“The keys whisper,” Aster leaned towards him, “and if you whisper back, a sort of—resonance—is created.” She leaned back against the pillar and exhaled deeply. “If you guide it through your limbs, you can generate shockwaves. The explosions ignore most things, but they really react intensely with other keys. They also push on you a lot, so I use them in tandem with my gravity key to move around. Tejahl is simply unmatched when it comes to resonance fighting and so no one can challenge her.”

Isaac squinted against the sun. “But if the shockwaves ignore most things except keys, how is that useful if keys don’t work in the tower anyways?”

“That’s the thing though, even if the powers stop working inside, most people still can’t afford to leave their keys behind them. The keys are what keeps us alive, if we didn’t have them, other people with keys would simply kill us and steal what we do have.”

“But I don’t understand, that still doesn’t—”

Aster held up a hand to cut him off. “When someone resonates a key out of your chain, it leaves you stunned. It can even knock you unconscious, and then who’s going to guard your keys lying unprotected on the ground?” She clenched her hands and looked into her lap. Her next words were laced with contempt, “it doesn’t help either that she’s infamous for stealing and hoarding other people’s keys.” She looked up at him quickly then stared down into her lap again. “She’s one of the very few people who steal keys from the living.”

Isaac suspected at least one person whom Tejahl had stolen from. Still, he needed to be sure. He bent his head down and tried to make eye contact with her. “Did Tejahl steal a key from you, Aster?” he said as gentle as he could manage.

She grit her teeth and for a moment she looked like she was about to throw something. But then all the air went out of her and she slumped back against the pillar. “Yes… she stole my birthright key, the one I was born with.”

“Why did she steal it?”

She eyed him, perhaps a bit suspicious of him, but then she must’ve thought better of it because her guard dropped again. “Because it’s very valuable and rare.”

“But you know this resonance stuff as well right? Go and challenge her, take your key back..”

Aster’s back stiffened. “It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

Aster sighed in frustration. “She’s stronger than me, alright?”

Isaac scoughed. “I don’t believe that.”

“She is. She knows how to manifest the shockwaves away from her body. She sends them out like gusts of air. Her range is far greater than mine. She’d knock all my keys to the floor before I’d get close enough to even attempt doing the same thing to her.”

“Wrap the keys around your arm or something with rope so they can’t be knocked away easily.”

“That won’t work, when the resonance touches a key the key sort of phases out, like a ghost or something. They pass right through you.”

Isaac remembered back to the tornado, before he’d arrived in the Endpoint, and how his car had passed right through him. “Yeah, I’ve encountered that.”

Aster’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”

Isaac didn’t give her the time to ask him to elaborate. “Maybe I could help you.”

“Help me with what?”

“Your key.”

Aster stared at him. “Why do you assume I don’t have someone already helping me?”

Isaac faced her unblinking stare head on. “I’m not assuming anything, I’m offering you my help.”

Aster didn’t relax. “What can you do to help me? Tejahl would eat you for breakfast.”

Isaac started speaking but Aster cut him off.

“And what do you gain from helping me? What’s your play here?”

Isaac held his hands up in front of him. “Woah, hold on, I’m not threatening you, I’m offering to help you. Honest to God, I’m just trying to pay you back for everything you’ve done for me.”

Aster’s stare didn’t falter. “There’s more, you’re hoping to gain something, tell me what it is. Now.”

Isaac’s face soured, but he didn’t move or speak. He thought for a long while.

“Alright,” he said after the fire had all but died, neither of them moved to replenish it. “I’m looking for my brother, Finn. I was hoping you could help me find him.”

“You’re in the Endpoint now, Isaac. You’re not on your own homeworld anymore. Your brother is lost to you twice over.”

“He’s not on Earth, he’s here, in the Endpoint.”

Aster shot him a very worried glance. “But you just arrived here, how do you know he’s here? Did you see him?”

Isaac gave a shrug. “Well, I thought I did, but then…” He blanked out for a couple seconds. “But nevermind that,” he waved his hand, “no, I didn’t see him. But I do know he disappeared the same way I came here. So unless there’s several Endpoints then, yes, he is here. I’m sure of it.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Aster paused, “you knew he disappeared in a storm?”

“Yes, I was part of a team that procured volunteers for the experiments that the government was conducting on the storms.” He gathered a handful of gravel from the cold stone floor and threw it back down again. “They’re probably still conducting those experiments right now, with more clueless idiots to carelessly throw away.”

“You knew he disappeared, and yet you decided to follow him, willingly?”

“Yes.”

“You’re crazy.”

Isaac thought that was pretty rich coming from Aster but he didn’t say anything.

“I’ve never heard of someone entering the Endpoint on purpose. No one would even make up such a story.” She looked stunned. “How did you find out about the storms in the first place?”

“As I said I didn’t, my government did.”

“They’re a group?”

“In way, sure.”

Aster tilted her head. “Are they very strong or something?”

Isaac chuckled, but he didn’t feel very mirthful. “You could say that, yeah.”

They sat silent for a while after that. Aster seemed to continue to be stunned over the revelation that he had ran into the tornado intentionally. Isaac didn’t really see the big deal, he’d done it to rescue someone. It was only natural. He stoked the fire back up again until it roared with flames.

“Do you know of anyone called Finn?”

Aster sat with a glazed expression, staring into the fire, and she took a couple seconds before she jolted out of her reverie and answered. “No, I don’t know anyone by that name. But if he came here then he is dead.”

Isaac sat up. “What? What do you mean?”

Aster seemed confused at his reaction. “He’s dead.”

“How can you say that?”

“The vast majority of the ones who come here, die in the first few seconds. You saw one of the unlucky ones yourself. I practically had to pry you away from him.”

Isaac saw the glint of gold again, and remembered the way he had felt upon seeing it. He remembered the disappointment when he had realized the man wasn’t Finn.

“Out of the ones who do survive the storm itself, most of those people are killed by the soldiers of a warlord like Kin Tao.”

Isaac buried his head in his hands.

“Still, even of those who survive that, most don’t live longer than a week, much less a year.”

“Alright!” Isaac shouted into his lap. “I get it!” He looked up at her, his eyes stung. “I don’t want to hear it ok?”

Aster raised her upper lip in disgust. “You won’t last the week, Isaac. You should be more concerned with yourself. Forget your brother.”

Heat surged from his gut. “Enough!” He slammed a hand down into the pile of kindling and sticks and splinters from the church pews scattered everywhere. “I’ve treated you with nothing but kindness since the moment we met and you will reciprocate and treat me with some goddamn respect or I am out of here!”

Aster drew her head back until it touched the pillar behind her.

“I mean it, Aster! I will leave.”

Her mouth became a tight line. “Fine.”

Isaac breathed out. “Now are you certain you don’t know anything about Finn?”

She pouted for a bit while idly peeling at the bark on a stick of kindling. She gave him a nasty look. “I don’t know anything about Finn. But I do know of someone who does.”

“And that person will help us?”

“She will.”

“Good.” Isaac ruffled his hair with his broken arm, winced, and switched arms.

“We’ll travel to her when the daylight arrives. But after that, you will help me get my key back from Tejahl.” She stared him down, not letting their eye contact go.

Isaac didn’t hesitate. “Deal.”

They sat for a long time, neither speaking. The animosity between them didn’t let up.

“Where is this woman anyways?” Isaac tried.

Aster answered without looking up.

“North.”