Adrian jerked awake, heart pounding.
The dream faded slowly, leaving behind a hollow ache. He blinked, disoriented, trying to remember where he was.
Sunlight streamed through unfamiliar windows. Bookshelves lined unfamiliar walls. And in the bed across from him—
Margotte.
No, not Margotte Chen anymore. Margotte Ashford. With her wild red curls spread across her pillow, orange eyes closed in sleep, face peaceful in a way Margaret's never had been.
For a moment, the two faces overlapped. Past and present. Brown eyes and orange. Exhausted pallor and healthy color. The woman who never smiled at him and the girl who, just last week, had laughed so hard at his terrible joke that she'd snorted.
She smiles now, Adrian thought, still caught between dream and waking. She smiles at me now.