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“He saw her die. Of course, he’s rattled.” Sam rubs his knees and looks up at the moon. Most wolves look wolf even when they’re human, but Sam is different. I’d never have known he was a werewolf if he hadn’t shifted in front of me. If anything, his face is more cat than wolf—but I wouldn’t dare tell him that. “This is the third time I’ve lost her,” Sam says, “and fate has brought us back together twice already. I have to believe it will happen this time too.”

“Four times,” I mutter, my skin bristling as a cool breeze drifts across the lake. “If you include our ancestors. Our history.”

Sam nods slowly. He nudges me with his upper arm. “Fated to five,” he says, quoting the prophecy. “Fate has been meddling with us from the start. It won’t let us down now.”

Pressing my lips together, I look at the falls and follow the sheets of water down to where they create a pool of bubbling foam and froth. “I never really believed in fate,” I say quietly. “At least, not until those three came into my life.” I jerk my head toward the caves, half-wondering what Kole, Mack, and Luther are doing in there. If they’re fighting or consoling one another.

“How did they?” Sam asks, angling himself so he can see my face a little better. “Come into your life?”

“Sam, I don’t really feel like talking.”

“Right now, talking’s the only thing we can do. So, tell me… I know Mack taught Kole and Luther at the Academy. But you never told me how you became part of their group.” His forehead creases a little as he watches my expression. When he dips his head to catch my eyes, his dark, curly hair falls across his face and he’s forced to sweep it away with the back of his hand.

“It’s a long story,” I tell him, my mind already tugging with the urge to take me back to memories I’ve tried so hard to erase.

“Right.” Sam nods.

“I haven’t even told Nova all of it,” I say, resting my forearms on my knees.

“Sorry, Tanner. You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked. Not now.” Sam puts his hand on my back and pats it lightly. “It’s not the time.”

Despite the heavy thudding in my stomach, perhaps because I need the distraction, perhaps because I know Sam’s truth so he should know mine, I draw my shoulders back and take a deep breath. “I was a hopeless water mage. Always found being an empath easier. It came naturally. I didn’t have to force it or learn how to control it.” I shudder as memories start to dance across the lake in front of me. “I was seventeen, not far off from taking my exams, when The League took me.”

I glance at Sam and see him watching me with a steady expression. If he’s hearing the echoes of his own past in mine, he doesn’t let it show on his face.

“They had a theory that if a mage’s elemental affinity is restricted, their secondary affinity will flourish.”

“Restricted?” Sam frowns—despite being a werewolf, he’s almost as lacking as Nova in magickal knowledge and clearly thinks this is a common terminology that he’s missed out on learning.

“It had never been done before and, to my knowledge, hasn’t been done since.” I shiver and notice Sam move a little closer. His warmth helps me to carry on. I brace myself, then say quickly, “They deprived me of water. For years, not a drop crossed my lips. They hydrated me with an IV.” I rub my palms together as the memory of the needle scratches at my skin.

“You were seventeen when you were taken, so you’re in your thirties now?” Sam’s lips curve downward a little as he tilts his head. He looks impressed. “I thought you were my age. Nova’s age.”

“Empaths are notoriously youthful,” I tell him. “But you’re kinda missing the point, Sam.”

“Sorry.” He frowns at himself. “What happened? Did it work? Is that why you’re able to do what you do?” He taps his temple. “With peoples’ heads?”

I breathe out heavily and straighten my legs, moving my arms so I’m leaning back on my hands. “Yeah,” I tell him. “It worked. A lot of the time I was in the dark. Alone. My senses became heightened. Including the way I was able to read people. I started feeling them when they weren’t even in the room with me. Maybe a few feet away, maybe in the next room or the one above. At first, just one at a time. Then anyone who was nearby. I tried not to let them see—the ones who watched me—but it became impossible to hide. As soon as they knew it was working, they doubled down.” I swallow hard as my mind fills with darkness. I push it back and anchor myself on Sam. He’s not disgusted, or afraid, or pitying me. He’s just listening.

“They’re the ones who taught me how to jump.” I meet his eyes quickly, then look down at my toes wriggling in the cold sand. “At first, they just had me locate people for them. They’d give me a picture, and something that belonged to the person, then ask me to seek them out. Honestly, I still don’t understand how it works. But it did. And the more time went on, the better I got at it.” I turn to Sam and, this time, hold his gaze. “Toward the end, they made me jump into peoples’ heads. Control them. Manipulate them…” I keep staring into his eyes because I need to see what’s there; I need to see if I have horrified him yet. When he doesn’t look away, I say, “You’re not the only one with a dark past, Sam. The difference is you had things done to you. Me? I was the perpetrator. I hurt people. I made people hurt other people.”

“What kind of people?” Sam asks softly.

“Humans, usually, with connections to the A.M.A.”

“What did you make them do?”

I close my eyes and moisten my lower lip. A shiver of sickening guilt creeps up my spine. I can’t believe I’m about to say this out loud. “I made them kill supers.”

I can’t look at Sam. My cheeks are burning with shame.

“Why? I don’t understand why they’d make you do that? The League is all about protecting supers, isn’t it?”

“No,” I snap. “The League wants to fuel hatred. To prove that humans and supers shouldn’t coexist. And they’d do anything to make that happen. Even sacrifice their own.”

I hear Sam release a heavy sigh. “It’s not your fault, Tanner, they manipulated you.”

“I haven’t told you that,” I say. “What makes you so sure they made me do it?”