Pressing a hand to my thundering heart, I released the breath I’d almost swallowed.

Despite our connection, he still held the power to sneak up on me.

“Have you chosen a school yet?” Erik asked, nodding to my laptop, which lay open on the coffee table next to an accompanying stack of college catalogs.

I shook my head. Because I hadn’t. Stanford had been my original first choice, but after some discussion, Erik had convinced me to also apply to Carnegie Mellon and Juilliard—schools with legendary singing programs.

“Legendary programs for a legendary voice,” he’d said, making me yearn to see myself the way he did through those two bright lights.

He made me feel like I could do it all. What was more, our daily practice sessions made me believe I could.

College, though, meant distance. From my family, my friends, Moldavia, and from him.

For now, that hurt too much to think about. Not in the debilitating way my heart had burned during those moments when I’d been certain I’d lost his forever, but enough to make me go to him and welcome myself into the arms that enfolded me only after I wound him in my own.

He always embraced me with reverence, like every hug was our first. Or maybe his fear was that it would be our last. But the bond tying us together was stronger than that. Strong enough to override a curse, and restore a soul. Two souls.

I guess, though, he still needed some convincing that we weren’t destined to unravel.

Perhaps, ironically, he just needed time to figure it all out. And maybe I did, too.

Our whole situation did seem so . . . incredible. And I wasn’t sure how it was all going to work. But, simultaneously, I was certain about one thing.

And that was that it would.

Pressing my cheek to his silent chest, I closed my eyes and breathed him in, relishing the feel of something I’d been missing for far too long—that indefinable feeling of home.

That had been another thing I’d lost when I lost Mom, who Charlie now knew about. The questions had come pouring from her almost as soon as she’d been returned to us, delivered to our arms by those of a mother—one whose mere existence had made her want to know where her own had gone.

The buried pictures and mementos came out shortly after and, with them, all the pain Dad and I had tried to run from, out-maneuver, and deny.

Charlie had struggled with the news, but she was doing better now that Dad had returned to counseling and was getting some help on how to handle her grief and confusion as well as his own.

And the pain of loss. I still carried it, too. As I always would.

I opened my eyes again, though, arrested by the realization that, in that moment, the faraway and deep-seated ache I harbored within wasn’t entirely my own. Pulling back, I focused on the sapphire pin embedded in the black satin of Erik’s cravat.