“Why did you take it?” Finn asks, with mild curiosity.
She laughs. “To fight off wild animals, I guess? It probably wouldn’t be particularly helpful there. Point is, I agree with Ever. I want to catch our ghost. Or at the very least, I want to make sure they’re neutralized and won’t be able to harm us. Besides, if we can stop them and trap them, maybe they’ll have a phone. We can use it to call for help.”
“Fine,” Finn says. “I want us to go home.”
I nod. Me too. “Okay, then. What do we have to work with? We need to come up with a plan. They’re ahead of us and have probably set up a trap near the boulders. Rocks fall, everyone dies. Something like that.”
Maddy twirls the bread knife around, making me faintly uneasy, but she isn’t even looking at it. “We have our cloaks,” she says. “Or at least mine and yours. I don’t think we want Finn to strip quite yet.” He scowls at that. “Once upon a time, Selina, my cat, caught a massive raven and brought it into the house, alive and mostly unscathed. My parents weren’t home and my sister was out playing somewhere, and I freaked. Selina chased it around the living room, ducking under the couch whenever it tried to attack her. I was on the verge of a full mental breakdown when Sav came back and helped me catch the bird. We threw blankets and towels over it, so it would be disoriented and not able to fly away. It worked then. It may work with humans too.”
“Disorient them, overwhelm them, stop them.” I tick the options off on my fingers. “That makes sense, but it can’t be our whole plan.”
Finn nods. “We’ll need to lure our Big Bad Evil Person away from the boulders. They have the upper hand there, and it’s dangerous territory. If something goes wrong while we try to overpower them, if the boulders start to move again, we’d all be in danger.”
“I think there are two options there,” Maddy says. “Lure them away, or sneak up on them.”
“How do you intend to do that?” The moment I ask that question, I wish I hadn’t.
“Easy,” Finn says. “Me. I’ll be the incentive. If I pretend to stumble on the boulders, they’ll have to come to me. But if one of you tries to climb them, they’ll know something is wrong. The one thing we have on them right now is they don’t know we’re all still together.”
Oh, I hate this.
“I can try to run up to the Big Bad,” Maddy adds. “I’m still good for short distances, I’m quite sure. Ever, you can flank them.”
I hate this so much. I am responsible for this group, and I want to be able to protect them.
“No.”
Finn grabs my hand and squeezes. “It’s not your call, Ev. I can do this. I want to do this. And we have no other alternative, because all of us are hurt. And we can’t keep going on like this.”
“Agreed,” Maddy says. “This is happening whether you like it or not. So we better figure out the second half of the plan.”
I want to speak, but I don’t have the words. Every time I try, my brain snags on a new thorn of fear, and I’m silent for what feels like an eternity. Long enough that it seems like the stars have changed positions, and bats fly overhead. “Right. I’ll trail Finn as closely as I can. I’m still the nimblest of the three of us, so I’ll be able to move around the boulders easiest. I’ll be there to make sure nothing happens to Finn if our Big Bad attacks—or to help out Maddy so we can overpower them. Once we have…”
“We need to find a way to immobilize them,” Finn says.
“Magic ward?” Maddy suggests, and I wince.
“How about this?” Finn unwraps the leather belt from around his waist. It’s a few feet long, and though it’s fairly narrow, it looks sturdy. “I don’t have a rope on me, but this may be the best alternative option.”
“I have the laces of my boots, but I think the belt is the better option.” I can’t believe how casually we’re discussing all this. It’s comforting to do something, but it’s not a discussion we should ever have to have.
More worrisome still: I’ve yet to meet an RPG group who sticks to their plan.
But Finn is right. What other options are there? We might as well approach this scenario with the little we know about survival and surviving.
“We can use your crutches as weapons maybe,” Maddy says to Finn. “I mean, if you’re okay with it. If we need to knock them out or something.”
He bites his lip. Without the long leather belt around his waist, the overcoat falls looser, but it still looks good on him. With Lonely Peak as his backdrop, and the cold blue moonlight illuminating his costume and features, he looks like a messy, wounded high elf stepped into the mortal plane. “I…don’t know? If need be, of course. But it’s complicated.”
He stares down at his crutches. They’re pretty torn up and damaged by our slamming them through a window, the crow skulls all torn off and shredded. A long cut runs up the metal on one side, tearing through the outer coat of matte black paint and showing the aluminum underneath. It’s almost like a scar.
“I’m sorry we damaged them,” she says softly.
Finn shrugs. “I did that. It was my suggestion. But to use them as clubs…I don’t know. It’s one thing to use them as a tool, and quite another to use them as weapons, you know? I’m not sure. My crutches are as much a part of me as my arms or my legs are. Besides, I need them. I’d rather you leave them with me, and I’ll do what I can. Okay?”
“Of course.” She hesitates, then holds the bread knife out to him. “Carry this, at least. In case you need to protect yourself.”
Finn slips the knife into a coat pocket.
“It’s okay,” I say. “We’ll have one another’s backs. We’ll all do what we can.”
“We should try to get them as close to the cliff’s edge as possible. I don’t want to give them room to move around or escape. We don’t know—well, we do know—how dangerous they are.” Finn leans hard against his crutches. “If worse comes to worst, I’ll do what I can.”
“If it does, I’d rather they get away than any of us get harmed,” I say.
“They’ll keep coming after us,” Maddy objects.
Finn glances in my direction. “Then we’ll cross that bridge if we get there. We have to be safe, Maddy. All three of us. We can’t forget ourselves. We have to survive.”
She hesitates, then nods. And one step at a time, we walk to the inevitable blocked path. I look over at Maddy every step of the way, to make sure no part of her now dust-covered costume impedes her running. I look over at Finn, who’s grown paler than usual and keeps biting his lip. He still avoids putting weight on his ankle, so I can’t imagine he’s looking forward to climbing, even if everything else wasn’t part of the equation.
And it is.
Before we turn the last corner toward the blocked path, I reach out to both of them. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes,” Finn says immediately.
Maddy straightens her shoulders. “I’m absolutely sure.”
I’m not. I hate this.
But I will do anything for the two of them.
Damien was wrong. My friends are hurting. It’s my job to protect them. It’s my job to keep them safe.
So I will.
You know how to do this—lay traps, engage villains, win boss battles. You’ve fought against rogue mages before, and you stood tall against everything the magisterium threw at you. You’ve survived traps and alchemy attacks. You are strong. You are determined. And, most of all, you know how to fight for your friends.
It takes different forms, of course. Sometimes protecting your friends means a stealthy dagger and a well-placed arrow. Sometimes it’s dismantling deathly traps with abandon, or bargaining for better chances against the odds. It’s quiet companionship and loud laughter. And sometimes it is challenging words that cut with words that mend.
It’s not giving up. It’s standing together, not alone. It’s facin
g whatever comes next. Because you believe in a cause, perhaps, but most of all, you believe in one another.
Twenty-Eight
Maddy
T minus a few minutes until our last hurdle, our boss fight. It’s not funny. It’s not a game. But thinking of it in game terms is the only way to avoid being terrified out of my mind. Besides, if someone so clearly wants this to be a game, maybe the only way to win is to play by the same rules—or break them.
But despite our plans, despite our whispered conversations, with every twig that snaps, we all tense. Every time the wind picks up or the caw of birds echoes through the night sky, we huddle closer.
And every time we go over the plan again, I zone out a little more. I keep my eyes steady on the uneven ground in front of us, on the narrow path. The shadows around us move with us. I’d expect to see coyotes again, but the shadows that flank us are all two-legged. Maybe they only exist in my imagination. Maybe one of them is real. I keep waiting for Carter to catch up with us. Maybe we can keep running.
I miss being able to run.
“Maddy?”
I look up. I missed something Ever said, clearly. “Are you with us?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, just…thinking. Distracted.”
There’s that look again. The same look both Finn and Ever have worn over the course of the night. Not distrust, not quite, but something a lot like it. Furrowed brows. Hidden eyes. Their bodies slightly angled away from me. Curiosity. Hesitation. Trepidation.
There’s only so much I can read, and still so much I don’t understand.
“You are sure about this, right?” Ever asks for approximately the fifth time in the last few minutes. Our plan depends on trust, and it’s getting harder and harder to keep up the mask of confidence.
So I finally drop it. “I’ve never been less sure about anything in my life. But yes.”
Unexpectedly, they smile at that. “I know that feeling.”
Huh. It’s the first time they’ve alluded to the secrets they’re keeping. They may hint at them, unknowingly, but they’re usually so good at keeping to the background. “I wish you’d tell me what is wrong.”
They open their mouth and close it again. “I always thought most of it is so obvious. And the rest…” They pull at a strand of hair and shake their head. “I’m not sure it matters.”
“It does,” I say softly.
“Maybe being scared isn’t a bad thing,” they say instead. “It means we’ll be careful. It means we know this isn’t going to be easy and we won’t take any of this for granted. Because for all that we’re approaching it as a game, it isn’t. I wish it were, because if that were the case, we could press the reset button. Or take a break and reconvene and try again.”
I don’t know if Ever’s words are supposed to make me feel better, but in a strange kind of way, they do. They make me feel more centered. “This isn’t how I imagined my first time running again either. Missing it felt like life or death, and now…”
“Yeah.” Ever lifts their hand and then drops it again, almost as if they wanted to reach out to me. I can’t help but appreciate them for it. It’s not that I don’t like being touched at all, but I would rather it happens when I instigate it. When I know what to expect.
Finn paces ahead of us now. With every step, he winces, almost imperceptibly but not undetectable. Especially to someone who knows how to mask pain too.
He doesn’t know how to mask his awkward glances in my direction, though.
I push my hands into the pockets that are still lined with dust from the handfuls of pills. Would Finn understand? Would Ever understand? They both have enough on their minds as it is. Now is not the right time to bring any of this up, and part of me thinks never is the right time to bring any of this up. I don’t have the words for it. I don’t know how.
I never found the words for it with Carter, no matter how much I wanted to confide in him. Or in Sav. I would completely freeze up, and all the words were too overwhelming, too impossible to say out loud. And every time, I could see the window of opportunity close. Eyes flicking to something else. Face turned away. A smile that I didn’t want to disturb. So I never found the words, just the hunger and the need.
And now, the emptiness.
The only thing I have is this. As we near the closed-off section of the path, I fall into step with Finn. “I want to survive this,” I blurt out, and it’s as if the words are shards of glass in my throat, and at the same time they’re too vague, not enough. But I don’t turn away from him.
His eyes darken. “I know you do. We need to survive tonight, Maddy. But it doesn’t stop there. Once we’re home, you do not just need to keep surviving. You need to live.”
He draws breath to say more, but this time, I firmly keep my eyes on the path again. “We’re almost there.”
The sky above us has lightened to a pastel midnight, but when we turn another corner and the boulders appear down the path, they’re nothing more than shadows. And along the side of the path, all the way to where the boulders still topple over, a steep cliff.
It’s almost symbolic. We weren’t supposed to get off this mountain until a few days from now, until we finished our story. For some of us, it’d be our last hurrah before college, future, adulthood. And now we’re stumbling toward it through shadows so hungry, we can hardly see ourselves. I’m not prepared.
Finn comes to a dead stop.
He’s staring at the boulders. His shoulders hang low, and the overcoat he’s wearing no longer looks like it’s part of him. It’s only a costume now and an ill-fitting one at that. It looks like all the color is disappearing from him. On regular days, Finn is fierce. Even when he isn’t in costume, he wears enough pins to classify as armor and he’s equal parts bad decisions and endless loyalty. Now, his crutches are the only things that keep him standing, and he’s so pale, I half-expect his silver hair dye to drip from his hair.
Ever walks up to him, so close their shoulders touch. “Well then.”
“Yeah.”
Ever clears their throat, but keeps their voice low. “We have to find our positions. Maddy, we’ll stick to the tree line, out of sight. We’ll have to make sure that no matter what happens, we’re both on the same side of the boulders as Finn, okay?” I nod and take in the path ahead of me. “It’s a risk and we won’t be able to shadow Finn exactly, but we’ll stay close. It should be possible to get to you quickly.” They look at Finn intently while they say that.
When Finn glances up, his mouth is set in a fierce line. He hands Ever the long leather belt. “It’s the only way we can manage without walking into the trap. I’ll be fine. I’ll walk the path, ready for whatever this may bring.”
I take the opera cloak off my shoulders and pull the fabric taut between my hands. “The moment I see the Big Bad Evil Person, I’ll jump them.”
Ever nods. “And we’ll try to immobilize and tie them up.”
“Or knock them out.” Finn squeezes the grips of his crutches. “Let’s do this.”
“Game on.”
We didn’t decide on a way to say goodbye, because none of us considered we had to. But as we stand around awkwardly, before we part ways, I think the realization hits us all at the same time. This is it. This is where we make our stand. We don’t know what’ll happen from here.
All I can do is nod at two of the people closest to me, and disappear into the tree line, a sizable distance away from the path. I don’t know what else to do.
I try to keep from snapping twigs or making too much noise as I creep closer to the boulders. At the same time, I listen for other movement, for anyone who might be hidden here. But for all that I’ve spent time on this mountain, and all the time on the lacrosse field, I’m not an outdoors person. The leaves rustle. Something flies against my face and I swat at it, before realizing that’ll only make my position more obvious.
; I duck down and try to creep again, and ignore the part where my knee is straight up screaming at me. Hands to the ground. Try not to mind the weird sensations of the undergrowth.
And creep.
Until I’m quite sure I’m in the right space, off the boulders that seem to have come down the mountain like a river of rocks. In my periphery, I can still see the faint shape of Ever as they scramble higher up the boulders. We’re not quiet. We’re not subtle. None of us are rogues in real life. But we’ll have to—and we’re going to—make do.
* * *
And I wait. It feels like it’s hours, though it’s probably more likely minutes. It seems as though the sky brightens, though it’s far more likely my eyes have adjusted. My heart rate is a constant pounding, loud enough that I worry anyone could hear it.
I try to keep my breathing under control. Finally, Finn slams his crutches onto the path in front of him, the metallic clicks echoing around us, and starts walking.
At first, nothing.
The mountain remains as quiet and as empty as it was when we walked down.
But then.
A shadow unfurls from behind the trees, right next to the first boulder, a few yards away from me. It almost seems to glide in the direction of the path.
The moonlight catches it, and while I can’t see a face, I can see the body language. Arrogant and comfortable, haughty and once kind.
It is someone we know, but it can’t be. It can’t be.
I can read the cold determination, and everything snaps into focus, and everything makes sense.
Twenty-Nine
Liva
Emotions are distractions, and the only way to grow strong is to break through your attachments,” Father once told me. He’d given me a rabbit for my tenth birthday, and a year later he gave me a hunting knife and an assignment. “Don’t be weak, Liva. To win, you have to make sacrifices. To win, you have to be willing to risk it all. To win, you have to show you’re not afraid of anything.”
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