It was time. It was time. 

Lilly had been dreading this the moment she'd gotten out of the hospital. The Bloom Officials, Stem Sankta, and the Board Members were all waiting for her in a private bank office from across the street, and Lilly was less than happy to have her fate decided so soon after the war of elevens. She wanted to distance herself from it all: the monsters, the explosive butterflies, the scar running from her shoulder to her wrist from a lightning bolt, the excruciating pain, the feeling of her wrists tied to the arms of a chair with vines...all of it. 

Two weeks ago, she'd awoken in a hospital bed in northern Bria Hungary. The doctor told her she had a concussion and burns up and her right arm from Storm's lightning strike. 

Elliott Way blew up, Storm was gone, and the beasts were destroyed by screaming stars. Everyone left alive in Elliott Way was taken to Teskanash Regional Hospital; in groups, they got discharged to several inns throughout Faevil.

Despite the world just coming off the edge of destruction, Faevil was as bright and bustling as ever. As Mathilde de la Farazzanna led Lilly to the bank across the street from her in, people were out getting Faevil ready for Relij Fest: a festival held by Shifters and Fae all over the world to celebrate the Great King. Shifters worshipped and believed different things about the Great King, according to the country. Shezekians believed in Lesser and Greater Gods that communicated to the Great King on everyone's behalf. Anna Maens believed everything in nature had a spirit given by the Great King, so Anna Maens worshipped nature. Bria Hungrians sacrificed their best cows, goats, and birds every week and held a beloved sacred scroll in the nation's capitol building just south of Elliott Way detailing stories of young men and women who won grandiose victories in wars because of the Great King. The Lightning Islands did not believe in a Great King, but rather worshiped hundreds of gods that represented arts, sports, nature, harvest, bodies, spirits, and minds. Balalaika was a hodgepodge of all variations of worship. The Relij Fest was a way for everyone to come together to worship in their own way, practice their own forms of worship, and celebrate the Great King or their gods in a unified front. 

There was a definite color scheme: Women wore gold, men wore blue. Both colors were neutral in every religion. Garlands of glittering gold-and-blue lanterns were strung up from shop to shop, at least five different bakers on the street Lilly and Mathilde walked were squeezing golden cream into pale blue puff-pastries and dusting loaves of honey-bread with blue dust. At least three human-sized fairies touched Lilly on the wrist and told her they knew a goblin who could give her a face-lift before the party tonight. 

"Have you talked to your friends about what happened?" Mathilde asked when they reached the double glass doors of the bank, which were bordered with a fresh coat of dark blue paint. 

"No." Max had tried to bring it up with her once. She'd shot him down. After that, none of the others opened their mouths about the war of elevens. Lilly thought her desperation to avoid anything having to do with the war of elevens had to do with her need for distance over the whole thing. 

"Maybe you should. It may give you closure." 

"I can't." She didn't want to talk about what had happened between she and Storm, she didn't want to talk about where Max got all the welts and bruises on his face from even though she already knew, she didn't want to know what Kaitlynn, Zander, and Wyx had endured to seal the magical dimension. Everywhere she went, people talked about it. She didn't want it to be a topic between her friends. 

The whole thing still frightened her. 

Mathilde waved to a long-eared noseless bank clerk once they were inside before leading Lilly to a granite stairwell. Everything in this bank looked like Care Bears had painted it: pastel blues and pinks and greens glossed the high walls and ribbed ceilings, and dark thin yellow and red lines veined complicated designs through the walls, the counters, the vaults, the tables, and the floors. They started up a flight of steps, and Mathilde said, "Maybe your friends will get closure by talking about it." 

Lilly replied quietly, "Good point." 

Now they were on the second floor and Lilly felt as if her guts were tangling together in a horribly rigid knot. Mathilde pointed to a door closest to Lilly's left and said, "You've got this. And when you're done, if they let you go free and decide not to kill you, I'll do your hair for the Relij Feest tonight. I'm thinking crystals and blue highlights in those locks?" 

"Maybe," Lilly breathed.  

"Good luck, dear. I'll be waiting. Where's Melissa?" 

"She had a thing. I'm supposed to meet her after. At Desidonna's house. If they don't choose to arrest me right here." 

"You and your friends helped save the world. They can't arrest you for that, dear. If they do, I'd dye my hair puke green."

Lilly blew a long breath out of pursed lips and pushed open the door with sweaty hands. There was a long table running the length of the room that was crafted from glittering obsidian. Pearlescent chairs juxtaposed the table, and seated in these chairs were the Board Members, a Bloom Official, and Stem Sankta. 

Amaranth, who sat on the opposite end of the table, stood when Lilly entered the room.

You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.  

As Lilly opened her mouth to ask if she should take a seat, Amaranth stepped to the side of the table, knelt down, and pressed her forehead to the floor. 

Lilly brought her hands to her chest and held her breath, not exactly sure what to do or how to respond. She had not seen any of the Board Members or Stem Sankta since the war of elevens, and her fate was still up in the air. Blood rushed to her cheeks and forehead.

"I—" she started, but then Sankem and Centurie both stood, stepped out to the side of the table, and mirrored Amaranth on either side of her.  

Lilly's heartbeat thundered in her temples. Why were the Board Members of Elliott Way bowing to her? 

Lilly tried to speak but couldn't get the words out. 

Finally, Stem Sankta and the Bloom Official stood up. Sankta was closest to Lilly, sitting at the head of the table, and as she turned around to face Lilly, she said simply, "You fought and helped save the world, along with your friends. I owe you an apology. Just do me a favor and don't sass your elders, okay?" 

Lilly nodded, gulping. 

Sankta kneeled and bowed her head.  

Tears sprang into Lilly's eyes and did not stop falling until right before the Relij Fest. 

***

It was right before the Relij Fest, and Desidonna's lawn was filled with people: 

There was Melissa, who sat crisscross right in front of the row of flowers and crystals Lilly, Max, Kaitlynn, Zander, Jake, and Wyx had gathered just an hour before. Her back was perfectly straight, as if her spine was a steel rod that was impossible to bend, and her hair was braided back and away from her face; Wyx told Lilly that was an Arabilst-Arian custom to show respect for a lost loved one. 

There were Kaitlynn, Zander, and Wyx, who helped Desidonna pass out chocolate-honey biscuits to Zander's father and Kaitlynn's grandparents, all of them silent out of respect for Nathan. There was Max, who sulked and brooded in the far corner of the yard, diagonally from Melissa. Finally, there were Lilly and Jake, who stood back and watched the rays of sunlight deepen from pale yellow to orange on Desidonna's porch. They leaned against the railing, side by side. 

"I don't know how I'm going to live without him," Jake said flatly. 

Lilly rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. "You had a fantastic dad." 

"Maybe not so fantastic. He did some crappy things to your cousin." 

"We all do crappy things to people. She probably did something crappy back to him." 

"Yeah. He was in love with her and she ignored him all these years." 

Lilly took her head off of Jake's shoulder and tucked her chin into her chest, gazing at the artificial fireflies glowing blue and gold for the Relij Fest. "I won't ever forget what your dad did for Melissa, Jake. What he did for me." 

Now he leaned his head into her shoulder—the one that hadn't been blasted by a lightning bolt—and began to cry. Lilly turned to embrace him, and he dug his head deeper into her shoulder, shaking with sobs. Through his tears, he gasped, "I'm getting snot all over your shirt." 

"I don't care," Lilly said with a small laugh, hugging him tighter. "I'm sorry for pouring ice water on you." 

Jake sniffed and laughed, too. Pulling away, he said, "To be fair, I just told you I stalked you for a project. Before I go to live with Mom, I need to give you your journal back." 

"I still owe you a favor." Lilly flicked some of the snot off her shoulder. 

"You and your friends saved this world. We'll call it even." 

"Do me a favor and burn the journal. I don't need it." Lilly wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close, and as she turned to look back out over the yard, she saw Melissa get up and stride towards Max. Lilly was smiling before Melissa ever reached Max: when Max learned that he didn't have to go back home, that he could live with Lilly and Melissa in Earthens, that he would be safe, he reached up to hug Melissa's neck. His eyes met Lilly's across the lawn. Through his ear-to-ear grin, he mouthed, Thanks, lobster-smelling abomination. 

No problem, wasp, she mouthed back. 

Later that night, when the festival had reached its pinnacle, Lilly sat on top of a roof, alone, trying to catch her breath.

The lanterns were lit, the stars reflected them, and every street Lilly had walked a half-hour before smelled either sweet like spun sugar or savory like salted meats and grilled vegetables. Lilly needed some time to herself because adults, Elliott Way soldiers, and Fae stopped her through her and Melissa's procession of the streets to ask her to recount what happened with Storm. What did he look like? they asked. Did he have an accent? Were you scared out of your wits? Did you really steal explosive butterflies off of another planet? Why didn't they blow you up? Lilly answered the questions as quietly and abruptly as she could. Each response sent jolts of anxiety through her chest. 

She sat right next to the railing of an empty rooftop restaurant. Melissa said she would wait downstairs. Lilly wrapped her arms around herself and breathed in the sweet-savory armada of fragrances wafting up from the streets below as she watched the Shezekians dance in their colorful robes on the sides of the streets, the Anna Maens sing songs to the stars and the wind, and all the other Shifters celebrate their religion in their own unique ways. 

"Hi," said a soft voice from behind her. 

Lilly nearly jumped out of her skin. She twisted in her seat to see Zander in the doorway leading up to the restaurant. It's just him. He lifted his shoulders around his ears and folded his hands together over his stomach, clearly embarrassed that Lilly had jumped. 

"I-I can leave," he said quickly. "Your cousin said you were up here and I just...well, my dad can't walk well, you see, so he's downstairs and, well, uh, you know—" 

Lilly grinned and waved him over. "You just said well three times in the same sentence." 

"Well." He smiled back and crossed the blue-gold bands of light falling in diagonal beams across the restaurant's surface. He was dressed in a white tunic and a dark blue blazer, which he had unbuttoned and rolled up the sleeves. His matching blue pants had a line of silver buttons going up the side of one leg. 

When he sat down, he said, "Kaitlynn told me Max is gonna live with you for a while."

"Max's dad hits him. Bad. I don't understand how anyone could do that." Lilly tried and failed to imagine Melissa getting furious enough to hit her. Sure, Melissa got angry with her, but she'd never hurt Lilly. Not enough to leave a mark or a welt. 

Neither of them knew what to say next, so silence reigned between them and a solemn Balalaikan flute solo played down below. 

Finally, Lilly said, "Thanks for not talking about the meeting with the Board Members and Stem Sankta today before I left." 

"You're welcome." Zander fiddled with the buttons of his blazer. "When Stem Sankta announced to the Privates that they were letting you off because of how you battled Storm, we all started crying. Kaitlynn was weeping. Wyx was blubbering. I swear I saw Max crying." 

"Really?" Lilly let loose a small laugh and pulled the sheer golden sleeves of her dress over her knuckles. 

More silence. She loved silence. Silence was easy, silence was awkward yet perfectly sweet because silence did not demand anything. She suddenly became very aware of the heat behind her eyes, and the tears in her eyes, and her sweaty hands, and her ragged breathing. 

From her left, she heard Zander inhale sharply and ask, "What can I do?" 

"I—" Her voice hitched. She cut herself off, turned to face her friend, and started again. "I just feel so anxious all the time. The Bloom let me off and I thought that would make it better, but—but it doesn't. I feel like he's going to come back and kill me and everyone I care about. I can't fight him again." 

This fear had been building for two whole weeks. 

It's just Zander, she thought. She could break in front of him. 

She shattered. It was the full-on shatter of holding all the millions of glass shards in place and then dropping your hands so that all the shards scattered across the floor. The sobs rocketed out of her, shook her chest, sent sharp pangs up her scarred arm. She bent her head into Zander's chest and gripped his shirt; she felt his chin just behind her shoulder. 

"How do you get over it?" she gasped, squeezing her eyes shut to avoid the dizziness that came with sobbing and gulping in large breaths of air in a short period of time. "How do you stop the anxiety?" 

"I'm sorry, Lilly...I'm so sorry," Zander said gently. "I don't know if I've stopped it. But I did find ways to manage it over the summer." 

She pulled out of their embrace and scrubbed a hand across her face. "Like how?" 

He lifted his shoulders around his ears again, lips stretching into a toothless smile. "I think about my friends. And I think about hanging out with my friends and how cool they are, even Max. But my favorite thing to do is dance." 

With this, he stood up and held out his hand, and whenever Zander was confident in something it stood out like a firework against a night sky because oh wow, when he was confident, it was a bright, magnificent thing. When he was confident, there was a fire in him that would not dare to be quenched if something threatened it. Lilly remembered the time in her dorm room when he admitted he'd seen her steal from space and used the word nefarious, and Kaitlynn had briefly mentioned a similar experience during the war when Zander learned how to seal the magical dimension. 

Lilly's belly filled with butterflies. 

She said, "I don't know how to dance." 

"That's what's going to make this so funny." 

Lilly scoffed, turning her ears to the music spinning up from the street. It was an upbeat song, and Lilly sniffled, not able to think of anything remotely witty to say. She thought, I'm about to make a fool of myself and this should be very interesting indeed. Then she took his hand. 

Zander respectfully matched her in her poor dancing; she did something she could only best describe as 'wiggling', which made Zander throw his head back in laughter, and holy crap, his confidence was a beautiful and ethereal thing that gave Lilly's butterflies butterflies in their bellies. Zander spun around and 'wiggled' with her. She did the robot and couldn't contain her laughter; he took her by the hand and twirled her around like the pro dancer he was. It was a lot of fun, and for the first time in the past two weeks, Lilly felt a very profound sense of joy up here on this roof with him. 

When the song ended, they both collapsed into a fit of giggles. 

"I'm never doing that again," Lilly panted. 

"It got you to stop crying, didn't it?" Zander replied. "You're resplendently bad at dancing." 

"I hope resplendent is a good thing." 

"It's a delectable thing." 

Lilly punched his shoulder. "Show off!" 

"Just because you can't use big words—" 

"I can't?  You're resplendently delectably diggity-darnedaggity wrong!"

Zander doubled over in laughter, and Lilly put her hands on her hips. She couldn't keep her false-bravado, however, and ended up laughing with him. They only stopped when, a moment later, the doors leading out to the rooftop restaurant opened and Melissa rushed through, followed by a short, stooping red-haired man that Lilly figured was Zander's father. 

"Look," was all Melissa said, and she pointed. 

Lilly and Zander turned and peered toward the direction Melissa had pointed. 

Silver light blazed on the horizon where Elliott Way used to be. 

The light shot upward like a geyser, a beacon that would be impossible not to see for miles. The light spread out in every direction and formed the shape of spires, towers, rises, gables, a palace blazing against the backdrop of a star-smeared sky. 

Lilly, Zander, Melissa, and Zander's father rushed to the edge of the roof, placed their hands over the railing, and watched as the silver light that outlined the shape of a castle rushed up again and swirled into a hundred shimmering colors: sangria, amaranth, aquamarine, tangerine, emerald, indigo, violet...the colors speared the sky like swords of gods and formed a palace. Another Elliott Way.

It was resplendent.