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I could feel him watching me closely, but I kept my eyes straight ahead, fixed on Phantom. The dog was still staring at us with interest, his ears fully perked and his head occasionally tilting, silently questioning if I needed him.

“Bastian isdead,” I whispered. “He died when we were just infants.”

“…I didn’t die that night,” he said, after a long pause. “Though I came close, I’m told. Our adoptive parents and Orin ended up sending me back here, in hopes that the magic around this palace would help bring me to full health once more. Somewhat ironically, since they’d originally sent us to the Above toprotectus from being overwhelmed by the very same magic.”

Orin.

The name was a lifeline, something familiar to grab hold of, tossed out into the sea of impossible revelations raging around me. And yet…now I felt as if the truth of my beloved mentor was in danger of slipping through my fingers, too.

Though I was afraid of his answer, I asked, “You knew Orin, as well?”

“Only by name, really. I was too young to remember the journeys he apparently escorted me on. He hasn’t been back here in nearly twenty-four years; it isn’t easy to cross between the realms, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“So he knew the truth about what happened to you…”

“Yes.”

I squeezed my hands so tightly together I’m surprised I didn’t snap any bones. “No,” I said. “No.You’relying. He wouldn’t have kept such an enormous secret from me.”

His voice was astoundingly level—especially compared to mine—as he said, “I imagine he kept alotof things from you, in hopes of keeping you safe for as long as possible, and keeping you away from this realm until you were ready to come home to it.”

“This isn’t my home,” I said, getting back to my feet.

Bastian stayed on the bench. “But it’s where you were born. Where webothwere born into royalty. And you came into this world with the mark of the Vaelora in your palm…the last hope of this lost world that’s been decaying for centuries now.”

“The Vaelora…” I tried my hardest to match his even tone. “What are you eventalkingabout?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging away some of the distress beginning to creep into his expression. I couldn’t help noticing how much that nose looked like mine. Narrow, gently sloped, a smattering of faint freckles across the bridge…

“It’s hard to imagine how thoroughly the truth has been scrubbed from the world above,” he said. “But it’s a plot centuries in the making, so…it makes sense that you wouldn’t be aware of any of it, I guess.”

“What has been a plot centuries in the making? Give me the plain truth, or I swear—this conversation isover.” I looked to the door of the palace, thinking of running back inside, either way.

I didn’t move, in the end, mainly because Phantom chose that moment to trot to my side and lean against it, nudging his head under my hand, urging pets. The solid weight of him held me in place as it had so many times in the past.

(Do you want me to bite his legs off?)

I numbly shook my head, but gave him a few extra ear scratches for the offer.

Red was dozing under a tree in the distance. I watched the tree’s flowers shaking loose above her, swirling down in the arms of the strange, warm wind that seemed a constant in this yard. It was tempting to follow each drifting petal, to let my mind drift with them and escape my current reality.

The man who claimed to be my brother took a deep breath and said, “This is how it used to be, for several millennia: Two worlds. One in the above, one here in the below. Soltaris and Noctaris, respectively—both of them fueled by the magic of theAetherstonethat rests between them. In the beginning, they existed in tandem, the Stone granting life and power to both. But over time, its magic failed to the point that only one world could be sustained. Bitter and bloody wars were fought over which world would live and which would die, until finally, the two most powerful magic users from each side stepped forward and made a deal.”

“A deal?”

He stood, moving closer to me, his gaze lifting toward the sky. The clear, perfectly calm, perfectly blue sky. It still sent a shiver down my spine to look at it. To think of howaliveit looked—how all of this realm had supposedly looked, once upon a time.

“Yes, a deal,” Bastian said. “One that involved a ritualistic, periodic shifting of the Aetherstone’s magic, so that it concentrated on one world for a set period of time before shifting to the other. In every generation, a being known as aVaelora was born within each world, and eventually, they were destined to meet and wield their powers together to turn the stone.Aequinoctium—or Equinox Day—it was called, when this turning took place.”

“I’ve never heard ofanyof those things.”

He lowered his gaze to mine, his voice turning solemn as he said, “Yes, because at some point in the past, the agreement was broken. The Stone didn’t turn toward Noctaris when it should have, and the Light Keepers and their minions have been working for centuries tokeepthe magic shining over their world, alone, and to scrub the Above of all knowledge of this world that lies below it. It’s a…complicated story.”

“It seems like an impossible story,” I said, frowning. “Especially considering there’s no knowledge of it that I can recall. I was well-read enough as a child and beyond—surely, I would have come acrosssomethingabout all of this in my twenty-five years.”

He mirrored my frown. “You’d be surprised how quickly knowledge can erode when the wrong people manage to put themselves in charge.”

I bit my lip, unable to bring myself to speak. My thoughts were racing too quickly to settle on words.