“I thought you knew the truth about us, Joshua. But I can see now that you don’t. So I’ll tell you: it’s you who’s been haunting me, since the moment I first saw you. No matter what we do or don’t do tonight, no matter where I go tomorrow, I won’t stop letting you haunt me. And I can’t imagine a better fate than that.”

“Amelia, I don’t mean—,” Joshua began, but I cut him off.

“Wait. There’s something else I want to say. I . . . I think we both know that I won’t be here Sunday. It rips my heart out to do this, but I have to: we both deserve to hear—and say—the truth. And you . . .” I paused, still smiling although I’d started to cry a little again. “You deserve a long life. A perfect life. One that you live for the both of us. Because, no matter what, we’ll see each other again—I know we will. So when you’re a hundred and five and fully satisfied with your life and you still love me, you can come find me then, okay?”

While I spoke, Joshua studied me intently. I assumed that he would argue with me when I’d finished, or even fall apart. Instead, he pulled me tightly against him and whispered, “I love you, Amelia. I always will.”

I wrapped my fingers in his black hair and closed my eyes, forcing out what tears remained. “I love you, too, Joshua. Always.”

And that was how we spent the rest of the night: wrapped together, no longer speaking. Only once more did we kiss: a soft, tender press of the lips at dawn, before I had to sneak back up to Jillian’s room. Lingering there, with my mouth on his, I couldn’t shut out my one, brutally insistent thought:

This was the first of our last kisses.

Chapter

TWENTY-FIVE

At breakfast with his family Saturday morning, Joshua and I shared very few words. But beneath the table, we held hands tightly. So tightly that my fingers ached.

Luckily, Rebecca was in too much of a hurry to get to work and fill the florist’s orders for prom corsages to notice our odd behavior. Jillian, however, saw right through us; she obviously saw our drawn expressions and the way we desperately clung to each other. So when Joshua announced that he was going to run an errand with his cousins (without revealing that they were actually picking up a beer keg to lure the non-Seer recruits out of their prom tonight), Jillian insisted that she and I hang back and “plan.”

Before leaving the table, Joshua flashed me a wary, questioning look. But a barked order from Jillian and a small, reassuring nod from me sent him on his way.

Jillian waited until Rebecca and Jeremiah left the kitchen, too, before turning on me. For a long while, she didn’t say anything—just scrutinized my pale features and uncomfortable fidgeting. Then, finally, she cleared her throat as though what she was about to say might bring her pain.

“You know, it wouldn’t be so bad.”

“What wouldn’t be, Jill?” I asked in a jagged, uneven voice.

“Having you as a guardian angel.”

The sentiment touched me more than I could possibly tell her. But I also knew that sharing deep emotion wasn’t really Jillian’s style. Not for very long. So I forced a deliberate smirk.

“Whatever. Like I’m going to waste my valuable harp-strumming time to watch you and Scott make out.”

Jillian laughed slightly, but after a long pause, she frowned and shook her head.

“I know, Amelia,” she said softly.

I tilted my head to one side and arched my eyebrow. “You know what, Jill?”

“That you aren’t planning on joining the light. At least, not right away.”

I felt goose bumps crawl their way up my arms. I hadn’t admitted that part to anyone—I’d been planning with the Seers, and also secretly around them, but I hadn’t actually said aloud how I really wanted the battle to occur tonight. How I really wanted to end my existence.

“How do you know that?” I breathed.

Jillian’s right shoulder rose and fell in a despondent little shrug. “Because that’s how you’ve always operated, especially when it comes to my brother. You’ve tried to sacrifice yourself multiple times to keep him safe. And I know you won’t rest peacefully while that bridge still exists.”

I swallowed roughly, once again taken aback by how perceptive Jillian really was sometimes.

“Yeah, and?” I countered, without much conviction.

“And I think you’re trying to make a bargain with one, or both, sides: light and dark. I don’t really have anything specific to go off of—this is all just speculation. But I think you’re going to try and offer the darkness something so that they’ll consider leaving us alone.”

Her words hung heavy in the air between us, waiting. I supposed my ultimate lack of response was answer enough, because Jillian sighed heavily. She’d figured me out before I’d even fully figured out myself.

And so had Joshua, I realized. That was why he’d rejected me the night before—why he seemed even more dejected this morning. Of course he would put all the disparate pieces of the puzzle together. He knew me better than Jillian; better, perhaps, than I knew myself.

“So,” Jillian said, interrupting my thoughts, “the real question is, what do I need to do to help you?”

I blinked back, surprised that Jillian wasn’t trying to talk me out of my plan, however half-baked and incomplete it still was. But . . . I guess it made a dark sort of sense: Jillian knew I wouldn’t change my mind, and she also knew this was the only way that she and Joshua—and her family and friends, for that matter—had a fighting chance of survival. She understood that if I could find a way to outsmart the dark, then her family would be safe.

I folded my hands on the kitchen tabletop between us and stared down at them for a minute before speaking quietly.

“There is one thing you can do for me, Jill.”

“Anything, Amelia. Name it.”

I closed my eyes and lowered my head.

“Jillian, there’s going to come a point tonight when I might ask you to kill me. I need you to promise that you’ll do it.”

Jillian stayed silent for far too long. Then she shocked me by taking my hands in hers and giving them a tight squeeze—our first real touch. My eyes shot open to meet hers, which were suddenly filled with tears.

“Okay,” she whispered, although we were the only two people in the kitchen. “When the time comes, I’ll kill you.”

Chapter

TWENTY-SIX

After she made that promise, Jillian sat there with me for several silent, fraught moments. Finally, I couldn’t take the melancholy tension anymore, so I cleared my throat and stretched away from her.

“Mind if I go run a few errands of my own?” I asked with feigned indifference. “Just some unimportant things that I need to get done this morning, before we get ready to crash the prom.”

Of course, Jillian wasn’t fooled. She narrowed her eyes and pulled the corner of her mouth up into a suspicious grin.

“Oh?” she asked, in a tone that implied she didn’t believe me. “Just some meaningless errands?”

“Yup.” I pushed myself out of my chair and moved quickly to the back door. “I’ll just . . . I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Jillian caught my gaze, and her eyes narrowed further. “You better be back here at least one last time. For Joshua’s sake.”