The rest of the night was long, with winds rattling the windows, children crying, grown-ups praying. There was a sort of silent chaos taking over the library.

We’d gone back up to the third floor, sitting in that back room with my dad, Twan’s aunt, Krystal’s parents and now Mrs. Hampton, Lindsey’s legal guardian. It was weird, all of us, including Mr. Strickman, sitting around in one room, wrapped in blankets, silently anticipating the worst.

I wonder what they’re all thinking. If anybody else is wondering if this is the end. A part of me doesn’t really feel like it is. I feel sort of incomplete, like there’s something left for us to do.

Strickman talks to our parents like they’ve known each other forever. Lindsey’s guardian especially. I wonder if they know who and what he really is. And I wonder why he’s really at Settleman’s, since of course he didn’t tell us.

I guess we’re back to square one in the question-and-answer session. But you know what, I’m not all that mad about it now. I’ve learned a lot over the last few weeks, enough, I think, to last me for a good couple more weeks. What I don’t know right now, I’m sure is coming. Just as I’m sure Charon’s declaration is going to mean something big for me and the Mystyx.

“We’ll all have to band together now.” Krystal’s mother speaks first. “We must protect them until their time comes.”

Each of us—the Mystyx and Twan—all look back and forth at each other.

“Until what time comes?” Krystal asks her mother, who gives her a small smile.

“She means until it’s time for you to battle with Charon again. The designated Guardians were put in place to prepare you for that time. Charon has gotten to most of them. Now, it’s up to us, the mortal parents, to make sure you do what you were meant to do.”

My dad says this and my mouth falls open.

Sasha’s mother, who had kept her distance from us throughout the night, is silently crying, her hands covering her face as tiny sobs shake her body. I can see that Sasha’s shocked that her mother has apparently known all along who and what she was. Her father’s betrayal had seemed solitary but now, I think she’s feeling it from them both.

Krystal doesn’t look shocked that her parents know, which makes me believe she’s had a clue as to their knowledge for some time now.

Even Twan’s aunt doesn’t look surprised. Lindsey’s guardian looks as if this moment had been anticipated.

So had they all known? Was this an event in the making before we were even born? And what will happen now?

I don’t know if it was morning or night, I just know that some more hours passed. We slept on the floors, woke up and ate the dried foods, drank the bottled water and sat around again, waiting for the storm to pass.

All the while more questions arise in my mind, but a state of calmness keeps me from asking them. I wonder if that was Uncle William lending me a hand once again.

Or if it was just the calm before the big storm, not this warning we were apparently getting now. But the one that would forever decide our fate.