Mr. Hudds entreated Jameson and Albek to stay for lunch, and when Jameson declined, he settled for loading their packs with vegetables.

The two of them departed just before noon. Most of the walk back was spent in silence. Jameson was still on edge after Albek’s episode down by the creek, but seemed to be willing to believe that he had it under control. Still, he carried both of their backpacks now.

They were a quarter mile down the road when Albek noticed something odd.

“Do you smell that?” he asked Jameson.

“Smell what?”

“I don’t know, it’s…”

‘Good.’

His mouth started to water. It was a tantalizing aroma, reminiscent of a roast slathered in butter, but that wasn’t quite right. It didn’t smell like anything he’d ever eaten before, but at the same time it was evocative of all the foods he loved. Roast meat. Bekish. Fried fish.

Albek’s feet turned, and he was several steps up someone’s driveway before Jameson stopped him.

“Hey, where are you going?”

The question startled him out of his reverie. Albek looked up the driveway and saw a white, single-story house some fifty yards away. Glancing it over, there was no sign of where the smell came from. No smoke from a grill or chimney. It looked like any other abandoned house.

He eventually replied, “I don’t know, I just… smelled something coming from over here. Can you really not smell it?”

“I don’t even know what ‘it’ is, kiddo.”

“I swear it came from here…”

Jameson walked up and tapped on the mailbox. It was missing a flag.

“I checked this house weeks ago. It’s been infested. Don’t quite know what’s inside, but I know there are a lot of ‘em. It’s a damn shame. I knew the woman that lived here.”

“I think someone’s cooking in there. Are you absolutely sure it’s infested?” Albek asked.

Jameson raised an eyebrow.

“You wanna know how I know? Follow me, but stay real quiet.”

He stepped onto the lawn, treading softly on the grass as he made his way towards the small home. Albek followed. As they drew closer, the smell became more distinct. It was intense enough that Albek had to bring his wrist to his mouth to stop from drooling.

Jameson stopped underneath a high windowsill, ushering Albek over. When he arrived, the man put a finger to his lips and held his ear to the side paneling of the house. Albek copied him.

At first, there was nothing but the sound of his blood pulsing in his ear. Then, there came an incongruous noise, so quiet at first that he could barely hear it.

Trickling. It was a liquid, possibly running through the pipes of the house. There shouldn’t have been any running water for weeks. Then there was the even fainter sound of something sloshing around, something like a person wading through a pool. It was getting louder. The smell grew even more mouthwatering, and he was forced to pinch his nose shut, scared that he would do something he’d regret.

Albek glanced up at Jameson. The man had a hint of worry on his face, now. He hadn’t mentioned anything about water before, after all.

The sloshing got so loud that the two could hear it even after backing away from the wall. Then, it suddenly stopped. Albek glanced up at the window, but couldn’t make out anything through the reflective black glass. He felt a sensation prickling his neck, and it seemed to him that there was something there, watching him.

It had to have been his mind playing tricks on him. The curtains were drawn. Even if there were something in there, monsters avoided sunlight like the plague, so it would probably be avoiding the window.

But just in case, he took another few steps back, signaling to Jameson that he wanted to leave. The man was thinking the same, and the two of them crept away from the house, throwing glances over their shoulders every few feet.

Once back on the street, Albek heaved a sigh of relief. The delicious smell had faded along with his distance from the house. The potent memory of it lingered, though, at odds with the fear that accompanied it.

“That was different from last time,” Jameson muttered once they had left the sight of the house.

Albek smacked his lips to make sure he wasn’t still drooling. “How do you mean?”

“When I checked it out the first time,” he said, “it sounded like a bunch of critters scrabbling around inside the house. I wasn’t sure if it was animals or monsters. I called out for the lady that lived there but she didn’t answer. I left after markin’ the mailbox. This time… well, you heard it.”

Albek nodded. He heard something, all right.

It sounded like a single large creature had taken up residence in that house, somehow flooding it in the process. There wasn’t a hint of water damage around the foundations, though, so it couldn’t be filled with water.

Neither of them had ever heard anything about a monster that fit this description. They knew so little about this world. So much had changed. There was no telling when a step would be the last they ever took.

The two of them continued the rest of the way back in silence.

- - -

After meeting up with the others, they ate lunch with fresh food from Mr. Hudds’ garden. Hemash had questions after seeing the vegetables, so Albek told him how they’d gotten them. Jameson had given a cursory explanation before he left in the morning, but he must not have wanted to spoil the “surprise.” He was weird like that.

His father was glad to learn about a source of fresh food. Albek downed two platefuls and then, upon learning that Jameson had no more plans for the day other than some woodworking, set to practicing his magic.

Step 1: Locate a small object, preferably a stone or twig, and attempt to sense its mana imprint.

The concept of the Levitate Object was simple enough, but performing it was gruelingly difficult. Albek hadn’t even gotten to try casting it yet: he was still stuck on the first step. The object he’d chosen to practice on was a small pebble that he’d taken from the creek by Mr. Hudds’ house. It was flat, polished smooth by the running water. He thought a simple shape would make it easier to picture in his mind. That turned out not to be the case.

The main problem he encountered had to do with his Mage’s Sight. The Sight allowed Albek to see what Embryo called mana imprints. Pretty much everything possessed a mana imprint, as far as he knew. They were like a signature of that object that had been broadcast into another dimension, telling people who could observe this dimension things such as the object’s shape, size, color, temperature, and many other, more esoteric qualities. Observing that imprint was basically the process of forming an empathic link with it: it led to an intuitive understanding of the object that went beyond anything definable. According to Embryo, all values one could attribute to an object could be found in its mana imprint, so long as the observer knew what to look for. The more complex the object, the more complex its imprint.

In a way, these imprints acted like the DNA of the physical world. The tiny salamander of the candle flame was one example. The imprint of this pebble, however, eluded his grasp.

He’d been trying to visualize it like he had with the candle flame: closing his eyes and feeling for its presence, but he was only able to touch on slivers of the pebble, fractions of the whole. He wasn’t able to see its entirety, which was the first step for a spell like this.

Albek realized an inconsistency with Levitate Object after a half hour of failed visualization.

‘Wait—why do I need to see earth mana in the first place? This spell belongs to the Order of Force!’

The pebble’s mana clearly belonged to the Order of Earth, but he wasn’t even trying to cast an earth spell. Couldn’t he just use the force mana to directly influence the rock? What was the point?

ANNOUNCEMENT

User,

Skill:Levitate_Object requires an understanding of both the Order of Force and the mana imprint of the object being levitated.

‘So there are two steps for someone to qualify to attempt the spell, huh? That sucks. I guess that’s why it’s a High-Tier spell, though.’

ANNOUNCEMENT

User,

Skill:Levitate_Object is categorized as a High-Tier spell because it involves the delicate application of force mana.

Detecting an earth mana imprint is, by comparison, a simple task.

‘You know, the more Embryo talks to me, the more I hate it. Alright, fine. How am I supposed to sense the stupid rock, then?’

There was no answer.

Albek glared at the pebble in his hand, like he might force it into submission with will alone. He tilted the rock to scrutinize it from every angle with the idea that maybe, if he emblazoned the appearance of the thing into his mind, he’d be able to connect with the imprint more clearly.

As he continued looking, something actually did change. It was difficult to quantify. It seemed to become more… pebblier?

That was all that he could think of to describe it. He stared. It hadn’t changed in appearance, but now the little stone seemed like it carried a bit more weight. It had an unquantifiable presence that it didn’t have before, like it had just become a four-dimensional object. It was something more.

He blinked, and color came flooding back.

‘What was that? It—what just happened?’

He looked every which way, at the grass, earth, and trees around him. At his sister, at the house. He hadn’t even noticed until the effect ended, but the entire world other than the pebble had turned gray. It had become the center of his world, sucking the color out of everything else. Taking a deep breath, he attempted to replicate the phenomenon.

It took a minute, but after glaring at it long enough, it happened again. His surroundings began to fade, while the pebble alone remained itself, taking on that strange gravity that made it so compelling.

But wait—there were other things, too. The pebble wasn’t the only thing in this world. There were glimpses: flashes here and there like tiny meteors across his vision, here one second and gone the next. He looked up after one such occasion, but it faded too quickly. He kept looking around the dark gray landscape which occasionally would be lit up by the mysterious streaks of light. He’d never seen anything like them before, but they were still familiar.

One flashed right by his face, and he understood. He hadn’t seen these streaks before—but he had felt them. What he was seeing right now was light mana. Every time he cast Shimmer, he was sensing these tiny beams.

The next realization hit him right after.

‘Mage’s Sight can be used with my eyes!’

He paused.

‘Boy, that should have been way more obvious, in hindsight.’

He returned to the pebble, now positive that he’d been seeing its imprint. But when he looked at his cupped palm, all he saw was the same dark gray object. There may have been an outline of a stone there, but no longer did it contain that presence that made it seem like the center of the universe. He stuck with it, though, straining his eyes, and slowly his Sight returned, supposedly linking him empathically with the object. Not that he was really getting many emotions from it. It was still just a rock. No, maybe it made him more sleepy?

‘This confirms it, then. There are different ways to use Sight, and some ways are more suited to sensing certain Orders than others.’

For the next few minutes, he tested this new way of using the Sight on everything around him. For rocks, it generally took a while, and their imprints never looked very different than the stones themselves. Grass and other living things he couldn’t quite make out. He was only able to see glimpses of their imprints when he concentrated, in a similar vein to his attempts with the pebble earlier. Their imprints seemed to be a mix of different Orders. It wasn’t that they were invisible—far from it. The weeds he was looking at were quite colorful, just unclear: he couldn’t make sense of them.

He didn’t do so well with water, though he was able to sense it just fine when he closed his eyes. Water imprints varied greatly depending on the shape or temperature of the water, and had a habit of shifting around in confusing ways. Thus, channeling his Sight through his other senses was more effective for that particular Order.

At one point, Albek went inside for a candle. He lit it and began staring. He saw the imprint, but it wasn’t quite what he was expecting. It was a blur, a miasma of energy. It was impossible to get a handle on it with his eyes alone. After shutting them, he concentrated for a moment, and shortly discovered the little salamander at the core of the flame, but when he opened his eyes, it became once again unrecognizable.

‘Right. So to sense the Orders of Fire and Water, I should keep using my other senses, huh? And for rocks and dirt, I should use my eyes. But which is better for the Order of Light?’

He immediately went to test it, but found that all his experimenting had exhausted his Sight, forcing him to wait several minutes for it to recover. After his rest, he continued. It turned out that the gathering process for light mana became significantly faster when he started using his eyesight, nearly placing him back at the same level of proficiency with Shimmer that he had been at a few days ago, before his affinity dropped.

Had Liyne been doing this the entire time? No, she learned the same way as he did. He’d have to tell her about using different senses later. For now, though, he continued with levitation practice.

Step 2: After sensing its mana imprint, attempt to locate the portion of the imprint that describes the force acting upon the object. Isolate that portion.

This was the part he was worried about. Isolate the force acting upon the pebble? What did that mean? He realized it must refer to the Order of Force, but he wasn’t sure how sensing the pebble’s imprint was meant to help with that.

‘Does it mean gravity? That’s a force, right?’

He worked at it most of the rest of the day. He could see the stone in its entirety, and as he worked at it, he began to see things—variables that seemed to tell him more about the stone’s qualities—but he couldn’t get a sense of any outside force, gravity or not.

Honestly, this spell felt like it was leagues beyond what he’d done with magic so far. Even though Cold Snap was High-Tier, it felt far easier to him.

Water mana was simple enough to locate, and all he had to do was suck it up, freeze it, and point. He wasn’t delicately isolating some invisible force like a scientist behind a microscope.

Or possibly he was, but his affinity just made it seem easy.

Affinity Values

Water: 74%

Earth: 51%

Space: 41%

Light: 19%

Now that he’d been practicing some with sensing the Order of Earth, Embryo had begun to record his affinity for it. The number had been vacillating wildly all day as it homed in on his true value, so Albek wasn’t sure how accurate it was, but one thing was clear: it wasn’t as high as water. But it wasn’t too low, either.

By the time the sun was low in the horizon, he was able to hold the image of the pebble in his mind even without looking at it. Still, he had yet to sense the Order of Force. He wondered if there was an easier spell that could get him better acquainted with it.

ANNOUNCEMENT

User,

Skill:Increase_Momentum is a low-tier spell of the Order of Force that meets the criteria outlined by User.

‘This is the second time Embryo has brought up that spell. What’s so great about it?’

ANNOUNCEMENT

User,

Many mages consider Skill:Increase_Momentum to be one of the most viable combat spells for its utility and flexibility.

Albek scratched his nose.

‘Fine, you win. I’ll learn it. After dinner.’

- - -

Dinner that night was a lively affair. They finished up the last of the deer Jameson hunted in a big feast, coupled with fresh vegetables and dumplings in some sort of stew. The dumplings were a bit mushy, but it was a far better sight than Hemash would have done, and both the families took to it with gusto. Albek especially enjoyed it, competing with Jameson for the last dregs of the pot. When they were finished, Hemash and Jameson took over the living room to talk over drinks, banishing Albek to the girls’ room.

Chelsea’s room was pretty spacious. He took over a desk chair, and Liyne settled into a beanbag. Chelsea hadn’t come in yet, so it was just the two of them. Jameson’s dogs wandered in and out, keeping an eye out on everyone that they could. For a time the two siblings watched Dune trying to get them to play. Mostly, the puppy was completely ignored by the older dogs.

Liyne lifted her radio, “Private Dune, stop that. Come here, over.”

Dune stopped gnawing the leg of the huge dog—Tank—and trotted over to Liyne, stuffing her snout into the girls’ hand.

Albek spoke into his own radio, “Sarge, when did she start listening to you like that? Over.”

“Since yesterday. She’s a good girl, over.”

He was glad to see the puppy fully recovered from the ordeal at the Robinsons. He was surprised how quickly she seemed to get on her feet again after taking a kick and at least one sonic screech at point-blank range. “Sonic screechers” was the term Albek used to describe the monsters when he told everyone about his fight three days ago. He thought it sounded more intimidating than “flower monsters,” but the jury was still out on that one.

Albek let them sit and play for a while. After the destruction of their home, he hadn’t really caught up with Liyne. Most of their possessions had been ruined in viciously creative ways, and he hadn’t been able to go scavenging for more yet.

He asked, “How are you holding up, Sarge? You got plenty of clothes and things? Over.”

The girl, petting Dune, responded, “Chelsea gave me all her old stuff, so I’m fine. Captain, you’re the one who needs clothes.”

Albek paused. She was right. His old clothes wouldn’t have fit him anymore, not that he could wear them even if he wanted to. He only had the single set after the raid, and those were torn apart and covered in blood. Jameson lent him some of his for the time being, but they were an even worse fit. The pants were barely held up with belts, and he looked like he was wearing a bedsheet for a shirt. He’d have to go out tomorrow for some basic clothing.

“Chk. Good point, Sarge. I’ll go shopping tomorrow.”

He sat for a while and watched them play. Chelsea was taking a while. He noticed, occasionally, that Liyne would glance up at him, only to avert her eyes when she saw him watching. That was odd. Why was she acting shy?

He spoke up, “You doing all right? We haven’t talked much recently, you and me. Ever since what happened at the house.”

Liyne had one hand busy petting Dune, and she didn’t reply. With her other hand, he saw her fiddling with the radio controls like she was contemplating an answer.

“Hey,” Albek said softly, “We’re safe here. You know that, right? Mr. Bray has things under control. Plus, we’ve got Tank.”

The dog’s ear twitched at the mention of his name.

She finally spoke in a soft voice, the voice she used when she was forced to talk to strangers. “It’s not really that. I’m okay now.”

“Are you sure? You’ve been looking a little anxious. You can tell me if anything’s bothering you.”

She bit her lip, then, lowering her voice to a bare whisper in such a way that Albek had to lean forward to hear, she spoke. “It’s, um. That—that thing you’re wearing. Around your neck.”

Albek’s hand went to the bump under his clothes, against his chest. He pulled out the locket.

“This?”

She turned away, “Yeah. Um. Are you okay? Shouldn’t you take it off?”

He froze. Take it off? And experience that awful hunger again? He’d lose his mind.

“Uhh… I don’t think so,” he replied slowly. “I mean, I’m okay wearing it. It doesn’t really have any bad effects on me. Why? Does it bother you?”

Silence was his only answer. He began to tap his foot anxiously, but stopped when he saw her flinching from the sounds.

“No, I guess,” she finally said, quietly.

Her tone very much implied that wasn’t the case. She dropped the radio down on the beanbag, signaling that she didn’t want to talk any more. But Albek had to know. This locket was a huge blank spot in his life. It belonged to their mother and most likely had some sort of mystical properties, including a restraining effect on his aegis.

He said, “What happened when you wore the locket, anyways? Dad mentioned that you tried it on.”

Another silence. She really did appear unwilling to continue talking. Albek felt a bit like he was trying to drag out a confession from her.

“Look,” and here his tone softened, “I don’t want to ask you anything that makes you uncomfortable, but this locket is really important to me right now. If you know anything that could help me figure it out, don’t hold out on me here. And if you don’t know much, then maybe we could be a couple of detectives and try to solve it together. Wouldn’t that be cool? If you think about it, Mom’s locket is sorta like a great big mystery she left us. So we should figure it out as a team. How about it, Sarge? You—hey, Liyne? Are you okay?”

She had turned away from him. He stood up and walked over to find her face buried in a blanket. Her back was shaking like she was crying.

‘Shit.’

“Hey, kiddo. Hey, it’s okay,” he said crouching down next to her. “I’m sorry I brought it up. Let’s forget about—”

As he leaned over, the locket swung forward, bumping into her shoulder. It was an accident, and there was no way she could have known that it was the locket, but in that instant she let out a muffled shout. Albek swore, moving to tuck the necklace away, but she’d already jumped away. She reached the bed, crawling under the covers and burying herself in a cocoon that separated her from her brother. There, she let out a lengthy wail and the real waterworks began. Choking sobs, hiccups, and shivering.

Albek was completely dumbfounded. His hand was halfway raised as if it wanted to continue trying to comfort her but wasn’t quite able to make the trip.

This was the point where Chelsea walked in. She looked at him, then over to Liyne trying to make herself as small as possible in a corner of the bed, and back to Albek again.

She interposed herself between them and sat down next to Liyne on the bed.

Mechanically, Albek folded himself onto Liyne’s vacated beanbag. He didn’t understand. He felt terrible, of course, but mainly, he just didn’t understand.

Neither did Chelsea, but he had to tell her something. Tell her what? That it was a misunderstanding between the two of them about a magical locket from his mysterious, long-vanished mother? Right. That would be worth a laugh.

He spoke up, telling her that Liyne was upset because he’d mentioned their old house.

Chelsea listened to him work his way through his monotone speech, and when he was finished, she looked down at the girl.

“She was a wreck like this when she got here three days ago, too,” she said.

Albek had to blink his eyes several times because for a moment, he thought he saw Chelsea adopt a tender expression, her blank features softening for a split second. He’d never seen that before. As soon as she turned back to Albek, however, her face reverted to one of perpetual impassivity, leaving him wondering if it had only been an illusion.

They sat in silence as Liyne worked through her sobbing tremors. After what felt like an eternity, she finally exhausted herself, and her erratic breathing slowed to the steady pace of sleep.

He heard some motion from the living room as Hemash made his way back to his room for the night. Albek hoped his father would actually get some sleep, too; the man looked like he’d been pulling all-nighters for the last two or three days.

When it had grown quiet outside, Chelsea whispered, so quietly that Albek might have thought it was his imagination if he hadn’t seen her lips move.

“I hate the Apocalypse.”

Albek turned his head.

“It just fucking sucks. What it does to us.”

She glanced down at the sleeping form of Liyne.

“I had a friend, you know.”

“Hard to believe,” he replied automatically, wincing even as he did from the tactlessness of his own words. “Sorry.”

Chelsea didn’t acknowledge that he’d even spoken.

“We texted every day, even when we saw each other at school. She was probably my only real friend. It was funny. She was into a lot of the same things as me.”

She craned her neck up to stare at the ceiling. “Actually, it’s probably better to say I started liking a lot of those things because of her. Like seafood. I used to hate fish. We went to this restaurant one day, and she just made me try all the things I’d never tried before: crab cakes, oysters, all sorts of fish, lobster. She actually got that for me—a whole freaking lobster. Even though I nearly got sick that night, after that, I ended up ordering seafood practically every time I went out to eat. I guess I won’t be getting too much fish anymore, huh?”

He didn’t need the reminder.

Chelsea went on, “We were going to see a movie the day it happened. I was outside with Dad when we saw the light. Heard transformers exploding, too. I didn’t know what the noise was, so I had to ask him. Like popcorn going off, all up and down the neighborhood for a few seconds, and then nothing. Then there were a few booms from farther away. Maybe a power station or something. You know when there’s a celebration down in Sinaq and they launch fireworks? It was like that. But then it got quiet. Unbelievably quiet. An hour later, the smoke from the city… I could smell it. We all could. And I thought about my friend. For basically every day after that, I thought about her. Not the thousands of other people, you know? That’s what’s fucked up. She was the only damn person I cared about in that city. Did you know her? Cassidy Brocker?”

He shook his head.

“I guess not,” she continued. “It doesn’t feel real to me, right? I’ve been stuck up here a month, but it feels wrong. Like everything would all turn back to normal once I get off this mountain. Like Cassidy’s down there, walking around, still attending school, wondering why I haven’t shown up or answered her texts.”

Albek didn’t know what to say. Was this the annoying, emotionless brat he thought he knew? Offering comfort here felt like it would be wrong, somehow. She wasn’t looking for reassurances. Maybe she was just looking for someone to vent to.

“And then, this whole Embryo thing. A freaking video game in my head. Hardly doing much to reduce my sense of disconnection from reality. But then you guys… this whole thing with you guys. This situation. Getting those messages from your dad really freaked us out, you know? And then he and Liyne show up here without you, and we spend all night thinking you’re dead. That’s what finally woke me up, you know. Thinking you’d been eaten by a monster, and then seeing Liyne looking like the most lost little girl in the fucking world.”

Chelsea was staring right at him now, her eyes flat. Albek felt a knot in his stomach form. He hadn’t seen his sister until well after his arrival here since he’d passed out. Her words were painting a picture he didn’t like.

“So, I grew up. In one night, I finally accepted all this—” she waved her hands, “—this changed world, because there was this lost little girl here, way more confused and afraid than I ever could have been. Then you got back, and she just brightened right back up. I was glad about that, but it kinda pissed off, too.”

She continued to look at him. Albek forced himself to meet that gaze, thought it felt more and more like he was under a spotlight.

“But what really made me furious was walking in here tonight to see Liyne crying again. Get me? Just like she was that night. But it’s your fault this time.”

For a while, he couldn’t think of a reply. He wanted to argue, to say something in his defense. Instead, he sat there feeling like a sack of dirt. He’d already accepted that leaving three days ago was on him. He could have resisted the aegis, but didn’t. He was responsible. And tonight—he knew Liyne reacted poorly to the locket, but he continued to press her on the subject.

Again, this locket. Why did Liyne react like that?

For some reason, his mother’s words echoed in his mind.

“Albek, do you remember what I told you last night?”

…

“You will when you’re older. You must.”

What had she told him? What was it he’d forgotten?

He stumbled out of the room, clutching the locket in his clammy palm. It felt as cool as ever in his grasp.

- - -

Albek spent a long time sitting on the couch after everyone else had gone to sleep. He was thinking. One of the things Chelsea said kept echoing around in his head. She’d called Liyne a ‘lost little girl.’

When Liyne was born, she had been deathly weak. She didn’t cry, and was almost completely unresponsive, barely even breathing. The doctors didn’t think she’d make it an hour. He’d been ushered into a sterilized hospital room to say both hello and goodbye to his newborn sister. The doctors hadn’t thought it was a good idea, but even back then, it was difficult to refuse his father.

He remembered not wanting to go in there. He didn’t want a sibling in the first place. He didn’t want to see a dying baby. But when his father steered him inside, and he saw her small, unresponsive form hooked up to a machine, everything seemed to change.

He asked if he could hold her. They only let him touch her hand. When Liyne’s tiny fingers closed around his, he began to cry. Then, extraordinarily, she opened her mouth and began bawling, too. The world turned, and he was no longer just Albek.

- - -

On a day three years ago, Hemash was late picking Albek up from school. When he finally showed up, he sped into the parking lot, waited for Albek to climb in, then sped off again after making sure he was fine. Albek didn’t understand why his father seemed so worried about him, until he saw Liyne.

His sister was waiting for him in the back seat as normal, but something was wrong. She was hurt. Hurt pretty badly. Hemash had treated her, putting bandages over the worst of her injuries, and then drove them both to the doctor, glowering silently out the windshield the whole time. Albek hadn’t been able to get anything out of him until that night. It was some older kids at her elementary school, making fun of her for her accent. Liyne apparently hadn’t understood at first, really. She’d thought it was some sort of game. When she started to laugh, it had escalated.

She didn’t cry in that car. She just stared vacantly with big, frightened eyes into the back of the seat in front of her, completely unresponsive to anyone’s attentions. Over the next month, the two of them tried everything, but Liyne didn’t speak a word. Then, her birthday came around. For her present, Albek got a pair of matching pink radios.

- - -

Albek took Liyne’s hand and brought her outside. She followed along like an automaton, looking down at the shiny pink radio in her hand. He’d just finished explaining how it worked.

“You get how to use them? See, with these, we can talk to each other and no one even has to know. C’mon. I’ll go first.”

He ran out into the yard, pressing the push-to-talk button.

Tchk.

“This is Captain Albek. What’s the status of Private Liyne? Over.”

…

“Private Liyne—I’m penned in! I need reinforcements! Over!”

Albek waited, his face falling as Liyne continued to stare at her present vacantly.

“I need a head count of our enemies, Private. You’re the best scout we have. Can you do it? Over.”

…

Tchk.

“This is… Private Liyne, Captain. There are four… Maybe.”

Albek gaped at the radio in his hand. Was that her voice? He looked up at his sister to see her holding the walky-talky up to her mouth.

“Captain? There are four. Um, enemies… They look really mean.”

His hand flew up to respond.

“Y-yeah. I’m here. That—that’s pretty scary. Can you help me, Private? Over.”

“Yeah.”

- - -

Whenever she was lost, he would find her. That was his job.

He hadn’t seen what effect his disappearance had three days ago, but according to Chelsea, it had been bad. He was supposed to fix things, not make them worse.

If only he’d been strong enough. Strong enough to withstand the aegis. To control his own fate. How many of his accomplishments these past few days were even his? Now here he was, stuck in a struggle he didn’t understand between the aegis and his mother’s locket. He was too afraid to even remove the locket and face that terrifying hunger; how could he ever hope to conquer it?

Even Liyne had wanted him to take the locket off. He understood that. Perhaps it had even become something of a crutch to Albek. She wasn’t the only one who said something like that, either. He recalled how, in his dream the other day, the shadow creature had spoken of the locket. At least, he’d deduced that it meant the locket.

The “Stone,” it had called the necklace. It told him not to wear it, just like his sister.

The weight around his neck felt heavier than ever before, yet he knew despite this that he would continue to wear it. He couldn’t take it off. Not anytime soon, at least.

Until late into the night, he practiced Increase Momentum.

- - -

Chelsea slipped into bed next to Liyne and lay so that she was facing the ceiling. She spent a while just listening to the rhythm of the girl’s breath.

She didn’t know why she’d lashed out at Albek like that. He was a moron, sure, but he probably hadn’t deserved that. Her own frustrations were leaking out. What she didn’t want to accept was that she enjoyed blaming him, making him suffer. But now, remembering the crestfallen look on his face only sickened her.

‘What the hell is wrong with me?’

Was it because of that connection those two shared? Was she jealous? As a kid, she’d always wanted a sibling, but she’d gotten over that wish years ago. She remembered being five and asking her father why she couldn’t have a little sister like the other kids she knew. She understood now, of course. Her mother died when she was three from her second pregnancy. To this day, she felt terrible about that innocent question she’d asked him.

That connection Albek and Liyne shared was something she’d always longed for. And when she entered middle school and met Cassidy, it finally seemed that she would get her wish.

Turning her head to the side, she saw her cell phone, broken now for a month, it lay on her bedside table like some relic of the past.

It was probably the girliest thing she owned. It had a flowery purple case with a keychain attachment, which itself had more attachments that were completely loaded with ornaments. There wasn’t a single key in sight.

Cassidy had been giving her little accessories to add on to it for as long as they had known each other. Every time she gave her another, Chelsea would attach it to her phone case. She had twenty-two by her last count. In more recent days, it had gotten cumbersome, but she never removed a single one.

Careful not to make too much noise and wake Liyne, she picked up the phone to examine the trinkets. Many of them were abstractions of cats. There were others: a little heart that had a message on it too faded to read, a fairy, a smiling turtle, and a little witch on a broomstick. The witch had been the last one Cassidy gave her. She’d found it in a tourist shop at the beach, where it stood out enough from the other items that her friend knew she just had to pick it up.

Chelsea asked her why she’d gone to the beach and gotten her a souvenir that had nothing to do with the beach. Cassidy only laughed.

Chelsea pressed the home button on her phone. Nothing happened, of course. The display stayed dark. She held a finger to the black screen and swiped up, then tapped a couple more times with practiced motions, muscle memories that hadn’t yet begun to fade.

She paused as her heart began to rise, settling somewhere between her collarbones. Closing her eyes, she navigated through her mental map, locating her contacts list, typing in a name, selecting it, and then tapping out a short message on the keypad.

The fact that she had her eyes closed helped a bit—she could pretend that her phone was still working, that the cell towers, satellites, power plants and all the million other parts of modern society that went into sending a single text message still operated. In the tapestry of her mind’s eye, they did, if at least for a moment.

For a long time, she hovered over the “send” button. Before she could begin to regret her decision, she tapped the screen, opened a drawer, and deposited the phone inside, nearly slamming the drawer in her haste to remain true to her decision. Holding her hand over the handle, she focused on breathing. In and out.

For a long while, Chelsea felt as though she was suspended over a vast hole, alone and scared. It was a terrifying abyss that she’d just stepped out onto: a long and desolate fall to limbo. Then, Liyne let out a little murmur in her sleep, and with that, she was brought back from the precipice.

It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t.

Bye, Cass.

I’ll miss you.