I'm strangely calm when I return to the fence the next day.

I'm ready to hear what Roan has to say.

I'm ready to listen.

He'd better be too, because this is about both of us, which means we both have things to say.

Roan is waiting for me, and even though I don't know what's going to happen between us, my heart lifts at the sight of him.

He looks worse than ever, tired and rumpled and drawn, but he's still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen - my sun in a cloudy sky, my splash of colour in a world of grey.

"Caia," he breathes, staring at me like I'm every star in the night.

I stop in front of the fence. He hasn't come through yet; he's waiting for me to say he can.

Maybe it would be better to do this with a little distance between us, but I feel like a flower in the dark, desperately tilting my head towards the sun that is my Roan. I can't stand to see all this wire separating us.

I gesture to the damaged spot. "Are you coming through?"

Hope blooms in his eyes. He scrambles through as quickly as he can, but as soon as we're both on the same side, I take a step back, wrapping my arms around myself to fight the urge to reach for him.

Roan visibly swallows. "Okay, so . . . I've been thinking a lot about what you said – about how I didn't really see you as a person after all. And you were right."

That's not what I expected, but I don't react. I just give him time.

"When our source first told us about the Trials, we decided that we needed to scope out the CC before we could do anything else. On the outside, the CC has a website with photos and live footage supposedly proving that Seconds are cared for, comfy, and happy, but we've always known that's all carefully curated to present the image the CC wants. But if we wanted to find out anything they were hiding, we needed to get a better idea of the building as a whole."

He gestures at the fence behind us. "We needed to know what we were dealing with. So Rosie built a couple of tiny drones, and we spent a few days flying them over the grounds. That's when we saw you."

I hug myself a little tighter.

"Three times our drones picked you up, and each time I was struck by the look on your face – longing and sadness and hope. You looked like you wanted to be anywhere but behind that fence," Roan says.

"I did," I whisper.

"That's when I had the idea to approach you. We knew there was no guarantee you would help us – no guarantee that you would think of your own rights and freedom beyond the propaganda they feed you in this place. We knew that we'd be running the risk of you reporting me to the Handlers, and that that would probably increase security measures around the CC, which obviously wouldn't help us. Some other members of Beyond were very against involving you at all. They thought the risk was too high. I didn't."

"Why?"

"Because you always looked like you were dreaming, and I found myself wondering what you were dreaming of."

"Flying," I say. "I was dreaming of the sky." I bite my lip. "I think I saw you that first day, from my bedroom window in the morning."

"I guess I should have been more careful. Thanks to Rosie's drones, I knew what time you would be at the fence, but I got to the CC early that day."

"Why?" I say again.

"Honestly? Because I was nervous about approaching you. I knew it was a risk, I knew it might be a waste of time, so I arrived early enough that I could really rehearse what I was going to say. And then when you came to the fence, I forgot everything I'd rehearsed anyway. Every time I'd seen you, you looked like you wanted to be free, and that's why I met you that day. I thought that you would help me."

He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. "But you are right – I don't think I saw you enough as a person. I needed you. You were a means to an end, and that is why I initially befriended you. But you were smarter and kinder and braver and better than I anticipated. Yes, I came back because I needed you, but it wasn't long before I realised that I wanted to come back, and that had nothing to do with Beyond or the mission."

His eyes are locked on mine and the weight of them makes me want to sink to the ground.

"I couldn't stop thinking about you. Rosie and the others teased me because I kept talking about you, and I didn't even realise I was doing it," he goes on. "I've always wanted to help Seconds, but in a way it wasn't real until I met you. I have friends in Beyond who've lost Second siblings, and I know how badly it affects them, and I know that people are suffering, and I always thought that I understood that, but now I realise that I didn't, not until I met you. I didn't fully understand or appreciate everything that Beyond is fighting for. Now I do."

My throat is twisted in knots.

"I didn't think I could feel like this about someone that I've only known a few weeks, but . . ." He spreads his hands, and I close my eyes, overwhelmed by the memory of them, warm on my skin. "You mean everything to me, Caia, and I am so sorry that I hurt you."

I need a few moments to process this.

"I thought that you had been using me the whole time. I thought that everything you had ever told me was a lie, and you were just trying to keep me close, get me to do what you wanted," I say.

He flinches, like I've physically hit him. "No –"

I hold up a hand to stop him. "It's my turn to talk. Before I met you, I had no faith in myself. I couldn't even look in a mirror because I hated my own face so much. You helped me move past that. You helped me learn to love myself, and when I found out . . . you know, I wondered if you had targeted me because of my face."

"I don't understand."

"I wondered if you had seen someone that you didn't think could be loved, someone so desperately lonely that they would be easy to manipulate."

Roan's face is stunned. "How could you think that?"

"When you've spent a lifetime being told you're worthless and ugly, when people only see your scars and not you, it's very easy to think like that," I tell him.

He flinches again. "I never saw only your scars," he says, quietly.

Taking a deep breath, I reach out and touch his hand. "I know. When I found out, I was shocked and angry and hurt because it felt like . . . like the most important person in my whole life was a lie, that everything he had made me feel was false, and that everything he had taught me was a facade."

Roan's eyes are torn open, and I can see his heart in them, as raw and shattered as my own.

"I didn't tell you the truth about how we met, but everything else I have ever said is true," he says, his hand tightening on mine.

"I missed you," I whisper. "I should have let you explain before –"

"I don't blame you."

I don't want to cry, but a tear slips down my cheek before I can stop it. Roan wipes it away with his thumb.

"Please don't be sad," he says.

"I thought I had lost you," I snuffle.

He cups my face with both, and the warmth of his skin, that touch I thought I might not ever feel again, coaxes the shards of my heart out from the dark recesses where I hid them.

"Never," he says, and his voice is fierce now. "I'm not going anywhere, Caia."

I hold out the pieces of my heart with shaking hands, and when he bends his head to kiss me, he carefully, gently stitches those pieces back together.

He kisses my mouth, my eyelids, my head, and when he smiles down at me, it's like the sun breaking free of the clouds, covering me with light and filling me up with warmth. I want to lie back and bask in Roan.

I go up on my toes to kiss him again, locking my hands around his neck and pulling him tightly to me, so tight that we are almost one person. And in that moment I am soaring free, and the sun is on my wings and I'm breathing in the clouds.

I am a bird.

I am the sky.

"I've got something for you," Roan says.

We're lying on the grass, under the trees, and his arm is around me and my head is on his chest, and our legs are all tangled together. We're both back where we belong, and my off-kilter world is righted again.

He sits up, and I make a small noise of protest as he dislodges me.

"Close your eyes and hold out your hands," he instructs, and I do.

Maybe he's found some exciting new chocolate for me to try.

I sense him shift his weight; perhaps he's getting something out of his pocket, and then he puts something in my upheld hands.

"Open your eyes," he says.

I let out a little gasp.

Sitting in my palms is a small wooden bird, carved so beautifully and with such care that it almost looks real. Its head is lifted to the sky, its wings outstretched.

"As soon as I saw it I knew I had to get it for you," he says.

I can't speak, and he starts to look worried.

"Do you like it?"

"Yes," I breathe.

There's a storm of emotion inside me, trying to break free.

"This is the first gift I've ever been given," I say, gazing up at him.

Shadows flicker in his eyes at the unwelcome reminder at the reality of a Second's life, but he doesn't say anything, and I'm glad. I don't want to talk about that now. I want to take these moments to be selfish, just the two of us.

"It won't be the last," he promises me. "I am going to tear down this cage and I am going to set you free."

All my life that's what I've wanted, but as I look up at him, the blue of his eyes, the sunlight in his smile, something occurs to me.

I still want to spread my wings and fly free, but . . . for the first time I have something worth flying back to earth for.