throat, and, for a moment, it feels as if my jaw will melt off my face before

it firms up again in a different, more delicate shape than it had before. My

shoulders and arms grow looser and lighter. My fingers splay wide, the

muscles of my hands rippling uncomfortably before relaxing into their new

shape, a rounder shape, without any dangers hidden beneath the skin.

I stare at my new hands, surprised, but not missing my claws. They

are a part of the past. This is the future. My future. Isra’s future.

She’s going to live. I know it even before the fire fades away, leaving

us alone in the cool, bluing light of early evening. Even before Isra opens

her eyes and looks up at me and smiles a smile more beautiful than the one

she had before. She’s even more breathtaking now. Not Smooth Skin, not

Monstrous, but something in between, a strong, stunning, living, breathing

beauty with scales all the colors of fire, and eyes as green as they ever

were.

“I love you,” I say, needing it to be the first thing she hears.

“I love you, too.” Her smile grows impossibly wider as she reaches for

me.

“I don’t know what I would have done without you.” Tears rise in my

eyes again as I pull her into my arms and hold her tightly. But they’re

different tears. Grateful tears I don’t try to hide as I hug her even closer,

burying my face in the soft curve of her neck, smelling her Isra smell,

reveling in the way her wild hair tickles my cheek.

“Are you …” She pulls away, her new hands cupping my face. Their

shape is different, but the way her touch makes me feel is exactly the

same—alive and hopeful and happier than I could ever be without her.

“You’re … different. And tears …” Her lips part as she brushes a tear

from my cheek with her thumb. “How?”

“The magic of the planet. The desert is alive again, and I’ve changed.

We’ve changed,” I add in a careful voice, uncertain how Isra will take her

transformation.

She only recently became accustomed to seeing her old self. How will

she adjust to this body? Will she be able to see the beauty that I see? Or

will she be troubled by her scales and new size and feet no longer white

and thin but wide and light brown with orange and yellow scales freckling

their tops?

“I can feel it.” Isra lifts a hand to her face. Her fingers feather over

her forehead and down her cheeks to her throat, farther down, past the

strap of her overalls to feel her bare shoulder, gingerly exploring the scales

that will shield her skin from the harsh light of the sun, hold in heat during

the cold nights, and protect her from other natural dangers of this world.

“I’m like you.”

“No. You’re like you, with a little of me.” I watch her discover her

new legs and feet, grateful she doesn’t seem disturbed by what she sees.

“And I’m me, with a little of you,” I say, holding out my hand, letting her see

that the chambers that once sheathed my claws have vanished. “We’re

something … new.”

She points her feet and flexes them, giving her toes an experimental

wiggle. “My shoes would never fit now.”

“You hate shoes anyway,” I say, heart breaking when she looks up at

me and laughs her throaty laugh. It’s terrifying to think how close I was to

living without that laugh, that smile, all of my sweet, brave, maddening,

perfect Isra. I swallow, fighting another wave of emotion as she wraps her

arms around my neck.

“I do hate shoes,” she whispers, leaning into me until her forehead

touches mine and her heat warms my lips. “Why are you so sad, love?”

“You almost died,” I say, voice breaking. “Maybe you did die. I don’t

know. I was so scared. I was …”

“It’s okay.” She presses soft kisses to my cheekbones, the tip of my

nose, the skin between my eyes. “That’s part of what makes it real.”

“Makes what real?” I ask, breath coming faster as she kisses the

corner of my mouth, making it twitch.

“Love, of course. You’re not stupid, Gem. Don’t pretend to be,” she

says, mimicking her queen voice from our time working in the garden so

perfectly that I can’t help but smile.

“Yes, I am stupid,” I say, holding her more tightly. “I should have

come sooner.”

“You came when you could, and everything is as it should be. The

planet is whole again.” She moves closer, angling her head to fit her lips to

mine. “That’s all that matters.”

“No, it’s not.” My hands mold to her ribs, holding her away from me.

I need to tell her the truth. I need her to know everything before I can be

sure the worst is behind us. “I could have come months ago, but

I … Terrible things happened, and …” I moisten my dry lips, and force myself

to speak the miserable truth. “My son is dead. And my father. And many of

my people. I was too late. At first I hated myself for it, then I hated you, and

then I hated the planet and the ancestors and … everything and everyone.

“I started walking into the desert,” I continue, getting the words out

as quickly as I can. “I walked until I stopped feeling anything, and then

finally … something. I still loved you. Love was there, hidden beneath the

suffering. I started back to Yuan, and finally started to hope again, because I

was doing what I should have done before. I was coming back to you.”

She smiles a smaller, sadder smile that fades quickly. “I’m sorry about

your family,” she says, eyes shining. “So sorry. You were right to hate me.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were,” she says, bowing her head. “I could have done so

many things differently, better. And if I had, maybe—”

“So could I. So could most of the people on this planet and all of our

ancestors. You did the best you could.”

“Isn’t that what I just said to you?” She lifts her chin, sticking her

nose into the air in that way that drives me mad and makes me love her

even more because it is so her. So Isra. “You should listen to yourself, if you

won’t listen to me.”

“I will listen. I will always listen.”

“Me too.” Her forehead wrinkles. “I have so many things to tell you,

things I should have told you the night you left, and things that have

happened since then that—”

“Do I need to know those things right now?”

She arches a brow as my hands travel up her back, pulling her chest

tight to mine. “No.… They can wait,” she says, relaxing into me, fingers

teasing at my braid as she looks up. “Assuming you’re going to kiss me.”

“I’m going to kiss you,” I whisper, and then I do. I kiss her and taste a

world where miracles can and do happen. I kiss her, and for a moment

there is only Isra, my Isra, and she is the loveliest person in the world, no

matter what skin she wears.

“We should find Needle.” She pulls away, her breath rushing hot

against my lips. “She’ll be scared to death until she knows that we’re all

right.”

“That you’re all right.”

“We’re all right,” Isra corrects. “She likes you. Maybe more than she

likes me. She’s been frustrated with me lately.”

“You’re a very frustrating person.”

“You’re one to talk.” She smiles and kisses me on the cheek before

jumping to her feet and reaching a hand down to me. I take it and hold

tightly as I lead the way back to the gathering stones.

To our right, an imposing mound of rubble and a cloud of lingering

dust is all that remains of the city of Yuan. I wonder, for a moment, if the

sight makes Isra sad, but when I glance at her, she’s staring out at the newly

living desert, a peaceful look on her face. Where the land was once cracked