Then we found each other. Gravelle wanted it to happen, of course. He sent me to the library on a research assignment, and that’s when I saw him there. It nearly leveled me to learn that Levi was trapped on Castor too. I felt a conflicted kind of joy at the sight of him. Elation that he was there, with me, and I could touch him and hold him and feel his warmth underneath my fingertips. I was also bereft, because I thought he’d been freed. Every moment he was there with me was a moment he was a prisoner. I didn’t want that for him. I didn’t want that for us. I would have taken back my secluded imprisonment in a heartbeat if it had meant he could leave.

Of course, Gravelle had other plans. He dealt out our punishments slowly. First, he informed me about my past. That I was—am—a Similar. That took me weeks to comprehend and even longer to accept. But it was only the first blow. When Gravelle informed me and Levi that DNA copies of us had been sent back to Darkwood, to stand in as us and live our lives for us, we were wrecked. He told us that we’d be living on Castor, with him, for the rest of our lives. He told us that the Duplicates believed they were us, and not to bother trying to escape; we never would.