We’re in a long, circular hallway. At one end, I spot Jazzy. She’s outfitted like me, but alone. She waves and I wave back. On the other side, Morning waits. She paces back and forth. Every now and again she looks over at me. I’m expecting her to still be pissed off about what I pulled on the bridge, so it’s a surprise when she waves me over. I glance back at Vandemeer for approval. He smiles and gives me the kind of wingman shove that would make PJ proud.
I stumble over and Morning watches, eyes dark above her nyxian mask. She glances over my shoulder at Vandemeer, then locks back onto me. I watch as she snaps the mask off.
“I’ve got two things to say to you.” She leans so close that it’s just the two of us, in whatever world we’ve been making the past thirty days. She sets her hand against my chest like she’s trying to keep the walls from collapsing. “I wanted you to win. After that second day, when you held my hand. I wanted you down on Eden with me. You—I’m just glad it’s you, okay?”
She plays with the collar of my suit before shoving me back a step. Her wildest grin flashes before she can slide the mask on over it. I know there’s still pain there. I know she thinks she failed Loche and the rest of her team. I know she’ll treat that broken promise like a burden, but for now it’s enough that we’re going to the same place together.
“Wait,” I say. “What’s the second thing?”
“I’m still mad as hell.” She nods me back toward Vandemeer. “Race you to the surface?”
I nod once. Her smile’s gone, but it feels like a new beginning. I take my place at Vandemeer’s side and feel the pride straightening my shoulders.
Not everything is lost or broken. There’s still hope.
The techie announces that the door will open in five minutes and retreats down the hall. I unravel my headphones and flip through songs until I find the one I listened to on the first day. The one that annoyed Longwei to death. I’ll have to make him listen to it when we land on Eden.
I offer Vandemeer the other earbud and he takes it. He’s a little taller than me, but we stand quietly and listen to the cuts and drops and bright voices. My stomach is rolling, but it helps to know that when the song finishes, the door will open. When the door opens, I go to Eden. The facts are straightforward now.
A commotion sounds behind us. I don’t look at first, but Vandemeer turns and the bud falls out of his ear. Voices are raised. Vandemeer says something I don’t catch. When I turn, Karpinski is shouldering past one of the techies and down the hallway. My stomach clenches. So do my fists. His face is as hollow as ever. Why is he here? For me? Vandemeer has something pointed at him that I can’t see. Karpinski holds out his hands pleadingly.
“I’m not here to hurt him,” Karpinski begs. “I’m not.”
Vandemeer’s face darkens. “You need to leave, Karpinski.”
“No,” he says. “No. Emmett has to know. The others don’t know.”
The song reaches the bridge. One minute.
“I’m warning you,” Vandemeer says angrily. “Don’t come any closer.”
Karpinski takes a few steps back. “Fine, but Emmett has to know. He’s waiting for you. I don’t know why, but he’s waiting for you.”
In my ear, the final chorus is playing. Trumpets boom. Thirty seconds.
“I mean it, Karpinski. You need to leave.”
Karpinski goes on stubbornly. “It isn’t over. There’s one more chance. In the room.”
He thrusts a fat finger at the glowing twelve. Behind us, the door hisses open. An identical door with an identical number waits. An antechamber. Vandemeer signals and the two techies grab Karpinski. They force him back down the hallway. My heart’s beating fast as I put my player back in the knapsack.
“Be careful,” Vandemeer whispers.
“I won. I get to go to Eden. No one’s in there.”
Vandemeer’s face is veiled. “Just be careful.”
A robotic voice echoes from the antechamber.
“Door closes in ten seconds.”
I step inside. Behind me, there’s another hiss. I dig through my knapsack as the door closes and start pulling on my nyxian knuckles. With my ungloved hand, I tuck the glowing blue key under my shirt. The nyxian jacket feels like it’s waking up. Cleansing air gusts through the overhead vents. As the noise dies, the doors slide apart. Light pours into the antechamber. My body coils in expectation, but no attack comes.
My enemy waits in the dimly lit distance. Roathy looks every bit a demon. Dark is his suit; dark are his blades. He’s framed by a view of space, by the promise that was taken from him. As I step forward and the second door hisses shut, he starts to laugh. With one curved blade, he points.
“I knew it’d be you,” he says. “Twenty-five percent chance, but I knew it’d be you. They like to play their games with us. That’s all this is. One more game to play.”
“I won the game.”
He grins beneath his mask. “Oh. They must have put me in here by accident, then.”
They put him in here? This can’t be right. Beyond Roathy looms the launch pod. It’s carved into the bottom of the wall like a lodged bullet. I want to ask why they brought him here, but that’s a dumb question. He knows why and I know why. He’s here to finish Babel’s game. One more test to pass. One last fight to win. If he’s telling the truth.
I am the darkest starless corner of space.
“I know you’ve got the key,” he says with a nod back at the pod. “They told me. Get it and we’ll forget you were in the bottom four. Get it and you can go to Eden instead.”
“Roathy,” I warn, “we’ve fought more times than I can count. You never beat me. Just let me go and I won’t hurt you. Isadora will be back in a year. You’ll see her again.”
His face pinches in disgust. “You’re a lurch if you think that’s how this works.”
“I mean it, Roathy. It doesn’t have to end this way.”
“It’s the only way,” he spits back. “The only way, fathom? They saw to that.”
I stop just five meters from him. “Who? Babel?”
“Fight or die, they said. If I let you go, the pod launches and the room vacuums. If I let you go, I get sucked out to space. This was always the plan. Always. We aren’t going back.”
My heart’s thundering in my chest. It doesn’t make any sense. The words from Bilal’s letter echo. Babel says I will be given another chance. But why force us to kill? Why like this? I imagine Bilal in an identical room, facing Anton or Jaime or Alex. I know he’d never fight. He’d step to the side and tell the other person to go to Eden.
But what if Roathy’s telling the truth? What if this was Babel’s final plan?
One final fight to the death. Kill or be killed. Black hole or black hole.
“You said one out of four. The others…”
“Same thing. Bilal, Brett, Loche. Same thing. They might already be fighting.”
“It doesn’t have to end like this,” I repeat. “They wouldn’t vacuum the room, Roathy. That doesn’t make any sense. Trust me. It’s smarter to just let me go.”
“You think there’s anything Babel wouldn’t do?” Roathy sets his feet and lifts both short swords. “I’m going to Eden. Isadora and I promised each other. You won’t stop me.”
I settle into my stance. My mind is reeling from the possibilities of Babel’s final lie, but the rest of me moves by instinct. I know how the fight will go. I know his first swing, my first block. I know how he moves his feet and how I’ll slide in response. We’ve danced this way too many times to forget the music. The only difference will be the blood, the dying.
I start forward, eyes fixed on his. I’m a sword slash away when I notice his eyes flicker up. There’s a pulse of bright light behind us, and fire lances me from shoulder blade to hip. I drop to a knee as another pulses overhead. Roathy’s blade comes slashing down, and it is a miracle that I get my off hand up in time.
His swing glances past and slits a bright red line along my right shoulder. I shove
back and up and almost get my guts spilled by one of his lunges. He catches me under the armpit instead, and I nearly slip on the blood puddling at my feet. He sees it, my death, and I see it reflected in his eyes. I block, block, and slip. Before he can bring his short sword raking across my face, the nyxian jacket thrashes to life.
It is not by my command, but it saves me all the same. His blade is turned back by the forming shadow. On my knees, bleeding and coughing, I watch the substance seal me safely away from Roathy and his cannon. He shouts and swings helplessly. Every time he does, white sparks fly. The pulse cannon he created keeps firing, but my shield turns away each shot. Eventually I stagger to my feet, and the shield stretches with me.
“You coward!” Roathy shouts. “Come out and fight me.”
Knowing the nyxia will hold, I slide off my gloves and calmly treat my wounds. The burn on my back is already numb. I’ll need to have it cleaned or it’ll fester. Neither of the cuts is deep, but that doesn’t make them hurt any less. Carefully, I draw two strips from the nyxian shield. A quick manipulation makes them adhesive and I dress them over the wounds. I twist back into my gloves and crack my neck. Roathy waits.
I have to kill him.
But I can’t kill him. If I kill him, Kaya’s taught me nothing.
The thought has me breathing hard. If I can’t kill him, then what? Do I hope that Babel was lying to him? That they wouldn’t vacuum the room and waste their precious resources? My eyes flicker from Roathy to his pulse cannon. I assess the situation, take another deep breath, and set my feet. With a thought, the nyxian shield dissolves.
Before Roathy can start forward, it coils into a giant black bird. It looks like the one Katsu conjured in those first days, but bigger and darker. It flaps up in a chaos of wings, and Roathy’s forced back a few steps. I use the distraction to slide left, angling my back to the pod. The cannon charges, but it doesn’t fire as I put Roathy between me and it. Roathy slides forward, but this time I meet each of his swings. He’s getting angrier and sloppier. I jab twice and he pulls back, changing his angle of attack. Behind him, the pulse cannon’s gone silent. It’s a clever manipulation. Roathy has it set to my body signature, but it can’t track me with him in the way.
I keep up the jabs so that he doesn’t notice my nyxian bird landing on it. The metal claws dig deep, and it strips pieces away. A metal screech pulls Roathy’s attention, and I almost plant a claw right in his heart. He spins and backpedals. I pursue. His face is transformed. The thirst for blood has vanished, replaced by desperation. He lashes out, and I crush his wrist with my right. One sword clatters to the floor. I press him before he can pick it up. Jab, jab, hook. The third shot brings blood gushing from his ribs. Behind him, my bird has the cannon crashing to the floor. Roathy presses a hand to his wound. Blood slips between each finger.
I lower my hands and he takes the bait. His sword stabs high, and I sweep it higher with my claw. A helpless noise escapes his lips as I steal in for an uppercut with my off hand. The little shield shatters his nose and sends him sprawling. Blood splashes out as he lands on his back and slides toward the entrance. The second sword clatters to the ground, and this is the moment.
Blood pulses in my neck as I stand over him. I could end it here. Be done with it forever. The nyxia aches for blood and justice and reckoning. It seems to know who Roathy is and what he’s done. It wants to answer like for like. But Kaya gave me something Babel can’t touch. Pops and Moms raised me to be the better man. Vandemeer praised me for showing mercy.
I will not be the executioner Babel wants me to be.
Roathy’s still down and dazed. I cross the room and collect my things. Before he can crawl back to his feet, I manipulate my bird out of the air. A black square forms in its place. I pinch the corners before throwing them up and out. A thin smoke screen divides the room in two. Roathy and the entrance on one side, me and the pod on the other.
He’s back on his feet now. He holds one hand over the mess of his nose and pounds the other fist against the wall I’ve created. Desperate, he reaches out and tries to take hold of the nyxia from me. But I’ve always been stronger than him in that. My manipulation holds as I concentrate on putting the final touches to it.
When I’m sure it’s ready, I seal it off and stand in front of him, eye to eye.
Anger twists his features. He picks up a sword and slashes at the wall. He swings again and again, until his arms are ready to give out. There are flickers and sparks, but this is one of my best manipulations ever. Eventually Roathy sags to his knees and shouts, “Fight me! You’re a coward! Fight me!”
“Coward?” I ask quietly. “I could have killed you, Roathy. You know that, don’t you?”
“You’re going to kill me!” he shouts. “When you leave, the room will vacuum!”
When I don’t say anything, he takes his sword up again and stabs it forward. The point catches in the wall, but he keeps driving it forward with everything he has left. The wall shakes nervously, but I know it will hold. I made it strong for a reason.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
His arms are trembling with the effort now.
“Roathy, it’s an air lock.” I tap my side of the wall. “In ten seconds, I’m getting into that pod and launching down to Eden. Destroy this, and you have no protection against whatever Babel planned for you. If they were telling the truth, then this saves you. Goodbye, Roathy.”
He lets the sword sag and his eyes meet mine.
“I will come for you. I will find you. I will never forget.”
I look down at the broken boy and nod. “Don’t forget any of it. Don’t forget who put you in this room and why they put you here. Don’t forget that I’m the one who had a chance to kill you and didn’t take it. Don’t forget that I let you live, when they would have let you die.”
“Launch pod will release in one minute.”
The robotic voice echoes. I leave Roathy screaming behind the black. He deserves better than this, but I doubt he’ll be given it when Babel finds him. I cross over to the pod and dig under my shirt for the key. The blue light glows bright as I shove it inside. It clicks open and I give the handle a tug. I leave bloody streaks everywhere.
Inside is clockwork and lights. I stuff my knapsack below my seat and the hatch closes. Launch platforms line the inner rim of the ship. I can see the black of space above and below. Gunmetal gray loops in a thin circle. I lean forward against my straps and see that the other pods have deployed. Empty craters are all that is left. My breath catches. Maybe Roathy was right. Maybe Babel really did intend to kill one of us. No matter what.
I search for Bilal in every single window. I pray and plead to whoever’s listening for him to be alive. But there’s only one other pod that hasn’t launched. It’s three over on the right, and a ghost waits inside it.
Isadora’s face is a ruin. Not from one final fight, but because my pod is the only one left. She must have watched the others launch into space, one by one. This pod was her final hope that Roathy would be coming with her, and I’ve ruined that hope once and for all. I glance back into the room and see Roathy there, a mirror of her pain and loss and sorrow. But at least he’s alive. At least my nyxian wall will save him.
“Launch sequence activated.”
I thrust the key in before looking back at Isadora. The entire pod starts to shake as we lock eyes. She doesn’t know what happened, but there’s an accusation, a promise in her stare.
And then I’m falling. Black spins in the windows and claws at the glass. Flame lashes out, and I’m pulled chest forward through space. I say one more prayer for Bilal, and then the metal screams. I get a glimpse of Eden’s dark-wine oceans before everything blurs to nothing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I still remember holding my first published book. I was in fourth grade and I had written The Chronicles of Rascal. Our elementary school class had the projects printed and bound. I turned the pages of a story I had imagined and made a promise to mys
elf to never stop writing.
I’d like to thank the team at Crown Books for Young Readers for taking my childhood dream and surpassing all expectations. To Emily Easton, for having an even higher vision for this book than I did. Settling for anything less than my best writing wasn’t an option for you, and I’m so thankful for that. I’m also indebted to Alison Impey and Regina Flath for the jacket design, Stephanie Moss for the interior design, and Alison Kolani for the copyediting. Phoebe Yeh, Samantha Gentry, and everyone at Crown Books for Young Readers, and Barbara Marcus, Judith Haut, John Adamo, Kim Lauber, Hannah Black and the rest of the marketing team, and Dominique Cimina and her publicity team at Random House Children’s Books.
I’m really thankful for my wife, Katie. She’s far kinder than I could ever be, and I’m always trying to learn from her example. Her hard work gave me the opportunity to write full-time while we were abroad. I owe that period of creativity and growth to her. More important, I get to laugh with her every night before I go to bed. What would this life be without those brief, eternal joys?
I owe a great deal to my family. Momma, thanks for reading my stories long before they made any sense. You always believed I had something worth saying. Daddio, thanks for diving into new worlds with me and asking the right questions. I owe my love of science fiction and fantasy to my brothers, Matt and Pat. Endless hours playing video games and slaying dragons finally paid off for us! So if you two are up for another run through Molten Core, I’m game. The Zaccardos deserve a hat tip here as well. Thank you for making me feel so welcome and always encouraging my dreams.
A great big thank-you to the teachers who inspired me throughout the years. I’m especially indebted to Susan Letts and Anne Dailey. Your mutual conspiring to land me in a creative writing class was such a demonstration of faith for a young writer. I’ve never forgotten it.
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