“I’m scared,” I whispered.

He laid me down carefully. I saw the spikes imbedded in the altar at the level of my wrists, the channels that ran away from them.

“It will not hurt,” he said. His voice incongruous, female, whistling, pure. Lights swarmed above my head, darting like birds.

“But I don’t want to die.” My face was wet.

He touched my cheek.

“Will you return what was stolen?” he asked.

This was how it ended.

“Yes,” I said.

The light flared. I shut my eyes against the brightness. When I opened them again, he was gone. I could no longer feel the pain in my shoulder, and my wrists were only faintly warm. Metal jutted through them. I regarded the spikes without feeling, watching blood seep from my arms.

“You are here.”

The Star’s voice came from everywhere, and from within my own mind. I tried to speak, but my lips would not move. It did not seem to matter.

“It has been a long time,” she said.

The temple dissolved in golden light. I could no longer feel my body. When the light dimmed, the spikes were gone. A woman with curling black hair leaned against the edge of the altar.

“Mom?” I croaked.

She turned to me. Her eyes were kind.

“No,” she said. “Just a memory.”

Thousands of candles illuminated the temple, and the windows were whole. Wreaths of flowers cascaded across the tiles, lilies and cherry blossoms and orchids. Their fragrance filled the still air. When I looked down, my wrists were smooth and unblemished, but I still felt an odd pressure just below both palms, like someone was pressing their thumbs against my veins.

“Are you the Star?” I asked.

Her liquid eyes were full and dark, flecked with sparks of gold.

“I have been given that name, yes,” she replied.

I should feel afraid. I sat up. But I’m not.

“You aren’t what I expected,” I said.

“And what did you expect?”

Someone more frightening.

She smiled as if she could hear my thoughts. Her face flickered, and I caught a glimpse of something else behind my mother’s features. I flinched.

“Elfreda, I won’t harm you,” she said, with a small hint of amusement. Her voice was calm, resonating, painfully familiar. “I only wanted to meet you. You have dreamed my dreams, and we will share this one for only a little while longer.”

I could hear birdsong outside the windows, laughter in the distance. “This is a … dream?”

“Of a sort.”

Everything seemed entirely real to me. I turned back to her. “So what happens when it ends?”

“Then I will return to the world and discover what remains for me there.”

My chest tightened at the thought of Aytrium, the possibility of her revenge, my friends. The Star shook her head. She reached out and touched my shoulder.

“I am not so vengeful as you believe,” she said.