The Broken World

by Lindsey Klingele

  Liv looked to Merek and Peter for support, but they both stared steadfastly into their cans of food. Joe’s eyes filled with concern—with pity—but that somehow made Liv even more angry.

  “Come on, guys . . . you can’t be serious,” she said, her voice rising.

  “She is right,” Merek said, “if a bit overheated.”

  “I’m not overheated!”

  “Liv,” Peter said, his voice maddeningly calm, “we hear what you’re saying, and what happened to that Knight is incredibly messed up. But we’re not going to solve that problem and fix everything else all at once. You’ve been going out on the moped every day, and now you’re practicing knife fighting, too? I mean, I know things are terrible, but we’re not exactly action stars here. Maybe you should just chill for a bit,” Peter said.

  “Chill?” Liv asked. “Are you serious? Chill? We are so far past chill, I can’t even . . . I mean, don’t you think I’d rest if I could? Don’t you think I’m tired of seeing dead bodies, and learning how to stab things? I’m tired of living in this dark house with no electricity or air-conditioning, I’m tired of looking for some clue to help us all get out of this mess, and finding nothing. And now we finally, finally have some kind of idea as to what’s happening to these Knights, and you want us to just take a break? There is no break! None of us gets a break!”

  Liv didn’t realize she was yelling until she’d stopped and the echo of her voice bounced around the walls of the dining room. Joe, Merek, and Peter all stared up at her as if she’d suddenly spewed pea soup from her mouth, Exorcist-style. It felt strange to yell, to let loose, to not be the calm voice of reason for once. But she didn’t know what else to do.

  “Liv,” Joe started, and his tone was so gentle, so placating, but it did nothing to help. Couldn’t they understand? She wasn’t just trying to fix the world, she was trying to fix the world that she broke. She’d opened that giant portal on the beach; she’d gone through it to save Peter; she’d been the one to make the clouds boil in the sky. And every person injured in the evacuation or the fires, every house looted and burned, every day that went by, racking up more death and damage—that was on her.

  So she couldn’t take a break. Not until she fixed this.

  Joe was still staring at her, his expression a picture of calm. But Liv didn’t hear whatever consoling words he’d been about to give her, because at that moment, there was a knock at the door.

  “Expecting someone?” Merek drawled.

  “Could be someone saw our lights, came to see if we have fresh water,” Joe said, rising. “You guys wait here.”

  He grabbed a baseball bat—pretty unsteadily, Liv noticed—and went to answer the door.

  “Liv! Better get out here,” Joe yelled from the other room a moment later. “You have . . . a visitor.”

  The can of soda nearly slipped from Liv’s hand. She stood, heart pounding.

  Relax, she told herself sternly. It’s not him, it can’t be him.

  Liv made her way quickly toward the front room, Peter and Merek on her heels. She ran through the list of people who might come searching for her at Daisy’s Malibu beach house—other than the one person she hoped it would be. Her mind came up blank. No one else knew she was here. Only one person would come looking for her like this, only one person who could reasonably show up at exactly this moment.

  Except it wasn’t reasonable, was it? That after all these weeks of trying desperately not to think about him, of coming to terms with the fact that she’d never see him again, that she might turn the corner and see his face looking back at hers?

  She turned the corner.

  “Miss me?” Shannon asked.

  Her hair was a little longer than when Liv had seen it last, its tips now muted pink rather than bright red. But she had her same Shannon-ish grin. Liv yelped, ran across the room, and hugged her best friend, hard.

  “Guess that’s a yes,” Shannon said. “Okay, those are my lungs you’re crushing.”

  Liv stepped back, a goofy smile still on her face.

  Shannon looked around at the others in the dim light of the room. Her eyes fell on Merek, who stood stock-still a few feet away, his posture rigid. “I know, I know, you’re way too cool to ever admit it, but I can see in your eyes you’re glad to see—”

  The rest of her words were muffled as Merek suddenly lunged forward in two giant steps and gathered Shannon to him, his arms almost swallowing her small frame.

  Everyone, even Shannon, froze, unsure of exactly what was happening, but Merek still held on to her in a tight embrace. Finally, he pulled away, his face flushed. Shannon looked up at him, her eyes wide as saucers. For maybe the first time since Liv had known her, she seemed at a loss for words.

  “Um,” Shannon said.

  Merek composed himself first. He shrugged, falling easily back into his lazy posture, though he kept his eyes on the floor. “It is too quiet without you here.”

  “Agreed,” Liv said. But as she looked at her best friend grinning in the doorway, the dark orange sky looming behind her like a threat, the smile slipped from her face. “Except . . . why are you here?”

  “Is everything okay? With your parents?” Joe asked.

  “Oh yeah, they’re fine,” Shannon said. But there was a small hitch in her voice that Liv recognized. The Shannon-is-lying hitch.

  “And they know where you are?” Joe asked.

  “Of course!” Shannon said. “I mean, they will, as soon as they read the note I left them.”

  “Shannon.” Liv beat Joe to a disapproving reply, crossing her arms.

  “Hey, they left me no choice!” Shannon responded. “Do you know what’s going on in Utah right now? Nothing, that’s what. Even with my wrist healed I just had to sit there, day in and day out, making friendship bracelets with my thumb-sucking cousins, wondering what was going on out here. After you lost the internet in LA, I didn’t even know if you were alive. I had to come back.”

  “So you just . . . left?” Liv asked, hating the scolding tone in her voice. “You left them there to worry about you?”

  “Hey,” Shannon said, sounding defensive now. “They know where I am. Not, like, the exact coordinates or anything, but I told them I was coming here to help you.”

  “How did you get here?” Joe asked. Liv was amazed by how calm he sounded.

  “Stole the van, obviously. Driving into the city wasn’t easy with half the roads closed, but I managed.”

  “Well, you have to go back,” Joe said. He ran a hand through his hair, something he did when exasperated. Liv wondered how he had any hair left at all.

  “No way,” Shannon said, crossing her arms to mirror Liv. “It took me forever to get here. I’m not going back there. I’m not. Liv, come on.”

  Liv knew she should come to Shannon’s defense. She should take her best friend’s side, just like she’d always done. Just like Shannon had always done for her. But she couldn’t help shaking her head.

  “You were safe, Shan. Isn’t that why you left in the first place? To get away from this whole mess and be safe?”

  Shannon looked stunned, her cheeks going a bit red. “I went away because my parents were freaked after what happened . . . and maybe I was a little, too. But I’m all healed up now.” She held up her arm, waving her wrist in the air. “And I made the decision to help before you even came back home, Liv. Now that I’m better and my parents are doing better, I’m sticking by that.”

  “And we are glad for it,” Merek interjected, glaring at Liv.

  Liv sighed. “But you’re putting yourself in danger all over again—”

  “So are you,” Shannon retorted.

  “I have no choice!” Liv exploded. “I have to fix this mess because I started it. It’s my responsibility. And besides, it’s not like I have anywhere else to go. But, Shannon, you have parents. People who care about you and love you and want to keep you safe. Do you know how lucky you are to have that?”

  “Of course I do,” Shannon sai
d, her eyes glittering in anger now.

  “Then how could you do this to them? You can’t just do whatever you want and not even think of the consequences!” The words poured out of her, hot and fast. “How do you think your parents will feel the next time you get yourself hurt?”

  Shannon flinched, the red in her face deepening. She moved her healed wrist a little behind her back, and it was clear she was embarrassed she’d gotten hurt in the first place. Liv knew all that just by looking at her, and knew she should stop. But she couldn’t. Things just kept getting worse, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t control a single thing about the situation they were in. Every time she thought she had a handle on what was happening, something even crazier would pop up. Gravity would stop working. Men would turn into wraths. Things were spinning away from her, and there was no way to predict, let alone stop, what would happen next.

  The one thing she’d been sure about was that Shannon and Daisy, at least, were safe and far away.

  “I know what I’m doing,” Shannon said.

  “Oh, really? And what am I supposed to tell your parents if you get killed, huh?”

  “Tell them it was my decision,” Shannon responded, her dark eyes narrowing. “My decision to do what I can to help fix this. For them.”

  “Shannon is right,” Merek said, taking a step to stand next to her. “We have all made a choice to continue on in this fight, despite the danger. Is that not what you told me, once, was special about this world? That everyone can make choices for themselves?”

  “That isn’t . . . That’s not . . . ,” Liv sputtered. She looked to Joe for help. “Please back me up on this one.”

  Joe sighed. “I’m on your side, Liv. If these were normal circumstances, I’d throw Shannon in the back of my car and drive her straight to her parents. But . . . these aren’t normal circumstances. Even if we found the time to drive to Utah—”

  “I’d just turn around and come right back,” Shannon said.

  “I can’t believe this,” Liv said, shaking her head. She looked at Shannon, who was wearing her most pissed-off expression, the one usually reserved for bouncers who wouldn’t let her into nightclubs. Or for her parents. Liv could barely believe that the look was being directed at her. That Shannon would be against her. Or was it the other way around? Was it her against Shannon? But even as she thought about backing down, she remembered again the moment she’d learned Shannon had been hurt while she was in Caelum. And she imagined what worse things could happen to Shannon if she stayed in L.A. Worse than running into another Knight, worse than stumbling across a dead body. She pictured Shannon being torn apart by black-eyed wraths. Pictured her becoming one. Pictured her lying on the ground, her eyes staring up at nothing.

  “I can’t believe you’d be so . . . selfish,” Liv said.

  “And I can’t believe you’d be such a hypocrite,” Shannon spit back. “And kind of a bitch.”

  “All right,” Joe said, spreading out his hands. “Let’s just calm down. We’ll go in the other room, take a breath—”

  “No,” Liv said. “We won’t. Maybe you’ve all agreed this is okay, but I don’t.” She pushed her way past Joe, grabbing a set of moped keys from the side table and running out the still-open door into the stifling hot night air, her heart beating wildly in her chest.

  Two hours later, Liv still felt horrible. In fact, she felt more horrible, if that was even possible.

  She kept running the conversation over and over again in her mind, wondering what could possibly have made her say those things to her very best friend? But no answers came to her. Yelling at Shannon was just one more mistake in the list of mistakes she’d made lately; though at least this one hadn’t resulted in a near-apocalypse.

  Above Liv’s head, the sky was dark and burnt-looking, which was as close to nighttime as Los Angeles got these days. In the distance, beyond the rust-colored clouds, heat lightning flashed every few seconds. Liv dimly wondered if she should get inside, but there was nowhere to get inside to. In all her burning anger and frustration and shame, she’d jumped on the moped and taken off, not really thinking about where she was going.

  And of course she’d wound up on the cracked cement banks of the LA River. She hadn’t been here since—well, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been here. Her days had been so full of tracking down leads and missing Knights that she hadn’t taken the time to come to what had once been her favorite place in the world. More than her favorite place, really; in a lifetime full of rotating houses, guardians, and foster siblings, this spot by the river was basically her only constant. The closest thing she had to home.

  But now it was as broken and unrecognizable as the rest of her city. Looking down at the completely dried-up riverbed and then up at the lightless, empty blocks of the downtown skyscrapers beyond, Liv felt a sharp pang and hugged her knees to her chest.

  She was homesick.

  It was strange, particularly since she’d expected her homesickness to end the second she got back from Caelum, but there it was—strong and overpowering—the urge to go home.

  But the place she’d been yearning for in Caelum—with its sprawl and bustle and dreamers and schemers, its cement and bridges and forgotten, beautiful spaces—was wrecked. Torn from her, like her parents, siblings, and first home had been.

  But she could get it back. She had to get it back.

  So what did it matter if Shannon helped her to do it? Surely she could use all the help she could get?

  And if Shannon got hurt . . .

  Well, she wouldn’t let that happen. She’d train harder with Merek, get better at using the knives, be faster than the evacuation crews and police still scanning the city for stubborn citizens who’d stayed behind.

  Liv had to get back to Malibu right away and apologize. She was just about to push herself up off the dusty ground when she heard it.

  A voice. Clear as day. And impossible.

  “Liv.”

  She didn’t move. She didn’t blink. She felt the speaker approach from behind, but she knew that as soon as she turned around, she’d be disappointed again. It wouldn’t be him—it would be someone else. Merek had come after her, or maybe Joe. Her ears were playing tricks on her.

  “Liv?”

  More tentative this time. And much closer.

  Liv slowly turned.

  He was standing with his back to the bridge. And just like on the first night she’d met him, he stepped away from a swirling darkness in the structure’s shadows—a darkness that closed down to nothing and disappeared. Unlike that night, he wasn’t wearing nightclothes and a confused, frightened expression. He was in formal gear, the kind she’d last seen him wearing in the castle. And in his eyes there was disbelief and happiness, like he’d just stumbled across something amazing and was afraid to move a muscle it in case it disappeared in front of him.

  Liv knew the feeling.

  She jumped up, and he was moving toward her, too—they weren’t that far away at all, practically nothing was between them, and she’d be at him in a matter of seconds.

  Just before they could crash into each other, she stopped short, and Cedric did, too.

  Liv had a million things to ask, a million things to say. But the words scrambled against each other in her mind.

  “H-how?” she finally managed.

  Cedric exhaled and motioned back to the now-closed portal under the bridge.

  “Right,” Liv managed, feeling breathless herself. “What I meant was . . . why?”

  Cedric paused then, and it occurred to Liv that he was fighting for the right first words, too. That he was just as excited, just as nervous that they were actually, truly standing across from each other. And it suddenly didn’t matter what he had to say.

  “You know what? Forget it. I don’t care why.”

  She launched herself at him.

  Before he could move, her arms went around the shoulders she thought she’d never touch again, her fingers moved through the hai
r she thought she’d never feel again. Cedric’s hands met around her waist, his fingers gathering at the small of her back. He pulled her in tight, and then her face was angling up to his, and their lips were a breath apart, and then that breath was gone.

  She didn’t think about it, or question it, or worry what would happen next. She just kissed him, and he kissed her back. Everything that wasn’t his lips or his hands floated from her mind, and at the moment she didn’t care if it ever came back.

  Because Cedric was here. Finally, finally here.

  When the ground started shaking, it knocked them off their feet. Just like when they’d first met, they fell together to the cement before they could catch their balance, though this time Liv barely felt it at all.

  ATONEMENT

  “So I messed up bad. Like really, really bad.”

  Cedric looked over at Liv’s profile as she straddled the contraption that would supposedly take them back to Malibu. It was much smaller than a horse, but Liv assured him it was safe for them both—so long as he held on to her tightly. He didn’t think that would be a problem.

  “Did you hear me?” Liv asked.

  “Oh, uh . . . yes,” Cedric said, forcing himself to pay attention. “How did you ‘mess up,’ exactly?”

  Liv took a deep breath and then went on to explain everything that had happened to her in the previous two months. She talked about how the changing city had caused everyone in it to flee and about her long quest for a remaining Knight of Valere who could help explain what exactly what was going on.

  “I might know a bit about that,” Cedric interrupted.

  Liv looked at him, curious.

  “It is the main reason I came back,” he said.

  “The main reason? So there were other reasons?” Liv’s eyes were on the road, but there was a smile in her voice that made Cedric’s insides thump.

  “There were,” he responded. Then he told her everything he’d learned from Mathilde, and about his decision to come to LA. He skipped over the massive fight he’d had with Kat, which had mostly been about those “other reasons” for him to return to the other world. If Cedric had thought bringing Mathilde back with him to the castle would help convince Kat that he needed to leave, he’d been wrong. In fact, Mathilde’s somewhat . . . quirky . . . ways did more to hurt than help her credibility.