…Things are not going well here. Actually, that’s an understatement. We’ve lost two of them already, and the third is touch and go. I don’t understand what went wrong. Was it the programming? The war? We’d thought they were getting better. I don’t think Lexa will ever get over it. I’m not glad it happened, but at least now she’s starting to see: we’ve created something we can’t control. No sign yet of the others. Perhaps they’re dead as well. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe, after everything we’ve done, it’s what we deserve...

—Mil Cothi, personal journal; June 15th, 2045

She wasn’t what I—or they, for that matter—expected. She was the translucent wings of a dragonfly, the gossamer strands of a spider web. She was only now becoming. By the end, she would be lightning, an earthquake, the sun.

She’d known I was following them. She’d known for a long time. She’d spoken to me, although she didn’t think I heard her. Her voice was a caress that made me stand taller.

She’d told him about me. He suspected I might be bad. Perhaps he was right. He was wild and secret, a mist on the water, the shadow of a great tree. And something else, something I didn’t yet understand. I wanted to be between them, for them to touch me. I didn’t think I would mind.

I’d stood guard over the pyre, the way she’d wanted me to. I’d given them that, at least, although I’d wanted to do more.

I’d been there when they met the Terrans. A tightness had gripped my chest, like the time I accidentally wore Stella’s shirt. A scream had risen in my throat, forcing itself out of my mouth before I could stop it. My lack of control over it had thrilled me.

And later, I’d wrapped myself around her, holding her steady to save them all.

I wished to go to them now and introduce myself. But the time would come for that later. If I spoke to them now, I would give the game away. I needed to get back. The others may have begun to distrust me. Ethan already did. He had never trusted me, which was ironic. They’d stopped telling me their plans. Lien pretended they had no plans, that our group was honest. We were not.

But I also wasn’t who they’d planned for me to be. I was making my own plans.

I wanted to warn Ailith that everything was not as it seemed. But if I did, I might disrupt the path. And it was already tenuous.

I’d gotten some of her hair. It had caught on a branch as she walked by. It was my insurance policy. It smelled of smoke and salt, and her fragrance of soaked earth. Ailith.

They were so close to home, so much closer than they knew.

When they arrived, we’d begin.