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One night, he tries to make me play a weird video game full of monsters that are all ridiculously stronger than the player, and when I die for the fiftieth time, I throw him the controller with a sneer of annoyance.

“What the fuck is the point in playing if all you do is lose?”

“Because,” he grunts, eyes on the screen as he fights some sort of abomination, “the one time when youdowin feels like fucking heaven.”

To me, that just sounds like masochism, but since I’ve had my fair share of seeking pleasure in pain, I can’t exactly judge.

After Iakov goes, though, I’m back on my own. Alone under the honey sun, the pastel sky, alone with wine dulling the edges, days melting into each other like wax, alone with Sophie’s ghost dug so deep inside my chest there’s barely any room left for my own heart.

Sometimes, I can almost feel the imprint of her fingers on my chest, the way she’d held on to me the last time I saw her, like she’d collapse if she let go.

She let go anyway, in the end.

Thatnight, I’d told her I was the knife in her wound, that she couldn’t heal until I was gone. But if that was true, then why does it feel likeI’mthe one bleeding out?

At the end of the summer, when it’s time for us all to part ways again, Zachary surprises me by grabbing me into a firm embrace, slapping my back bracingly.

“You won’t always feel like this,” he says. “And things won’t always be like this.”

I know he means well, but I can’t help the feeling I’m being lied to. I pat his back and try to pull away with a half-hearted grin, but he tightens his hold, like he can tell I’m falling apart and is trying, somehow, to keep me together.

A lump rises in my throat. “You sure?”

He nods with utter confidence and pulls away, gripping my shoulders. “Some things are meant to be, Ev. The path isn’t always straightforward, but the destination is inevitable. You’ll end up where you need to be. You’ll see.”

“Since when are you so smart?” I ask, stepping away with a laugh and hoping he won’t notice the sudden redness of my eyes or hoarseness in my voice.

“Since the day I was born, actually.” He smiles, confident and sincere. “So if you trust nothing else, then trust that I’m always right.”

The hope his words impart is fleeting: it scatters the moment I return to New York.

From the windows ofmy father’s office, Manhattan stretches below, cold and glittering dimly under the dark blue of early morning. Inside, it’s silent. The bookshelves lining the walls, asculpture in the corner, an abstract tangle of metal that Gilbert Coulter would probably never be able to afford.

And at the centre of it all, Dad’s desk. A massive slab of mahogany, free of clutter, everything filed away, computer turned off. Nothing, in short, that I could fix my attention on while I avoid his gaze.

I sit across from him, elbows on the armrests, back straight against the cool leather, right knee bouncing up and down even though I’ve tried several times to stop.

Another year, another meeting. A flawed mirror image of last year, because last year, I still had hope. I’d come in determined to make something of myself. To, as Dad put it,become someone Sophie deserves.

Now, it’s a different day, and a different conversation, but I can tell Dad’s expecting the same results. The same disappointment. Again and again and again.

He doesn’t speak at first, just steeples his fingers, observing me. I’ve not seen him all summer, even though I promised I’d visit home before leaving for the summer. I couldn’t bring myself to, not after the gala, not after—

“You’ve had six months at KMG,” Dad finally says, putting my thoughts out of their misery. It’s a credit to him that he doesn’t sound angry or irritated: I would, if I were him. “And in that time, you’ve floundered in two departments, failed to distinguish yourself, and given me no reason to believe you belong here.”

Wow. Well, at least he’s not pulling punches or mincing his words.

I nod. He’s only telling the truth.

He sits back. “I’m not firing you.”

I can’t help my eyebrows shooting up, and I bet I look like a right idiot, eyes wide and mouth gaping, because I walked inearlier feeling like a prisoner on death row, and part of me was relieved that it was almost over, that my limping career at KMG was finally going to receive its mercy bullet to the back of the skull.

“There’s an imprint under your mother’s publishing division. Inkspill Publications. Does that ring a bell?”

I shake my head.

“No, I didn’t expect so. It’s an academic imprint, about fifteen years old. Very small, very niche, very prestigious—and failing.”