That night, my brush runs the length of Riszev's long, smooth hair. It's an oddly personal action to perform for someone I only met a day ago. I've helped friends make themselves up for nights out, but there is less flurry in this, less excitement. The closest thing I can recall is my mother brushing my hair for me as a child, but I have few memories of that. She stopped the first year I entered school.

Riszev doesn't seem to think anything of it.

We sit cross-legged in the floor of her room on pillows she dragged off the bed. Though I have to hold her hair up so the tips don't drag the ground, the position is strangely relaxing. Much less stilted, I imagine, than if she had been in the vanity chair with me standing behind. Instead of a servant, I feel like a child spending the night at someone else's house.

"Are you always quiet?" Riszev asks.

A short laugh escapes me. "You're not exactly talkative yourself."

She twists to glance at me. "But you never ask me any questions."

I gently press her shoulder so that she turns back. The brush strokes through her hair. "What do you want me to ask?"

"That one does not count." She sounds like a vexed child, and I suppress a laugh.

The bristles stick in her hair, and I work gently at the knot as I think. "Are you nervous about tomorrow?" From across the room, her two wedding dresses hang on mannequins, silent and inescapable spectators.

"It is a great honor."

"Doesn't mean you can't be nervous." I'm nervous, and my only involvement is to help prepare the bride. My eyes skim over the blue and silver dress. I wonder what it will feel like on, how her star-strung necklace will lie against it, how Aster will look at her when he first sees her. My insides twist.

She shifts on her pillow. "It is... more real than it has been before."

I force my eyes back to my task.

"And I wish my sisters could see. It is a strange thing to marry so fast, in another woman's land."

"You have sisters?" For some reason, I never imagined this girl with family.

"I am the second of six."

My brows shoot up. "My."

She glances back at me again. "You sound surprised."

"A bit," I admit. "I don't have one sibling, never mind six."

She grins. "I have two brothers also. They are both spoiled troublemakers." She turns so I can continue brushing. I wonder what it would be like to have someone speak so disparagingly of me in such a fond voice.

"It must be nice."

She nods, more serious now. "My family and my land have always been very good to me." More softly, she says, "It is time for me to be good back to them."

My heart pangs, and I set the brush aside.

She looks back. "Are you done?"

I nod, and we rise.

"Thank you," she says warmly, taking my hands in hers. I would wonder what kind of work royalty does to gain such strong, calloused fingers, but I'm starting to understand rulers do not sit back and oversee. I imagine she, like Aster, steps into the midst of the trouble and gives her all—broken noses, roughened hands, and whatever else.

"You're welcome." My lips press together. "Is there anything else?"

She shakes her head and releases me. I slip out of her room.

When I get to the infirmary, I forgo practice with Vihnzeirre to curl up under my blankets. I should go right to sleep—I have to be up early to help Shava prepare Riszev—but I lie awake in the dark for what feels like hours.

Uneasy, I open my eyes. My thoughts roar far too loudly in my head to let me drift off. Lips twisting, I make the motions above my head. "Fæn." The gut-dropping dive out of control sucks my breath from me, and then—peace. My skin glows, and I swish my hand from side to side to watch the silver corona trail after me.

The light goes out, and I cast again just so I'm not in the dark, just so I'm not alone. My thoughts wander like movements in music, layers and layers of themes building, dropping off, and returning to each other. I ache for my parents, who will never know what happened to me. I ache for Sean, so lost he can't even trust what he hears, sees, touches. I ache for Riszev, marrying so far away from her family for reasons beyond her own.

I ache for Aster.

The darkness presses against the silver glow, and I tense beneath my blankets. The light will fade eventually, and I'll be alone with the shadows. It doesn't seem fair; no matter how many times I cast and no matter how many candles I light, everything goes dark eventually. And there is nothing we can do to stop it.

I turn into my pillow, and soon, the fabric rubs damp against my face. We're all trapped—Sean, Aster, Riszev, all of us. Trapped by our consciences and failures, by people's fear and greed and hate, by stone walls set long ago in place, by the setting of the sun. There is always a way, I told Aster. It's a beautiful hope to hold onto when the world closes around.

Then again, lies often are beautiful.

Vihn's light goes cold, and I cast again, throwing myself into the magic's freefall. She'll die again soon, but I don't care. We are snakes in a cage, but we will be the snakes that fight. There isn't always a way to escape, and there isn't always a way to win, but there is always a way to do what's right. That is why tomorrow must happen. Aster will marry to save his country. Riszev will marry out of duty to her family. And I will ready the bride with deft hands and a smile because I would rather smile over my tears than make tomorrow harder for either one of them.

I stare at my softly lit hands, wondering at the roles the universe cast us in.

Darkness threatens, and I cast again. Vihn flares up higher than before, and startled, I try to catch my wayward thoughts and rolling feelings to lock them up in a box Vihn can't tamper with. Instead, a sob pierces my chest, and I bury my face into the bed. Tears rock my body like a boat on the river, and aching and glowing, I fall asleep.

The black of sleep is darker and colder than the deepest river's depths. Blearily, I come to bit by bit, but the darkness doesn't fade. Panic grips me as I hang there. I'm paralyzed, trapped, clawing for air but unable to move. Let me out! I scream, but my voice makes no sound. Let me out!

Chilling realization sweeps me. Let me out, Vihn! Take me home! The anti-world simultaneously creeps tighter and expands, like the mountains coming to crush you, like the flatlands promising you can never escape. The darkness is forever and never, pinprick and infinite, nothing and the only nothing that exists. I scream again, a soundless, wordless terror that echoes the darkness itself. The anti-world stares back at me, undisturbed, and I crumple against a world impossible to comprehend.

The world solidifies, and I crash back into the ground. Reality is almost as overwhelming as the anti-world now, and I squeeze my eyes shut as tears wrack my body. Cold stone meets my hands, but something soft and woven lies against my cheek. I press my face against it, desperate for something to cling to.

"Who's there?"

I jerk, but the voice sends warmth skittering across my skin. "Aster?" The name slurs thickly through the tears.

"Leavi?" Aster slips from his bed to crouch near me. "Hey, hey." He brushes my hair from my face.

My throat closes so tight, I can't speak, can't breathe. I feel like the anti-world still sticks to my skin, that if I'm not careful, it'll suck me back in and never let me out...

I shudder, and Aster shushes me softly. His fingers still slide over my hair, and I cling to that. I am real and solid because Aster's real, solid fingers brush my forehead. The stone is cold, and the rug is soft, and the air flows over my skin like silk. In the hearth, the dying fire pops. My eyes flutter open, and moonlight paints swathes of the air silver.

"It's going to be alright." His voice is soft, almost as if repeating someone else's words. It reminds me of my mother brushing my face, the time I caught fever as a child. "It's all going to be alright."

His voice is her soothing lullaby. He's right. Everything is over, everything but the fallout. The darkness is gone, and now we just have to search for the light. My tears slow, and I wipe my face and sit up. Voice thick, I apologize.

"I don't mind." The three words hold more sincerity than long-winded promises ever could. I can't help but believe him, so I sit with him in the silence, knowing I shouldn't stay but not able to bring myself to leave.

Gently, he takes my hand. "I am sorry, Leavi." I know he's not apologizing for one thing only, because I rarely am either. I feel his meaning more than hear it—he's sorry for leading me into Morineaux, for taking care of me, for letting us be close.

I close my fingers around his and shake my head. "I chose to come." My voice is quiet but surprisingly stable.

"You didn't know—I shouldn't have—" His words cut off, and despite his soft, even tone, heavy regret weighs his face. He looks down. "You didn't know."

"Do we ever?" My thoughts are soft, slippery things, hazy memories of my journey from my home into a place that never should have existed.

He's silent for a minute. The moonlight hits the dust suspended in the air, and I wonder if that's what we are—not snakes, but motes that get blown together, bust apart, and no one knows or cares.

"Sometimes more than others. But we'll always get through it." There is a certain hope to the words, but then his expression spoils, and he looks away again. Images of new soldiers in Illesiarr's beds flash in my mind, and I wonder what tragedies occured today despite the victory.

Our shoulders brush, and I study my free hand in the dark. "We'll all get through it." You'll get through it. Please get through it. I feel him turn toward me, but I don't look up, and I wonder again if I'm bothering him. But he doesn't move away, so I don't either. The wind blew us together for some reason, and I wait until one of us says whatever it is we're here for.

A long moment passes. His voice is soft with pain when he says, "We've lost a lot of men."

There are no words to say to that, but I feel the loss too. I squeeze his hand, hoping my silence speaks for me.

Another pause, and another few words so soft I almost can't hear them. "I marry tomorrow."

The words feel wrong coming out of his mouth. I sit in an engaged man's room in the darkness, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand. Regret creeps through me. Would Riszev find me an honest, honorable woman still? I examine the rogue thought by focusing on the dust again: blown apart, thrown together, inconsequential, arbitrary. I didn't mean to come here, and to mourn with a friend in his grief is compassion, not betrayal. I try to muster something to say, but congratulations are out of place. His words weren't an excited announcement; they were an obituary.

"How long until their army arrives?" I finally offer.

"Just over two weeks."

I struggle to fathom a host of soldiers arriving so quickly. "How far is Retra?"

He laughs softly, but the merriment has been sucked from it. "Very, very far. But their soldiers are waiting at our border."

I swallow. "I am so sorry, Aster." Because when this war is over, he will be very, very far from everything he loves. It is hard to be lost from your homeland.

Now it's his turn to silently squeeze my hand.

We sit in quiet, frozen time, the last night before the end of everything. Yet I suppose everything changed for him a long time ago, in a little village where he went to a strange meadow that doesn't quite exist and learned that his country was fighting for its life.

"Aster?" I look up at him.

His voice is soft. "Yes?"

I know the answer, but like a child searching for surety, I want to hear it again from his own lips. "What happens after tomorrow?"

He swallows, and the dust dances and dives in the air. "After tomorrow... we finish the fighting. We drive out the savages. And I go."

My stomach twists, but there's nothing left to say. All that's left is to deal with reality, but reality cuts deeper than any blade.

Finally he shifts away. "I'm sorry, Leavi." His words are tight and raw. "I just wish—For some dumb reason, I thought—But it can't and I was selfish to act like—"

I let go of his hand, cutting off the flow of words. My lips twitch in a sad smile. "Thought what?"

He watches me, his pained eyes searching mine, silent lips tight. His finger raises again to lightly brush my cheek, and a chill flickers across my skin. Finally, he murmurs, "I hoped against what was reasonable, and I dragged you along with me."

My head shakes, throat burning.

His hand closes gently around mine again. "Leavi, I—"

I watch him, eyes wide. A sort of hesitant energy hangs between us, and his thumb slides softly across the back of my hand. We face each other, seeming both so close and yet further away than is possible to traverse. He leans forward, almost imperceptibly. My heart tremors in my chest, but I can't seem to draw back.

His lips brush my forehead.

The gesture is innocent; it makes no promises because we can't keep any. A real kiss, the kiss I could never request, is forbidden to us, so I don't tip my head up, and I don't lean closer, and I don't wrap my arms around him. I don't tell him I love him.

Instead, I pull back. A stone forms in my throat, and when I swallow it to speak, it sits heavy in my stomach. "I should go."

He looks down. "I'm sorry."

"Please don't be." A smile trembles onto my lips—a reminder of lost laughs shared. Fate might have blown us together, but we can draw ourselves apart. We can keep promises. We can choose the right paths. And if we do, I won't regret the good with the goodbye. I stand.

He pushes to his feet as well, but he still watches the floor. "Will you be at the wedding?"

My heart shakes, but I keep up the smile. "I have to, for Riszev. She offered me a job as her servant."

He looks up quickly but doesn't speak. His eyes search my face.

Still a couple feet away, I kiss the air toward his cheek like the Ladies sometimes do to greet each other. "Goodnight, Aster." Goodbye.

He nods and walks me to the door. And as simply as ever, I step over the threshold and leave his company for the final time.