I wish you could read this.

I don't know where you or if you're still alive. As for me, I'm alone, trapped here until the end. I can do this one thing, though. Writing a message to you on the walls of my cell, even knowing you will never receive it, is how I choose to spend these remaining hours.

My dreams have been taken from me, but my memories are still mine until the moment they complete the harvest. This is where we live now, you and I—in remembered moments that have not yet been stolen away.

On the day we met, you mistook me for Mara. There's no shame in that. I have her face, or as you would spin it, she has mine.

"You look lovely this morning," you said after you'd walked up to me.

It took me a moment to reply. Shock tends to numb the tongue. Besides, I wasn't supposed to speak to you. I had stopped to watch a group of North Bank merchants trudge across the shallow river with their assortment of scrap metal goods, and then, there you were, standing shoulder to shoulder with me, complimenting my looks and touching my bare arm as though this wouldn't get us both arrested.

I pulled away and scanned our surroundings. There seemed to be no one of consequence watching—the merchants wouldn't have noticed who we were. One still needed to exercise both caution and tact, however. You lacked both.

"You should know better, Liege." The bitterness spewed from me like I was trying to cough out poison—not a tone a Harvestable should take with her better, but you'd breached decorum and I had only followed your lead.

You flinched when you noticed my medallion, the unmistakable copper circle glowing on its leather cord. Until that point, you hadn't seen me as a Harvestable but as a Beloved: Mara, the one you were to marry.

"That was a test," you said, taking a step away from me. "You passed."

"Of course, I did." I fixed my gaze onto the North Bank folks as they scrambled up the river's far ridge.

"I meant no offense."

"Then why are you still talking to me?" I placed the shawl I'd been carrying around my shoulders. "There's time left for me, and I'm not spending it in the prison ward."

"I'll be going then." You bowed, which only solidified your ignorance of our customs. "My apologies."

Our communication should have ended there. Instead, I opened my damn mouth again.

"It works both ways, Liege."

Your forehead scrunched up like shriveled fruit as you attempted to figure out what I meant. "What does?"

"If they find out you talked to me, you'll be arrested too."

Only after I could no longer hear your footsteps as you retreated up the hill did I breathe again.

Days passed. Weeks.

I put aside our awkward encounter. I forgot about you. Strange to say that now when you're the one person I don't wish to forget. My life went on. I took my morning strolls by the river, spent time reading at the library, collected autumn flowers from the gardens and arranged them in the great hall. I ate my meals with Lady Jessa's Harvestable, a girl of ten who approached her station in life with the enthusiasm of a beauty pageant contestant.

"I do hope the day comes soon," she said the morning after I'd met you. "I wouldn't like to wait as long as you, Maraclone."

I paused with my spoon midway from bowl to mouth. She had been at Sprouts Home until recently. It was impossible to say what the current carers had told her or what they'd left out. "Do you understand what will happen during the harvest? The final harvest, specifically."

"Lady Jessa will get what she needs, silly." She smiled as though her face couldn't make any other expression. "She'll receive the nourishment to thrive until the next Harvest."

"I'm not talking about what will happen to Lady Jessa."

Jessaclone slammed her bowl down onto the table. "That's all that matters!"

You would have been appalled by her statement, but Harvestables choose our truths so we can live our lives with some semblance of peace.

"You're right, Jessaclone." I gave her the same practiced smile she'd wielded. "That's all that matters."

#

The next time I saw you was at the library, downstairs in the Harvestable reading room. You must have known both that I would be there and that you weren't supposed to be.

"Hello Maraclone."

"Not you again." I strained my neck, staring at the empty hallway behind you.

"We're alone. The librarian just left for lunch."

"So, because there's no one here but me to witness your crime, that makes it okay?"

"I don't think of it as a crime," you said, frowning. "Besides, I'm new to your land and can plead ignorance."

"That might work for you. It assuredly won't for me."

You leaned against a bookshelf in the sort of staged nonchalance of someone trying to appear calmer than they were. "That day by the river—I didn't know Mara had a Harvestable."

This level of ignorance surprised me. "Most uppers in Rill do. Didn't they tell you before you were betrothed to her?"

You frowned. "They kept it from me. Harvests are outlawed in Forest Harbor.

Yes, that's why our lands are at war. You dealing with this reality," I pointed to myself, "is part of the truce process, to see if Rill and Forest Harbor can live with their differences."

"And what if we can't?" You ran your fingers along the faded spines of the books closest to you. "What if I can't. Accept this, I mean?"

I shrugged. "It will likely put a strain the peace process, Liege."

You grimaced. "Call me Quinn."

"I shouldn't be calling you anything." Using my book as a flyswatter, I shoed you away.

"No need for that, I'm going." Letting out a huff like the entitled man you were, you turned to leave. "I just thought someone as lonely as you might enjoy a few minutes of company. The librarian said you're usually the only Harvestable who ever uses this space."

That was true, but then, there were only a handful of mature Harvestables in Rill, and several of them were now in hospital full time.

"Loneliness isn't my problem."

Perhaps it wasn't, but that didn't stop your words from weighing on me long after you'd left.

#

A week later, I found you working behind the librarian's desk.

"I bet you're wondering what I'm doing here," you said as you stacked books onto a cart.

When I ignored you, you continued. "The librarian has gone to visit a sick relative. As a betrothed foreigner, it was suggested to me that I work temporarily to learn the Rill people and customs better. So, I volunteered to fill in for her."

"How convenient."

"It is! Do you know why?" You became animated, like you were trying to keep yourself from dancing around the nonfiction section. "I'm authorized to talk to you now."

"Only to make book recommendations."

"Yes, but if someone sees us talking, I'm simply recommending an approved Harvestable book to you. We won't get into trouble."

"Why, though. Why do you want to talk to me? You can talk to Mara, and she's real." I walked towards the back staircase leading down to the Harvestable's basement.

You followed close behind. "Have you met Mara?"

"A few times. She can interact with me as much or as little as she wishes. She chooses little."

"She chooses the same with me."

"But," I turned so I could see your expression. You had to be either joking or lying. "You're betrothed—you are Beloveds. The whole point of this period is for the two of you to get to know each other."

"That's what I thought too." You let out a sigh. "She's about as interested in me as you are."

"The two situations aren't comparable." I looked away. "I'm not allowed to be interested in you. That's different. If I had her freedom..."

We'd reached the reading room by then.

"What you said before about Mara—she isn't any more real than you. She isn't anything more than you."

"Of course, she is," I insisted. "I wouldn't exist if she hadn't been created first."

"You were cloned from her embryo but you're both your own people now. Why should she have more validity?"

"Do you need me to list all the Rill laws that make her a wealthy citizen and me a North Bank junkyard she can order up spare parts from?"

The hurt in your eyes on my behalf made me almost feel badly for stating the truth so bluntly. Almost.

"I don't see you that way, Maraclone. No one in Forest Harbor would."

"We aren't in Forest Harbor, are we?"

"I wish we were," you said. "You're the only person I've met since arriving in Rill that doesn't speak as though you're hiding something."

"'People disguise themselves through costumes sewn from words when their true selves refuse to take the stage.'"

You nodded, but it was clear I'd lost you. "What does that mean?"

"It's a quote from a third decade Harvestable. It's also a choice. The uppers have too much at stake to tell you the truth. I have everything at stake and so I tell you only the truth."

"Now you've gone and proven my point," you said, your eyes glowing. "You are, without a doubt, the most real and genuine person in all of Rill. I would like it if we became friends."

My memory isn't perfect, but I perfectly remember those words of yours. I would like many things, Quinn. I would like to float down the river until Rill is far behind. I'd like to wind my way west until I arrive at a land where I look like no one else, where my dreams are mine again.

I still had my dreams that day when you became a librarian and I became someone you yearned to know better. Everything felt possible, however unlikely.

I picked out a book of poetry written by a clever Harvestable from the eighth decade and headed towards my favorite chair. So much useful wisdom was hidden in her verses.

I had my own wisdom to depart for you. "We aren't upper school children. We can't become friends. You'd have to risk death. Are you willing to die?"

"I won't die."

I opened my book and raised it up to block your face. You hadn't answered my question and wouldn't for another month.

By that point, it was too late.