At first it was hard to read, since my cell phone was my only light source. After my eyes adjusted, Lena's handwriting stared back at me from between the blue lines. I had seen the familiar print often enough in the months since her birthday, but I didn't think I would ever get used to it. It was such a sharp contrast to the girly script she wrote in before that night. It surprised me even more to see actual writing, after so many months of headstone photographs and black designs. Dark Caster designs, like the ones on her hands, were scribbled in the margins. But the first few entries were dated only days after Macon's death, when she was still writing.

emptycrowded daynights / all the same (more or less) fear (less and more) afraid / waiting for truth to strangle me in my sleep / if i ever slept Fear (less and more) afraid. I understood the words, because that's how she had acted. Fearless and more afraid. Like she had nothing to lose but was afraid to lose it.

I flipped ahead and stopped when a date caught my eye. June 12th. The last day of school.

darkness hides and i think i can hold her / smother her in the palm of my hand / but when i look my hands are empty / quiet as her fingers fold around me I read it over and over. She was describing the day at the lake, the day she had taken things too far. The day she could have killed me. Who was the "her"? Sarafine?

How long had she been fighting it? When did it start? The night Macon died? When she started wearing his clothes?

I knew I should close the notebook, but I couldn't. Reading her words was almost like hearing her thoughts again. I hadn't known them in such a long time, and I wanted to so badly. I turned each page, looking for the days that haunted me.

Like the day of the fair --

mortal hearts and mortal fears / something they can share i untie him like a sparrow

Freedom -- that's what sparrows meant to a Caster.

All along I thought she was trying to be free from me, but really she was trying to set me free. As if loving her was a cage I couldn't escape.

I closed the notebook. It hurt too much to read it, especially when Lena was so far away, in all the ways that mattered.

A few feet away, Ridley was still staring blankly into the Mortal stars. For the first time, we saw the same sky.

Liv was wedged between two roots, with me on one side and Link on the other. After I found out the truth about what happened on Lena's birthday, I guess I expected my feelings for Liv to disappear. But even now I found myself wondering. If things were different, if I had never met Lena, if I had never met Liv ...

I spent the next few hours watching Liv. When she slept, she looked peaceful, beautiful. Not Lena's kind of beautiful, something different. She looked content -- like a sunny day, a cold glass of milk, an unopened book before you cracked the binding. There was nothing tortured about her. She looked the way I wanted to feel.

Mortal. Hopeful. Alive.

When I finally drifted off, I felt that way, just for a minute....

Lena was shaking me. "Wake up, Sleepyhead. We have to talk." I smiled and pulled her into my arms. I tried to kiss her, but she laughed and ducked away. "This isn't that kind of a dream."

I sat up and looked around. We were in Macon's bed in the Tunnels. "All my dreams are that kind of dream, L. I'm almost seventeen."

"This is my dream, not yours. And I've only been sixteen for four months."

"Won't Macon be mad if we're here?"

"Macon's dead, don't you remember? You must really be asleep." She was right. I had forgotten everything, and now it all came crashing back. Macon was gone. The trade.

And Lena had left me, only she hadn't. She was here.

"So this is a dream?" I was trying to keep my stomach from twisting with loss, the guilt of everything I'd done, everything I owed her.

Lena nodded.

"Am I dreaming you, or are you dreaming me?"

"Does it ever make a difference, when it comes to us?" She was avoiding the question.

I tried again. "When I wake up, will you be gone?"

"Yes. But I had to see you. This was the only way for us to really talk." She was wearing a white T-shirt, one of my oldest, softest ones. She looked tousled and beautiful, in the way I loved best, when she thought she looked the worst.

I put my hands around her waist and pulled her close. "L, I saw my mom. She told me about Macon. I think she loved him."

"They loved each other. I've seen the visions, too." So our connection was still there. I felt a wave of relief.

"They were like us, Lena."

"And they couldn't be together. Like us."

It was a dream, I was sure of it. Because we could speak these terrible truths with a strange remove, as if they were happening to other people. She rested her head on my chest, picking mud off my shirt with her fingers. How had my shirt gotten so muddy? I tried to remember but couldn't.

"What are we going to do, L?"

"I don't know, Ethan. I'm scared."

"What do you want?"

"You," she whispered.

"So why is it so hard?"

"We're all wrong. Everything's all wrong when I'm with you."

"Does this feel wrong?" I held her tighter.

"No. But how I feel doesn't matter anymore." I felt her sigh against my chest.

"Who told you that?"

"No one had to tell me." I stared into her eyes. They were still gold.

"You can't go to the Great Barrier. You have to come back."