The words radiate through me, melting into my relief and setting something else ablaze. Bram traces the long line of my clavicle from one shoulder to the other. His thumb rests in the hollow of my throat. Our lips are only inches apart. And then his mouth is on mine, gentle and sweet at first and then urgent and demanding.

I feel my pulse everywhere. In my neck. My stomach. The tips of my fingers.

Talon groans. “Give it a rest, you two.”

I pull away from Bram and spin toward Talon. I jab a finger in his chest. “You don’t get to say anything. If I weren’t so relieved, I’d kill you.”

He gives me a sheepish grin. “I’m sorry?”

“Is that a question?”

“No?”

His expression—all wide-eyed innocence, while the little quirk of his mouth hints at mischief—is both infuriating and endearing. Memories of three different paths jostle in my mind—Talon lying in the grass underneath a tree, his head cradled in his palms, quizzing me on the uses of amphibian bones; Talon trying to cheer me up after a long day by pulling silly faces from all the way across the workshop; Talon pretending to sing off-key to make us all laugh, even though his voice is pitch-perfect. And before I know it, I’m laughing and crying at the same time. I’m hollowed out, exhausted, and limp with relief. I’m not sure if we succeeded, but at least we’re all here.

“I should wring your neck,” I say, lifting my arms to mime the action, “but I won’t.”

His eyes go wide. “Saskia, your hand.”

My hand. Conflicting memories nudge against one another, and the pieces click into place. I look down. I have two hands again, but one is streaked with five black tattoos that run from each fingertip to the red line around my wrist, as if tracing the bones beneath my skin. Echoes from another path.

It’s enough to finally convince me.

“It worked,” I say, in awe. “We changed the past.”

We woke in some kind of storage area. Shelves laden with boxes fill the center of the room. High, narrow windows on one end overlook a door on the other. We search the entire room for the bones I healed, but we can’t find them. They seem to have vanished along with the past we left behind. And Gran’s bone has disappeared from my pocket too. I feel the loss like a hole in my heart. My access to my other paths—both of them—now lives only in my memory.

Bram threads his fingers through mine. “It’s probably a good sign that we can’t find them, right? Maybe it means Latham never stole the bones at all.”

But I have no idea what it means.

“I think this is Latham’s shop.” Jacey is spinning in a slow circle, her eyes scanning the shelves.