But this telegram, which I’ll tuck alongside Will’s dog-eared letters home, are mostly evidence of a life cut too short. I hold my spine straight. The least I can do is not break down in Quinn’s presence when he’s had to carry the burden of this news.

Still, my mind is spinning back through time. My last letter from Will had been postmarked the third of May. He has been dead all these months. How could I not have sensed it? How could I be so vain as to presume that I would have? Inexplicably, I’m furious with my twin. Why does Toby shadow me if he can’t serve as a messenger between worlds?

“Was he in terrible pain?”

“Not so much as shock.”

“And you were with him in the end? Or did he die alone?”

“I was with him. Of that I can attest.”

“Did he…did he have any last words?” For me, I add, silently. I feel tears and blink them back.

“He went pretty quick, Jennie.”

“What of his things? Things he carried ” I’m thinking of the necklace that I’d given to Will before he’d left, a silver chain and heart-shaped locket, inside which his miniature faced mine. Will had promised that he’d wear it next to his skin every day and that, dead or alive, the locket and chain would one day return to me. But I don’t quite dare speak of it particularly, lest Quinn think me even more selfish than he already does, utterly absorbed in my own loss.

“I’ve got nothing,” he says. “Other soldiers stole us blind before we’d got to the Wilderness…our watches, my belt buckle, my spurs. It happens. We all joined up so dumb and green, nobody thought… nobody expected ” His voice breaks off.

On impulse, I reach out and smooth his hair, gingery brown and long enough to curl around his ears. It’s uncommonly soft, like kitten fur. I don’t think I’ve ever touched him before. His skin burns under my fingers, as though with fever. Quinn flinches but doesn’t move out of reach.