Stasha walks through them toward me and I open my mouth to yell for help, but another vine clamps down on my mouth, silencing me and then others ravel around my body, making it impossible to move.

She kneels down in front of me as I struggle to get free. “You should know better than to mess with someone like me,” she says, tugging off one of her gloves. Then she reaches for me, ready to touch me, ready to kill.

I fight with all my strength, but it’s useless so I decide to go another route. I shut my eyes and picture the sandy shore outside the beach house, just enough of a distance away that the Praesidium won’t interfere with my power. I can hear the ocean waves colliding with the shore, see the moon shining in the starry sky, feel the salty breeze kissing my cheeks.

“What are you doing?” Stasha asks, but her voice is muffled, fading.

Take me there, I think, feeling the sand touch my toes.

But then a hand grabs my arm and I feel nothing but fire.

My face slams into the sand. I quickly scramble to my feet and sprint into the ocean to dunk my arm into the water, expecting relief from the fiery pain, but only receiving more pain. I let out a jaw-clenched scream as I run for the beach house just up the shore. The pain is unbearable, but what hurts even worse is what it represents. Stasha touched me with her bare hands. Am I going to drop dead at any moment?

By the time I reach the back door of the house, I’m about to vomit from the sensation of death in my arm. I fling open the back door and fumble around in the dark until I find the light switch. The lights flip on and I stumble over to the sink, turn on the faucet, and submerge my arm underneath the cold, salt-free water.

It feels a little bit better and I stand let the water flow over it, catching my breath as I wait for the pain to subside. It begins to dwindle, but olive-green marks start to appear on my veins, forming vinery.

I touch the lines with my fingertip and cringe. “Is this permanent?”

I wait a little longer with my arm in the water, hoping they’ll fade, but they don’t. Finally I give up and put my locket on right as I hear a soft poof from inside the living room. Not sure what it’s from, I tiptoe to the doorway and peer around the corner. A purple haze fills the room and Alex, Laylen, and Aislin are in the center it. As soon as they all see me, they’re worried expressions relax.

Aislin drops the crystal and candle on the table, but keeps hold of her spell book. “Thank God,” she says as she flops tiredly. “I thought she killed you.”

“What happened?” Alex crosses the room with his arms open, as if he’s going to hug me, but by the time he reaches me, he’s changed his mind and lowered them to his side.

I extend my arm out to him, showing him the lines mapping my veins. “Her plants attacked me and then she touched me….you know, you could have warned me about the plants.”

He curses under his breath then examines my arm, running his thumb up and down the lines. “Dammit, she’s fucking crazy.”

“Yes, she is,” I agree. “It’s not permanent, is it? Please, please, tell me it’s going to go away.”

Alex looks up at me, remorseful. “I’m sorry, Gemma. I never should have taken you there.”

I sigh, removing my arm from his grasp. “Great. Now I’m always going to have a reminder of when your ex-girlfriend tried to kill me.”

I don’t know who laughs first, but suddenly we are all laughing as if I’ve just said the best joke in the world. Sleep deprivation is a funny thing, I guess, and makes everyone kind of loopy.

After the laughter settles down, we gather around the coffee table, putting the mapping ball on it, the light in the center illuminating a ghostly glow. I start to get up to look for my mother but Aislin tells me that right before they transported here she got a call from my mom, saying that she ran to the gas station to pick up some food, because no one had really been stocking the cupboards. So I sit back down and we quickly explain to Laylen what’s been going on and then we start discussing how Stasha got the book.

“So Stasha took the book, but it took place in a time that was erased, yet it still happened,” Alex states as he kicks his foot up on his knee and rests his arm on the back of the sofa, just behind me.

“It sounds so confusing when you put it like that,” I say. “But yeah, I think that’s what happened.”

“But how?” Aislin wonders as she flips through her spell book. She’s been doing it since we sat down, I think looking for some sort of signs Stasha did something to it.

“I have no idea.” I pause. “Nicholas would have, but unfortunately he’s… gone.”

We all grow quiet for a moment, thinking about what happened. I wonder if he’ll get a funeral, if the fey mourn like humans, or if they do something else.

“We need to make a plan.” Aislin changes the subject as she closes her spell book.

“Thanks for clarifying the obvious, Aislin,” Alex says sarcastically.

Aislin rolls her eyes. “Don’t be an ass.”

“What we need to do is go to the City of Crystal.” I pick up the mapping ball and rotate it in my hands. “So I can get inside this thing and fix the vision and hopefully all this other stuff that’s gotten out of place will be fixed too.”

“Why do you think your father would reset time, if it was going to mess it up?” Laylen asks with a pucker at his brow. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

It gets quiet again, but a different kind of quiet, one where I know they’re all thinking the same thing, but too afraid to say it.

Finally, Alex gets the balls to put it out there. “Gemma, you don’t think he’s setting you up, do you? To maybe finish whatever it is he started with my father.”

“Who said he was doing something with your father,” I say coldly. “He never said anything about that.”

“He never said much about anything,” Alex points out, his knuckles grazing the back of my neck, as if he’s attempting to keep me calm with his touch. “But I’m guessing that he probably erased the vision and recreated things so the world would end for my father.”

“Stop saying that,” I snap defensively.

He gives me a look of empathy. “Gemma, I get defending your father, trust me, I really do. But sometimes what we want them to be isn’t what they are.”

“Shut up,” I snap, surprising everyone in the room. “You don’t know anything about him, but you’re making judgments based on one thing.”

“No one knows anything about him.” Alex’s hand drifts to my shoulder.

But I shrug it off and get to my feet. “I need some air.” I hurry for the door and burst outside. I hear Aislin say something about let her go as I shut the door behind me. Then I sink down on the front steps, bring my knees to my chest, rest my chin on them and stare at the stars.

“Are you evil?” I wonder aloud, wishing to hear his voice again, but the only answer I get is silence and that leaves me wondering if maybe Alex is right. Perhaps my dad is working with Stephan to end the world and using me to help him.

After staring at the stars for an eternity, I come to the conclusion that what I need to do is see the vision my father changed and make the decision for myself whether he’s working for the evil side or the good one. If what he’s told me is true, it should be clear in the vision. If not, then I won’t change it. However, that still leaves the problems of getting into the mapping ball.

I march into the house and pick it up from the coffee table, all three of them staring at me as if they think I’m having a meltdown. “I’m going to do this—I have to. If anything looks suspicious then I won’t change the vision, but I need to see it for myself.”

Alex is already shaking his head before I even finish. He stands up, reaching to take the crystal ball from my hand, but I put it behind my back. “You don’t even know how to use it,” he says. “Nicholas never explained anything to you other than how to get enough power to use it.”