CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE

My eyes fall shut easily, after such a long day. But I don’t sleep very deeply. Instead, I get caught up in a long, complex dream.

In the dream, I’m back in the celestial realm, standing in the same dungeon cage that Coello used to keep me in. Sterling is there, too, walking up to me with those piercing gray eyes and that familiar smile.

“Hello,” he says. He leans in to kiss me, and I think that the bars will prevent him from being able to, but he just passes right through. I feel his hands on my face, his lips on mine, and he kisses me for a long time.

When I open my eyes after the kiss, I’m no longer in the cage. Now, Sterling and I are standing on top of the massive tower where we found him, high up above the rest of the celestial realm. But when I look out, I don’t see the rolling, starlit darkness of the celestial realm. I see the golden yellow plains of Montana, the valley that stretches out around Serpent’s Creek.

“Where are we?” I ask, feeling strangely dizzy.