The next morning when I woke up, I had the dress tucked away. I felt bad for Connor, seeing as how his clothes from that night would have disappeared at midnight. I got to keep mine.

That night brought back a lot of memories I had long since buried. Mostly of my mother, of Beau. I didn't try to get rid of them, not completely, but I did try not to dwell on it. At least not on my mother.

My mother was a gypsy woman who lived in the woods. A woman who put all of her faith in magic, and as a result, let me and Beau suffer in her carelessness. Beau practically raised me, as loving and caring as he could, until I was 12, and he enlisted in the king's army in order to support me better. He sent me letters as often as he could, until my 14th birthday, while I was waiting for his letter, I got a different one instead. A notice of his death, how he died honorably protecting the prince. It also came with compensation money. I ran off with it before my mother could get her hands on it. Ran to Mr. Jones, Beau's former employer, and the closest thing with had to a grandfather, and he took me in. Raised me, trained me in the shop for 3 years, and then my mother died.

And I was free.

Free from my mother's shadow looming over my thoughts, the fear of her someday coming to reclaim me lingering in my head. Mr. Jones let me stay in the room above the shop, and I worked to pay the rent, but he didn't really mind. The money was just so that he could support two people, now that I was living with him. Things were going just fine, and then I met Julia and Clara.

Clara... now that I think about it, I met her first. In fact, we'd been friends since we were 10. Even before my hands were as they are, she was always holding my hand, always sitting beside me, helping me when I was sick... Clara was my first real friend. Why was I just now noticing how close we were in childhood? Thinking of her, I swear I could almost feel her hand on mine, her cold silver ring brushing against my hand.

"Are you thinking of me?"

I turned around to see Clara standing behind me, in the doorway. "I could swear that I felt your hand on mine."

I looked down at own hand. "I didn't touch you."

"I know that. But the same thing happened with Julia. I was thinking of her, and she thought she felt a hand on hers. We only realized it was mine when she recognized the feeling of my ring." she held up her hand, showing me her silver ring around her ring finger.

"Well, I guess anyone would recognize the feeling of my hands," I said, standing up. "What's going on?"

"Right to business, Elise? That's not like you." Clara said. She passed me and sat down on the bed.

I chuckled softly, a fake one to fill the silence. "I suppose so." I sat beside her. I noticed then that my chest, the one holding my dress from the ball wasn't latched. I stood up to fix it.

"You looked beautiful in that dress, by the way." Clara said.

"Of course you'd say that, you made it." I said, closing the latches.

"Yes, but it looked even more beautiful on you."

I stood up and turned back to her. Clara wouldn't meet my eyes. She seemed paler. "Are you sick? You're pale as a ghost."

"Actually, I think it's a side effect of our magic," she said. "Julia said that it might be because of the ritual. I absorbed a shard of heaven to get these powers. I looked it up in a book, and it says that as the shard bonds with my body, my skin should... turn white."

I looked down at my hands. "We're marshmallows." I said.

"What?"

"I ate a few at the ball. They're these fluffy, light little sweets. They're white," I held her hand to show what I was talking about. "but a few of them were cooked until burned, and they turned black." I held up my hand to show the comparison.

"Sounds disgusting."

"Actually, the burned ones were really good. I ate one, and the black outside came right off in my mouth, revealing this gooey, sweet center." I explained. I tried to imagine the sweet taste on my lips again.

"Sounds a bit like you, Elise." Clara said. She took my hand, the one already holding hers, and allowed our fingers to interlock. "Burned on the outside... but sweet within."

I let go of her hand. "Sounds more like you, Clara."

"I'm not burned though. And I'm not as sweet as I seem," she said.

I rolled my eyes. "Please. I've never met anyone as sweet as you." I sat back down beside her and nudged her shoulder with mine. She smiled in response. "Why do you think that we decided to give you the power of Estrella?"

"True, but why do you think I accepted them?"

"Because it's perfect for you."

"Not quite," she said. "I accepted Estrella's powers because I knew that it was the least corruptible. I may be 'sweet,' but I'm not a perfect angel. I knew that if I had Unus or Chao's powers, I'd become corrupted in no time flat. That's why Julia and I thought that you should have Chao's powers, too."

She looked at my hand and then held it in her own, her smooth, near-white thumb brushing against my scars gently.

"Why me?"

"Because you are the least corruptible out of all three of us. We knew that you could handle powers as dark as these," she moved closer to me on the bed, now picking up my other hand and holding them both in her own, right in between us. "Those scars are not a mark of your hubris, Elise. They're a mark of your strength. The faith we have in you. The faith I have in you."

I felt a warm, fuzzy feeling in my chest. Encouraging words from Clara, the best medicine after a hard night. But after remembering that night, it faded just as quickly. "Clara, why are you bringing this up?" I asked, not letting go of her hands.

She sighed. "I just thought that... after last night, and what happened with your hand, you may need some encouragement." She looked back at me. She stared for an awkwardly long amount of time, looking directly into my eyes.

"Clara, what's going on?" I asked.

"Does the prince really care about you?" She asked me.

I was shocked. I dropped her hands, standing back up. "Of course he does! He loves me!"

"I know he said that, but what if he's lying?" Clara asked. She stood up too. "I just don't want to see you get hurt."

"Why would you even say something like that?" I asked.

"I- it's just... all he ever talks about is Beau. That's all anyone talks about. You're so much more than your brother, Elise, and everyone at the castle can't see past him. They can't see you," she said.

"And you can?"

"I can. I always have. I'm just tired of watching a dead man get all the attention, when you're standing right here, falling in love with someone who only gave you a chance because you're related to Beau. You're more than your brother, Elise. You're your own person." Clara reached out again, but this time, I moved away.

"You're wrong. You're acting like I should be jealous of Beau. Like I should be angry that Joseph remembers him fondly, as well. In case you didn't know, I loved Beau. He was my best friend, my protector. He was the only one I had to raise me, and before I met you, he was my only friend. Beau had love in his heart and fire in his spirit, and that spread to many more people. There is nothing wrong with two people mourning over someone that they both cared about." I turned away from her, only to feel Clara's hand on my cheek, turning me back around.

"And I care about you, Elise," she said.

"Wait, Clara, what are you saying? What is it that you're trying to tell me?" As if she realized something, Clara's eyes suddenly went wide, and she dropped her hand away from my face, backing away on her own.

"I'm just trying to tell you how important you are to me," she said. She couldn't even look me in the eye.

I sighed and took her hands back. "You're important to me too, Clara. But that doesn't mean I can't have someone else in my life. You're my best friend. Joseph is different. He's the person I love, yes, but he'll never replace my best friend."

"He already has."

"What?"

Clara reached up to my cheek, holding it herself, "You're important to me. I care about you."

"I don't understand."

Clara sighed and let go.

"Never mind. Just.... Don't let him change you, okay? You hear me, Elise? Don't let him change who you are."

"I don't plan on it." I said. Then suddenly, a thought hit me like a falling brick. "Why are you acting so... final? Like we'll never see each other again?"

"Oh!" She chuckled sadly. "In all this talk I nearly forgot to tell you. Julia and I have been speaking and.... We decided to leave town to make a name for ourselves. Spread magic to places farther than Proditone."

"What about me?" I asked.

"We were going to ask you to go with us, but with the prince... we thought you'd want to stay."

"You were right," I said. "but where will you two go?"

"Julia said that she was heading off to Pike. And I decided to make my way to the Kingdom of Crystalin," she said. "from there, stories of our magic will spread, maybe lead to other witches or warlocks gaining magic."

That actually sounded good to me, but I knew I had to stay. "I do have to stay, though. Prince Joseph is here. I love him."

"I know. You've made that quite clear. I came to say goodbye." Clara said.

I sat back down on the bed, scrunching up the sheets under my hands. I looked back up at her. "I don't want you to leave," I said. "I know that I have Joseph, but I don't want my friends to leave."

Clara sat down next to me. "Keep us in your heart, and we'll never leave you."

"Will we ever see each other again?"

"Maybe someday," she said with a sad smile and a shrug. "but we'll never leave you, Elise. Even if you do have to stay."

At that moment, I felt my eyes welling up with tears. I did my best not to blink, knowing it would cause the tears to fall, but one must have escaped me, because Clara noticed, and brushed it off my cheek. She held her arms open and I, totally giving up on my composure, started bawling as I threw myself at her, holding her like she was my last lifeline on death row. She wrapped me tightly in her cool, comforting embrace. I felt her stroking my hair as my tears dampened her clean white shirt.

"We'll be okay, Elise," I heard tears in her voice, too, despite not seeing her face. "we're counting on you to keep magic here in Proditione." she separated my head from her shoulder, so that we could see eye to eye, and I could now see that she was crying. Not as hysterically as me, but she was still crying. "We'll always be there for you."

I wiped the tears away and forced a brave smile. "We'll always be best friends, right?"

Clara paused, then smiled softly. At ease, almost. "Yes. Best friends," then she added, almost sadly. "that's all we'll ever be."

We spent the rest of the day reminiscing about old times, and later, Julia joined us. When night fell, we all stood at the edge of the forest, and we all wished each other a tearful goodbye. I hugged Julia and wished her luck, same with Clara, before I watched them both walk off into the woods.

I promised myself that I wouldn't look away until I saw them disappear into the darkness. But before they did, Clara stopped. Julia stopped along with her. Clara suddenly turned on her heel and ran back to me, wrapping me in her tight embrace. I hugged her back, reluctant to let go this time, when I heard her whisper something that part of me expected, but I could have never seen coming.

"I love you." she said. Her teeth were clenched and she was on the verge of tears. Despite a part of me knowing what she meant by that, I still thought it was something different, something platonic that we had shared since children.

"I love you too, Clara. You'll always be my best friend," we squeezed each other tightly, before letting go again.

She wiped her tears and then nodded strongly. "Alright. Goodbye, Elise. Good luck with Joseph."

"And good luck with your travels." I said. With one final, sad smile, I watched Julia and Clara, my best friends, disappear into the woods.

I could still feel her holding my hand.