He glanced over, his gaze meeting mine. He hesitated. Then he took my hand, squeezing it, and when he did, I saw what he did: endless iterations of Gwynn. I recognized one—the boy, hunting in the forest, following Arawn’s representative, Carl. Carl taunted him, and Peter lifted his rifle. As I glanced away quickly, I saw another scene, another Matilda, this one in a Victorian gown, screaming at a Gwynn, who stood stunned and pale, holding a bloodied sabre over the body of a man I knew must be Arawn. The woman dropped beside Arawn’s corpse, sobbing as if her heart would break, while Gwynn stood, dazed, as if he couldn’t understand how he’d gotten there. And in a blink, I was that Matilda, feeling her grief and her rage and her confusion, and it hurt so much, and I wrenched my gaze away, squeezing Gabriel’s hand.

“That’s enough,” I said. “Let’s move—”

“No,” he said. “This is important.”

He released my hand enough that I could let go. His way of saying that I didn’t need to watch. But he did. He struggled so much with being Gwynn, in a way I did not struggle with being Matilda nor Ricky with Arawn.

Gwynn is the man who betrayed his friend and mistrusted his lover and brought about her terrible death. I understood why Gabriel wanted nothing to do with that part of himself, but now he watched. Forcing himself to take it in. To understand.

When I met Gabriel and Ricky, I admired the way they were both so comfortable in their own skin. They knew what they were, and they accepted that. They knew what they wanted, and they strove toward that. I hungered for such a life. Now I was finally edging toward it.

I was Eden Larsen and Olivia Taylor-Jones and Matilda and just plain Liv.

Yet, at the same time, Gabriel and Ricky had discovered there was more to them. After a lifetime of knowing who they were, that foundation tilted, throwing them off balance. Ricky plowed forward, determined to find that reconciliation of self. Now Gabriel stood here, trying to do the same.

I looked into another mirror and saw yet another tragedy, another death, this time of a young woman, lying dead on a floor, a young man kneeling beside her, another grabbing him and hauling him to his feet and hitting him. He hit him again and again, while the first young man made no move to defend himself, just stared at the dead girl on the ground.

Show him something better, damn it. I know there’s something better.

I squeezed Gabriel’s hand and pictured Gwynn—the real Gwynn—in those early days. I found him, at about twelve, laughing as Matilda mimicked someone, Arawn joining in the impersonation and grinning at Gwynn, just as happy as Matilda to hear Gwynn’s rare bout of laughter.