She sat down again, picking her newspaper back up. "Nonsense. Everyone changes, Ethan. That's life. Now go tel my granddaughter to get packing. We need to go before the tides change and we're marooned here forever." She smiled as if I was in on the joke. Only I wasn't.

Lena's door was open just a crack. The wal s, the ceiling, the furniture -- everything was black. Her wal s weren't covered in Sharpie anymore. Now her poetry was scrawled in white chalk. Her closet doors were covered with the same phrase over and over: runningtostandstillrunningtostandstillrunningto standstill. I stared at the words, separating them the way I often had to when it came to Lena's writing. Once I did, I recognized them from an old U2 song and realized how true they real y were.

It's what Lena had been doing al this time, every second since Macon died.

Her little cousin, Ryan, was sitting on the bed, holding Lena's face in her hands. Ryan was a Thaumaturge and only used her healing powers when someone was in great pain. Usual y it was me, but today it was Lena.

I barely recognized her. She looked like she hadn't slept last night. She was wearing an oversize, faded black T-shirt as a nightgown. Her hair was tangled, her eyes red and swol en.

"Ethan!" The minute Ryan saw me, she was a regular kid again. She jumped into my arms, and I picked her up, swinging her legs from side to side. "Why aren't you coming with us? It's going to be so boring. Reece is going to boss me around the whole summer, and Lena isn't any fun either."

"I have to stick around here and take care of Amma and my dad, Chicken Little." I put Ryan down gently.

Lena looked annoyed. She sat down on her unmade bed, with her legs folded under her, and waved Ryan out of the room. "Out now. Please."

Ryan made a face. "If you two do anything disgusting and you need me, I'l be downstairs." Ryan had saved my life on more than one occasion when Lena and I had gone too far and the electrical current between us had nearly stopped

my heart.

Lena would never have that problem with John Breed. I wondered if it was his shirt she was wearing.

"What are you doing here, Ethan?" Lena stared up at the ceiling, and I fol owed her eyes to the words on the wal s. I couldn't look at her. When you look up / Do you see the blue sky of what might be / Or the darkness of what will never be? / Do you see me?

"I want to talk about last night."

"You mean about why you were fol owing me?" Her voice was harsh, which pissed me off.

"I wasn't fol owing you. I was looking for you because I was worried. But I can see how that would be inconvenient when you were busy hooking up with John."

Lena's jaw tightened, and she stood up, the T-shirt grazing her knees. "John and I are just friends. We weren't hooking up."

"Do you hang al over al your friends like that?"

Lena stepped closer to me, the ends of her ratty curls beginning to lift gently off her shoulders. The chandelier hanging from the center of her ceiling began to sway. "Do you try to kiss al of yours?" She looked me right in the eye.

There was a flash of light and sparks, then darkness. The lightbulbs on the chandelier exploded, tiny shards raining down on her bed. I heard the patter of rain on the roof.

"What are you --?"

"Don't bother lying, Ethan. I know what you and your library partner were doing outside Exile." The voice in my head was sharp and bitter.

I heard you. You were Kelting. "Blue eyes and blond hair"? Sound familiar?

She was right. I was Kelting, and she'd heard every word.

Nothing happened.

The chandelier crashed onto her bed, missing me by inches. The floor seemed to drop out from under me. She'd heard me.

Nothing happened? Did you think I wouldn't know? Did you think I wouldn't feel it?

It was worse than looking Reece in the eye. Lena could see everything, and she didn't need her powers to do it.

"I lost it when I saw you with that guy John, and I wasn't thinking."

"You can tel yourself that, but everything happens for a reason. You almost kissed her, and you did it because you wanted to."

Maybe I just wanted to piss you off, because I saw you with another guy.

Be careful what you wish for.

I searched her face, the dark circles around her eyes, the sadness.

The green eyes I loved so much were gone -- changed into the golden eyes of a Dark Caster.

What are you doing with me, Ethan?

I don't know anymore.

Lena's face fel for a second, but she caught herself. "You've been dying to get that out, haven't you? Now you can run off with your little Mortal girlfriend guilt-free." She said Mortal as if she could hardly stand to say the word. "I bet you can't wait to hang out at the lake with her." Lena was seething. Whole sections of ceiling were beginning to cave, where the chandelier had fal en.

Whatever pain she might have been feeling was total y eclipsed by her anger. "You'l be back on the basketbal team by the time school starts, and she can join the cheer squad. Emily and Savannah wil love her."

I heard a cracking sound, and another stretch of drywal smashed to the ground next to me.

My chest tightened. Lena was wrong, but I couldn't help but think about how easy it would be to date a regular girl, a Mortal girl.

I always knew that's what you wanted. Now you can have it.

Another crash. Now I was covered with the fine white dust of her fal en ceiling, broken chunks scattered on the floor around me.