I woke in the same breath I had died in. The balcony air was salt and cigarette smoke, the harbor below a sheet of indifferent steel. A bridesmaid's dress—Mariah's idea of drama, pale pink and too tight—rippled in the wind. Her Pulse feed would already be lighting up: "Heiress-to-be walks out," the kind of headline that paid PR firms and cut into small teachers' salaries on the other side of Ashford Bay. I smelled the lemon cleaner still on the sliding door frame, the coffee Josiah kept by his half of the bed. I had been here before. I knew every syllable that would drop next like stones. Except this time, I remembered everything before the stones hit. "Don't," Josiah said, voice strangled. He was behind me, fingers white around the balcony rail. He always moved like one of the steady machines he fixed—slow, adult, a man trained to believe that screws and bolts made the world right. His eyes were nothing but worry. "Mariah, please." Mariah laughed. It was a thin, sharp sound. "Please what? Take me back to your 'simple' life? To the world you think—" She spread her arms, palms up as if presenting a tableau. "The world that never noticed us until she did. The world that kept me small while she pretended to love me." "You don't mean that," I said. My voice sounded older, practiced. I stepped forward. The balcony was barely wide enough for