“True,” I say, forcing myself back into the conversation. “But we have a starting point. The P.O. box at the university. We’ll find him.”
That effectively kills the conversation. I tell myself it’s because no one had anything else to say. End of topic. Moving on.
We exit the barely still hanging doors into the alley behind the school, then turn the corner out onto the main street. The looming entrance to the train station fills the end of the road with its gleaming steel face, full of rounded arch windows and tasteful neon accent lighting. It almost covers up the vague run-down feeling of businesses barely afloat that set in a few years after the spellplague. People were afraid to travel outside the protective wards around the cities for a long time, and even after travel slowly resumed, the volume of passengers has never quite been the same.
Even still, most people prefer to fly, to be far above any potential source of contaminated maz, but that isn’t an option for us. Security at the Kyrkarta Air and Space Port is thorough, including a nullaz barrier that would strip away any concealment spells we attempted to use. The number of trains running is way down from what it used to be, but they’ve managed to keep the doors open. Kyrkarta is still connected to the rest of the world by ground, if only just. Shockingly, not many people want to visit the city that was ground zero for the deadliest plague the world has ever seen. Can’t imagine why.
As we approach the station, Ania tenses beside me. One guard stands on either side of the entrance doors, casually observing every person that walks past. Okay, this is the hard part. Buying tickets online? No problem, thanks to Ania’s money. Actually getting on the train? Fine . . . unless the police have shared our photos with security to guard against us fleeing the city, like we’re currently attempting to do. Ania’s the only one of us who’s ever left Kyrkarta by train, and she said there would be two layers of guards to pass: one here, at the entrance, and another as we get on the train. No ID checks, but that won’t matter if they look too closely at our faces.
Jaesin does his emo shuffle toward the middle set of doors, as far from both guards as possible. Remi buries their face in their game, and I turn to Ania, letting my voice drift higher and my laugh come easier. Just two friends chatting about the latest season of a popular vid series. Nothing to see. Jaesin reaches the sliding door first, hesitates for a second on the threshold, then moves on without us. I hold my breath as the rest of us approach, closer, the door slides open . . . and we’re in.
Round one: uneventful victory.
The train station is as busy as it ever gets, the early morning crowd in line to present their electronic tickets for boarding, while friends and family stand off to one side to wait for their arrivals. I let myself relax just a fraction. With it being this busy, we’re less likely to get stopped. We shuffle into line together, our tickets loaded onto cheap throwaway decks completely disconnected from our regular net presence. No identifying information whatsoever, just a few games to make them look used, and a single train ticket each.
The eternal line works in our favor, like I thought. By the time we get to the front, the guard next to the ticket taker looks bored enough to fall asleep. With a grunt, Jaesin holds out his deck to scan, and the woman waves him forward without a second glance, eyes glazed over. Ania and I get similar treatment, and it takes everything I have not to breathe a relieved sigh as I step over the gap and onto the train, the floor vibrating with pent-up power under my feet.
“Hey, you,” someone says right behind me, and I turn automatically. The guard is waving a hand in Remi’s face. My blood turns to ice in my veins.
“Yeah?” Remi mutters, not looking up from their deck.
“Oi, will you look up from that thing for five seconds?” the guard snaps.
Remi looks up, their expression baleful. Good acting. I hold my breath.
The guard studies them for what seems like an hour, then nods in satisfaction. “Get your face out of that thing when you step on the train. You fall through that gap, you break your leg. Got it?”
“Yeah, fine,” Remi says, and holds their deck out for the ticket to be scanned.
Then they’re on. And so is the next person after them, and the next. Some of the stiffness finally bleeds out of my shoulders as we follow Jaesin from car to car, looking for an empty compartment. By the time we find one, the loudspeaker is already announcing our impending departure. My brain hits the brakes hard.
This is not where I thought I’d be. This was supposed to be our grand farewell week. Parties, concerts, food, Kyrkarta. I’m supposed to be celebrating in the city I love, with the people I love. I’ve never left my city, not once. Neither has Remi. Jaesin hasn’t left since he first arrived after the plague. At the end of this week, they were supposed to leave and I was supposed to stay. That’s not what’s happening at all, though.
My butt has barely hit the cushion when the train hums gently as the maglev activates, then sails smoothly into motion. The world outside the window slides past slowly first, then faster and faster until it’s nothing but a blur. We sail along, nearly frictionless, past the wards guarding the city from the contaminated wastelands beyond and out into craggy mountains. On our way.
My head is a mess. I want to scream, want to tell them to stop the train, because this would be great, an adventure, but for two things.
I want to share this moment with Remi. Our first time leaving Kyrkarta, and they’re right by my side, like I always thought they would be. But they won’t look at me. They may as well be on the other side of the planet.
But more than that, it’s the sick certainty in the pit of my stomach.
When we get to Jattapore, the others are going to stay.
And I’ll be going back alone.
In the days before the plague, the high-speed train to Jattapore would have taken an hour at most. It’s less than four hundred miles away, connected directly by rail. With the decreased train service, though, we’re forced to ride a loop that circles through several surrounding cities. Stop in Batista, take forty-five minutes to load and unload passengers, on to the next city, rinse and repeat. What used to be a one-hour trip now takes almost six, and once we’re locked in a compartment together, it takes barely twenty minutes for the anger and resentment to boil over.
Remi stares out the window, silent, with their forehead pressed to the clear acrylic. They’re utterly disconnected, save for the occasional heavy look they shoot in my direction. Jaesin somehow manages to turn sitting next to them into worried hovering without saying a word, shooting glares at me every time I so much as shift in my seat. Ania stares off into space in a way that I know means she’s reading a book on her lenses, her face twitching into slight smiles, frowns, and confusion along with the story.
The atmosphere is oppressively awkward, and I’m about sick of it. I get it, I screwed up, but am I going to be ignored and punished forever? Even while we take on this huge investigation into something that I discovered? I was the only one willing to figure out what happened, and I was right, and we’re finally doing something about it—but somehow I’m still the jerk everyone hates.
Right as I finally decided to pull up a movie on my lenses and zone out, Remi stands from their seat, shoves past us all, and slips out of the compartment, shutting the door behind them with a solid click.
I stare at the closed door. My fault, probably. Everything is my fault. I glare at the door and turn back to face forward . . . only to find Ania and Jaesin staring me down expectantly.
“What?” I snap.
Jaesin practically snarls, and Ania rolls her eyes. My skin prickles with the hostility radiating off them both, putting my hackles up.
“What do you mean, what?” Jaesin says, terse. “Go after them.”
“Why me? I didn’t do anything. They just left.”
Ania slaps her hands on her thighs, shockingly loud in the small compartment, and actually stands so she can glare down her nose at me.
“You didn’t do anything
? Are you serious?” she says, about five seconds from actually shaking a finger in my face. “You are such a hypocrite, Diz, always like ‘Let them make their own choices’ and ‘It’s up to them what they feel well enough to do,’ but you’re the one that acts like they’re contagious. Do you even remember what happened on the bridge after the job? You ditching us right after the worst experience of our lives was only the most recent in a long line of terrible things.”
Remi’s hands on my hips, dancing close, me pulling away.
Remi’s fingers brushing my knee, the stars bright overhead, the words “Ask me to stay” heavy in the air as my brain goes blank.
Remi reaching for my shoulder, the touch of their skin like poison, recoiling, slamming into Jaesin, into the crowd, fighting back nausea—
Wait, is that what everyone thinks? What Remi thinks? That it’s about their illness? That’s not it at all.
I shove the memories away and scoff to cover my moment of hesitation. “Obviously they’re not contagious. The spellplague can’t be spread by—”
“Oh my gods, Diz, I could actually slap you right now,” she says, cutting me off. Jaesin laughs bitterly.
“She’s right,” he says. “Get out of this compartment and go after them.”
“You can’t just tell me—”
Ania steps closer, crowding me toward the door.
“Get. Out.”
I leap to my feet with a growl and throw the compartment door open. “Assholes.”
I slam the door behind me and stalk off down the hall. They may have chased me out of the compartment, but they can’t make me actually talk to Remi about whatever problem they’re having. What, I’m not allowed to have some personal space? I’ll just walk around for a bit, explore the train, enjoy my first train ride.
Or not.
Because there’s Remi, standing alone in a long stretch of hallway, peering out a ceiling high window with their forehead resting against their arms, stacked on the glass. Something in my chest gives an aching little tug.
Damn it.
I chew on the inside of my lip, then sigh and walk over. Remi doesn’t acknowledge my approach, or even look over as I slide to the floor beside them, my back against the wall of the train and my knees pulled up to my chest.
“Hi,” I say several eternal minutes later.
Silence. Great. The quiet game is my favorite.
“Jaesin and Ania made me come talk to you.”
And that’s obviously the wrong thing to say, because Remi barks out a harsh laugh.
“Yeah. Of course they did. Obviously you’d never actually talk to me on your own.”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“No, but it’s the truth, Diz. It’s the truth and I’m tired of it.”
I scowl and yank at the hem of my borrowed skirt, wishing I’d thought to change when we first got on the train. I feel like I’m sitting here trying to have a conversation while wearing a costume.
“I don’t know why I’m the only bad one here,” I finally blurt. “I went out and investigated the problem we caused, all of us, and I come back with something real, and you were all just ready to DITCH me—”
“You left us first—”
“You were planning to leave anyway!” I shout, loud enough that a train attendant pokes his head through the doorway, then leaves again. I breathe hard, the air never quite enough, my eyes burning, burning. I try to pull it all back inside, but it’s out there now, spilling over and raw and plain to see.
We’re silent for a long moment, my words echoing like the ring of a hammer strike, like the lingering rumble of a bomb blast. Finally, Remi turns and slides down the wall, sitting beside me with a careful twelve inches between us.
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Diz. We used to have so much fun. The concerts, the stars, the movie nights. All of the . . .” They swallow. “All of it. I get that you have issues. We all do, after what we’ve been through. But you don’t have to let it keep you from . . . from the things I think you want.”
And that sends a shot of pure panic through me. Everything’s exposed, naked and bleeding, and people always say they’ll stay . . . but it’s not true, it’s not. No one can really say, not for certain, so what’s the point of anything, of—
I drop my head forward between my knees and clamp my hands over the back of my neck and breathe, breathe, in, out, slower, slower.
Say something.
“I know,” I manage. And those two words cost more than I have to give.
Remi leans closer, dips their head so their lips brush my shoulder as they whisper once more.
“Ask me to stay, Dizzy.”
I close my eyes again and give in for just a moment, picturing all the things they want. Things I want. We’ve been so close so many times. My heart clenches, panic speeding its beating back to double time. Just say it. I know this is wrong. I know I’m wrong. I do want this. I should tell them. I should say it. Please, Remi, just stay with me, stay in the city we met in so we can start the next part of our lives still together, so I can figure myself out and when I do . . . if I’m ever okay, then we can . . .
When I finally manage to speak again, it’s barely a whisper.
“I can’t.”
Rather than shrinking in defeat, Remi sits up straighter, staring straight across the hallway. They nod, once, firm.
“Well, that sucks. But I understand.”
I bite my lip and force slow breaths through my nose. Panic shifts to anger and back again, faster than I can keep up, a swirl of awfulness, speeding cars on a collision course.
“I understand,” Remi says again. “But I can still be mad about it. I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to think it’s fair or right for you to lash out at us for not doing something you refuse to admit to wanting. We’re not mind readers, Diz. If you want something, you have to say so. And we can’t hang in limbo until you decide you’re ready to actually have an emotion.”
Oh, fuck you entirely. My hands ball into fists unconsciously.
Great. Just great. What am I supposed to do, give them permission to hate me? To be mad forever? What exactly are they expecting? I don’t want this mess. I don’t want any of this.
What I do is push to my feet and stare hard at the ground, my mouth twisted in something between a frown and a scowl. Anger is winning, as always.
“Cool. Well. Have fun being mad, I guess.”
I turn and continue down the length of the train, listening for them to call me back, for a half-hearted “Dizzy . . .” to give us another shot, to take us back to our uneasy equilibrium.
They say nothing.
I walk on, my heart heavy from the awful freedom of finally knowing.
It’s over. Once and for all.
Seventeen
BY THE TIME WE’RE WITHIN half an hour of Jattapore, I’ve walked the length of the train three times, bought a sandwich, napped in someone’s empty seat, and generally done everything I can to avoid going back to the compartment. The train company’s weather alert system pings me with ever more concerned notifications the closer we get. Yes, I get it, Jattapore has high tides or something. We don’t have tides in the mountains, so that means nothing to me, go away.
When I feel the train start to decelerate for its final approach to Jattapore, though, there’s nothing for it. I have to go back. We made this MMC mess together, and we’re gonna fix it together.
A new message from Davon pops up as I thread my way through the crowded market car, resisting the urge to stop and buy all the therapeutic junk food I can carry. There have been a dozen more messages since the ones I ignored at the archives last night, but I’ve been too busy and head-explodey from the night’s revelations to say more than “I’m fine. Don’t wanna talk right now.” Guess I owe him a slightly longer response.
(private) Davon: Doing okay today?
Are you still at Ania’s? You could come stay with me if you want.
I snort. He had the chance to
gain custody of me when he turned eighteen and I was still fourteen. He said no. To be fair, he wasn’t really in a good enough financial situation to take care of us both, and I said at the time that I didn’t want it either, that I was fine on my own. Who believes a fourteen-year-old when they say stuff like that, though? Obviously he should have known that was code for “Yes, please, adopt me, I’m a mess.”
(private) You: I’m fine. Going to Jattapore for a few days. Will let you know when I’m back.
Talk to you later.
(private) Davon: Okay. Please be careful. Come back in one piece so we can watch the season finale of The Rare Ones together.
And by that I mean come back soon because otherwise I might watch it without you.
(private) You: Don’t you DARE.
(private) Davon: Then hurryyyyyyyyy
I go invisible and blink away the chat before I can get drawn into a deep discussion of our season finale theories. Dangerous topic. No time for that now. I make the final approach to our compartment on lead feet, as if it’s full of MMC guards waiting to kill me instead of my pissed-off friends. I’m heading into hostile territory. My angry half truce with Remi notwithstanding, I know Jaesin and Ania would only accept one outcome: shit sorted, emotions had, kisses exchanged, everything shiny. But that’s the one thing I just can’t give them.
When I enter the car with our compartment, though, the whole hallway rings with muffled laughter and shouted conversation. My chest gives a little pulse of warmth at the noise, the familiar soundtrack of the Cliffs. Home. An unconscious smile tugs at the corner of my mouth, and I quicken my pace, pulling the door open to let some of that goodness wash over me.
I’m met with silence.
My smile dies away as everyone avoids my eyes, the ghost of their mirth still fading from their expressions. Something in my chest withers and curls in on itself as I slide into my seat, eyes locked on the floor.
“Hey,” Remi says, voice flat, not looking at me.
“Hey,” I answer. A small effort. I appreciate it. “I guess we, uh . . . need to talk about what to do when we arrive.”
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