I twisted my hands up and then down, watching the light spread past my elbows and up to my shoulders. I kicked one leg into my line of vision and saw the glow there as well. Soon I could see my entire body radiating the glow.

I’d become a luminous beacon in the dark river.

And then, like a miracle, Joshua was there, treading water beside me. For the briefest of moments, he stared at me. His eyes, wider than I’d ever seen them, sparkled with the reflection of red and orange. He gestured back and forth, between his eyes and my glow; apparently, he’d seen the glow from above the water and swam down toward us. Now his expression was one of awe and, possibly, a little fear.

The moment passed with a quick shake of Joshua’s head. Neither of us needed a reminder of why we were in this river again. The light on my skin could wait.

Joshua wrapped one arm around his sister’s waist. Grabbing my hand, he began to tug us both toward the surface. I squeezed his hand before casting it away from me; without me they could rise faster. I followed them up, pushing Jillian whenever I could though I knew my efforts accomplished nothing.

It felt like hours had passed—though it may have only been seconds—when Joshua lifted Jillian above the water. Only after she reached the air did Joshua himself rise, coughing and gasping. He pulled his sister to him as he paddled to stay afloat. Unfortunately for Joshua, she was as close to deadweight as a living girl could get. Her head flopped lifelessly against her brother’s shoulder; and, almost as lifelessly, her heart thudded slower with each passing second.

“Joshua,” I shouted over the rush of the water. “I can hear her heart.”

“Good,” he yelled.

“Not good, Joshua. If I can hear it, that’s not good at all.”

“Why?”

“I heard your heart, just before it stopped. That’s how I knew you were dying.”

Joshua didn’t answer me, but he began swimming more furiously toward the shore.

I impotently watched him struggle, both to drag his sister toward land and to keep her head above water. All the while I listened to Jillian’s faltering heartbeats as they grew louder.

I could still hear them when our feet touched the river bottom and we stood upright to run upon the shore; they beat so loudly I hardly noticed the shouts from the people on the bridge as they began to flee the scene of their disastrous party.

Although he couldn’t hear his sister’s heart, Joshua also ignored the cries from the bridge. He laid Jillian upon the shore and then dropped to the ground beside her. I bent next to him in the mud, still tracking those loud beats with a dull terror.

I only stopped tracking them when Jillian’s eyelids fluttered open.

Joy swelled inside me in response to this small sign of life. I turned to Joshua to celebrate, but the sound of Jillian’s weak voice stopped me short.

“Who are you?” she whispered. I looked down at her, and, unbelievably, she looked back at me. Her hazel eyes stared directly into mine.

My mouth gaped open. I looked back at Joshua, but he didn’t seem to have heard Jillian. He checked her pulse and then leaned over to listen for breath, thoughtlessly stroking the fan of her hair on the mud. When he did so, Jillian’s eyes fluttered closed, and her heart started to stutter more unevenly.

My head began to spin. If she saw me . . . if she can see me now . . .

“Joshua,” I cried, “you have to do something fast. I don’t think she’s doing too well.”

“Oh, God,” Joshua moaned. He looked up to the road, which was still empty of any emergency vehicles. Then he bent back over Jillian’s motionless body.

“I used to know some CPR, if I could just remember it.” He tilted her head back and began to murmur. “Is it, breathe then push or push then breathe? Which is first? Which is first?”

Watching Joshua press his hands to Jillian’s sternum—obviously, without a clue how to save her—I felt a hard, painful clench in my own chest. I ignored it, and decided to do the only thing I could think to do. I pushed my hands into the mud and leaned in close to Jillian’s ear.

“Jillian,” I whispered, “I know you don’t know who I am. But I love your brother, and I know you do too. So . . . do you think you could wake up? Do you think you could at least try?”

For far too long she gave me no response. I’d just about given up—hung my head and prepared myself for the inevitable, impossible job of comforting Joshua—when Jillian whispered back.

“I guess. Since you asked so nicely.”

In spite of everything, a quiet laugh escaped my lips. “Thank God. Because I have a feeling you’d be a huge pain in the ass if you died.”

The faintest smile twitched upon Jillian’s lips. Then she coughed.

The effort was feeble, and it didn’t even part Jillian’s lips. But Joshua must have heard it, or at least felt the vibration of it, because he jerked away from Jillian’s body and stared down at her intently.

“Jillian?” he asked.

In response, she coughed again. This time the cough wrenched itself out of her, loud and clear across the riverbank. Her back arched from the force of it, and her hands squished into the mud beneath her. She coughed for a third time, rolled to her side, and began to choke up the river water.

“Yes!” Joshua crowed. He pressed one hand to Jillian’s back and grasped for me with the other. I clutched myself to him, entwining my fingers with his and wrapping my free arm around him. I laid my forehead against his shoulder and felt it shake from his laughter.

Our laughter came in sharp bursts that verged on hysterical. I can’t imagine what Jillian must have thought of the noises coming from her brother, if she could even think clearly. The poor, bedraggled girl continued to cough, although—miraculously—I could no longer hear her heartbeat.

I tilted my head as far back as it would go. “Thank you,” I mouthed to the night sky. “Thank you so—”

The sound of another voice, high above me, cut off my prayer.

“You see, Amelia? She’s safe, like I said she would be. We can finish our trade now—your life for hers.”

My head snapped around to the sound. I could see Eli, standing on the now-empty bridge, calling out to me. Claiming me.

Though the riverbank lay too far below the bridge for me to see Eli’s face clearly, I knew it well enough to identify his expression. I didn’t need binoculars to see the confidence in his wretched smile.

However much Eli had doubted himself earlier, he obviously didn’t now. In fact, he looked more self-righteous than ever. As if Jillian had survived, merely through his own will and generosity. As if Eli’s own hand had played no part in her near-death. As if he hadn’t taken a massive crowd of innocent people hostage in his play to capture me.

For some reason I couldn’t take my eyes off Eli’s smug face. The sheer loathsomeness of it held me in thrall. I released my arms from around Joshua’s neck and slowly rose to my feet.

I was vaguely aware that the strange glow within my skin had dimmed, sometime between finding Jillian in the water and watching her come back to life upon the shore.

Yet as I stood to focus upon Eli, the radiant light burst forth again. It seemed to erupt from my skin, blooming in violent reds and oranges and yellows. I’d never seen colors this fierce, or lovely. Maybe their light had been dulled or obscured by the water. Or maybe I’d never felt this angry before . . . this protective.

Whichever the case, my body now illuminated the entire riverbank.

“Amelia?”

Joshua spoke from behind me. Obviously, he could see the glow again, because his voice broke in a fearful tremble upon my name.

I wanted to turn to him, to tell him Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m sure burning like a human torch is normal for dead people. But before I could do so, Eli spoke to Joshua first.