“But what about-“I jumped in impatiently.

“We’ll keep them safe,” my father comforted me, knowing I was asking about the people living near us. “The Darkness knows where you live now, but you will be protected. Serena and Nathaniel will always be near, and your mother and I have been relieved from our posts for now. We aren’t going to leave you anymore.” My dad’s eyes darkened with determination and I knew better than to argue with him.

I worried about my friends, about the innocent people living in this area, but my father was right. They would be protected, possibly more so now than they ever were before.

“And we will start training right away,” Jupiter offered, but I didn’t think he was trying to comfort me. “Of course, we will have to figure out living arrangements. Surely there is something around here for us to procure. Maybe even in town?” he continued, the word “town” coming out of his mouth dripping in heavy sarcasm.

“Absolutely,” my dad agreed, “although you will probably do better to find a place out here. You could use several acres of property to train on. In fact, I know of a place that is for rent not that far from here. I’ll call the owner now, and see if it’s still available.”

My dad and Jupiter stood up from the table to follow the lead on possible housing. I looked at Seth who was deep in thought and wondered what life would be like now.

“Seth, have you ever been to public school before?” my mom asked, breaking the settled silence.

“Not properly,” Seth admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “Jupiter taught me at home.”

“Well, you’ll do fine,” she reassured him. “Mead has a small high school and it’s easy to navigate. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble fitting in. Don’t you think, Stella?”

“Nope, no trouble at all,” I laughed, appraising Seth’s perfect features again and thinking about the poor female population at Mead who would have to put up with an Angel among them on a daily basis.

“And Stella knows everybody, she can help you make friends,” my mom continued, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips as her thoughts went in the same direction as mine.

“That’s because everybody knows everybody,” I reminded my mother dryly. Small town life did not exactly grant anonymity and in a town with little more than five hundred people, it was hard to not get to know everybody.

“That’s true,” she sighed as she stood up from the table. “And that reminds me, I’m in charge of the bake sale for this Friday night’s games.”

“We just got back from a mission,” my dad reminded her as he and Jupiter reentered the kitchen. “Why don’t you take tonight off from Booster Club duties? At least wash the blood off your hands before you attempt an apple pie,” he joked.

“I don’t have any blood on my hands,” my mom swatted at her husband, laughing along with him. “And you know they stopped letting me bake a long time ago! I just have to make sure everyone else is bringing something homemade.”

“From fighting to organizing farm-wives, are you sure you’re ready for this kind of life, Seth?” My dad turned his twinkling blue eyes on my Counterpart, more worried about him dealing with human life than the forces of Darkness.

“I’m not going to have to organize bake sales, am I?” Seth choked out, half panicked.

“Only if you want to,” I laughed.

“I won’t. I won’t want to,” Seth assured me, a slow smiling turning his lips upward as he realized my dad was joking.

“Well, if you change your mind, just let us know,” I winked at him, the second wink in my life ever. What was wrong with me! Why did Seth being around make my eyes all twitchy? “Ok, I need a shower!” I announced, stretching my arms over my head.

“And we are going to go look at this property,” My dad announced, concluding that their meeting was over. “Do you want to come Seth?”

“Do I have time for a shower?” he asked.

“A quick one,” Jupiter offered, sounding very parental. “And Stella, you should know, training starts tomorrow morning. You need to be down here by 6:30 and we’ll make good use of your father’s fields.”

“Sounds fun,” I replied, not really sure if I was excited or terrified. A part of me longed to learn how to wield weapons and answer the innate call inside of me to fight, but the other part of me, the part that was raised in a human world and was already wary of Jupiter’s gruff demeanor, wondered exactly what I was about to get myself into.

“It will be fun,” Seth encouraged me, noticing the apprehension work its way across my forehead. “Weapons are the best part of this whole thing.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I smiled down at him, feeling relieved that Seth would be there with me.

I walked upstairs putting aside my fears for tomorrow and sent a quick text to Tristan telling him he could come over after all. I had expected more information to be covered in our meeting, but I wondered if my parents and Jupiter kept it short because there wasn’t much more information than what we covered.

A spy had worked their way inside the Council of Elders before, but not in a very long time, several dead planets ago if I remembered right. It was hard to imagine now though, with all of the security precautions and the way the Elders kept tabs on their current army, how a spy could slip past their wall of defenses. It would have had to be someone embedded deep inside their ranks for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. And they would have had to be very patient to wait all this time.

I wondered why now though? Why would they attack Sidra now? And if they killed her, why hadn’t they gone after me the same way? Even if they were unsure if I was the next Protector, a human life meant nothing to them, why hadn’t they just killed me to be safe?

There were more questions than there were answers, and I had to trust the Elders to get to the bottom of this quickly, even working with a spy amongst them. I shuddered at the thought of not feeling safe anymore. Could I trust a compromised board of elderly Angels? I didn’t have much of a choice, but suddenly their lack of interest in how I was raised became a concern. Maybe it wasn’t so much that my parents were doing things right after all, but a concentrated effort by the spy among the Elders to keep me unprepared.

A few deep breaths later, I decided there was nothing I could do about my past training, but there was something I could do tomorrow and that was to get caught up as quickly as possible. I trusted Seth and Jupiter was growing on me, so all that was left was for me to throw herself into my training and trust the God-given genes and instincts I had been born with.

Shutting my mind off from my Star duties for the night, I showered quickly, relishing in the heat of the water and blow-dried my hair. I had just thrown baggy sweatpants and a red long-sleeved volleyball t-shirt courtesy of Mead High on when there was a tap on my window. I finished getting dressed by pulling on some long wool socks, some hard-soled slippers and some mittens before climbing out my bedroom window on to the flat roof and sitting down next to Tristan.

“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,” he teased softly, as we snuggled up next to each other for warmth.

“Stop it right now,” I warned, unable to keep the smile off my face.

“What?” Tristan asked innocently. He was dressed almost identically to me in baggy sweatpants and a red, Mead hooded-sweatshirt. He had a black stocking cap pulled over his shaved head and thick gloves that he used when he went snowboarding on trips to Colorado.

“At least it wasn’t Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” I admitted, warming us both up with my inner heat that radiated softly from me, even when I wasn’t glowing.

“Everything’s going to change now isn’t it?” Tristan asked, the tone of his voice changing dramatically. He was rarely serious except on his respective sports fields and I couldn’t stop myself from looking up into his forest green eyes and wanting to falsely reassure him.

But I couldn’t. I could never lie to him.

“Yes, everything is going to change,” I recalled my own thoughts only a few minutes ago and settled deeper next to him. “The Darkness has never launched an attack like that before, at least on Earth. We are suddenly playing with a different rulebook; I’m not sure what will happen next.”

“I meant, between us,” Tristan sighed. I glanced over at him and the lines of his forehead at tightened. I knew it stressed him out when I talked about my future, he worried too much. But now he was stressing me out talking about our present.

“Why would things change between us?” I asked, pinpricks of anxiety lifting the hairs on the back of my neck.

“Stella, we can’t stay best friends forever. You have bad guys to fight, and I have farms to…. farm,” he laughed at the way his life sounded stacked next to mine.

“We can stay best friends forever,” I replied seriously. “Or are you unclear with what “BFF” means?” I nudged him with my shoulder and he laughed. “Obviously we need those necklaces.”

“What necklaces?” Tristan asked.

“You know those ones you give to your friends in elementary? Like it’s usually a heart broken in two and one side says “best” and the other side says “friend.” And you give it to your best friend so that everyone knows where you stand.” I explained.

“No, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t think guys are ever supposed to give each other necklaces.” Tristan grunted.

“Well, you don’t just give them. You also give them back when you decide you don’t want to be best friends with that person anymore. It’s a very emotionally involved process,” I joked, remembering how serious elementary life was once upon a time. I wondered if I would feel the same way about high school in a few years.

“That sounds mean,” Tristan observed playfully.

“Well, girls can sometimes be mean,” I admitted.

“I would never give your necklace back,” Tristan assured me with mock-seriousness.

“That’s because you’re not a girl,” I agreed.

“True,” Tristan laughed. “So nothing’s going to change?”

“Nothing,” I promised. “We will always be best friends.”

A pause hung in the air between us. There was both promise and prophecy in that statement and I took the moment to reflect. We sat huddled next to each other, I was trying to keep Tristan as warm as possible without lighting completely up. We sat staring at the wide open sky, like we had on so many other nights. I could name all the constellations, even though I referred to them as battle formations and I could name almost all the closest Stars by name.

Tristan could sit by me for hours listening to the mystery of the heavens being revealed to him. I wondered if he was the only human on Earth with this secret knowledge and then wondered if he was crazy for taking me seriously. But he would never doubt me; he cared about me way too much.