A Fractured Light (Beautiful Dark)

took only a few hours for us to make it to the cabin. We threw our packs down, and Cassie collapsed on the couch and promptly passed out. The rest of us made a late lunch and gathered kindling to build a fire that night. Devin was the first to volunteer as a kindling collector, disappearing into the woods before anyone else could even raise a hand. As I watched him speed off, I could have almost sworn I caught a glimpse of cascading blond hair, the arc of pale white wings flashing through the trees. But I attributed that to my paranoid mind. Raven wasn’t here.
    And yet, I wondered just how safe we really were with Devin among us.
     
    Asher built a roaring fire in the fireplace, and it crackled as we sat around it, swapping stories. Even Aunt Jo’s initial reluctance disappeared, and soon she was laughing along with the rest of us. Devin watched the fire, his eyes far away and intense.
    And Gideon watched Devin. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but he looked serious, disturbed. Every so often, he and Asher would exchange looks. But nothing was said. And nobody else seemed to detect a thing but me.
    When it was dark enough to notice a fire glowing through the windows, we covered them with the dark curtains we’d used when it had just been me, Asher, and Ardith. We told Dan and Ian it was just to keep the heat in at night. Cassie bit her lip and, to her credit, didn’t say a word. Her lying skills, apparently, weren’t as terrible as advertised.
    Cass needed to keep her leg stretched out at night, so she claimed sleeping on the couch right away. Dan spread his sleeping bag somewhat territorially next to the couch, and Ian found a cozy patch of rug near the fire. Gideon and Ardith decided to go for a walk, but I knew that they were really just patrolling the area for Guardians. They held hands as they left.
    “You know”—Aunt Jo yawned in the direction of me and Asher on her way to the bedroom—“there’s a whole other attic room. It may not be the most comfortable, but you can check it out and see for yourselves.” She closed the door to the bedroom, and we stood still in the darkened hallway.
    The attic. I nodded at Asher. “Let’s go up there,” I murmured. Even in the dark, I could see him flash a mischievous grin my way.
    “A dark attic? Alone with you? You don’t have to twist my arm.”
    The staircase was pitch-black as we fumbled our way to the top. Asher and I both grabbed at each other for support more than once. After the final stair, I tripped, expecting one more, and felt the room open out before me.
    “We’re here,” I whispered. “Watch the last step.”
    “I—” said Asher, but before he could finish his thought, he’d knocked into something, a cardboard box from the sound of it, that fell from its perch and spilled its contents across the wooden planks of the floor.
    “Shh!” I whispered, but we were both laughing. My foot hit something that had fallen from the box, inadvertently kicking it farther away from me in the darkness. The object made a light tinkling noise as it rolled away. “What was that?” I asked. I heard the pop and hiss of fire igniting, behind me, and soon the attic room was filled with a soft warm glow. Asher brought the ball of fire toward me. He held it out in front of him.
    “Where is it?” he asked.
    “There!” The fire floated alongside me, as I bent to retrieve the object. I held it toward the light. It was a baby’s rattle. It was tiny, a burnished silver that looked antique. Shaking it produced a muffled jangle that echoed across the room. I turned it over in my hands, running my fingers over the tarnished metal. Something was engraved along the side, and I could just make out the letters Sk and a date—my birthday.
    It was my baby rattle. It had been left behind.
    I shook it again, and the sound was clearer now, like a little silver bell chiming out the hour.
    Little silver bells.
    “Skye?” Asher asked. “What is it? What did you find?”
    It was the lullaby my parents used to sing to me. The melody came flooding back, like it had only been yesterday that the two of them were singing softly.
    Little silver bells. When they ring, we’ll know.
    We’ll know what ? I’d always wondered. But now I knew.
    We’ll know it’s time. They had been trying to warn me, even then.
    When my eyes flashed silver, when my powers kindled within me, when I turned seventeen, when I learned the truth. When I found the cabin and heard the little