to see the road in the murky dark. “Dr. Porter is with him, which means he’s getting the best care available.” 
    “What could cause a rockslide? I bet,” Norine said, fixing her eyes on Briar, “it was one of those powered people gone out of control. Can you imagine?”
    “You don’t know what happened,” Briar snapped. “You’re just making that up.”
    Norine shrugged and then turned to her mother. “Momma, I’ll just die if the road isn’t fixed by Tuesday. You said Briar and I could go window shopping in Denver so we can see what sort of dress she’s going to make me.”
    Briar jolted. She had been avoiding going to Denver for months now. She couldn’t stand the thought of seeing her brother Arthur again. She hadn’t seen him since the day of the Firelight Festival. The day everything changed. 
    Norine was still pleading. “I have to decide what I’m going to wear for the New Year’s talent show, and it has to be perfect.” She burst into an only-slightly nasal version of “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” 
    “That’s enough now, dear,” Patrice said. When Norine kept singing, Patrice said, “Norine, don’t waste your voice. It’s too powerful for this small car, and I don’t want you to overdo it on the practicing.”
    Aunt Patrice’s words warbled and twanged, and Briar turned her face toward the window to hide her laugh. She had to give it to Aunt Patrice—the woman lied beautifully.
    Briar had come to live with Aunt Patrice when she was eleven years old. They had never met before; Briar’s father had left Independence Falls for Texas before he even graduated high school, and had never brought his family back to his hometown. But Aunt Patrice was Briar’s only living relative, and she had agreed to take in her niece. 
    Briar wondered now why Patrice had bothered. Aunt Patrice didn’t seem to feel much family loyalty. She never talked about Briar’s father, her brother, or about the other people she had lost. Both of Patrice’s parents—Briar’s grandparents, she supposed, though she never thought of them as such—had died long ago. Her husband, George, had been killed in the war when Norine was young. In some ways, Briar thought, they were similar—both orphans, both familiar with tragedy. But Aunt Patrice never reached out to Briar, never wanted to bond over their shared pain. 
    Ever since her powers manifested, Briar had suddenly been able to see another way she and Patrice were similar. Patrice lied all the time. 
    Where Briar had lied to cover up her past, Patrice lied to manipulate people. She was very skilled at using compliments and kind words to encourage people into doing what she wanted, without hurting their feelings or creating offense. Norine, after all, had stopped singing. 
    Briar’s power allowed her to admire Aunt Patrice’s technique, but forbade her from imitating it. She no longer had the luxury of lying to her cousin. If Norine asked what Briar thought of her singing, she would have to tell the truth. 
    That was the worst part about her powers. All those convenient lies that people told to smooth social situations and avoid hurt feelings were impossible for her now. Telling nothing but the truth meant that, more often than not, it was better not to say anything.
    Thank God no one had asked her where she had been when the rockslide occurred. She would have had to tell them that she was in the woods, rubbing her hands all over a mountain lion that turned out to be Charlie Huston, her next-door neighbor. A tingle went up her spine as she thought of the way his chest had rumbled when he purred. 
    When they