Even If We Break

by Marieke Nijkamp

  And it helped. To some degree, it helped.

  Down this mountain, Elle is waiting for me, alone in our too-small shared bed. Dad is still sleeping. At four, he’ll have to get up to go to his first job. Though our house is cold, the kitchen semi-dysfunctional, and often it’s as dark as the cabin was, if I had to choose between them, I wouldn’t trade my home for the world. It’s not perfect, and honestly, the feeling probably won’t last. Whether it’s two days, two weeks, or two months from now, I’ll go back to longing for functioning appliances, warmth when the nights get colder, fewer worries, and plenty of food in the fridge. It’s not romantic to lack those things, though plenty of people with money are enthralled by the idea of poverty. But Elle is there, and that alone is worth immeasurably more than hardwood floors and carpets so thick you can sleep on them.

  “I didn’t anticipate the weekend would go like this. That the day would go like this.” My voice is ragged and I pause to breathe between every few words.

  Finn leans into me. “I don’t think any of us did, but we’re on our way home now.”

  “I wanted this to be good for you.” Apparently, pain and exhaustion destroy my lack of self-control. But it’s okay. I need him to know that. We’re not down the mountain yet, and even if we were…I need him to know that.

  “Anything you do is good for me.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  Finn laughs. Not audibly, but I can feel it in the way he breathes, in the way his chest rises and falls. “I don’t think anything makes sense anymore.”

  “Good point.”

  We’re silent for a while, though the pine grove around us isn’t. Owls hoot, leaves rustle, and foxes yap. Weirdly, it’s comforting. Actual silence would be too much to bear right now.

  Step for step, we make our way through the woods and the foliage becomes less dense. The space between trees opens up into a barren landscape. Above us, the moon shines bright enough to turn humans into werewolves, and every blinking star is a gateway to a magic world.

  I glance at Finn every other step. To make sure he’s here. To make sure I’m here.

  To finally figure out what I want to say to him—before it’s too late again.

  Because even while we make our way down the mountain, I want to do more than walk away from this nightmare. I want to walk toward something. I need to know there is good on the other side of this night.

  The castle’s loneliness was charming, at first, before you discovered its secrets. Now you’re simply too far from the magisterium to be at ease.

  After the first trap was triggered, all the doors around you seemed to be dangerous. Now, you check for traps as best you can, but your hands are shaking. It’s so much easier to dismantle them when you’re unscathed and convinced nothing will ever harm you. It’s easiest to believe you’re invincible while you still are.

  But survival is your strongest skill. You decide the best way to dismantle traps is to force them, with crutches to help you keep a safe distance. You open doors, despite not knowing what lies beyond them, because you have to get through. You face the shadows to get to the light on the other side.

  And you’ve done this before. You’ve scouted out locations, tracked your way through dark forests, survived. You plan to survive here.

  More than that, you plan to live.

  Twenty-Six

  Finn

  I glance sideways at Ever. I want to hold on to them and never let go. And I know what Damien would say: What are you waiting for, you nerd?

  But before I can open my mouth to say anything, they speak up first. Their voice is so quiet, I have to strain to hear what they’re saying.

  “I thought I’d lost you.”

  Then, “I thought I’d lost us. Before we even had the chance to try to figure out what ‘us’ means. I don’t want there to be so many unspoken words between us. I don’t want there to be secrets between us. When we’re home, when we’re safe and we’ve made sense of it all…” They start. Swallow.

  “We will make it out of here,” I offer.

  They shake their head. “Before you leave for college, rather…”

  “Ever.”

  They stop talking.

  “You don’t have to try to say any of this right now. We’ll have time.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “We’ll make it. We’ll claim it. We’ll carve it out of the universe itself if we have to.” Maybe if I can convince them, I can convince myself too.

  They draw in a deep breath. “Don’t let me be afraid.”

  I blink.

  “I don’t have the words you deserve. Not here. Not now. I don’t know how to share the worst parts of me, because I never have. And maybe that’s why I don’t know how to share the better parts either, but I want to. Don’t let my fear stop me from trying?” They glance at me and glance away again. And all I want to do is take them in my arms and never let go.

  “Ev.” I reach out and hold their hand. “We’re walking down a haunted mountain in the dead of the night. There’s nothing that can stop you.”

  We step out of the tree cover and onto the barren mountain slope. It looks so different at night. The sunflowers seem to be sleeping, though their yellow leaves still reflect the moonshine. They’re slowly turning east, to where the sun will rise hours from now. Beyond it, the lava bed appears like a black hole on the side of the mountain. It’s hard to tell where the edges are, and to me, it seems it devours all light.

  Beyond both, Flagstaff. And north of it, Stardust. The small, suburban community we call home. Where I will happily tell Ever I want to spend the rest of the summer with them, even if it means sitting inside the bookshop when they work until the owners throw me out.

  But first, the road stretches out before us. Blocked. Cracked. Broken. Almost three miles to go. It might as well be three marathons. As soon as we leave the tree line behind, I can see the shadows move alongside us. It’s quieter here, and I hate it.

  I want to cling to my determination, but shadows crawl up on me, like hands of ice along my spine.

  While Ever and I pick up the pace again, Maddy falls back to join us. “Can you keep up? Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “You?”

  “We may be the most unlikely people to make this trek in the dark,” she says.

  “Someone should tell the Konigs to—” fix their road, I want to say, but the words die in my throat. If we make it out of here in one piece, the Konigs will only be told one thing now, and it won’t be anything about their road.

  “I don’t…oh.” The words register with Maddy too. She pulls her eyes back to the road ahead, and a sense of distance washes over her. She pushes her hands deep into her pockets.

  She’s in pain, and so am I. With every step, lightning bolts of pain flash through my legs. My shoulders and hands are aching too. All my joints are revolting against me, ready to dislocate at any moment. I’m bursting in slow motion.

  When Carter and I talked about the trip to and from the cabin, carrying me down seemed like the worst idea ever. I was wrong.

  I try to keep my balance by leaning into my crutches and into Ever. They notice and stick as close to me as possible. I can feel them worry. I can feel them struggle with words. We’re always too aware of each other.

  But at the same time, Maddy is drifting, and we’re still breaking.

  “Help us,” I whisper. “Don’t let us be afraid either.”

  “I don’t know how.” Ever’s breath shakes. But then they clear their throat, and like Maddy did earlier, they find a distraction. “If you were in Gonfalon, what would Feather do, Finn? If he were on the run from an enemy in Yester Tower? On his own, without his friends?”

  I almost laugh, because I know what they’re doing. I almost cry, because I know what they’re doing. I almost kiss them, because I know
what they’re doing. Still, it takes me a moment to find my voice. “He’d try charging down the mountain first, and if that didn’t work, he’d stick to the shadows.” We’re not the same, he and I. And thankfully, I still have some of my friends with me. “But after all this time and after all this training, he’s still a city boy. He’d probably get eaten by wild boars before he reached the foot of the mountain.”

  They punch my arm, and it’s a different kind of pain. One I don’t mind so much. “That’s a terrible plan and I forbid you following it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m serious,” they say vehemently.

  “Me too.”

  I know they’re grinding their teeth. Feather’s lack of self-preservation in-game has always been one of the things that annoyed Ever most. It’s why I loved playing it up.

  Ever sighs. “So what would Feather really do?”

  They’re slowly and successfully distracting me—and hopefully Maddy too. “He’d be a bit more careful. He’d try to remember what—” My throat tightens, but I push through. “What Corrin taught him about surviving. Depending on who he’d lost, on how events unfolded, he’d want revenge. Or he’d want to disappear into the secret side of Gonfalon. The side that Lente knows as well. One that doesn’t play by council rules.”

  Maddy glances over her shoulder, her eyebrows almost up in her hairline. “How daring of you.”

  “I know my way around,” I counter.

  “What would Myrre do then, Mad?” Ever asks, their voice a bit softer, their breathing steadier.

  Maddy shakes her head. “I don’t know, honestly. Part of me wants to say she’d give up. I don’t think she’d be able to manage on her own.”

  “You can’t,” Ever says with determination. “It’s in the council rules that you can’t give up. You’re forbidden.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works,” she protests, but Ever is unbreakable.

  “It is as long as I’m game master. For now, these are the rules, even if we leave this game behind on this mountain tonight. Giving up is not allowed.”

  Maddy doesn’t answer, not immediately. She keeps walking as quickly as we all can handle, and the landscape around us keeps changing. From sunflowers to lava flows. From dark, to lighter, to dark. The path remains uneven, but our footing is a little steadier.

  “Then Myrre would continue running,” Maddy says eventually. “She’d run until she ran into someone who could help her survive everything that’s still to come.”

  There’s something to her voice that I can almost place, but not quite.

  Ever flinches. “Oh, Maddy…”

  I add up the pieces and everything grows cold. “Maddy and I are supposed to be the final victims, aren’t we?”

  Ever glances back in the direction of the cabin and with that, the spell has broken once more. “I think so. I mean…it would make sense.”

  Oh.

  Maddy goes quiet. There’s a faraway look in her eyes, and she takes a step back from me and Ever.

  “Just you, I think, Finn.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She hesitates.

  I take a step toward her, but she tenses all over, so I keep my distance.

  Her mouth works, but nothing comes out, like she’s trying to explain to us what’s happened, but she can’t find the words.

  Finally, she says, “It’s just you. Trust me.” Or: Believe me.

  I’m not sure I can, but I’ll try. “Do you know what’s happening?”

  “No! No, definitely not. I just…don’t think they’ll target me again.”

  Again. I want to ask more, and by the looks of it, Ever does too. Maddy sounds suspicious. I trust her, I do. But I can’t shake that discomfort, nor the questions that are coalescing in the back of my mind. There’s something there. I will figure out what it is.

  But I set that aside for now. “If I’m supposed to be the final victim,” I say instead, “then we should try to figure out what the plan is.”

  At that, all three of us fall silent. Clouds pass in front of the small sickle of moon and cast the world in more shadows. I keep looking at my feet, to ensure I’m sticking to the path. And the night folds itself in on us. The air smells of summer, a scorched, thick, flowery smell. The gravel crunches beneath our feet and the chilled mountain air crawls along my spine.

  In the emptiness, no one can hide, but we’re walking down a mountain in the dead of night, and we have no way to defend ourselves.

  I feel vulnerable out in the open. I feel vulnerable on this path.

  And that’s exactly it. “The boulders,” I say, aghast. “I could barely climb the boulders when we were all going up and there were five of us then. In the dark, on my own, it could kill me.”

  Ever frowns. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. As a trap, it makes the most sense and it’s…” They fall silent and shudder.

  “What you would do if you were GMing?” I finish. The words leave a sour taste in my mouth. “It’s what I’d expect from any good game design too. Isn’t that twisted?”

  Ever shakes their head. “This is definitely not a conversation I ever thought we’d have. But in my experience, players never act as you’d expect in games, especially when you set up impossible challenges. Maybe it’s the same here. Maddy and I are with you, and that will throw a wrench in the plan. We won’t let you fall.” They scratch their head. “I meant that figuratively, by the way, but it might also be true literally.”

  “Thanks, I guess.” I keep my voice light. It’s too difficult to wrap my head around everything otherwise.

  Maddy doesn’t get that memo, though. She nods solemnly. “We’ll both be able to help you. To get past whatever trap there might be. We’re in this together.”

  Mere hours ago, I didn’t trust any of them not to let me fall, and Liva caught me. Now, Ever and Maddy are here, and I need to put my full faith in them. Frankly, this is all so intense that part of me wants to take off and run away for a darker part of the mountain, to hide and not have to deal with the emotions churning in my chest.

  “We can also use it to our advantage, the fact that we know what’s coming and that we’re together,” I say. “File this under things I never expected to say, but I’m so tired of running all the time. I’m tired of fleeing, and I’m tired of being afraid, and I’m tired of building walls around myself and not trusting others.” I bite my lip and stare at Ever and Maddy with a kind of helplessness. “I trust you not to let me fall.” I take another deep breath. “And I want this to be over. We need to find who’s doing this, and we need to fight back. If we don’t, we will never be free of it. If we only escape, we will always be looking over our shoulders.”

  Ever tilts their head, considering. “I want to know why all of this is happening. I want to know why us.”

  “I want to understand,” Maddy puts in. “But I agree with Finn. We can’t keep running. I mean, I assume we could, but I’d rather not be afraid of shadows either. I don’t want to live life waiting for something or someone to jump at me. It’s exhausting enough already dealing with how unpredictable all you neurotypicals are. Let’s not throw mortal danger into the mix.”

  “That’s the spirit.” I reach out to pat her back, and this time she doesn’t pull away. “Besides, we know their play now. At least to some extent. Probably. This is our only chance.”

  Ever pulls the tattered remains of their cloak closer and takes a step away from both of us, pondering, deciding. They keep their eyes firmly on the absolutely invisible horizon and the mountains that lie beyond us somewhere. They don’t say a word, but a range of emotions passes over them. From uncertainty to the pure anger I saw from them back in the cabin, after they found the recording with Elle’s voice. They breathe through it, though, their hands clenching and unclenching at their side. Their foot drawing some kind of design in the dirt.
“I don’t want these to be our only options,” they eventually whisper.

  “I don’t think any of us do,” I say gently. “But they are. Or at least, they’re the only two I can see. Fleeing or fighting. I don’t think there’s a third alternative. Not without magic, in any case.”

  We keep doing that, somehow. We keep reaching—not for actual magic, but for our game, for the story between us. Because the truth is, if I’m just Finn here, I would’ve broken already. If this were just me and my friends, with no layers of protection or defenses, even imaginary ones, I don’t think I would have gotten this far. For almost three years, we were us and we were inquisitors too, fighting for justice and one another.

  When everything else felt impossible, having that alter ego was the crutch that kept me standing, the sword that kept me fighting, and the home that I could always return to.

  I don’t think I’m alone in that.

  “Ever?”

  After what feels like the better part of forever, they nod. “All right. I’m in. Let’s make our stand.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Ever

  “One condition, though,” I say, and I look to the others in turn. “I don’t want to harm anyone.”

  “Even if that someone might kill us?” Finn asks, but not with conviction.

  “It doesn’t mean we should do the same thing. That’s not how this goes,” I counter. “I’m not saying that nonviolence is the only solution. We should do what we have to do, and if that includes fighting for our lives, no one should hold back. I just think violence should be the last resort, not the starting place. This isn’t who we are. This isn’t who I want us to be. And more to the point, I want to see them brought to justice if we can.”

  “It’s not like we have weapons,” Maddy says. “Unless you count the bread knife, but I’d rather not use that either.”