Thora takes in a deep breath. How could she ever be ready to die? She needs a recapitulation, her life flashing before her eyes, but which life? The one she wants is the one she doesn’t have: the real life she’ll never remember, shattered into echoes across this imaginary city. All right, space girl, Jules says in her mind. I’ll be waiting.

“One more thing.” She looks at Santi, a strange calm settling over her. “I want you to take a message back to Jules. I don’t know if we’re together, or if we used to be, or if it’s just something I wish could have happened. I guess I’ll never wake up to find out. But I want you to tell her that if she’s half as amazing as her echoes, then I was very lucky to know her.”

Santi nods. “I’ll tell her.” He closes his eyes, getting himself under control. Thora just looks at him: his long eyelashes, his strong nose, the way his mouth moves when he’s trying not to cry. Like a childhood home, seen so close and so often that you stop noticing what it looks like, until you leave and ache with missing it. Before she can look away, he opens his eyes. “You can change your mind,” he says, almost pleading.

She smiles. “Would you?”

He shakes his head.

“Well, then.” A plume of parakeets rises from the fountain. Thora watches them fly over the river toward the edge of the city, imagines she can catch the moment when they disappear. She remembers standing at the top of this tower so many lives ago, sparking a flickering flame. You never know when you might need to set something on fire. “I’m ready.”

Santi turns to Peregrine, murmurs something. Then he gathers her into his arms.

She feels the warmth first, moving through her chilled limbs. Then she sees the flames, invisibly bright at the corner of her eye, the only light up here besides the stars. Her breath comes short. Santi is gasping in her ear, and she is clinging to him, and she doesn’t want to die. No, she thinks in desperation, no, I can’t do this, I need to live. But if she says it aloud, Santi will save her. She focuses on him, thinks of him waking into their shared dream. She relaxes her fingers and willingly, joyfully lets go.