A shadow falls over Bram’s expression. “Maybe that’s part of it, but she also cares. You’ll see once you get to know her better.” He rakes his fingers through his hair—a gesture I feel like I’ve seen a hundred times. I’ve known him for years, so it shouldn’t shock me that he’s so familiar. But it’s how familiar that both thrills and unsettles me. Because it’s not our childhood that taught me the planes of his cheekbones, the angle of his jaw, the way he strums his fingers when he’s nervous. It’s the vision of my other path I saw in Gran’s healed bone. A different possibility, one Bram has never seen. To him, I’m just a girl who once judged him unfairly. But to me …

“Anything I can do to help?” he asks, his gaze skipping between the blade in my hand and the tree behind me.

Suddenly an image of his lips on mine rises in my memory. Heat floods my face. I bite the inside of my cheek and hope he doesn’t notice.

He cocks his head to the side and gives me a quizzical look. “Unless you want to be alone? I don’t mean to intrude.”

He’s misread my discomfort. Good.

“You’re not intruding.” I hold out the knife to him. As he takes it, his thumb feathers along the love tattoo on my wrist and I inhale sharply.

Bram’s eyes go wide, as if he’s just as shocked by the touch as I am. He snatches his hand away. “Do you …” He pulls on the back of his neck. “Do you miss him?”

At first, I’m confused by the question. And then I realize he’s talking about Declan. Of course Bram would think that’s where I got the love tattoo; Declan and I were matched at the kenning. But still, the thought makes my stomach clench.

“No,” I say, “not even a little.” Declan’s betrayal feels like a fresh burn that can’t withstand even the lightest contact without stinging. “I just miss my mother.” What I don’t say: I also miss the future you and I never had. A thousand images of Bram jostle in my mind—they’re almost, but not quite, memories; almost, but not quite, mine. Some are blurry and indistinct, and others are vivid and alive with color. But together they’re a storm of confusion that rages in my chest.

I can’t afford to fall for him. The love tattoo is a remnant from my other path, so given time, it should fade. Things that aren’t nurtured eventually wither. Latham is far less likely to kill me if it disappears.

Bram gives me another odd look, as if I’m a puzzle he can’t quite figure out. He turns the knife over in his hand, examining the blade.