THREE YEARS AGO
CAPITAL CITY
SYDNEY wove around the base of the tree, sunlight dappling her skin.
She’d drawn a face card—the queen of diamonds—but the weather was so nice she would have played the spade Victor had slipped her just to get out of the apartment.
Victor.
Behind her eyes, Sydney saw him buckling against the door, saw him fighting back a scream as his body curled on the floor. There had been pain, too, a jolt of something straight through her chest, and then darkness, but that part didn’t haunt her.
Victor haunted her. His pain haunted her. His dying haunted her.
Because it was Sydney’s fault.
He had been counting on her, and she’d let him down.
She’d brought him back wrong.
Broken.
That was the secret. The lie.
“It feels like dying.”
Sydney kept her eyes on the mossy ground as she paced. If anyone looked her way, they would probably assume she was searching for flowers, but it was late spring, the time when baby birds flung themselves out of the nest and hoped to fly. Not all of them made it. And Sydney was always searching for things to revive. Subjects to practice on.
Sydney already knew how to reach inside a body and pull it back to life. But what if the thing had been dead for a long time? What if the body wasn’t all there? How much did there have to be, for her to find the thread? How little?
Dol snuffled in the grass nearby, and across the field Mitch leaned back against a slope, a battered paperback open on one knee, a pair of sunglasses perched on his nose.
They were in Capital City, as hilly as Fulton had been flat, a place with as many parks as skyscrapers.
She liked it here. Wished they could stay. Knew they wouldn’t.
They were only here because Victor was searching for someone. Another EO. Someone who could fix what she’d broken.
Something cracked under Syd’s foot.
She looked down and saw the crumpled body of a young finch. The bird had been there awhile, long enough for its small body to sink into the moss. Long enough for the feathers to fall away and a wing to come detached, the brittle bones shattering like an eggshell under her shoe.
Syd sank to her knees, crouching over the tiny corpse.
It was one thing, she’d learned, to breathe life back into a body. Another thing entirely to rebuild the body itself. You only got one chance—Sydney had learned that the hard way, threads unraveling, bones crumbling to ash under her touch—but the only way to get stronger was to practice. And Sydney wanted to get stronger—she needed to get stronger—so she curled her fingers gently over the bird’s remains, and closed her eyes, and reached.
Cold rippled through her as she searched the darkness for a thread, a filament, a wisp of light. It was there somewhere, so faint she couldn’t see it, not yet. She had to go by feel instead. Her lungs ached, but she kept reaching, knew she was almost, almost—
Sydney felt the bird twitch under her palm.
Flutter, like a pulse.
And then—
Sydney’s eyes flew open, a faint plume of cold brushing her lips as the bird was rising on unsteady wings. Buffeting itself up into the branches of the tree.
Syd rocked back on her heels and let out a shaky breath.
“Well, that was quite a trick.”
Her head snapped up, and for a second—just a second—she found herself staring at a ghost. White-blond hair, and ice blue eyes, a dazzling smile set into a heart-shaped face.
But it wasn’t Serena.
Up close, the girl had higher cheeks than her sister, a broader chin, eyes that danced with a mischievous light. Dol’s lip curled a little, flashing teeth, but when the stranger held out her hand, the dog sniffed it cautiously, and then calmed.
“Good boy,” said the girl who wasn’t Serena. There was a lilt in her voice, a kind of music. Her eyes flicked up to Sydney. “Did I scare you?”
“No,” she managed, her throat constricting. “You just looked—like someone else.”
The stranger flashed her a wistful grin. “Someone nice, I hope.” She pointed up to the branches. “I saw what you did there, with the bird.”
Sydney’s heart quickened. “I didn’t do anything.”
The girl laughed, a light, airy sound. And then she crossed behind the trunk of the tree. When she reappeared on the other side, she was someone else. Only a second had passed, a step, but the blond girl was gone, and Sydney found herself staring into Mitch’s familiar face.
“It’s a big world, kiddo,” he said. “You’re not the only one with talents.”
She knew it wasn’t really him. Not just because the real Mitch was still reading across the field, but because of the accent that ran beneath his voice, even now.
The stranger took a step toward Sydney, and as she did, her body changed again. Mitch disappeared, replaced by a lanky young woman in a peasant skirt, her loose blond curls pulled up in a messy bun.
The girl looked down at herself. “This one’s my favorite,” she said, half to herself.
“How did you do that?” asked Syd.
The stranger raised a brow. “I didn’t do anything,” she said, echoing Syd’s words. And then she broke into a smile. “See? Isn’t it silly to lie when we both know the truth?”
Sydney swallowed. “You’re an EO.”
“EO?”
“ExtraOrdinary. That’s what they call—us.”
The girl mused. “ExtraOrdinary. I like that.” She looked down, and chirped in delight. “Here,” she said, retrieving a tiny bird’s skull from the grass. “You’ve seen my trick. Show me yours again.”
Sydney took the skull, which was no bigger than a ring. It was unbroken, unblemished—but not enough.
“I can’t,” she said, handing it back. “There’s too much missing.”
“Syd?” called Mitch.
The stranger drew a folded bookmark from her back pocket, and a pen from her curls. She scribbled something down the side, and held it out.
“In case you ever need a friend.” She leaned in close. “Girls like us got to stick together,” she added with a wink.
Mitch called Sydney’s name again.
“Better go,” said the stranger. “Wouldn’t want the big guy to worry.” She ran her fingers over Dol’s muzzle. “You look after our girl,” she told the dog.
“See ya,” said Syd.
“You bet.”
Mitch was waiting for her across the field. “Who were you talking to?” he asked.
Sydney shrugged. “Just some girl,” she said, realizing she hadn’t asked for a name. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw the stranger still leaning back against the tree, holding the little white skull up to the light.
That night, Sydney put the number in her phone.
The next, she sent the girl a text.
I forgot to tell you. My name is Sydney.
She held her breath and waited.
The reply came a few seconds later.
Nice to meet you, Sydney, it said.
I’m June.