“I only saw the parts of Starfield that didn’t want me,” I say, and that includes Amon. “I knew the niches who didn’t like my acting, or my hair, or my breast size, or the fact that I even existed. They said that my mole ruined their princess. But that’s the thing with Amara”—I look out at the audience, those shadowed faces staring back at me, unrelenting—“she belongs to no man, and no king, and she certainly doesn’t belong to you.” I look down at one of the girls in the front row; she’s ten and dressed as Princess Amara. I take off my silver crown and place it on her head. “She belongs to us—all of us. She taught us how to be bold and powerful, and she taught us that we can make mistakes and be better. That we don’t have to be perfect—we can just be enough. We carry her with us. And because of that, Amara will never die.” The ballroom is quiet and this is not how our plan was supposed to go, but this is how it went, and I am still intact on the other side. Whatever happens now is out of my control. Perhaps it always has been, but I like the thought of having tried to change it.

And then I turn, like a ghost, and return down the aisle whence I came, and behind me rises a tide of silence.

Amon stands abruptly and calls after me. “Jess! Jess, where are you going?”

“The horizon is wide,” I say over my shoulder, my words spoken in the steady, even cadence of Amara, “and I have a girl to kiss.”

Then I pick up the sides of my dress made of stars and wishes and impossibilities, and I run out of the room.

Imogen

THE BACK DOOR SWINGS SHUT, AND silence swallows us whole. No one moves as Jess’s words sink in. No one breathes. It’s like the silence after a rubber band, wound too tightly, suddenly snaps. The tension is gone. And then—

Vance glances at Calvin. “Did she just say a girl?”

Calvin gives him a crude look. “Don’t talk to me,” he says—I think—because at the same time an audience member stands, picking up her magical staff, and follows Jess. Then another. And then an entire row of people. Filing out in growing numbers until everyone is trying to cram out of the doors.

That’s when it hits me—Jess is going to find Harper.

I jump to my feet and hurry around the table. Behind me, Amon shouts Jess’s name, but I don’t stop. That is not my name, and he definitely doesn’t deserve mine.

Ethan meets me at the edge of the stage, with Elle right behind him, and takes my hand to help me down. “I think I know where she’s going,” I tell them.