There was no telling if I’d be reborn when I died, but the waltz began and ended with my four notes. He’d built the music around things that reminded him of me. And now this name. My name.

We danced forever, and not nearly long enough. Now that I faced him, I could touch him, too, rather than self-consciously drip through his fingers. I explored his back, fingertips discovering ridges of his spine, muscles, a place below his left shoulder blade that made him writhe, as if struggling not to laugh. I tickled him again, devouring the sensation of his chest against my cheek.

Before I had a chance to feel too sorry for myself, I turned toward the front of the cabin and found the bookcases carved right into the wall. Hundreds of leather-bound volumes rested in dim alcoves. I had no idea what stories or information they held. It didn’t matter. I wanted to absorb anything they had to say.

You just go right up to anything and talk to it, don’t you?" Sam closed his eyes and smiled. “I love that about you.

Shrikes were songbirds; he ought to know.

I was an afterthought, five thousand years later. A mistake, because Ciana was gone. I was the dissonant note on the end of a masterpiece symphony. I was the brushstroke that ruined the painting.