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Other tables in the casino were overcrowded, but the redhead and her diminutive husband were the only two people at Vera's Still, she put on a good show for the the cards out with an easy dexterity that ant side of Vera that she hadn't noticed before A air for the draht next to Luce "Are we gonnaor "

Shelby's hands were suddenly on Luce's shoulders, practically wedging her into one of the eh she was dying to stare, Luce avoided eye contact at rst She was nervous that Vera nize her before she even had a chance But Vera's eyes passed over each of them with only the mildest of interest, and Luce remembered how di erent she looked now that she'd bleached her hair She tugged at it nervously, not sure what to do next

Then Miles plunked down a twenty-dollar bill in front of Luce, and she re She slid the money across the table

Vera raised a penciled-in eyebrow "Got ID?"

Luce shook her head "Maybe we could just watch?"

Across the table, the redhead was nodding o , her head falling onto Shelby's sti shoulder Vera rolled her eyes at the whole scene and pushed Luce'sCirque du Soleil "Circus is that way, kids"

Luce sighed They were going to have to wait until Vera got o work And by then she'd probably be even less interested in talking to the defeated, Luce reached out to take Miles'saway just as Luce's swept over the ertips kissed Both of them snapped up their heads The weird shock brie y blinded Luce She sucked in her breath She looked deep into Vera's wide hazel eyes

And she saw everything:

A two-story cabin in a snowy Canadian town Webs of ice on the ind soughing at the panes A ten-year-old girl watching TV in the living roo a baby on her lap It was Vera, pale and pretty in acid-washed jeans and Doc Martens, a thick navy turtleneck rising to her chin, a cheap wool blanket bunched up between her and the back of the couch A bowl of popcorn on the co ee table, reduced to a handful of cold, unpopped kernels A fat orange cat prowling theat the radiator And Luce--Luce was her sister, the baby sister in her ar in her seat at the casino, aching to remember all of this Just as quickly, the impression faded, replaced by another

Luce as a toddler chasing Vera, up the stairs, down the stairs, the ide steps beneath her thuhter, when the doorbell sounded and a fair, slick-haired boy arrived to pick Vera up for a date, and she stopped and straightened her clothes and turned her back, turned away

A heartbeat later and Luce was a teenager herself, with a th black hair Sprawled on Vera's deni through Vera's secret diary He loves ain, her handwriting getting loopier and loopier And then the pages pulled away, her sister's angry face loo, the tracks of her tears clear

And then again, a di erent scene, Luce older still,

Snow pouring from the sky like soft white static Vera and a few friends ice-skating on the frozen pond behind their house, gliding in swift circles, happy and laughing, and at the frayed icy edge of the pond, Luce crouched down, the cold seeping through her thin clothes while she laced up her skates, in a hurry, as usual, to catch up with her sister And beside her, a warmth she didn't have to look at to identify, Daniel, as silent, htly laced She could feel the urge to kiss hi about it were star-dotted and glittering, endlessly clear and full of possibility

Luce searched for the shadows, then realized that their absence made sense These were Vera'sharder to see Still, Daniel must know, as he had knohen he dove into that lake He le time Did he ever care what became of people like Vera after Luce was killed?

There ca sound fro out of a parachute And then: A blooe colue of the pond Where Luce had been The other skaters e ae of the pond Where Luce had been The other skaters rushed senselessly toward it, barreling across the pond But the ice was ing through to the frigid water underneath Vera's screaony all that Luce could see

In the casino, Vera yanked her hand back, shaking it as if she'd been burned Her lips quivered a few times before they formed the words: "It's you" She shook her head "But it can't be"

"Vera," Luce whispered, reaching her hand out again to her sister She wanted to hold her, to take all the pain Vera had ever been caused and transfer it to herself

"No" Vera shook her head, backing away and wagging a nger at Luce "No, no, no" She backed into the dealer at the table behind her, tripping over hi o the table The colored disks slid across the oor, causing a ripple of oohs and aahs froamblers who leaped from their seats to scoop them up

"Dammit, Vera!" a squat man bellowed over the din As he waddled to their table in a cheap gray polyester suit and scu ed black shoes, Luce shared a worried glance with Miles and Shelby Three underage kids wanted nothing to do with the pit boss But he was still chewing Vera out, his lip curled up in disgust "How ain but kept staring, terri ed, at Luce, as if Luce were the devil instead of her sister a lifetime removed Vera's kohl- lined eyes hite with terror as she stammered, "She c-c-can't be here"

"Christ," the pit bossinto a walkie-talkie "Get me security Got a coupla hoodlum kids"

Luce shrank back between Miles and Shelby, who said through gritted teeth, "How about one of those step-throughs, Miles?"

Before Miles could reply, three men with enormous wrists and necks appeared and towered over them The pit boss waved his hands "Take them to the pen See what other kind of trouble they've been in"

"I've got a better idea," a girl's voice growled frouards

All heads whipped around to nd the voice, but only Luce's face lit up "Arriane!"