A Beautiful Dark

car door and got out. Seconds later, he did the same. I took his hand and pulled him with me around to the side of the house, looking upward. The ladder crawled up the deep brown shingles, disappearing where the roof ledge dropped off into the velvety black sky. It was tangled in vines that had grown over the years, mistaking it for a trellis.
    “Come on,” I said, starting to climb. It was a route I could travel in my sleep.
    Asher put his hand on the bottom rung. “I get the feeling I should have asked where we were going.” In the shadows, I couldn’t see his face. I can trust him , I thought. Right?
    “Come on,” I challenged. “What are you, afraid of heights?” I kept climbing. My shoulders worked and my legs stepped carefully and it felt good just to move, upward, and think. Or not think.
    Soon I crested the roof ledge and crawled several feet across the sloping surface. Asher was right behind me. I pulled my knees to my chest and stared out at the stars. He sat down next to me. Our breath made clouds of steam in the freezing night air.
    “Is that where angels are from?” I nodded at the stars.
    He chuckled. “Nah. It’s really more of an alternate realm than a city in the sky. I’ve never even been there.” He looked up. “Anyway, the Rebellion camp is somewhere else.”
    “Where?”
    He looked pensive. “On Earth, actually.”
    “Where?” I asked again.
    “Far, far away.”
    It was so quiet on the roof. I couldn’t even hear any passing cars from the road. The only sound, for miles, was the distant howl of a coyote.
    “Maybe you’ll see it, one day,” Asher said.
    “So we’re not so different,” I said quietly, almost more to myself than to him. Asher glanced at me sideways, shifting uncomfortably.
    “In that way, no.”
    “Do you ever regret leaving the Order?”
    “I was never in it. Most of us weren’t. Only the very first Rebel Elders were a part of it. And we’re not allowed back there now.” He paused. “So I live here. But based on how bound Devin is to his commands . . . I have to say that I’m very glad not to be part of the Order.”
    “Why does he think they’re so important?”
    “He’s brainwashed.”
    Or was Asher? How could I know which side was the right side—if either was right? How did I know which was where I truly belonged? Maybe I belonged here, exactly where I was. It had been a very long time since I’d missed my parents so desperately. I wished they could be here to guide me.
    “I came up here every day over the summer,” I said.
    He was silent.
    “It’s a good place to think. When I’m not skiing, this is where I feel the most at peace.”
    We just sat there. After a second or two, I rested my head against his shoulder and breathed deep. He smelled like grass and pine needles. Our breath intertwined in the cold air.
    “I know,” Asher said quietly.
    It took me a moment to figure out what he was saying.
    “You know what?” When he didn’t respond, my heart beat faster. “You know this is where I feel the most at peace?”
    He nodded slowly.
    “How do you know that?” I asked, sitting up.
    Asher sighed, as if he’d been avoiding this. “When we met? That wasn’t the first time I’d seen you.”
    “Then what was ?” I stared at him. “Enough with the cloak and dagger—just tell me.”
    “Before that.”
    “Like how far before that?”
    “Pretty far.”
    “Like what, a year?”
    He was silent.
    “What, two years?” Nothing. “Three?”
    “Long enough to know you pretty well.” He coughed and cleared his throat awkwardly. “It was, um, part of the assignment. That’s how we knew when to make ourselves known to you. When your eyes flashed that first time, things were about to start.”
    When my eyes flashed. I tried to remember something my father used to tell me when I was little. Holding me up to the bathroom mirror each night before I went to bed. Something I couldn’t quite retrieve, some memory I couldn’t reach . . . we were staring at my eyes. . . .
    “Wow,” I whispered. I didn’t know whether to feel scared or protected . . . or a little of both. “Have you . . . seen things? I mean, what do you know about me?”
    “Everything, Skye.”
    “I seriously doubt that,” I said, getting ruffled.
    “Try me.”
    “Fine.” I shoved him. “Okay. What’s my favorite lunch?”
    “Turkey sandwich and an apple,” he said, buffing his nails on his shirt and mock-yawning.
    “Too easy,” I