“It won’t snow,” her mother said when she saw me. “It hasn’t for days and I so hoped it would for her.”

“She always wished for snow on her birthday,” I said, careful to keep my distance, though I was surprised at how both her parents made room for me in front of the headstone.

Her mother looked at me then, eyes shimmering with anguish.

“She did.” When the tears fell down her face, she looked pleased with me. “You won’t forget?”

“No,” I said, taking the hand she offered. “I won’t forget.”

And while we stood together, the lightest flurry began.

Now, months later, Ettie and I rejoined my adopted parents in the empty living room. Inside this newly finished apartment, nothing remained from before my time in the Vault, none of the possessions from the flat that the Professor had sold.

“We’ll buy it all again.” Camille was surveying the spacious floor plan, turning in circles as she fluttered through the house. She stopped every so often to admire a molding or frame and then beamed her infectious smile at me.

“No,” I said. “I’ll buy it this time.” Standing at the living room window, I imagined the drapes Ettie and I would choose to decorate it and my heartbeat surged to a gallop. Whatever it had cost, I could not be repossessed now. I had no Source, so I finally belonged to me.

And then the Professor was close beside me, his neck rolled forward to bring his head low. I knew a whisper would follow—but instead, his mouth opened and then closed again. Only when he nodded once did I see the sealed envelope in his hands.

I accepted it curiously, but the Professor would say nothing; he only nodded again before leaving me to find and distract Camille, Ettie following behind.

Elsie.

I heard Harvey’s voice read my name from the envelope. I couldn’t have recognized his handwriting when this letter had been written with so much more care and patience than any of his scribbled notes, but it didn’t matter. I knew it was from him.

I love you.

That isn’t the memory that I’ll extract today, I give you my word. That, I’ve known for some time.

My breath was stopped by a wave of dizziness. I reread the lines, first the top, the one with which he’d chosen to begin, and then the foreboding one. When I caught myself against the window, I thought I might fall through it and tumble to the busy street below.