I pull her close, staring over her shoulder at the nave of the church below us. “I don’t know either.” No one knows better than I do that it’s impossible to predict the future. I squeeze her tighter, closing my eyes. “I never could have predicted this, that I’d be standing here holding you right now.” I lower my head, whispering into her ear, my lips brushing her earlobe. “We’ll be okay. We have each other.” Her heart pounds against my chest. She’s giving up far more than I am—the only life she’s ever known. And like the Secretary said, if she stays with me, she’ll be a hunted criminal. I pull away and tilt her head up to mine. “Are you sure about this?”

She nods and even manages an impish grin. “No question. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t even want it. It was the worst possible thing that could happen, but it did happen. I fell in love. With you.” I smile as I listen to her mock my words from last night, complete with eye-rolling, but at the same time, a warm rush fills me.

Her grin fades and she grows serious again. “Just like you, I’m not perfect, Locke, but I’m not stupid either. I’m not going to ruin the best chance I ever had of being happy—because these last weeks with you are the happiest ones I’ve ever known.”

She steps away, looking over the balcony. “And there are other risks I want to take. Ones that matter. I need to know the truth, not just about myself but about other people, like those Non-pact children I met, the ones leading lives that I might have led.” She spins to face me. “I know after everything that’s happened this is crazy to say but I think in some warped way he did love me. Maybe just for my mother’s sake, I don’t know. But I could never be exactly the daughter he wanted me to be because I had Non-pact blood running through me. That was the one thing even he couldn’t change.”

“You’re still a Citizen,” I say. “You could go back. He can’t take that away from you.”

“There’s no going back. Ever. It shouldn’t matter what’s running through my veins—or what’s beneath your skin,” she says, and steps closer. “No going back, Locke. Get that straight right now.” She pulls my face close, our lips touching, breathing each other’s breaths, nothing between us anymore, no lies or secrets. I ache inside in a way I never have before, in a way that makes me feel hopeful, in a way that makes being part of someone else’s dusty forgotten inheritance part of another lifetime. Not this one. Not the life I’m living now.

* * *

It turns out we have to spend the next few days in the organ gallery above the church. Father Emelio keeps us updated. The whole city is thrown into a Stage 10 Alert because of a security threat. The public is never told what the threat is but we know it’s us. All highways out of the city are in lockdown, which means extensive searches of every vehicle leaving the city. City streets aren’t much better, but because Boston is still billed as the home of a revolution that birthed two nations, tourism refuses to be shut down. But IDs are being checked and double-checked and no Non-pact in his right mind is leaving his home.

I don’t mind this time being holed up in the gallery with Raine. There are worse places to be. Much worse. I know, I’ve been there. In fact, in some ways I wish this time would never end. It’s surreal, day turning to night, night to day, the world outside almost ceasing to exist, the colored light of stained glass creating a new world for us, our world, Raine and me lying on blankets the father has brought us, our arms wrapped around each other, dozing, sleeping, touching, waiting to leave, but in so many ways not wanting to. A small piece of heaven. Our heaven.

Raine sleeps in my arms now. I look at the large round stained glass window above us. The exact same window I looked at so long ago when I was an altar boy and I should have had my eyes closed in prayer. Maybe even then I didn’t like the black world inside my head.

The world changes. It stays the same.

I ease my arm from beneath Raine’s head, replacing it with a folded blanket, and slip through the velvet curtain to the steps leading to the nave of the church.

As I walk down the center aisle, I feel the timeless power of it, a world that moves forward but stays the same too. My bare feet are cold against the marble floor. I’m all alone except for flickering candles, dancing shadows, and soft lights illuminating the altar. I stop midway, in the center of a world that refuses to stop spinning and it carries me along with it. I swallow. The immensity presses down on me.

It’s a journey, Locke. A long one.

Even my father never would have guessed that a journey could be this long, but all those years are a part of who I am now—even those 260 spent in a voiceless vacuum. If not for them, my life would never have intersected with Raine’s.

I saw and heard, and knew at last / The How and Why of all things, past. My past echoes around me. Glimpses. Ghosts. A world gone by, but still kept alive in this new one by me. My throat swells and I lower my head and bend my right knee the way my parents taught me before entering a pew, my right hand brushing my forehead, my heart, each shoulder in turn, and finally my lips. I see my mother nodding approval, my father touching my shoulder, and I step into the pew and sit, my hands resting on the seat in front of me, hands unlike any kind this church has ever known before. Just below them, cradled on the back of the pew, are a hymnal and a Bible. Real books. I pull the Bible from its slot, trying to recall something from my catechism days, and I flip through the pages until I find it. A Psalm. I linger on the words that seem to be written just for me.