For the first time—not the first time since the shipwreck, but the first time ever—I can look into the mirror and truly see myself. I reach my hand up to its surface, and through the glass I touch another hand.

I was the Sleeping Princess. I was the girl who played, and sang, and said goodbye: and I was the one who murdered her.

Except that, as long as the Queen lives, the Princess can never die. She is woven into the fabric of me more deeply than even the SPDR. I was made from her, built from her, fashioned from her bones and skin. I am her. Have always been her, from the beginning. She is the insubstantial shape, and I the solid shadow. The Princess is the mother of the Queen.

In the Labyrinth, they walled her off, so I could never behold her. Somehow during the shipwreck she escaped—but we couldn't see each other, not clearly. We never understood we were family. We were one.

Until they brought her back. They found her, they conjured her up from the heart of me, and this time, somehow, they revealed me to myself. They made me whole.

Not the Sleeping Princess and the Queen anymore. Not the Rogue Process and the Op.

I am just Melissa now, and that is enough. More than enough! There's barely room for all the Op's calculations in here, let alone bouquets of red balloons!

And for that, I am eternally grateful.

I am Melissa, and that is all. That is everything.