The setting of the memory threw me off for a moment because I wasn’t used to so much civilization—at the same time, I knew nothing but civilization. A pretty dresser with all kinds of frilly and delicate things on top of it. A profusion of dainty glass bottles containing the scents I loved—I loved? Or she loved?—so much. A potted orchid. A set of silver combs.

The big round mirror was framed in a wreath of metal roses. The face in the mirror was roundish, too, not quite oval. Small. The skin on the face had the same silver undertone—silver like moonlight—as the hand did, with another handful of the golden freckles across the bridge of the nose. Wide gray eyes, the silver of the soul shimmering faintly behind the soft color, framed by tangled golden lashes. Pale pink lips, full and almost round, like a baby’s. Small, even white teeth behind them. A dimple in the chin. And everywhere, everywhere, golden, waving hair that stood away from my face in a bright halo and fell below where the mirror showed.

My face or her face?

It was the perfect face for a Night Flower. Like an exact translation from Flower to human.

“Where is she?” my high, reedy voice demanded. “Where is Pet?” Her absence frightened me. I’d never seen a more defenseless creature than this half-child with her moonlight face and sunlight hair.

“She’s right here,” Doc assured me. “Tanked and ready to go. We thought you could tell us the best place to send her.”

I looked toward his voice. When I saw him standing in the sunlight, a lit cryotank in his hands, a rush of memories from my former life came back to me.

“Doc!” I gasped in the tiny, fragile voice. “Doc, you promised! You gave me your oath, Eustace! Why? Why did you break your word?”

A dim recollection of misery and pain touched me. This body had never felt such agony before. It shied away from the sting.

“Even an honest man sometimes caves to duress, Wanda.”

“Duress,” another terribly familiar voice scoffed.

“I’d say a knife to the throat counts as duress, Jared.”

“You knew I wouldn’t really use it.”

“That I did not. You were quite persuasive.”

“A knife?” My body trembled.

“Shh, it’s all okay,” Ian murmured. His breath blew strands of golden hair across my face, and I brushed them away—a routine gesture. “Did you really think you could leave us that way? Wanda!” He sighed, but the sigh was joyful.

Ian was happy. This insight made my worry suddenly much lighter, easier to bear.

“I told you I didn’t want to be a parasite,” I whispered.