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They flank me like guard dogs as I pass through the crowd: Oberon with his hand at the small of my back, Henry’s fingers curled beneath my elbow. The gathering of people draws back like a lowering tide as we cross the room, falling into line behind us as we go out into the rear garden. In a procession, we walk to the clifftop where the bonfire now burns.

I can’t help seeking out Alastair, who stands alone at the edge of the crowd. The light from the rising flames paints over him, outlininghis profile in amber and gold. And suddenly I’m back in this same field, four years ago, the first and only time I returned from school during a term break. At the summer bonfire with Alastair, the last time we were together before everything between us fractured apart.

Our eyes meet, and I tense so furiously that my clenched teeth scrape the inside of my mouth. Swallowing down the bloodied taste of my bitten cheek, I glower at him. Anger simmers over me, heating my face beneath the veil. But I don’t turn away. He was so determined to be here, to witness this moment. So let him see.

We’re held in this moment of silent challenge. Alastair is the first to let his gaze drop. I continue onward toward the edge of the cliffs. As I walk, I seem to glimpse him everywhere in the crowd. He’s beside the bonfire, casting a wreath of flowers into the new flames. He’s beneath the wisteria arbor, smoking a stolen cigarette.

He’s beside a strange girl, whose features are hidden by the shadows. She’s tall and willowy, with dark hair drawn back in twin velvet bows. She leans toward Alastair with languorous grace, cupping her hand around his ear as she whispers to him.

There’s something familiar about her—but when I narrow my eyes, trying to make out her face, I realize the arbor is empty and it was little more than my imagination, playing tricks.

My brothers lead me to the breakwater, where a candle on each step lights the way down to the beach.

I pause at the apex of the stairs. Oberon’s fingers tremble against my spine. Henry passes me a small velvet bag with a ribboned handle that loops around my wrist. Inside is a flashlight, a bundle of herbs, and the obsidian mirror.

“Be safe,” he whispers. “We will see you at the end of the salt season.”

I’m too choked to speak, I can only nod. Any other girl might have an ivory veil, a golden band, or strands of polished pearls. But I have only this—a flower-sewn veil adorning my unbound hair, ablack-salt betrothal ring, a magic mirror, and my brothers drawing me into what feels like a final embrace.

I curl between them, my eyes closed, the moth-quick sound of Henry’s heartbeat against my ear. Their bodies, hemming me in on either side, form a protective cave that closes out the sounds of the gathered crowd.

But I know it is time to leave. Silence trails me like a phantom train of silk as I step away from my brothers and walk down the stairs. The tide has lowered to reveal a flat stretch of beach, the sand packed hard and damp from the recent waves.

I walk alongside the water, my bare feet noiseless as they press into the sand. Just before I reach the place where the shoreline curves and the cliffs will hide me from view, I turn back for a last look.

Atop the cliff, silhouetted by the bonfire, Henry and Oberon begin to cast handfuls of flowers down onto beach. The waves draw in, catching up the petals and sweeping them out to the water’s surface, where they float like bitter snow.

Then

During her first summer home from Marchmain, Lark’s brothers hosted a solstice bonfire. The salt season was underway and the harvest crew—a smaller group than she remembered from previous years—joined the people who had been invited from the village.

Lark wore a pale dress she had found in her room. It was one of her oldest ones, loose as a nightgown, because she had left most of her newer clothes back in her dorm, filling her suitcase instead with books. Now, as she stood with her brothers to greet the guests, she felt strange and shy as she answered questions about school and the city, and if she’d made any new friends.

In truth, she was conflicted. All through the year she had looked forward to being back in Verse. During the day it had been easy to ignore her homesickness. She spent all her time with Damson, at meals or lessons or in the gallery. In the evenings after class they would lounge beneath the courtyard elms, drinking tea as they shooed away the mosquitoes. Or they would go down to walk beside the canals, pointing out which riverside apartments they would choose to live in.

Her first year at Marchmain was a time of gilt-framed paintings and clothbound notebooks. Fingers smudged with ink and photostats of her favorite artworks pinned to her walls. Sitting in the window ofher dorm room at golden hour while Damson brushed her hair and pinned it up with a ribboned bow.

But each night Lark’s homesickness crept back. As though it were a nocturnal flower that bloomed only in the dark. It was worse when classes broke for exam revision. Alone in her room with piles of notes and highlighted photostats, she would lie on her bed and stare up at the ceiling, her brothers’ letters rustling beneath her pillow. As the moonlight shimmered over her and the Canticle bells chimed, she counted the remaining days of term on her fingers.

After their exams were over, though, Damson asked Lark to stay at Marchmain. Cheeks flushed, eyes downcast, she had explained, “I always room at school during the holidays. My grandmother is too busy with her work; she doesn’t want me bothering her.”

Lark reached for Damson’s hand. Her friend had often spoken about the grandmother who raised her, a stern and distant woman who had sent Damson away to boarding school as soon as she was able.

“My brothers have already bought my train ticket,” Lark said, because all her other reasons—how much she missed Henry and Oberon, and how badly she wanted to be at home—felt like salt in a wound.

“Stay here with me, Lark. We’ll have the entire campus practically to ourselves.”

Lark bit her lip. Then, brightening, she offered, “Come with me, instead. My brothers would love to meet you.”

Damson frowned and pulled her hand away from Lark’s grasp. “I’d rather be alone at school than surrounded by another family, reminded of what I don’t have.”

Lark felt torn and guilty, wishing she could somehow exist in two places at once. That one version of herself would go home to Verse, to see her brothers and swim in the ocean and sleep in her old bedroom with Eline, her toy bunny, which she had been too embarrassedto bring with her to school. While the other version remained here, to roam the empty halls of campus with Damson like a storybook orphan.

“I have to go home,” Lark said. “But I’ll write to you every day, I promise.”

The last days before she left drew out in a frostbitten silence. Damson, withdrawn and cold, kept mostly to her room. They’d disagreed before, but this was nothing like any of the short, fleeting arguments they’d had, which were mended as quickly as they began.

On her final evening, with her suitcase packed and her alarm clock set for the early train, Lark went to Damson’s room. She knocked carefully on the closed door. She could hear the sound of movement inside, and a gramophone record playing a mournful, instrumental song. But Damson didn’t let her in.