Page 46

“It’s all right,” I tell him. “You can check.”

“Check what?” Luther looks like he’s going to try to separate us.

I keep Tanner’s gaze as I answer. “Tanner needs to check that I’m me. That I didn’t bring something back with me like Sam did.”

“Of course, it’s her.” Luther tugs Tanner’s arm, but he keeps a gentle hold on my face.

“We need to be certain,” Tanner says quietly, his eyes swimming with emotion; his, mine, Luther’s.

Sensing that Luther’s about to try a second time to pull Tanner away from me, I blink, and a circle of flames envelops us. Luther jumps back.

“It’s okay,” I tell Tanner. “I’ll let you in. I won’t resist.”

He nods at me, then presses his forehead to mine and moves his fingertips to my temples. He presses hard against my skull. He mutters the incantation he used when he did this exact same thing with Sam. As I close my eyes, Tanner’s presence trickles into my mind. It’s a strange sensation, and it makes me wonder if this is what it’s like for Mack to have Snow inside his head with him. Tanner searches every corner of my mind, and I let him.

I show him everything.

When he breaks contact and stumbles back, he’s panting. His eyes are wide, but his pupils are tiny, and his irises are twice their normal size. Twice as bright, too. “Nova…” he breathes.

I let the flames die down. The others are gathered around us in a circle.

“Well?” Luther asks, grabbing Tanner’s elbow.

For a moment, Tanner is lost for words. I smile at him, trying to show that he can be happy now.

“Tanner?” Luther pulls his arm, forcing Tanner to look at him.

“It’s her,” Tanner says, still not taking his eyes from me. “It’s our Nova.”

Luther’s body remains tense for less than a second before he lets Tanner go, grabs me by the waist, and spins me around. When he lowers me to the ground and winds his fingers into the hair at the back of my neck, he mutters, “Supernova,” then takes a strand of my hair between his fingers. It’s damp and peppered with tiny grains of sand from the beach. “Let me dry you off,” he says. “Can’t have you catching a cold.”

With a wave of his hand, my hair is dry. Still carrying too much sand, and hanging in scruffy waves around my shoulders, but dry and warm.

“Your hair,” Luther whispers. He looks at the others, then back at me. “It’s not silver anymore. It’s bright like copper.”

I smile at him and tilt my head, then reply, “Of course it is. Whoever heard of a silver phoenix?”

28

SAM

While Luther runs to the cave to fetch the clothes Nova left there, the rest of us stand in awed silence. I have so many questions I don’t know which one to ask first. She’s the same, but also different. There is something about the way she’s speaking and carrying herself, as if she’s now the one who knows—without a shadow of doubt—that everything will be okay.

“This is how I remember you,” I whisper, kissing the crown of her head. “With your hair like this. When we were kids.”

She tucks herself under my chin and rests her head on my chest. “Thank you,” she says. When I frown, she adds, “for always believing you’d see me again.”

I don’t know if she’s talking about the years we were separated or what’s happened over the last few weeks. I assume it’s the first because how could she possibly know what happened while she was gone?

“Here.” Luther is carrying the pack Nova brought when we left the cabin for the caves. “There are some pants in there.” He hands it to her. “Although, I quite like the no-pants version of you, if I’m honest.”

“Probably best if my modesty is covered when we arrive at Rev’s, though.” She fishes out her jeans and shimmies them over her rounded hips.

“How does she know we’ve been staying with Rev?” Luther mutters under his breath.

“That’s a conversation for when we’re safe inside.” Nova raises her eyebrows as she slings the pack over her shoulder.

She shouldn’t have been able to hear that. Should she?