MARA.

AS I DREW HIM UP against me, into me, there was a pinch of scarlet.

"Are you all right?" he asked, his voice gentle in a way I'd never heard.

I breathed "Yes" as the color softened and faded. I pulled him closer.

NOAH.

I SLIDE MY HANDS UP her back, and her ankles lock around my waist and she takes me in with those fathomless eyes. We are connected: hands, limbs, mouths, bodies, souls. I have never known this.

Mara kisses me and it is sugar on my tongue and champagne in my blood; I want to drown in her taste and scent and sound. Hers is the body electric; she is the high I'd been chasing but never caught until now.

MARA.

NIPPING. PULLING. TEASING. TASTING. HIS strokes were slow, intricate, as they blended and feathered and blushed me into something radiant. The colors glossed and glazed into something bold and bright.

NOAH.

EVERY TOUCH COMPOSES A NEW, unheard measure; I am hypnotized by the texture and timbre of her notes as they trill and turn and beat and slide. The sheets are our world, and in them she is finite and infinite, beautiful and sublime, bound in my arms and boundless at once.

I move and her scale lengthens, stretches, rhapsodic and gorgeously violent as her eyes grow dark and threaten to close.

"Stay with me," I nearly growl, trying to bite back my desperation, my fear that she'll slip away. I never want to stop looking at her from here. "Stay."

They flutter open-she's still here, still her. "I need to hear you," she begs in that voice, and I can't refuse her not anything, not now, not ever. But the words that come aren't enough for this. For her. So I speak in a language she doesn't know.

Je t'aime. Aujourd'hui. Ce soir. Demain. Pour toujours. Si je vivais mille ans, je t'appartiendrais pour tous. Si je vivais mille vies, je te ferais mienne dans chacune d'elles.

I love you. Today. Tonight. Tomorrow. Forever. If I were to live a thousand years, I would belong to you for all of them. If I were to live a thousand lives, I would want to make you mine in each one.

MARA.

THE WORLD DISTILLED TO ONLY the sound of us as we both stretched out on the edge of the world.

The colors shone, burned through. Sienna and crimson and gold, and I swallowed my name from his mouth and he kissed his from my lips, and I was incandescent as I tripped into-

NOAH.

BLISS.

The echo of her pleasure hits my blood and takes me with her. Mara is unstrung, unbound, unleashed in my arms.

Finally.

MARA.

AFTER, I LAY AGAINST HIM. Our heartbeats synchronized, and I twined around him like moss on a limb. I was soft in his grasp and he was so solid and warm and real against my cheek. My smile wouldn't fade, but the colors began to. Violet to cobalt, then indigo, then black.

NOAH.

THERE IS NO SILENCE, BUT the timbre of her sound does change. Grace notes, sweet and blue, sweeping, sliding, falling. I know what they mean.

"Stay," I whisper into her damp, curling hair, as if it's the only word I know. "Stay with me."

But her eyes flutter and shut.

I can't close mine. Mara falls asleep to "Hallelujah."

EPILOGUE.

DAWN CREEPS IN THROUGH THE curtains, staining the backs of my eyelids red. I blink once, twice in the near darkness, then stretch. I inhale the scent of Noah's shampoo and smile as I reach over in bed to pull him closer. My hand closes around a piece of paper, though, not his hair.

I prop myself up on my elbow and yawn, scanning the room for evidence of Noah. When I don't find any, I turn on the bedside lamp. His bag is here, and his clothes are in them-not strewn around like mine. We were supposed to be leaving New York today, and it looked like he'd already packed. That wasn't unusual. But not waking up to him beside me was. I bite my lower lip, remembering his mouth on it last night, and draw back the sheets to look for my clothes. The note flutters to the ground beside me. I pick it up.

Couldn't sleep, went for a run. Back soon. Prepare yourself.

xxxxxx N.

A smile spreads across my lips, so wide it hurts. I'm overpowered by love for him, for this boy who knows exactly what I am, exactly who I am, and loves me anyway, despite it. Because of it. I couldn't wait for him to get back so I could tell him. Show him. A week had passed, but it could have been a year-I would never get enough.

And I don't have to. We have all the time in the world.

I glance at the clock-9:30 a.m.-and shower and dress before heading down to the kitchen. My brother is banging cabinets around, loudly, to announce his presence; a charm of protection against any stray public displays of affection, no doubt. Luckily for him, I was just as embarrassed by our loud colonization of the town house as he was-more, probably. Unluckily for both of us, Noah didn't care. God knew what Daniel heard.

A ferocious blush rises in my cheeks, and I vainly try to hide it with my hair. "Morning!" I chirp. I'm so obvious. "Is there coffee?" I rummage through the pantry, making a ton of unnecessary noise myself.

"In the pot . . . that you just passed."

Right. "Right! Thanks!" I snag a mug from the cupboard.

Daniel shot me a look. "You okay?"

"Yes! You?"

"I'm slowly adjusting to a new reality that includes superpowered teenagers and the entities that try to control them. Are you packed yet?"

Nope. "Mmhmm."

"Car's picking us up at four."

"I know."

He then says what I'm thinking. "It's going to be weird for you at home, isn't it."

I nod.

"But you'll be back soon? That still the plan?"

It was. Once we returned to our respective homes, Jamie would present our proposal to skip our senior years and head directly to college without passing go. It was a real thing, early admissions or something, and it would get us out of Florida faster and with fewer loose ends than anything else we could come up with. And we needed to get out. None of us could imagine finishing out our senior year of high school. It would be hard enough performing for our parents, pretending for them, but I knew I needed the summer. Joseph would be losing not one but two siblings in the fall-it would be hard for him. I wanted him to have the time with us. With me.

Daniel takes a swig of orange juice and then slips his arms into the sleeves of a long button-down shirt. "I'm going to meet my friend Josh over at Juilliard before we go. Don't forget, car at four."

"I won't forget."

"Oh, also." Daniel spins around on his heels and heads for the hall closet. "You need to start prepping if you're going to test in June." He reaches for something on the top shelf, which is stacked with board games. They topple to the floor.

"Not how I planned that." We start picking up game pieces: Risk, Monopoly, Scrabble. "Oh. Hello there."

I look up to see my brother holding a wooden, heart-shaped piece in one hand; a planchette. From a Ouija board. I look around and sure enough, there it is behind him, lying between Sorry! and The Game of Life. My brother peers at me from the little plastic circle in the middle.

"Wanna play?"

I glare at him, goose bumps notwithstanding.

"Kidding, kidding." He drops the piece back in its box. "This is what I actually wanted to give you." He rummages through the games and then picks up a book: One Thousand Obscure Words on the SAT.

I roll my eyes. "What would I do without you?"

"You won't ever have to find out."

I wonder if Daniel knows that I will do anything I can, everything I can, to make sure that stays true.

"Having a little post-breakfast seance, are we?" I turn at the sound of Jamie's voice. He's staring at the unfolded Ouija board. Not kindly.

"Accident," Daniel says, and tosses the book to me. I stuff it in my new messenger bag as my brother puts the games back in the closet where they belong. "See you kids later," he said with a wave. "Car's coming at four, J."

I look at Jamie once the door closes behind Daniel. "J?"