“You scared me,” he said. “I wasn’t sure who to trust. You’re new to this and you have this bravery that the rest of us don’t have. You have different ideas about what’s right and what’s wrong. And that’s a difficult thing to get used to. Do you think you can forgive me for running away?”

His lips were so close to mine—just hovering there, like a butterfly just out of reach.

“I think you should kiss me,” I whispered, and he did.

I felt that kiss all the way from my lips to my toes and back again. His arms were around me, his hands hot against my back, a sharp contrast to the chill in the air. That heat seemed like proof that he was something else. Something not like me or Scout or the rest of the Adepts. No better, no worse. Just very, very different.

“I want to try again,” he said.

The statement scared me out of my wits, my heart beating like a bass drum in my chest.

“What if you change your mind?” I asked. “What if you disagree with something I do, and you run away because of it? How am I supposed to trust that?”

He put his forehead on mine. “I will always come back, Lily Parker. Because that’s who you are to me.”

My heart burst with something unimaginably good, and I took his hand, ready to begin.