“Take that thing off.” I looped my finger under the string, lifting the bracelet and her arm to eye level.

“Ethan, it’s for protection. You said Amma makes these kinds of things all the time.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, maybe that thing is the reason the locket doesn’t work.”

“It doesn’t work all the time, you know that.”

“But it was starting to, and something stopped it.”

She shook her head, wild curls brushing her shoulder. “Do you honestly believe that?”

“Prove me wrong. Take it off.”

She looked at me like I was crazy, but she was thinking about it. I could tell.

“If I’m wrong, you can put it back on.”

She hesitated for a second, then gave me her arm so I could untie it. I loosened the knot and put the charm in my pocket. I reached for the locket, and she put her hand on mine.

I closed my hand around it, and we spun out into nothing—

The rain began almost immediately. Hard rain, a downpour. Like the sky just opened up. Ivy had always said the rain was God’s tears. Today Genevieve believed it. It was only a few feet, but Genevieve couldn’t get there fast enough. She knelt down next to Ethan and cradled his head in her hands. His breathing was ragged. He was alive.

“No, no, not that boy, too. You take too much away. Too much. Not this boy, too.” Ivy’s voice reached a fever pitch and she started to pray.

“Ivy, get help. I need water and whiskey and somethin’ to remove the bullet.”

Genevieve pressed the wadded material from her skirt into the hole Ethan’s chest had filled just a few moments before.

“I love you. And I would’ve married you, no matter what your family thought,” he whispered.

“Don’t say that, Ethan Carter Wate. Don’t you say that like you’re going to die. You’re gonna be just fine. Just fine,” she repeated, trying to convince herself as much as him.

Genevieve closed her eyes and concentrated. Flowers blooming. Newborn babies crying. The sun rising.

Birth, not death.

She pictured the images in her mind, willing it to be so. The images ran in a loop over and over in her mind.

Birth, not death.

Ethan choked. She opened her eyes, and their eyes met. For an instant, time seemed to stop. Then, Ethan’s eyes closed, and his head rolled to one side.

Genevieve closed her eyes again, visualizing the images. It had to be a mistake. He couldn’t be dead. She had summoned her power. She had done it a million times before, moving objects in her mother’s kitchen to play tricks on Ivy, healing baby birds that had fallen from their nests.

Why not now? When it mattered?

“Ethan, wake up. Please wake up.”

I opened my eyes. We were standing in the middle of the field, in exactly the same place we’d been before. I looked over at Lena. Her eyes were shining, about to spill over. “Oh, God.”

I bent down and touched the weeds where we had been standing. A reddish stain marked the plants and the ground around us. “It’s blood.”

“His blood?”

“I think so.”

“You were right. The bracelet was keeping us from seeing the vision. But why would Uncle Macon tell me it was for protection?”

“Maybe it is. That’s just not the only thing it’s for.”

“You don’t have to try to make me feel better.”

“There’s obviously something they don’t want us to find out, and it involves the locket and, I’m willing to bet, Genevieve. We’ve got to find out as much as we can about them both, and we have to do it before your birthday.”

“Why my birthday?”

“Last night, Amma and your uncle were talking. Whatever they don’t want us to know, it has something to do with your birthday.”

Lena took a deep breath, like she was trying to hold it together. “They know I’m going to go Dark. That’s what this is about.”

“What does that have to do with the locket?”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. In four months, I’m not going to be me anymore. You saw Ridley. That’s what I’m going to turn into, or worse. If my uncle is right and I am a Natural, then I’ll make Ridley look like a volunteer for the Red Cross.”

I pulled her toward me, wrapping my arms around her like I could protect her from something we both knew I couldn’t. “You can’t think like that. There has to be a way to stop it, if that’s really the truth.”

“You don’t get it. There’s no way to stop it. It just happens.” Her voice was rising. The wind was starting to pick up.

“Okay, maybe you’re right. Maybe it just happens. But we’re going to find a way to make it not happen to you.”

Her eyes were clouding over like the sky. “Can’t we just enjoy the time we have left?” I felt the words for the first time.

The time we have left.

I couldn’t lose her. I wouldn’t. Just the thought of never being able to touch her again made me crazy. Crazier than losing all my friends. Crazier than being the least popular guy in school. Crazier than having Amma perpetually angry at me. Losing her was the worst thing I could imagine. Like I was falling, but this time I would definitely hit the ground.

I thought about Ethan Carter Wate hitting the ground, the red blood in the field. The wind began to howl. It was time to go. “Don’t talk like that. We’re going to find a way.”