“Thanks, sister,” Calla said. “What will I do without you?” Her question was punctuated by tears that sprang from nowhere.

“Whoa,” I said, blotting the drops away with a tissue. “You’re going to ruin your makeup. You don’t want to do that after it took you, what, five hours to get it right?”

With a smile, Calla snatched the tissue from me. “Very funny.”

“That’s more like it,” I said. “And to answer your question—nothing. You will do nothing without me, because we’ll be doing everything together. There’s got to be some way around that idiotic rule.”

Calla’s eyes grew wide as she cast a glance around the room. “Shh.”

“What?” I asked. “We will.”

“I hope so,” she whispered. “But you mustn’t talk like that. Someone might hear.”

I hated seeing the fearful expression in her eyes, hated anything that could provoke such terror in her. I sat beside Calla, wrapping my arm around her shoulder. Whispering, I said, “Okay. I won’t say things like that. But you have to remember I’m going to be thinking about you, and hoping you’re wrong about us being apart for a whole year.”

“I hope I’m wrong, too,” Calla said. She gave me a hug, then blotted her face with the tissue until all evidence of her tears were gone, just like the remnants of her former life. Calla slid the top drawer of her dressing table open, then pulled out a small silver box.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Calla sighed. “That boy of yours,” she said. “But then I guess he wouldn’t have been able to leave petals for you, the way you arrived.”

“Explanation, please?” I asked.

“You were a mess when you were brought in. If I didn’t know you better, I’d have thought you were drunk. They just wanted to get you settled down and into bed. So I guess Cole didn’t have time to get the rose for you.” She trailed off, distracted by something. “But he must have brought roses to you in the old world. Right?”

I thought about the single salmon-colored rose James had given me during each of our dates. At the time, I’d assumed this was a special gesture, something between just the two of us. That misconception was corrected when I entered the rose garden inside Judaculla. Apparently, all the boys did this for their mates.

“Yes, he brought me roses,” I answered.

Calla opened the tiny box to reveal shriveled rose petals. “We wear these inside our gowns.”

She picked up her white gown and turned the bodice outward, revealing a small pocket held closed by a single snap. She opened the snap, then tucked the rose petals inside.