They met in the way that only the most unlikely things happen — by standing still in the same moment. It was February, and the forecast had promised nothing. But at eleven past midnight the sky above the ridge split open in green and violet, and every person in the field tilted their face upward at once. Isolde and Caspian tilted toward each other instead.

He asked her what she was thinking. She said she was thinking about whether light remembers where it came from. He said he had been wondering exactly the same thing for six years. They talked through the aurora and into the dawn and did not notice either ending.