Wiggling my damp toes into fresh, knee-high socks and rolling their long length snug with each leg, I stood up in front of the bathroom mirror and marveled over the smooth skin of my once injured shoulder. Alex was quite the healer, although his methods were odd. Water devvi remedies were much faster than human medical practices. That was for darn sure.

My attention shifted from my shoulder to take in all of me: blue eyes, dark hair, wan complexion. The outward package standard, human. However, I now knew for sure that I wasn't.

I breathed in, slowly, and let it out, feeling...nothing much. Perhaps I hadn't yet decided how I should feel about being half devvi because I was only just becoming familiar with what being one entailed. People who are from a different side of reality—it seemed like some sort of fabrication. Or pending crisis. Just one of those instances during which you hoped everything was going to turn out for the good, but you were having a hard time convincing the logical part of yourself that it would.

But it wasn't as if, up until this point in my life, I had been fitting in perfectly with humanity. What might the world of the devvis hold for me, if I gave it half a chance?

Though it's not as if I'm entirely like them either. My thoughts went to the theater, back to what I deciphered from the incoming air that Alex couldn't. Would devvis be better equipped to tolerate an empath? He certainly seemed okay with it.

I put on the first nightshirt that was on top of the pile in the linen closet. It was two sizes too large for me, a quick purchase a couple of days after the apartment collapsed when I had nothing to sleep in. It went easily over my dripping bareness. Except for wringing the excess water from my hair, I didn't bother to towel off. It was something I did sometimes after a hard day because, in some strange way, it made me feel better, like the bad stuff that was trying to get to me would simply slide off and drip to the floor in harmless puddles.

A sigh escaped me and I reached for the blow dryer. I should at least dry my hair.

"Leave it wet."

"Alex?" Startled, I looked up at the mirror. His reflection filled the space behind me where the room had been empty only seconds before.

"Please...don't dry your hair." His smooth, accented voice came out low.

My hand fell away from the dryer. I nodded and found myself closing my eyes as he trailed his fingers through the liquid black that spilled about my shoulders.

"Your beauty is beyond what mere words can describe whenever water clings to you," he murmured at my ear. "Better than jewels or soft linen."

My toes curled. Oh...holy wow.

"I didn't hear you come in." I leaned back into him, savoring the compliment. I couldn't help myself as his words tumbled over my shoulder, smelling of water falling over moss-covered rocks, both soothing and exhilarating.

"The shower turned off a while ago, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay."

I placed my hands over his, entwining our fingers to send shivers racing up my spine. I guided his arms around me to hug the shapeless long tee snug. This was different, being held straight from the shower, still dripping. I relished in the newness of it. His hold on me grew bolder when I turned to shyly nuzzle his shoulder. I like this.

"Your injuries...?" he asked.

"Everything's okay," I said. I tried not to stiffen when he ventured to nuzzle me back, lips coming close to the scar hidden in my hair, behind my right ear.

Micah doesn't like Alex. The thought drifted up from my subconscious and caused me to pause. My guardian had warned Alex off, saying I was his to protect. "Micah wouldn't like that you had to bail me out of trouble tonight, would he?"

"There was possible danger nearby, and then you were hurt," Alex replied matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, but all of that only happened because I left the valley."

"Regardless of how tonight played out, he could never have

completely healed you anyway." His gaze fell on the shoulder that had been injured weeks ago. A soft growl trickled between his lips. "I should have stolen you away from them a week ago and healed you. I was stupid for not doing so."

The hot mixture of passion and blunt truth in this admittance traveled through me to set me on edge. I swallowed hard as his hands pressing low on my waist stirred the tang between my taste buds. I could make Alex want me. I suddenly realized this, recognizing the tangy flavor as my she-devvi need to mate. I didn't know how to call up fog like Bettihemae, but if I turned around and kissed him, he would taste it. He would look at me with the same heady desire as when he had looked at her. Every last shred of hesitancy between us would fall away and...and...

"I want to try something with you before I leave," Alex told me, and I nodded, reeling in my wayward thoughts.

With eyes void of their pupils, he leaned over me to switch off the vanity light and pitch the room into semi-darkness. Only the orange glow of the factory lights coming from the one window remained. The sound of running water filled the room next when he twisted on the tap, and he rested his hand on my shoulder, fingers trembling.

"Fill your hands with water," he instructed. I leaned forward reaching for the steady stream, curiosity guiding the motion.

His breathing froze with a small jerk and I hesitated, watching as his gaze went to the bathroom walls. "Wow," he exclaimed.

"What is it?"

"I just didn't expect the light of your aura to throw little rainbows through the water spotting your skin."

"My aura?"

"The frictional light that emanates from a devvi's spirit as it works to keep the soul bound to the body is known as an aura." He looked around at the room again with a sense of wonder. "Or in your case, your two souls. Gods, it looks as though we are standing at the center of a diamond that's been tossed into fire."

"You wanted to show me something?" I prompted, cupping my hands under the running faucet.

So when Alex or Micah or any devvi looked at me with their eyes transformed, they were seeing my aura, the light from my spirit. And it was abnormally bright? Was that what all the squinting was about?

"My cousin respired fog earlier," Alex said, turning off the tap and bringing his hands together underneath mine. "I want to know if you are also capable of it."

"Okay," I said with uncertainty, swallowing down the tang still lingering on my tongue.

"Can you feel this?"

I held my breath and concentrated. His skin tingled where his hands cupped mine, but in such a way that it was different than all the other times we touched.

"I-I can," I said, and I watched in awe as the surface of the water captured in my palms began to ice over.

I was astounded that my skin was sensitive enough to discern the deceleration of the water molecules, the oxygen and the hydrogens slowing down from the quick-paced, liquid tempo of their compound dance.

"My will is working on the water," he explained. "Can you get a sense of what I'm doing?"

"Yes, you're slowing the molecules down, freezing the water."

"A devvi's will is based on the desires of their soul and acts upon the elements they were born to control." His touch below my hands lightened. "You can tell how I'm doing it?"

"I think I can." A spark of excitement bubbled up in my chest as I continued to stay very, very still. To be able to understand this much of what was going on with the water in my hands was such a rush. Was this what it was like to be a devvi?

Alex's hands dropped away. "Keep it going."

"I'm not sure if I can."

"You can! I can see the beginnings of your aura's light channeling into your hands with purposeful intent." His hand went low on my stomach. "Just take a deep breath, push from your center, here, and exhale slowly."

I followed his instructions—and hesitated. "I don't know, Alex, I—" My words came out in a rush of white. Fog. I breathed out fog!

A chuckle slid through him. "You've been outside in it for almost an hour, and you just finished bathing. Your system is over- saturated." His hand tightened on my belly, and he pressed me to his front. "Now push with your gut and concentrate on your palms."

I pushed as he said, locating a low point in my body tingling under his fingers. I guided that feeling into an imagined path going through my outstretched arms and into my hands. The temperature of the cupped water grew colder as the molecules clung to each other, their already sluggish movements slowing even further, the liquid becoming thick, freezing.

"They're stopping," I exhaled more of the ghostly vapor and pondered the slush in my palms.

"Now into the air," he instructed, voice hushed and expectant. I snapped my forearms up to send the chilled water airborne.

I was left gasping, awestruck, when the water hit the bathroom ceiling and burst into a flurry of unexpected white.

"Snow," I said in amazement, and then I began laughing. This was insane. People shouldn't be able to do this.

Laughing along with me, Alex scooped me up, spinning us around in the swirling precipitation as it floated like crystal confetti to the bathroom tile.

"I made snow," I nearly shouted, my voice loud with exhilaration.

"You made snow." His delight with my reaction settled into a chuckle, and then he carried me through the door to my bed. "With some formal lessons, I bet you could do so much more." He pulled back the comforter and lowered me in.

My eyes were wide as he slid the Mad Hatter doll into my arms. I hugged my doll fiercely—representative of Micah's presence—as I found myself wistful, almost lamenting, that he wasn't here with us, and I realized in that moment everything was changing; I was changing. I needed both Alex and Micah now more than ever if I was going to venture deeper into this extraordinary new reality. Their reality, as devvis.

"You and Micah can teach me?"

"Mmm, we could..." Alex said, his voice holding some unspoken thought.

They could. I let what he said echo in my mind as I snuggled deeper under the covers. Given time, I might come to find out that I was no better at being around devvis than I was humans, but I wouldn't know for certain unless I tried.

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Can Aurora get a VOTE for performing her first elemental act?!