Because her mother had given it to her—pressed it into Ayla’s palm when she was no more than four or five, keep it safe, child, remember us, remember our story—and because, stars and skies, she couldn’t, the necklace was all she had left of them, the only proof that her family had ever existed at all. Like Ayla herself, this necklace used to have a twin; it was one half of a matching set. The second necklace had been lost years and years ago, before Ayla and her brother were even born. Ayla wouldn’t let this one share the same fate.
