Cliffhanger much? When we leave Cassia, her parents have sent her on a work detail in a Western Province, purportedly because she was showing "signs of rebellion" (32.4). Reality check: they're helping her out by giving her a chance to find Ky. Can we talk about how awesome Cassia's parents are? How many parents would work the system so their kid could run off in search of their seventeen-year-old crush? Answer: Few to none.
To Cassia, however, this is more than a teenage crush—she's confessed the L-word. Not to Ky, whom she hasn't found yet, but to the dirt she's digging in and napkins she's cleaning with. Hey—everyone's got to start somewhere. She looks forward to sharing the words with Ky when she finds him, saying:
I will whisper the words I have written in his ear, against his lips. And they will change from ash and nothing into flesh and blood. (32.20)
So what do you think, readers? Will her daydreaming come true? Stay tuned for the second book in the trilogy.