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I’d only nodded, unable to tear my eyes off those clear, glass-like irises. The thin band of green around the edge was so perfectly symmetrical it almost looked fake.

Mostly, though, I’d been staring at eyes that looked a hell of a lot like Revik’s.

I remember seeing a small frown on her small mouth.

That, coupled with the intent, very Revik-like stare, rendered me speechless.

It touched me and made me nervous. No amount of “cootchie-coo” was going to win Lily over, unlike some human kids her age. Revik warned me that with seer kids, you needed to approach them more like an individual, even this young.

Already, I’d seen her weighing me with her eyes.

I’d also felt her remembering my light.

I was still distant from her, which hurt; a wall still stood tangibly between us.

She remembered me both ways, as the person who knocked out Cass, the one they’d probably been brainwashing her about for as long as she’d been alive. She also remembered me as a light from a far more distant memory, a memory she might not be fully conscious of.

That was the memory I’d desperately wanted her to remember.

It was the memory Ineededher to remember.

Somewhere in all that, I’d realized I was holding my breath… and my light.

Once I noticed, I forced myself to let go of both of those things.

Within seconds, her own shockingly bright light hit mine in a white and blue-green wave. It made me gasp aloud, my hand rising to my chest, even as I fought to make sense of everything I felt, the distance and nearness and the complications in those high, structured strands.

“Gods,” Revik had said from next to me.

I’d almost forgotten he was there, but after he spoke, I felt his light wrapped in hers, too. I saw her looking at him, viewing him almost with fear, but knowing him somehow, too. I noticed that with Revik, her fears were both more nebulous and more concrete, related to pictures and feelings I couldn’t make sense of, impressions she must have received from Menlim, or maybe from Menlim, Cass, and Terian collectively.

Revik had squeezed my hand, then tugged at me, walking us deeper into the room.

I’d followed, no longer reluctant, but still worried at some of the more intense currents I could feel in Lily’s light. I could see her watching us warily, that caution and fear still in her eyes. I’d tried to open to her more, to give her more of me to feel.

Somewhere in that, I’d felt recognition spark in her.

Beyond that horrible apartment in New York, beyond anything she’d been brainwashed by Menlim or Cass to feel about me––I felt her remember me. I felt a thread of her light slide into a thread of mine, like it belonged there, like it had always been there.

Then she’d burst into tears.

It felt like someone punched me right in the middle of my chest.

I ran to her. I had her in my arms before I’d consciously made the decision. Hoisting her up out of that low-walled crib with the fuzzy white and blue sheets covered in smiling whales, I brought her straight to my chest, enveloping her in my light as much as my arms.

I’d barely noticed I was crying until Revik was with us, and I’d looked up to see tears in his eyes, too. Lilai had wrapped her arms around my neck and continued to cry and then Revik had his arms around both of us, and his light poured into hers, and into mine, until all three of us more or less cried ourselves out.

Even after I’d finished, my chest still hurt.

I think it hurt for a few days.

Weeks, maybe.

After that, we just sat with her on the couch––the same fuzzy green thing I sat on now, that still reminded me of a cartoon couch, like something from Dr. Seuss. That first day, I just sat there with my arms wrapped around her, stroking her hair, which was long, soft and slightly curled like mine, but more Revik’s color, meaning closer to pitch black than dark brown.

Revik sat next to us on the couch, and for a long time, I could barely think a coherent word as our lights wrapped deeper into one another.

I’d also understood, somewhere in that, why Balidor had been cautious about letting me and Revik be with her.