“ELIAS?” I CALL THROUGH THE HOUSE, but no one replies. I could have sworn I heard the front door open. But he isn’t in the kitchen, and no one is in the library, so perhaps Rosie isn’t here either. Did she decide to quit?

“Elias,” I call again, stepping out into the backyard. The humid fall air is so thick it feels like walking into a mouth. The day is dark with thunderclouds, purple and heavy with rain. In the distance, the clouds rumble. I don’t want to be out here longer than I already am. It looks like it might rain any moment. “Elia—”

From the pool area, Rosie scrambles from one of the chairs, pale and wide-eyed. “No! Don’t close the—”

The door slides shut behind me.

“—door…” she finishes glumly.

Why would she not want me to…oh. My stomach drops into my toes as I spin around and try the door. But it’s locked. I can’t believe this. How stupid can I be? I sigh and turn back to her. “I assume it was you I heard coming in?” I say.

“Probably,” she replies, nervously twisting the class ring on her finger.

“And you haven’t seen Elias either, have you.”

She shakes her head. So that means he hasn’t broken the news to her yet, either. Great. I curse under my breath and give one last tug. Still nothing. The glass in the door rattles with the force.

We are officially locked outside.

“Maybe the front door is unlocked by some glorious twist of fate,” I mutter, realizing that I don’t even have shoes on, and start for the side of the house.

“I’ve already tried it. Can we talk?”

I ignore her.

“Vance.”

When she says my name, I can’t help but to stop. I glance over my shoulder at her. The clouds above us rumble again. “What could we possibly have to talk about?”

“You—you wish you’d never found out it was me, don’t you,” she forces out, and fists her hands. She raises her eyes to me defiantly. “Because I’m not who you imagined, am I?”

I roll my eyes. “Right, that’s it—”

“I’m being serious!”

“And I’m—”

She grabs my arm roughly and jerks me around to face her, and squares her shoulders so she looks a little taller. Imogen was right—I know she was—I should have told this girl the moment I recognized that birthmark on her neck, but I purse my lips and look away. There are few things I enjoy less than confrontation.

“Am I?” she repeats. She steps up to me, and I ease back a little from our closeness. The freckles across her nose look like a constellation, and my eyes follow them down the dip of her nose to her bowlike mouth. She’s strangely intimidating, like a squirrel with a butcher knife.

“N-no, that’s not it,” I find myself replying. “I didn’t tell you because—”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s because—”

“—you’d realize that it was—”

“—you found out that it was—”

“—me,” we finish at the same time.

My eyebrows furrow. Her hazel eyes widen.

A crack of thunder streaks across the purple clouds, followed by a chest-rattling clap of thunder, and a raindrop lands on my cheek.