“If he’s helped you, it’s because he has an ulterior motive—just like Daniel said. He wouldn’t just do it out of the goodness of his heart.”

“Because he’s evil?”

“Because he’s a Reaper, Lily, God. Haven’t you been paying attention for the last few months? Reapers are manipulative. This is how they operate. They take sane people and convince them that everything they know isn’t true.”

“Isn’t that what you and Scout did to me? Convinced me there was more to the world than just what I saw? Convinced me magic existed?”

His eyes flashed. “Sebastian convinced you of that when he hit you with firespell.”

I could see the anger in his eyes, and I knew what he thought. He thought I’d been swayed by a Reaper, convinced by Sebastian’s words. But I was still able to think for myself. I just had a different view of the world—a bigger view of the world—than I’d had before.

“He hit me with firespell accidentally,” I said. “He was aiming for Scout. And I’m not going to apologize for actually thinking about what’s happening here, instead of just accepting what you and Daniel say.”

“Great. Go think for yourself. And when I need someone levelheaded to talk to, someone who isn’t trying to screw up my family life, I guess you aren’t the person I should call. You may not even believe a word I say.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“No, I really don’t. I don’t think you’re the girl I thought you were. I do know I can’t handle this right now.”

He put his backpack back on his shoulder and began walking down the corridor.

“Where are you going?”

“Honestly, Lily, I’m not sure. I’ll let you know when I get there.”

With that, he disappeared into darkness.

I bit my lip to hold back tears. I didn’t want to cry in the tunnels, I didn’t want to cry over a boy, and I didn’t want to feel bad for thinking things through instead of just buying what everybody told me.

Yeah—it was scary to give up your assumptions and actually think, but wasn’t that the entire point of being an Adept?

The door creaked open, and Scout peeked her head out and looked around. “Where’s Jason?”

“He left.”

Frowning, she walked into the tunnel and closed the door behind her. “He left?”

I wiped at the tears on my cheeks. “Yeah. He’s really mad that I talked to Sebastian. He thinks I’m a traitor.”

“Aw, Lils,” she said, and held out her arms for a hug. I walked into them and sobbed my heart empty of tears.

* * *

Scout went back into the Enclave, grabbed my messenger bag, and got us excused so the other Adepts wouldn’t have to see me standing in a damp, nasty tunnel with tear tracks on my face and raccoon eyeliner eyes.

“I am definitely not going to the dance now,” I said, as Scout put an arm around my shoulder and we began walking back toward the school.

“You never know. He could come to his senses. And even if he doesn’t, do you really have time to worry about a werewolf with a bad attitude? Or a dress? You haven’t even had time to find a dress yet.”

“Do you really think he has a bad attitude?” I stopped short in the hallway. “Scout, am I making a huge mistake by even talking to Sebastian? It’s just information—he’s not going to sway me from one side to another. I’m a smart girl; I can make up my own mind.”

“I know you can. But Jason doesn’t think there’s any choice. In his mind, there’s clearly good and clearly evil and there’s no meeting in the middle. You talking to Sebastian totally crosses his wires, you know? He doesn’t see how you could do that if you were really a good guy . . .”

“Which makes him wonder if I’m really a good guy,” I finished.

“I think so, yeah.”

We started walking again. Feeling totally rejected, I kicked at a rusted chunk of metal on the ground. It skittered away into the dark.

“Do you wonder if I’m a good guy?”

It took her a scary long time to answer. “I want to think you’re a good guy. But you have to make that decision for yourself. And maybe being a good guy isn’t the same for everyone. It’s different for members of the Community than it is for us. So maybe it’s different for some Adepts than others.”

I didn’t exactly like the sound of that. But I knew how I felt. “No one has the right to take something that doesn’t belong to them,” I said. “And that includes stealing souls or energy or whatever Reapers take. But I didn’t grow up with this stuff, Scout. It’s new to me, and the only things I know come from other people. You tell me Reapers are bad, and I believe you. But I also think there’s more going on here than we know. Something more than Reapers-bad, Adepts-good. And I think we need to figure out what that is.”

I think she had a decision to make, too. I’d disrupted her world, made her think about things she probably didn’t want to—the possibility that truths she’d known weren’t entirely truth. That was the risk I took by telling her how I felt about it. I could only hope that she was strong enough to take that leap with me.

“When I first figured out that I could bind spells,” she said, “my parents were appalled. Fortunately, the Enclave found me pretty quickly after my powers popped through. They were nice to me, and what they said made sense, you know? But I was also told Reapers were bad. Always bad. Always self-centered. I don’t want to believe that it’s more complicated than that. I don’t want to believe that the world is this gigantic gray hole and you never really know wrong from right.”