Will:

"My name? That's my name?!" Ash gasped. She turned to Will on the pillow, her eyes huge.

"Yes." She could not know her real name! He would have to tell Lücan, and the last thing he wanted to do was tell Lücan. Then she would forget. She would forget tonight—him. She would forget about his parents, and the comfort she'd brought would be gone. Another thing taken from him.

But if her name isn't erased now, she could remember her life from before. Not just that, Keenan could talk to her—find her.

Will channeled his mentor. Lücan?

Yes? he replied.

We have a problem.

Ash remembers?

She became tied to my thoughts. She saw it all—the past few hours on Lyrethan. She knows her name, Lücan!

I will be there shortly.

"This doesn't make sense," she said. "None of that scene makes sense. Where was that?"

"I can't tell you, Ash. I want to. Another time?"

"I'm sorry." With gentle fingers, Ash reached across and brushed the hair from his face. "Your parents... That was horrible, Will. That guy...Keenan? What he did to those people... The way he told you about your parents... And Jasper's father." She gasped. "Does Jasper know?"

"I'm not sure." Guilt overcame him, fearing that he might have just taken Lücan from that very conversation, leaving Jasper alone with the knowledge that his father might never come home.

Ash wiped her eyes. Will, on the other hand, was beyond crying. It was starting to feel like a dream. No, a nightmare from which he'd never wake from.

"The other boy who looked like Keenan, the one with the white wings," she said shakily, "I know him, don't I?"

"Alründ?"

She nodded.

"Yes." She fiddled with something under her scarf. He could just make out a glint of yellow jewelry—the yellow pendant looked awfully similar to diamonds he'd seen at the other end of the galaxy. But it couldn't be... He tried to put it from his mind—it felt full to the brim anyway. "A long time ago." And just last night, he thought.

"Were we friends... Alründ and I?"

Will wanted to laugh and cry. How was he having this conversation? On top of the events of the day, her curiosity over Alründ last night and tonight was destroying him. "You could say it was a love-hate relationship."

"That doesn't really help."

She fiddled with that damn necklace again, and Will couldn't bear it any longer. He had to know the truth behind it, and so he reached out to touch the pendant on her necklace. It had been a tender gesture, or at least he'd thought it so, but Ash flinched, tucking the pendant back under her scarf.

"New necklace?" he asked.

"Yes," she whispered. Her eyes looked golden, distant. That necklace was placing a wall between them, one Will intended to tear down. His gaze wandered gently over her face as if nothing was amiss, then he entered her thoughts:

Shadows moved through her mind—murky silhouettes of a crowd, a person close up. He was dancing with her, and she was pretty sure it wasn't Will. Silhouette Guy's voice was rich, curled slightly at the edges, as he said, "I made you something ..." He dropped the pouch into her palm. "Hide this somewhere...until you're alone. Now pretend you don't know me."

Her thoughts skipped to Will's flashback, when she'd first seen Alründ flying over the golden net. There was something familiar about his white wings, the hair. Skip to the fight with Keenan, when Alründ had first refused to give her name. At that moment her spirit had spun and she knew it was the boy from the festival, the one she could never quite remember. Will pulled out of her head, unable to witness anymore.

Alründ gave this to her! I thought he was a friend, almost a brother. And she's protecting his gift. From me.

"Will," she breathed. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"Most girls would want to show off jewelry like that, but you're hiding it. Why?"

Will felt slightly guilty as she loosened her scarf. Her fingers trembled. Then he saw the yellow diamonds of a star, made just for her. The significance was more perfect and devastating beyond anything he could have imagined. Once upon a time, she'd given Will a star—a flaming blue ball of light that had passed through the air and transformed into a sky blue diamond, which had been dangling under the back of his shirt for the past ten years. The only hint that it was there was the leather cord seen at the base of his throat. The other star—her star—was tied to a leather string on his wrist, waiting for the day he could return it to her.

"There, see, not hiding," she said angrily, tilting her head up so he could have a better view of the necklace.

Why had he made a fuss over it? He didn't want to look at Alründ's star a second longer, and now she expected him to. Begrudgingly, he rubbed his thumb over the edge of the star and flipped it over. As he read Alründ's inscription, he stilled.

"Take it off!" he breathed.

"Why?"

"Why? Because of who gave it to you, what it says."

"What does it say?"

He considered telling her the inscription just to see how she'd react. "You really don't know?"

"No. I don't!"

"Great. Fine. Keep it." Will jumped over her and off the bed, swapping his ripped jacket for a leather one. What he really needed to do was find Alründ, confront him, hurt him in any way possible.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ash walk to his desk. As she traced her finger over one of his books, she looked completely lost. Lücan chose this moment to stride into the room, his gaze sweeping between the two of them. Lücan shook his head, and Will knew his mentor had seen everything condensed into one quick flash.

Will stood by the window, cringing, as Lücan's words of hypnosis wove into her mind. In less than a minute, Ash and Marianne were walking out the front door, not a necklace in sight.

Will knew the second Ash fell asleep that night she would remember nothing of his parents or Jasper's father. She would never remember the moment when the universe changed, and she would never remember Keenan or the white-winged boy who had given her a star. It would be like none of it had happened at all.

As Will came away from his window, he pleaded with Lücan, "Take me back to Lyrethan."

"So you can fight it out with Alründ? No."

Will wanted to punch the wall. But he was a Sepheri. Sepheri did not punch walls. They were controlled. Focused. United for a greater cause. His father would have been ashamed of him. That thought alone made Will slump into the chair at his desk. Then he felt his memories being sifted through, and not by himself. "No," he choked out. "Don't take her away!"

"I'm sorry, Will."

"Then take away the pain, too—the memory of my parents."

"I can't," Lücan said quietly.

Will stared at the clock, replaying the flashback again. There was a niggling feeling as to why he was sitting at his desk—on Earth. Hadn't he just been on Lyrethan , saying goodbye to his father?

Tears dripped onto his desk, splattering over the wood.