“I couldn’t wait to get out of that car!” My grin is so wide it hurts my face. “Finally, I never have to go back to that damn school again! The last final is vanquished like the horrid evil it was!” What really makes me happy is now that we’re inside, I can cuddle up to Sylvia and forget the rest of the world exists.

When our parents aren’t home it’s nice to pretend that we don’t have to hide this. Cuddling on the couch can be more special than cuddling in bed. Plus it’s easier to just enjoy the cuddling and not feel a little grabby.

It’s always nice to nuzzle against her neck and inhale that special scent I’ve known for as long as I can remember. It always makes me feel safe. We understand each other. We share the same secrets.

Her electric mist melts into my nose as I inhale, and I shudder lightly against her as my whole body tenses. “Mmmm . . . No melting the ‘rora, just wanna cuddle, okay sis? I mean, unless you’d really rather we get a little melty, but I’m not really in that kind of mood at the moment.”

“Could make you in the mood . . .” Sylvia softly whispers under her breath, fingers sliding through my hair with just enough of that heat to feel. “But I’m not really in that mood either. It’s nearly impossible to resist curling some mist into your nose when you sniff at me like that. That’s all. The image is just a little too cartoon-perfect.” Her other hand sizzles across the small of my back and I shudder against her with a little gasp. “Promise your chest isn’t still hurting?”

“I promise taking a bullet to the chest didn’t, doesn’t, and as far as I can see, will never hurt. I understand why you’re worried, and I appreciate you not telling Mom, but I’m fine. Promise!” Her heat is almost as intoxicating as her scent, and both at once . . . My thighs can’t stop rubbing together. That mood might not be so far off if she keeps this up.

Her long elegant fingers always know where to trace to make me melt against her with or without the heat she’s drawing over my back. They feel more purposeful than usual, tracing as if to draw a pattern instead of her usual like a dream would. It’s not bad, just . . . curious?

Body language means a lot. It would have told me that guy was going to shoot me if I’d paid a little closer attention. I’ve paid closer attention to a lot of things since that. I think anyone would.

Before I can ask what’s on her mind another blanket of heat wraps around me, drawing me close as I can be. Being silenced by heat is even better than being silenced by a kiss. It’s so much deeper, so much more tender. Usually she only uses her heat like this out on the couch when she’s trying to use her heat to enhance her empathic abilities. It’s not very safe to melt on the couch if we want to keep us a secret. I wonder why she’s doing that now, but my lips feel heavy and I don’t want to fight it.

“I have some very exciting news to tell you, Aurora. I wanted to wait until I was holding you like this because it seemed too important to let the rush of graduation steal my thunder.” Her voice sounds dreamy and flowing the way she makes me wish I could sound. “You don’t mind, right?”

“Nnnn . . . don’t mind at all . . . oh!” Sylvia’s nails trace farther down until they curve along my ass and use it to draw me tight against her. “Mmm but you’re doing it to get a better reading, too . . .”

She sighs warmly and raises a hand to stroke along my cheek as she continues to caress along my ass. electric heat faintly sizzling against me enough to make my eyes feel heavy but not enough to melt away my thoughts. It’s more like afterglow than anything else. It’s a very firm, concentrated afterglow that makes me wet and shuddering, but it’s still an afterglow.

Her embrace makes me melt, and her power makes me steam. I don’t know which makes me feel better. I’d never want to choose. They’re both perfect. “The reason I was late getting out of class today is that my choir teacher pulled me out while I was waiting for the final to be over. Apparently there’s been a scout with her eyes on me, watching me very carefully to see if I have what it takes . . . and she thinks I do! She invited me to go with her to New York and if everything goes well I’ll be putting out a CD, touring . . . my dream!”

That perfect heat of hers doesn’t just let her feel how I feel, but that might be because of the silver inside me. I don’t feel it as well as she can, but I can feel her excitement sizzling inside me. I can taste the thrill that shudders as she must be imagining herself up on stage with over a thousand people watching her.

My wonderful sister slowly slides her fingers up along my back before sliding them through my hair. My eyes roll back into my head and all I can do is groan. Her heat feels so good, but it is starting to make me feel a little fuzzy. Not enough that I can’t realize the little bit of panic inside me, but enough that it’s not what I want to focus on so much as her warmth and the feeling of her body.

“New York . . . Mmm . . . That’s so far aw-oh!” Her fingers slide up between my legs and I groan at how easy it is to feel her fingers through my jeans. I’ll need to change before Mom gets home. “Nnnn you’re getting a little . . . grabby!”

It’s so much more than grabby when I can’t feel beyond the searing pleasure of her essence wrapping and tingling around my clit.

“I know, it’s very far away. I’ll miss Midas, but you know it’s my dream. Ever since I stopped feeling guilty about not wanting to be a heroine or a doctor it’s been my dream. Midas is a big city, but I can’t start out here. I can’t pass up a chance like this.” Sylvia’s voice quivers just enough to be audible and I quiver with it. “You understand, right Aurora . . .?”

“Don’t leave me behind . . . nnn-ah!” My sister’s heat tightens around me in a way that would be choking if it weren’t just energy. The moan it squeezes out of me feels hollow. She’s . . . she’s trying to make me not upset that she has no intention of taking me with her or even letting me follow!

Knowing that doesn’t make it easier to fight the heat she’s pushing into me, but it does make it easier not to just melt away. I stop savoring her scent and move my hands to push at her shoulders. She’s never used her heat to make me easier to deal with - at least not that I remember - and even this feels different than how she normally feels. It doesn’t feel like something else is guiding her, but more like something about her has changed and it makes my eyes twitch with hints of tears.

My arms feel so heavy and her sizzling touch makes it hard to do anything but clench and mewl. Even my eyes are having a hard time staying open. “Can’t just . . . abandon me!”

In an instant her heat dissolves into a lingering warm breeze. Her eyes open wider, shimmering faintly and swirling with the lingering energy like they always do. Silver and amethyst. She has such beautiful eyes. Feeling safer with her heat gone I try to melt against her, but she pulls away. Now it’s only me on the couch.

My vision is swimming and my thighs are still rubbing together. Sometimes I don’t think she understands that canceling the flow doesn’t reverse the effect. I still feel like a kitten laying in a sunny window, only now I also feel lonely.

“Sis . . .?” I look into her eyes, and she looks back. She looks confused, uncertain, maybe even a little afraid. “Sis . . . Sylvie . . . You’re not just going to leave me and go . . . are you?”

For a moment her eyes sparkle like they do before her heat consumes me, but then she turns away and runs into our room. My eyes quiver and I struggle to make my tears go away. I try to get up only once before giving that thought up as futile. I’m too limp and too melted.

She’s just going to leave. No discussion, even if she knows I could never keep her here. No explanation of how she can abandon her lover so easily, her sister . . . We might not technically share a parent due to the lovely ways of time travel, but we have the same LaSilvas blood in our veins, and the same silver that makes her mist and my metal electrified. She’s been there for me when I’ve been angry that Olivia died, and I’ve been there for her about her Sarah.

We’re both a reminder of what the other doesn’t have, but we’ve always derived strength from that. I got to grow up being the brash and thoughtless one while she got to be the soft spoken and intelligent one. Being each other’s other half has made life so much simpler.

Feeling her tear us apart is the most frightening experience I’ve ever had. Next to this a bullet doesn’t feel all that life-threatening.

I close my eyes tight and wrap my arms around myself. Trying to hold on to her scent still in the couch I inhale and sniffle. Her heat always leaves me feeling sleepy. Hopefully I’ll sleep before I sob.

“Wake up sleepyhead!” A hand ruffles my hair and it takes me a moment to recognize the voice is Sarah’s. Whimpering, I swat at her hand and flutter open my eyes. “Hey! You fell asleep on the couch, don’t take it out on me. I just wanted to congratulate you on your graduation! School’s out for summer, huh?” She kisses my forehead with just enough spark to feel, a touch that’s so familiar to me it’s as warming as it used to be when we cuddled up together when I was younger.

Sitting up is tricky, but she helps and I force my brightest smile. “Uh-huh! Mmm school’s out and I just got a great nap! Hey Mom, how was day patrol?”

Sarah sits next to me and yawns. She’s still wearing her Silver Girl uniform - the same one she first wore during the last adventure she went on with my golden mother. Like always when she first gets home she’s lazily pulling at her gloves. “It was day patrol. Few people are stupid enough to pull off something big in Midas during broad daylight. Not that I’m going to stop my day patrols, because it’s important, but they’re dull. Hard to follow my own advice sometimes.”

“To be happy when it’s a dull time, because that means nothing’s wrong?” She told me that a lot during her lessons on being a heroine. Ever since I told her it was what I wanted to do when I got old enough she’s been insistent on making sure I do it right the first time.

“Exactly! Exciting as it is to be out there saving the world from super villains, I’d much rather be in one piece to congratulate my daughter on her graduation.” Sarah is a great heroine, a great role model, and really a great mom, but sometime she’s just too sentimental. Sometimes she also says just the right things to make me feel like I’m going to cry again, but I’ve gotten better about hiding that. “Tomorrow you can go on your first solo patrol. Linda doesn’t have you working, does she?”

I pretend to have to think about it for a minute before shaking my head. She doesn’t, but I’m tempted to say she does to get a little more time with Sylvia before she flees to New York. I can’t believe that’s how she decided to tell me.

Sarah looks worriedly into my eyes, and for a moment I’m worried I started tearing up. Can she tell something’s wrong? Is she just guessing?

I really prefer it when I can be a little less clever. I don’t mind having to think, but I much prefer it when I can coast on a devil-may-care attitude. It’s a lot more fun than having to carefully control each and every reaction when your mother is staring at you.

“Speaking of daughters and graduations, do you know where Sylvia is? Valerie is going to be home in a couple hours and I was going to order a pizza for the four of us, maybe rent a movie, you know, celebrate your achievements.” Valerie would be thrilled if Sarah would actually cook for once instead of ordering a pizza, but I love them just as much as Sarah does. I don’t understand how Sylvia and Valerie can find something fancy that takes at least twice as long more satisfying than the immediately hunger-relieving taste of pizza.

“When I fell asleep she was in our room. Did you check there?” Pulling off our secret love affair has been a lot easier sharing a room. I don’t know how we would have pulled it off as well otherwise.

Sarah nods and her silver hair bounces just a little. She really is so gorgeous - and looks in no way old enough to be my mom. It’s nice that she acts as old as she looks, and makes me glad I haven’t had more than one relationship with someone other than Sylvia. It would be hard to get too upset at them for scoping out Mom. She looks more like my older sister.

Her gloves fall nonchalantly on to the coffee table before she reaches down to tug off her boots. “I checked there first thing. I didn’t want to wake you up right away so I looked around for her first. Did she make plans with any of her choir friends?”

I shake my head with a shrug and fight harder than I ever have to resist wincing. “As far as I knew she was in our room.” Choir friends, if only. I love her singing voice, but right now I hate it. How could she leave after that?

“All right . . . are you okay Aurora? You look a little sad.” Her silver-lipped smile looks weak and even more worried. I’ve lied to her about relationship issues before. A lot. This is more. “You can tell me anything, you know that, right? You really can. I know sometimes I overreact a little but it’s only because I care and I’m afraid you’ll make the same stupid mistakes I’ve made.”

When most people say things like that it’s hard to believe them. Mom somehow makes them sound unique. Valerie comes close, but not quite. It never feels like she understands the same way Sarah does.

Tears are starting to fill my eyes so I know I won’t be able to hold back for much longer. I have to say something, but I can’t tell her the truth. I can’t tell her that my lover, my sister, is running away and tried to melt me into being okay with it. Maybe that was just poor impulse control, but it felt planned.

“I just . . .” Think uncharacteristically quick, electrum-for-brains. “I just wish Olivia were here to see this, to see me, to . . . to say something about how far I’ve come or . . . just to remember what her voice sounds like . . .” Now I’m sad for two reasons, but at least this gives me a reason to cry.

My whole body shakes as Sarah holds me close without a word and starts to gently stroke my hair. My hair . . . it’s what looks the most like Mom’s. I wear it shorter but it’s the same color, the same auburn in all of her pictures where she isn’t Aureus. When she was she always looked so strong, invincible, like nothing could ever take her down. A bullet never could have stopped her, but just one tiny bit of magic from a demon-witch and . . .

I sob against her and hold her as tightly I can. “I can’t remember my own mother’s voice . . . I never got to tell her I loved her or give her anything. I never got to know the woman who gave birth to me and . . . and just sometimes it’s hard to forget . . .”

“Don’t ever try to forget, Aurora . . .” Mom keeps her voice quiet as she speaks through my sobs, rocking me as I shake against her. “I had to grow up without one of my parents, and forgetting was something I could never do. It put a hole in me too . . . that hole gave me a lot of strength once I accepted it and made it a part of me, not a missing piece. I know I got to meet Lida so that’s not fair, but . . . just cry Aurora, just cry and say everything you want to say. You might be all grown up now, a woman, but I’m still your mother. I’m here for you in every way I can be, and that includes holding you when you need to cry.”

“Thanks, Mom . . .” It used to hurt when she said that, but it doesn’t anymore. She’s helped me find the inner strength that losing my other mother gave me. Now she’s helping me work through the tears that come from realizing that I might be losing my sister. She won’t be dead, but that might make it worse.

She doesn’t say anything else. She just holds me and lets me cry. I can’t let Sylvia leave like that . . . I won’t.

Valerie gets home only ten minutes after the pizza does. That might not sound like a long time, but it’s an eternity when you’re starving. Sarah suggested we play some videogames to blow some time, but I felt too impatient to do any good and I hate dying for no good reason. Sylvia still isn’t back but I’m not surprised. Her entrances aren’t known for being punctual.

“Sarah, you got pizza again didn’t you?” Valerie’s tone would sound condescending or upset if it weren’t a little playful. “They graduated and you got a pizza . . . Oh well, at least you’re good at delivery.”

Sarah embraces Valerie at the door as I watch from the kitchen. Sarah is in street clothes, but I can’t help a little curiosity about how it would feel to Valerie if she weren’t. “I am good at a lot more than delivery, but you don’t seem to be overly fond of blue box or TV dinners and they’re not very celebratory foods anyway! I got cinnamon sticks too - proof that I know how to celebrate our daughters’ graduations!”

They both laugh a little and hug each other so close. Their hair drifts close as they kiss, baring such a strong resemblance of Sylvia’s. It’s so hard not to think of her, or think of her coming home to me waiting for her after a long day patrol.

“Congratulations, Aurora! You kept your grades up and now here you are all done with high school. All ready for the exciting world of fire escapes and rooftops?” Something about Valerie’s voice sounds a little too much like Sylvia’s and I have to bite my tongue to resist being upset with her for no good reason.

“Very ready, though I’m admittedly even more ready to dig into that ever so tempting pizza! Mom said we had to wait till you got home before we could dig into the pizza. Too bad Sylvia’s not here. More for us!” I bound into the kitchen and fill a glass with sweetly carbonated soda.

As I grab up a slice, Sylvia walks into the kitchen. “Actually, I was taking a walk and wound up at the Midas Touch. Mom gave me a ride back home.”

My heart tightens and I cough hard when my lungs don’t respond to my need to breathe. “Well . . . I hope it was a good walk. Did you give Mom your big news?” My stomach twists and I hope that I can keep the pizza down. Embarrassment is not something I’m especially in the mood for.

“Big news? What big news?” Sarah asks as she peeks into the kitchen, though by “mom” I meant Valerie. It can sometimes be a pain in the ass only having one gender for two parents. We’ve tried about everything: silver mother, amethyst mother, purple mother, calling one mom and the other mother. None of them work.

Sylvia opens up her mouth to talk and I fill mine with Pizza. Tonight is going to be a very, very long night.