A Beautiful Dark

had missed classes. I felt guilty about it, but I would make up for everything starting tomorrow. I couldn’t focus on homework, obviously. So I decided to go out back to the field and see if I could make anything strange happen. On purpose, for a change.
    I was already hard at work by the time Devin showed up, with Asher walking slowly behind him. When our eyes met, my stomach dropped. He looked just as bad as I did. Maybe worse.
    If Devin noticed, he didn’t say anything. In fact, he didn’t look much better. “Oh, good,” he said. “You’ve been trying on your own. That’s great.”
    I could have been imagining it, but he seemed tenser than he usually did. The laughing Devin from yesterday was gone. I wondered if he was thinking about last night. I tried not to—especially with Asher there—but I couldn’t shake the memory of him sitting up, watching as I scrambled to put on my shoes and jacket. The sound of the door locking behind me.
    We spent the rest of the afternoon out in the field, working on teasing out my powers. They tried all kinds of things, but often they just showed me something that one of them could do and then tried to get me to do it. But as evening approached and I couldn’t really imitate either of them, it began to affect everyone’s mood.
    The weather had slid down the awful slope from cold and clammy to a mix of sleet and rain, and my hands turned numb from the cold as Devin tried relentlessly to get me to fasten an icicle that had fallen to the ground back to its branch.
    “You’re not trying hard enough!” he yelled into the wet, driving wind. “Use your mind , Skye. Focus your energy.”
    Asher stood behind me, blasting icicles on various branches near Devin’s head. “Fasten those back,” I heard him mutter.
    “I am trying!” I yelled. I had been practicing using Asher’s trick of flipping the switch but to no avail. Nothing was happening—nothing at all. Though Cassie’s encouragement had strengthened my resolve, it had also made me realize how much I missed my life the way it used to be. I would have given anything at that moment to be curled up in her room watching a movie or hanging out at the Bean and playing pool with her and the boys.
    My wet hair clung to my face and neck as I tried again and again. My eyes felt wild. I didn’t have to think too hard to figure out what color they were.
    “Hey, it’s okay,” Asher said. He walked over, tentatively reaching out both hands to me, and with no effort at all, a flame sprang up between them. I wanted to lean in toward the heat. But I looked away.
    “It doesn’t help if you do everything for her,” Devin said, and I couldn’t quite identify the emotion in his voice. Envy, maybe—but Guardians didn’t feel envy. Wasn’t that what he’d told me?
    “I think we can all agree that your approach is a dismal failure,” Asher said.
    “Do you guys have to constantly bicker?” I asked.
    In Asher’s hands, the fire disappeared, and the cold began to weave its way back into me.
    “I’m calling it a day,” I said.
    Devin left in a huff. I noticed that he avoided looking at me as he soared off through the trees with his massive wings, several of his pure white feathers spiraling down below him. They fell to the ground, where they soon turned the color of mud, just like everything else.
    Asher and I just stood in the empty field facing each other.
    “Skye—” he said.
    I stared back at him. There was so much that I wanted to say. Instead, I turned sharply on the heels of my snow boots and trudged back to the house. I kicked my boots off when I walked into the kitchen, padding the rest of the way upstairs as the freezing wet hems of my jeans soaked through my socks, leaving little wet half-moons on the carpet. I shed my clothes in a heap just outside the bathroom door and, zombielike, stood in the shower for a second or two before realizing that I hadn’t turned it on. I let the steam fog up the mirrors and fill my lungs, and the hot water washed away my anger and sadness. Soon feeling had returned to most parts of me.
    As soon as I could feel my toes again, I began to cry. Great, heaving sobs that shook my body and made it hard for me to stand. I was so tired, anyway. My legs gave way and I fell to the shower floor, where I kept crying, hugging my knees to my chest, watching the sudsy water swirl around me on its way to the drain.
    I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. Was I really trying as hard as I