A Fractured Light (Beautiful Dark)

out what they meant. And right now Devin was the only one who might give me that help.
    “I was on a beach,” I said slowly, gauging his reaction. His eyes widened, but he let me continue. “And I was walking through the mist. I wore a beautiful dress, the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen—but it was soaked and dirty from the sand. It was stained with blood.”
    “Is that it?” he asked quietly.
    “No. Ahead of me, I could see a shape on the ground. And in the vision, I knew it was a body. Someone was lying there, and I couldn’t see who.”
    I wondered if I should tell him about what I’d thought to myself in the vision. Which one of them did I hit? But I didn’t want to tell Devin all of my secrets. I had to hold a couple of them close to my chest.
    “Skye,” he asked. “Have you ever had visions of things that have happened?”
    I thought about it.
    “I—I think so. Before that night in the woods, I passed out in the parking lot at the mall, and I saw Asher telling me everything was going to be okay. And he was going to find someone to save me.” I wondered how I hadn’t realized this before. Though it wasn’t exactly like I’d had a lot of free time to sit and puzzle it out. “That night, Asher flew me off into the clouds. And he said the same words to me. ‘I can’t save you, Skye. I’ll find someone who can.’”
    Devin’s eyes remained impassive as he studied me. I felt the need to keep talking.
    “But there were other things, too, that were total fiction. Like the moment on the beach. I couldn’t live farther from a beach, so that one seems unlikely. And one time, I saw myself opening a shoe box in Aunt Jo’s closet. There was also one . . .” I blushed violently. I couldn’t finish the sentence.
    “What?” he asked.
    Could I?
    “One time I saw us dancing.” I wanted to look away, but I willed myself not to back down. If Ardith and Gideon were right, I couldn’t let him think I was weaker than him.
    “You and me?” His eyes flickered with uncertainty.
    “Yeah,” I said. “You and me.” I held my ground.
    “You’re sure?”
    “Yes, Devin, I’m sure. I—” I cut myself off abruptly, realizing that I’d fallen too easily back into the teacher-student rhythm we’d become so practiced at. Devin pushing me to my limit and me pushing it right back in his face. I crossed my arms and looked him square in the eye. A challenge. “What about it?”
    “You had a vision that we were dancing.” He repeated it not as a question but as some long-sought-after fact he’d suddenly stumbled upon while looking for something else; he could hardly believe the words. I nodded. My voice was lost somewhere in my throat.
    Before I knew what was happening, Devin wove his fingers through mine. They were slightly cool, and smooth—so unlike Asher’s, which were always the opposite: wind chapped and warm from the elements. When Asher touched me with those hands, I couldn’t think straight; my mind went blank. Devin’s touch brought a kind of clarity with it.
    It wasn’t his fault.
    I closed my eyes and my fingers wove through his.
    The Order forced him.
    “Skye,” he said, his voice coming out so strangled. “I didn’t want to do it.”
    I opened my eyes again and found myself lost in his. So many different feelings trapped beneath a hard layer of ice.
    “I know,” I murmured. “I mean, I think I knew that all along.”
    His grip on my hands tightened, and his eyes flicked over my shoulder, scanning the woods for anyone who might be listening in. “It wasn’t me that night,” he said urgently. If a Guardian heard what Devin was telling me now, I could only imagine how dangerous the consequences might be for him. And possibly —I realized with a twist of my gut— for me . “It was the Order. They gave me a command. I had no choice. I’ve never had a choice. Not when it comes to you. Controlling your life—or ending it. It’s all the same. Something they tell me to do, and I have to obey.”
    “But why?” I asked, the trembling in my voice threatening to take over. “Why do you have to?”
    “It’s who I am. It’s who I’ve always been and who I’m fated to be. The Order will make sure of that.”
    “And Raven?”
    “We’ve been destined for each other since we first grew wings. The Order saw it, and so it was.” He swallowed hard. “Everything they can foresee will happen. They’ll make sure it does, even if their ability to see is now more