We will finally turn toward our three final protagonists. A man called Echo sits in a diner beside the bay in a small town in Western Washington. It is still morning, and a waitress brings around a pot of coffee, filling a white porcelain mug in front of him.

“Are we still waiting on guest number two?” she asks.

Echo nods.

“My partner should be here soon,” he tells her.

“Partner, eh?” the waitress asks. “Business or pleasure?”

“Business,” Echo tells her.

He is wearing a white dress shirt and black dress pants, and he carries a black dress jacket along with him. The waitress looks him over and comes to the incorrect conclusion that he is a Mormon missionary.

“Well, there's plenty of fresh coffee when he gets here,” the waitress says.

“I'm sure she'll be here soon,” Echo says.

The waitress pauses for a second, before heading back to the kitchen.

Echo observes the world outside the window as he sips his coffee. The coffee is warm and strong, and the bay is dark and cold, the sky a series silver clouds shaded dark at the bottom. The waters of the bay are dark and lifeless, as though the bay itself is hibernating for the winter.

The night that Echo and Delta arrived in this town, it was snowing, a little too early for the snow season, a lazy snow that drifted down in random spurts around the boat their employer steered. To his knowledge, Echo had never been to Washington, nor had Delta. Aside from the light of Seattle to the far south, the night felt so dark and deep, Echo feared they might lose their way and stumble into another world.

“We don't know when the breach will happen,” their employer explained, not looking at them, eyes fixed on the dark waters ahead of them. “But we know one of the exit points will be in this bay.”

“What is a breach?” Delta asked, always wanting more answers than their employers were willing to part with.

She had to yell to be heard above the boat's engine. Echo watched snowflakes drift down into her dark hair, speckling it with white for a few seconds before the snow melted.

“It'll look like a hurricane in the clouds,” their employer answered pragmatically. “You'll see it when it happens.”

“How do you know that this will be the exit point?” Delta asked.

“There are variables, but the equations are viable,” their employer said, answering without answering.

“What should we be looking for?” Delta asked. “Once the hurricane in the clouds happens?”

“A person,” their employer said. “You'll know when you see them.”

Their employer navigated the boat through the darkness, following a line on a screen in the boat's navigation panel. Delta had more questions, but given the answers she'd received so far, she opted to save her breath. She pulled her overcoat tight, watching the navigation panel, though Echo did not think she knew how to read the information presented by the screen.

After maybe twenty minutes, the boat arrived at a dock. Their employer stalled the engine, tossed a rope anchor to the dock, and turned to face them.

“I know you two are freelancers. I'd normally opt for someone with a badge, but recent events have made that impossible. But you've been given glowing reviews from my associates. So, I'm trusting you for now.”

He reached beneath a panel at the front of the boat and produced a duffel bag, laying it at the feet of echo.

“Sometime in the next three months, a person will fall from the sky into this bay,” he said. “Collect the package. Echo, it will be your job to extract as much information from the target as you can. Encode it, and dispose of the package. I'll find you six months from now.”

“What if nobody falls from the sky in the next three months?” Delta asked.

“Then take your money and try to enjoy the last year of your life,” their employer said.

Echo stooped to lift the bag, slinging it over his shoulder. It was heavy with cash.

“If there's information to extract and encode, we'll do it,” Echo said. “You can count on our abject professionalism.”

Their employer gave a stiff nod.

“There's a safehouse in town,” he said. “Key's in the bag. follow the road to the house with the green light on the front porch. Tomorrow, trade out the light bulb with a regular one. Once your mission is finished, remove the light bulb and leave in the night.”

“Understood,” Echo said.

Echo and Delta stepped to the dock. Their employer withdrew the rope, restarted the engine, navigated the boat around, and shot off into the darkness.

The two of them navigated up a hill that seemed endless in the night until they found the house with the green light. It was a little one story house, more a box than a building, weathered and dulled. The green light gave an eerie glow, like a will-o-wisp. Echo found the key and opened the door, ushering Delta inside.

Inside, they found three sparsely furnished rooms, two bedrooms, one office. There was a bathroom and a small kitchen. Everything in the house felt so tightly packed in, Echo thought he was experiencing mild claustrophobia just from standing in it.

Delta claimed a bedroom without words or discussion, kicking her dress shoes and socks inside. Neither of them had brought spare clothes with them, so on the following day he would walk up to the clothing store near what was probably the old town center and buy clothes for them. Not a lot, just enough for a week or so. Formal dress shirts, blouses, black dress pants, skirts. Socks and stockings. Underwear. The store clerk would probably give Echo a look, but would not say anything. Echo would pay in cash.

“How's your leg?” Delta asked suddenly.

“It hurts,” Echo admitted.

He bent at the hips, stretched his left leg out and gave it a pat, feeling the subtle dull pain suddenly flare like a campfire hitting a stubborn knot.

Delta looked from the leg to Echo's face, unmoving, unspeaking.

“What are you thinking?” Echo asked.

“Too many things to say,” she answered. “I'm hoping this job is safer than the last. I'm worried about the employer and the things he wouldn't tell us. I want to know about these variables he talked about, and this person who falls from the sky. I want to know what he meant when he said to enjoy the last year of our lives.”

“There's no way this job could be any worse than the last one,” Echo said. “The rest I can't speak to. But this just a simple baby-sitting job. Hell, apparently there might not even be a baby to sit.”

“Famous last words,” she said, staring into her bedroom.

He followed her gaze to the simple bed inside. The sheets were tucked tight, making it seem like a carved slab more than a bed.

“Do you think we'll ever find out who we are?” Delta asked.

She had asked this question before, always with the same sad, wistful undertone.

“Maybe this job,” he said as he always did.

He had suspected for a time that she saw it as a kind of pre-mission ritual. He knew she must still yearn for the answer, but he did not know if she still expected it.

The little shoebox of a house felt dark and stuffy as snow melted against the window panes. Everything was silent and cold, the night thick.

She stood only a couple feet from him, silent, though he knew she wanted something from him without knowing what. Maybe this job would bring revelations about who they were. Maybe this job would break the dam and she would finally tell him what she wanted. Maybe.

Her head tilted with an unspoken thought.

“I'm going to get some sleep,” she said, stepping into the room she'd claimed.

“Good night,” he said.

“See you in the morning,” she said, before closing the door.

For some reason, Echo thinks of that night as Delta enters the little diner. Her white blouse is tucked tight into her dress pants, a thin belt pinching both top and bottom to her waist. The waitress looks her up and down as she comes in. From the tip, Delta's jet black hair, down to the toes, a pair of patent leather dress shoes.

“You must be the partner,” the waitress correctly concludes. “Your boy is over there.”

Delta makes her way across the diner to his booth beside the window.

“You're late,” Echo says flatly.

“There was a lot of chatter this morning,” she says.

She turns over the porcelain mug on her side of the table just before the waitress returns with the pot of coffee. The coffee smell fills Delta. She smells the tropics, the forests where the beans grew, the rains that watered them, the men that picked them from their stems, the wooden boxes they were stored in when they were shipped across the world. She smells the machines that processed the beans, the machines that roasted the processed beans, the women who packed the roasted processed beans. As she brings the mug to her lips, she tastes the fingers of the morning shift worker, cutting open the bag of beans before pouring them into a grinder, before finally adding water to turn it into coffee. The water tastes of mountain glaciers too old for Delta to remember, the sun and moan and winds whipping through the snowy mounds month after month, year after year. She exhales years of memories through her nose.

“What chatter?” Echo asks.

“An explosion at a research lab in Montana,” she says. “A shooting in a park. Some impossible life form recovered by authorities. Buildings seemingly cut in half by a massive burst of energy.”

“Weird science,” Echo says. “Have you ever been to Montana?”

“Not to my knowledge,” she says. “I know I've eaten food from there before, can picture snow covered peaks and trees turning yellow for the autumn, but there's no emotion connected to it.”

“Shame,” Echo says, not for the first time.

After a few minutes pass, the two partners catching up, the waitress returns.

“You ready to order?” she asks.

“Two eggs, bacon, toast,” Echo says without pause.

Delta flips the laminated menu over a couple times. There is something strangely aggressive about the font, the bright oranges and yellows, making it difficult for her to look directly at it.

“Hashbrowns,” she finally says. “And a plain omelet.”

“You got it, sweetheart,” the waitress says, jotting down the order on her notebook.

As she looks back up at them, something catches her attention. The waitress looks up and out the window, her pen hovering in the air above her pad.

“Ma'am?” Echo asks.

The waitress doesn't answer, staring through the glass.

Echo follows her gaze out to the bay, but sees nothing among the waves.

“Rita?” Delta asks, reading the waitress' name from her tag.

“The light,” the waitress named Rita says. “Can't you see it?”

Echo slides out of the booth. The air outside the diner is cold and wet. There is a sucking of air as the door closes behind him. His feet carry him down the hill toward the lake and the sky, both shades of gray. He sees no light, sees nothing out of the ordinary at all. But there is something in the air, a hit of static, a smell of stale air. The skin of his arms prickles. Before he knows it, he is at the shore, the smooth concrete of the path becoming the sand of the beach. He is almost at the water when he finally sees it, though it is not what he expected. The underside of the clouds has taken on a strange formation, the shape of a nautilus shell, the pattern of a Fibonacci spiral. It does not look like a hurrican, though there can be no mistaking it.

From the centerpoint of this bizarre sculpture in the clouds, a shape falls.

It is only after several seconds have passed, several slow seconds of the shape descending through the air that Echo recognizes what he is seeing, and then only because he knew what it should be. A person is falling. Their head is downward, facing the water, as if in a dive. But their arms are shaking behind their shoulders, their legs being thrown around by the wind. The person is apparently unconscious.

Echo unbuttons his dress shirt, slides out of his dress pants. He tucks both beneath his shoes, before balling his socks inside the shoes for safe keeping.

He is running toward the water, and then he is in the water, freezing his muscles, stinging the scar along his outer left thigh. His arms and chest burn, but he is almost there.

The shape hits the water ahead of him, a wonderful crater of waves exploding outward.

Echo takes a breath, then dives. His hands find the grip of another body, and then they are rising toward the surface.

Dalvin and Blythe stand in his living room, close to the door.

“So,” Dalvin says.

“I think what you did in the park was really cool and brave,” Blythe says suddenly. “You didn't know me or Lux from Eve but you put yourself between us and the danger and that was really...”

Her words stop as suddenly as they started, the silence filling the room. Dalvin gives her a minute, but when she doesn't start again, he offers an ending.

“Cool and brave?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “I'm not really good with people. I'm pretty bad with them, actually. But you feel really comfortable and good, and I'm not just saying that because it's an adrenaline response or something.”

“It's cool,” Dalvin says. “I'm not really that good with people, either. I'll take Marty over most people. But I've also been trying to meet and connect with more people. That's part of why I adopted Marty, to get me out of the apartment more. And if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have met you. Uh, you and Lux. Which is good, because you seem really cool, too.”

“That makes me really happy,” she says. “Are you going to be around tonight?”

“Tonight?” he asks.

“I can stop by after work and cook something for you if you want,” she says. “Or I can cook at my sister's place and bring you some. Or you can come over to my sister's place, I'm sure she won't mind. If you're not going out or something?”

“You're really going into work after all that?” Dalvin asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “Aren't you?”

“I'll take a mental health day,” Dalvin says. “Reschedule my meetings for a couple days from now, turn on my out of office, turn off the company phone.”

“I've never worked a job where you can do that,” she says. “Honestly, I think going into work will be good for me. Give me something to focus on.”

“What do you do?” Dalvin asks.

“I work at the old factory,” she says. “I cut metal to different sizes using a saw.”

“Is that hard on your shoulder?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says.

“I'll tell you what,” he says. “You make me dinner tonight after work, and I'll massage the knots out of your sawing shoulder.”

“Are you a masseur?” she asks.

“I studied kinesiology,” he tells her. “I worked as a physical therapist for a bit. My massage skills are admittedly a bit rusty, but I bet I could still do you some good.”

“It's a date,” she says.

“A date,” Dalvin repeats.

They stand there for a minute, neither sure what to say next, before a knock comes at the door.

“Expecting company?' she asks.

“Probably that detective,” Dalvin says.

He steps around her and opens the door. Outside is a middle aged man in a blue windbreaker.

“Dalvin Cassio?” the man asks.

“That's me,” Dalvin says.

“Detective Lowfield,” the man says. “Can I come in?”

“Please,” Dalvin says. “This is Blythe. Her sister is one of my neighbors. She was in the park this morning too.”

“Blythe or the sister was in the park?” Lowfield asks.

“I was,” she says.

“So you witnessed this shooting as well?” Lowfield says. “That's good, that's good. How are you two holding up?”

Dalvin and Blythe look at each other. Though they've only known each other for less than an hour, they feel something between them, a kind of conspiratorial spirit.

“I'm pretty shaken up,” Dalvin says. “I think the adrenaline is still pumping a bit.”

“I don't know what to think,” Blythe says. “I'm just kind of here existing right now.”

“Be careful,” Lowfield says. “That could be a shock symptom. There's a counselor at the health center you might want to talk to sometime.”

Lowfield produces a business card from his hand like a magician making a card appear. Blythe steps back a little at the movement, rolling onto her right foot, before reaching up to take the card.

“Sorry,” Lowfield says. “Didn't mean to scare you.”

“It's alright,” she says. “It's nice of you to worry about me, but I really just don't even want to think about it right now.”

“Do you journal?” Lowfield asks.

“Excuse me?” Blythe asks.

“Journaling,” Lowfield says. “You know, you sit down with a piece of paper or a notebook and you just let your mind pour out.”

“No,” Blythe says. “That doesn't really sound like my vibe.”

“You should try it,” Lowfield says. “Can help to focus the mind, relieve anxiety, and is good for overcoming trauma.”

“If you say so,” Blythe says.

“Uh, detective,” Dalvin says. “We saw something in the park. There was something there with us. Something invisible. And it got hit by the bullet and it was like it just appeared. But it didn't look like a human, and it didn't look like an animal. What was it?”

“I wish I had an answer for you, kid,” the man says. “I just came from there, and I saw the same thing you did, and I don't have any idea what that thing is or could be. We called for a bio-hazard team to come grab it and investigate in case it's dangerous. Some very smart people are going to be poking around at it for awhile. Hopefully they'll figure it out.”

“How can something like that happen?” Blythe asks. “Something just appears and nobody knows what it is or where it came from?”

“Well, I don't know about you, but I have my share of things in my life that I focus on. My job for one. And there's a ton outside of my immediate focus going on in the world that I don't know anything about. I think everyone's the same. There are things we'll never know. Because they aren't immediately important to us. Because the world is chaotic and inchoate, and sometimes mysteries fall on us from somewhere we've never thought about or cared about. And simply because we were never meant to know.”

“I don't believe that,” Dalvin says. “The idea of there being something that we're not meant to know. People have blind spots and things hit us from out of nowhere sometimes, but it's not because they were meant to. And not knowing something doesn't necessarily mean we weren't meant to.”

“Trust me, kid,” the detective says. “There are things in this universe the human mind wasn't meant to comprehend. If you could truly get a glimpse of the big picture, of the grand design, you'd surely crack under the pressure of knowing.”

Dalvin opens his mouth to respond, but before he can, a terrible sound emanates from his cell phone, a startling alarm and vibration that gives him a start. A second later, Blythe's makes the same noise. Finally, the detective's own phone does the same.

“Amber alert?” Blythe asks.

Dalvin looks down at his phone, but the message doesn't make sense to him. It describes an explosion at a laboratory in the mountains above the town. It advises everyone in the town to shelter immediately.

“An explosion?” Blythe asks.

“I should be going,” the detective says. “I may follow up with the two of you should questions arise. Please don't leave town if you can help it.”

The detective turns to exit the apartment, but Dalvin and Blythe feel a strange pressure in the air, like the static before a lightning strike.

“Detective,” Dalvin says. “It says to seek shelter. I don't think you should.”

The detective opens the door of the apartment. He goes to take a step through the door, across the barrier, but time seems to slow down for Blythe and Dalvin. Through the window, a magenta light fills the room, reflecting off the cream colored walls. The water bottle that Dalvin was drinking from begins to float in the air, rising to about five feet from the ground. Sound is sucked from the room.

The detective's foot hangs over the carpet of the hallway for an impossibly long time, waiting to fall. Waiting for what, it does not know.

The building begins to shake, rattling like it's being shaken by a train. Windows shatter one by one, blowing outward from the apartments and scattering glass to the streets below. There is a cracking sound, a low whine as though the building is in pain.

The detective's foot falls on nothing as he steps forward into nothing. His body tilts forward off the precipice, before his arms rise in surprise. His face is a picture of shock as he tumbles forward into nothingness.

Dalvin and Blythe rush to the doorway, hands outstretched to try to stop the middle-aged detective's descent. But they are too late.

They stare down into the nothingness that has replaced Dalvin's hallway, watching as the detective falls, shrinking into a small dot beneath them, before disappearing into darkness.

In the mountains above the town where Dalvin, Blythe, Crissy, Eloise, Terry, and Ferdinand live is a building that should not exist. Once upon a time, a man with an unbelievable amount of money decided that he should build a research and manufacturing lab, and so he sought money from investors, who were other people with unbelievable amounts of money, to let him build a research and manufacturing lab in the mountains. As people who have unbelievable amounts of money often support each others' endeavors to make more money, he soon had enough to place a building on the side of a mountain.

He used his money to hire people who built buildings, and they told him he shouldn't try to build what he wanted to on the side of a mountain. They said that the foundation would never be stable, that any type of landslide would threaten the integrity of the lab, that living and working in the lab would be a danger to everyone inside. And the man with the unbelievable amount of money refused to listen. He wanted a lab in the mountains, and a lab in the mountains he would have. So workers assembled a foundation for the lab, and atop that foundation they used concrete and steel to make the outline of a building, and then they filled it in with stone and wood and electrical cords until the building was something that could be reasonably called a lab.

Next came the engineers and the researches, who filled the rooms of the building with their equipment and tools, who brought their experiments and their knowledge with them. And they made the building into something that could undoubtedly be called a lab.

And the Wyoming newspapers wrote glowing pieces about the man with an unbelievable amount of money, and his genius and vision in building a manufacturing and research lab in the mountains, and the people of the town talked about how lucky they were to have a man with an unbelievable amount of money and the genius and vision to build a manufacturing and research lab in the mountains.

The next protagonist we will follow is a scientist in this lab. He is a young man of Indian decent, barely 24 years of age, but considered a genius by his peers for his mathematical and theoretical work. His name is Bertrand Patel, but his labmates have given him the nickname Lucky, based on the three 7s in his employee identification number.

Lucky stands in the center of a room looking up at a massive screen as calculations are run through a model he designed. The numbers scroll and scroll, and Lucky follows them with his eyes.

The man with an unbelievable amount of money stands beside him. The numbers on the screen are unintelligible to him. They may as well be scratches on the wall in an alien language to him.

“Well?” the man with money asks. “Is the model viable.”

“We'll know soon,” Lucky tells him.

Around the two of them, people are working on their own research, dressed in lab coats and hi-vis vests for when they navigate the lab. The air is warm and stuffy, but most prefer it to frigid winter air outside. One of the women near them looks up at the numbers, following them with her eyes.

“Is that seventy five percent?” she asks Lucky.

“It's up to eighty now,” Lucky says.

“It's viable?” the man with money repeats.

“It's still ten percent off target,” the woman says.

“If it passes ninety percent stability, we'll be able to call it viable,” Lucky explains to the man with money.

“When will we know?” the man with money asks.

“Soon,” the woman tells him.

The numbers run and run, scrolling by the screen. More people stop to watch them fly by. For the ones who speak the language of numbers, this is the most entrancing horse-race they have ever seen. For those who don't, they just appreciate the break from their work and the chance to be part of a crowd.

Only a few minutes have passed, but for the man with money, it feels like years. So much time and money invested to watch numbers scroll by on a monitor.

There is a growing tension in the air as the numbers scroll. The numbers are so close to being good, the model so close to being good. But if they stop short even a little bit, this is another failure. Will the man with money still pay them if the numbers don't become good? Will they still have jobs if the man with money decides they will not? What will happen to their research if they lose their positions at this box of steel and concrete in the mountains?

Two workers on the other side of the room place a bet for lunch over whether the numbers will be good or not.

Seconds pass. Seconds turn into minutes. Lucky grips a pen in his hand, turning the casing open and closed as he waits for the final tally.

“How much longer must we wa...” the man with money begins to ask.

“Yes!” Lucky says, throwing his fist in the air.

“Viable!” the woman near them calls.

There is a scattering of clapping and woos from the other scientists as they return to their own work.

“It's viable?” the man with money asks.

“We just passed the ninety percent mark,” Lucky says. “It's viable.”

“Mr. Patel, we're going to make a lot of money together,” the man with money says. “Can we test it?”

“Now?” Mr. Patel asks.

“Now,” the man with money affirms.

The other scientists stop their work again, looking up at the man with money.

“We do have the equipment here at the lab, but we haven't set up for it,” Lucky says. “My team has a prototype device attached to the accelerator. But we haven't had time to retrofit everything, or to manufacture what we need to make sure it's suitable. There's no guarantee it would work.”

“Let's go try,” the man with money says. “The model is viable, let's see if it'll work.”

Lucky pulls a cellphone from his shirt pocket and makes a call across the lab. The cellphone signals up in the mountains are poor, so most calls need to be made over the labs' wifi.

“The big guy wants to test the model,” Lucky tells the person on the other side of the phone. “Can we prepare a mockup for the new data?”

Lucky listens for a moment, then nods.

“We'll be there in a few minutes.”

Lucky and the man with money head out of the research area and hop in a golf-cart, which drives them through one of the hallways to another part of the lab. The lab is large enough that walking would be a hassle, so golf carts have become a necessity for traversal.

“Think about it, Lucky. Unlimited, highly regulated energy,” the man with money says. “Pulled from another dimension with our technology. People will pay millions, billions, for us to power their cities, their countries. The military will contract with us, the government will contract with us. We'll be the sole power provider for the entire world. This is what Edison dreamed of.”

Lucky nervously twists his pen apart and back together.

As the golf cart arrives at its destination, the two men head to their energy production prototype.

“You're so quiet, kid. Talk to me,” the man with money says. “How does all this mumbo-jumbo work?”

“Have you ever seen anyone siphon gas from a car?”

“What?” the man with money asks.

“When you siphon gas from a car with a tube, you need an inertial pull to get the gas to move up the tube. You might think of it as maybe investing in an oil pump. You have to spend the money to make the pump before it can start making money for you. In this case put a little bit of our dimension into the gravity well, then use it as our inertial pull to draw in the energy from the next dimension. In theory, anyway. The model is viable, but we still don't have confirmation that the inter-dimensional bridge will hold long enough to draw the energy to exceed the initial investment.”

“Possibly the most profitable investment in the world,” the man with money says. “Let's go siphon some gas.”

They enter into a massive room with a particle bridge that has been converted for Lucky's model. A woman stands beside the control panels, waiting for them to arrive.

“We've made all adjustments according to the latest models,” she tells them. “As long as the bridge holds, we should be able to draw out more energy than we put in.”

“Lucky was just telling me that,” the man with money says. “How long will it take to know if the bridge will hold or not?”

“There's no way to know that,” Lucky says. “Nobody has ever done this before.”

“So how will we know?” the man with money asks.

“The device will shut down if the bridge fails,” the woman assures him. “We'll just have to monitor it for any fluctuations.”

“When can we start?” the man with money asks.

“Whenever you're ready,” the woman says.

The man with money looks to Lucky, and Lucky nods.

“Start her up,” the man with money says.

The woman turns to the control panel and begins the device. Above them, power is drawn from the lab's generators, powering a massive accelerator that glows with energy. Below them, the device, a cube of metal and alloy about three meters square begins to whirr to life, glowing blue. There is a sound like a helicopter as the two begin to work in tandem, trading power back and forth between them, building an inter-dimensional bridge.

“Sounds like money,” the man with money says.

“Stability is at ninety three percent,” the woman at the control panel says. “Initiating the bridge now.”

There is a flash of blinding blue light as the bridge is initiated, the first of its kind on earth. Energy flows outward from the accelerator, then is returned down to the device.

“We have positive energy production,” the woman says.

“Does that mean what I think it means?” the man with money asks.

“That we've defied the law of conservation of energy?” Lucky asks. “Or that you're the owner of the world's first and only perpetual energy machine?”

“I'm going to write your name into the history books, kid,” the man with money says.

“The bridge is holding steady for now,” the woman at the control panel says. “Congratulations, gentlemen.”

“We should get a bottle of champagne,” the man with money says. “What's there to do here? Clubs? Karaoke? I'll fly in the finest prostitutes in the state, whatever you want.”

“I definitely don't want that,” Lucky says. “It's quite enough to have my proof realized and to be able to publish my findings when the time comes.”

“Um, gentlemen?” the woman at the control panel asks.

“What's wrong?” the man with money asks. “Is the bridge collapsing?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” the woman says. “But who are those men at the door.”

Lucky and the man with money turn to see the door they entered from. There are three figures standing inside the doorway, but they do not appear to be men. In fact, it's hard for either Lucky or the man with money to make out their forms.

“Are those men?” Lucky asks.

“What else can they be?” the man with money asks.

The things from the doorway begin to move into the room, toward the three of them.

“Excuse me,” Lucky tells them. “You can't be here. This is a secure facility.”

The figures are almost to the three of them, only about six feet away.

“What should we do?” Lucky asks the man with the money, but the man with money is silent, his eyes transfixed on the figures in front of them.

One of the dark figures reaches out what could be a hand, and the man with money steps forward. Another of the figures moves past Lucky completely to the woman at the control panel. There is a crackle like static on a CRT television, and the man with money is no longer there. There is another crackle and the woman at the control panel is no longer there either. Lucky stands there between the three figures. He does not know what has happened to the man with money or to the woman, and he does not know what could happen to him if one of the figures reached out to touch him, but an immense fear opens in his stomach, sudden and deep.

“Please,” Lucky says, though he does not even know if the figures can hear him. “Please just let me go.”

One of the figures moves, and he is afraid that his time is up. The figure will touch him and he will disappear just like the other two. Will he die? Will he be absorbed into the figure like flesh is absorbed my the earth? Will he be sent across dimensions to somewhere incomprehensible? In a moment, only he will know.

Except, no. The three figures walk past him as though he is not even there, leaving the path to the door open for him and him alone. Lucky doesn't wait, running as fast as he can to the door, to the cart, fleeing as fast as he can from the room where he opened up a bridge to another dimension, and something passed across it.

We return now to Dalvin and Blythe. We will follow a new character next chapter, I promise.

The two adults, child, and dog are a sight to see as they scramble into the doorway of Dalvin's apartment building. There is a gust of cold air as the doors open and the four of them fly inside as though carried on that wind.

The noise of the door being thrown open and the various footsteps and pawpatters of the group draws the occupant of Apartment 1B. Eloise Nguyen steps out of her apartment door and looks down the hallway, seeing the familiar face of her upstairs neighbor and his beautiful dog.

“Eloise,” Dalvin says excitedly as he sees her.

“Dalvin,” she says. “Is there a fire or what?”

“A shooter,” Dalvin says running up to her.

“In the building?”

“In the park,” he says, handing her Marty's leash. “I need to call the cops. Can you look after Marty for a bit?”

“How long?” she asks.

“Like an hour or two,” he says. “I just want to make a statement and get my new friend somewhere safe. “

“Okay,” she says, gripping Marty's leash. “He's in good hands with me.”

“Thank you,” he says.

He turns to Blythe, who is gripping Lux tight to her chest. Lux has stopped crying, their annoyance of the yelling, deafening sound, and flash of light replaced by the comfort of their mother's arms.

“Do you want to stay down here?” Dalvin asks Blythe.

“My sister,” Blythe says absently.

“You want to call your sister?” Dalvin asks.

“My sister lives up on the second floor,” she says.

“That's great,” Dalvin says. “I live in 2B. I can walk you upstairs and I'll be right there by you.”

“2B?” Blythe asks.

“I know, I know, 2B or not 2B?”

Blythe doesn't react.

“Right,” Dalvin says. “Come on, I'm right beside you.”

They climb the stairs up to the second floor, Blythe walking slowly, Dalvin matching her pace.

“Oh, damn, your stroller,” Dalvin says. “We must have left it in the park.”

“It's fine,” Blythe says. “I can get a new stroller, I can't get a new Lux.”

As they reach the top of the stairs and step into the hallway of the second floor, she turns to Dalvin.

“Can you hold Lux for a moment while I get my keys out?”

“Of course,” Dalvin says, reaching out to accept Lux into his arms.

Blythe hands Lux over gently. Lux takes a moment to observe Dalvin from up close, staring at his beard.

Blythe retrieves her sister's keys and unlocks the door to apartment 2D.

“Crissy!” Blythe calls. “You awake?”

“Coming!“Crissy calls.

A moment goes by before she appears at the door, dressed in a dark robe over thin sleep clothes.

“What's going on?” Crissy asks. “You look pale as snow.”

“There was some altercation at the park and this guy pulled a gun,” Blythe says.

“Fuck,” Crissy says, stepping forward to grab Blythe into her arms. “Was anybody hurt?”

“There was something,” Blythe says. “But I don't know what it was.”

“Like an animal?” Crissy asks.

“I don't think it was an animal,” Dalvin says.

Crissy starts as she looks over at Dalvin.

“Oh, 2B,” she says. “What are you doing over here?”

“He was in the park,” Blythe says. “He practically threw himself between me and the gun.”

“I didn't realize I was living across from a hero boy,” Crissy says.

“I was just there at the right time,” Dalvin says.

“Either way, I appreciate you looking out for my sister,” Crissy says, releasing her hug on Blythe and stepping toward Dalvin. “And the baby, hi Lux!”

Lux smiles and reaches out to Aunt Crissy, arms outstretched as Crissy takes her.

“I'm going to go call the cops real quick,” Dalvin says, waving goodbye at Lux as he steps closer to his apartment. “I'll leave the door unlocked if either of you need anything. Blythe, you've got my phone number. Crissy, you know where I live.”

He gives a stiff wave goodbye and steps over to his apartment door, making his way inside.

Crissy takes Lux and leads Blythe into her apartment.

“Are you dating my neighbor?” Crissy asks.

“What?” Blythe asks.

“Hero boy? Steps in front of a gun for you? You have his phone number?”

“We just met like ten minutes ago in the park,” Blythe says. “And in that time we had a gun pulled on us, so I haven't exactly had time to think about dating.”

“Tell me about the gun,” Crissy says. “Someone pulled a gun on you?”

“No, it was at some guy in a jogging suit,” Blythe says. “Some random asshole accused him of stealing his wallet and said some racist stuff and then shoved a gun in his face.”

“And you said an animal got shot?”

“No, it wasn't an animal... I don't know what the hell it was. It wasn't there, and then it was there, but it wasn't a person and it wasn't an animal.”

“If it wasn't a person and it wasn't an animal, what was it?”

Blythe shakes her head.

“It had a dark-colored blood, viscous like oil, and limbs. More limbs than a thing should have.”

“You're scaring me, B,” Crissy says. “Let me make you some tea. I'll keep Lux with me, so you just sit down and relax for a bit.”

Crissy takes Lux to the kitchen and puts on the electric kettle, dancing with Lux to put a smile on their face as Blythe paces the living room, doing anything but sitting down.

Across the hall, Dalvin holds his cell phone to his ear.

“That's everything I recall,” he tells the operator. “The guy started yelling about his wallet, pulled the gun, fired, and it hit something that came out of thin air.”

“Would you mind talking to a detective?” the operator asks.

“I wouldn't mind at all.”

“I'm going to give your name and apartment number to one of our detectives on the scene, a Detective Lowfield. He should be in touch shortly.”

“Thank you,” Dalvin says.

“No Mr. Cassio, thank you.”

Dalvin hangs up the phone and grabs himself a bottle of water from the fridge, looking out his apartment window at the park, watching the police cordon it off. From this position, he cannot see the thing that appeared, only the police moving in and out of the park until they are obscured by the trees.

A knock at the door startles him as he puts his bottle of water down on the windowsill. He crosses the room to open the door, finding Blythe on the other side of it.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” he says.

Let us follow Terry for a moment. His journey will take us to California soon, but for now he is stuck in Montana. Having safely escaped from the confrontation at the park, he has gotten into his car and driven across town to his cousin Marcos' house. His cousin Marcos is a large man with large hair which he has tied back in a large tail. As Terry pulls his car up into the driveway, he can see Marcos through the front windows watching television. Marcos, seeing the car, stands up, heading to open the door.

“Sup cuz,” Marcos says. “Didn't think you'd be around today.”

“Some dude in the park just tried to kill me,” Terry says, rushing inside the house and throwing his duffel bag into a chair.

“Like some ICE bastard?” Marcos asks.

“Nah, just a random white dude with a gun,” Terry says. “Shut the door, shut the door.”

Marcos realizes he has been standing there with the door open, and closes it, turning the deadbolt behind him.

“What are you wearing?” Marcos asks.

“It's a jogging suit,” Terry says. “Don't worry about it.”

“You trying to get into jogging?” Marcos asks.

“Well not anymore, some dude just tried to shoot me,” Terry says.

“You can still jog,” Marcos says. “We'll go to the gym over by the old Sinclair. Jog on the treadmill or something.”

“Nah, I'm done,” Terry says.

“Wait, some dude tried to shoot you, did you call the police?”

“I heard them on their way as I was peeling out of there,” Terry says. “I wasn't going to stick around, what if they went after me?”

Marcos claps his hands together.

“You're still freaking out,” Marcos says.

“Yeah,” Terry says. “I'm freaking out a bit.”

“Can I get you a beer? A joint? A coffee?”

“Just a coffee would be great,” Terry says.

“I'll be right back, feel free to grab the couch or the recliner.”

Marcos prepares a coffee in the French press, topping it with some milk and sugar until it's a light caramel color, then pours two cups. He comes back into the living room to find Terry sitting on the floor, his face buried in his knees.

“Coffee, cuz,” Marcos says, carefully sitting down on the floor beside Terry. “What made you want to jog, anyway?”

Terry lets his legs relax, spreading them out in the floor as he takes one of the coffees.

“Rebecca left,” he says.

“Oh, shit,” Marcos says. “You're having a bad week.”

“She left about a month ago,” Terry says. “I didn't want to say anything because I was hoping she'd come back, but she didn't. She hasn't.”

“What happened, did you two have a fight?”

“No,” Terry says. “She just said she...”

Terry takes a drink of his coffee, holding the handle so hard his knuckles turn white.

“She said she didn't see a future with me. She said she didn't think she loved me anymore.”

Tears well up in Terry's eyes, but don't fall.

“You still love her?” Marcos asks.

“More than life itself,” Terry says. “The worst part is like three weeks before she broke up with me was the happiest day of my adult life. I came over and she'd watched some movie that day, and she said she realized she had a lot of trauma around her past relationship and she wanted to thank me for being such a good boyfriend. And I made dinner, and she and I and her kid watched a movie together until he fell asleep on the floor and she fell asleep on my shoulder. And I just sat there for awhile, thinking that I'd finally gotten it right. I finally found a place where I belonged. And it didn't mean anything to her, and it wasn't real, and it didn't matter.”

“That's rough,” Marcos says.

“You know what else?” Terry continues. “She promised me that if we ever broke up, she wasn't going to disappear. She promised me that I was stuck with her. And guess what she did?”

“She disappeared?” Marcos asks.

“I thought if I could get into jogging or something it would take my mind off it,” Terry continues. “But if some asshole's going to accuse me of stealing his wallet and try to put a bullet in my chest, I don't know what to do. It feels like this world doesn't want me.”

“Well, you've always got a place here, cuz,” Marcos says. “We're family, you know.”

“Thanks,” Terry says.

He takes his coffee and sips it, looking up at the TV, seeing it without seeing it.

“I think I want to leave Montana,” Terry says.

“Damnit,” Marcos says. “I was worried you were going to say something like that.”

Terry hugs his empty mug to his chest, drawing his legs up again.

“Where would you even go?”

“I don't know,” Terry says. “I feel like ICE is going to nab me wherever I go, unless I leave America.”

“What about Los Angeles?” Marcos asks. “I know this lawyer down there, Richard Rosario. Ricardo. He's a great guy, I bet he'd let you crash on his couch. LA's been rioting against ICE for months now, probably the safest place in America for someone who looks like us.”

“I don't know this guy. Why would he let me sleep on his couch?”

“He's that kind of guy,” Marcos says. “He grew up in an orphanage in Texas. Something about it made him decide to want to help anyone who asks for it.”

Terry shakes his head.

“I don't want to stay, but I don't want to go, either,” he says.

“You gotta do one,” Marcos says. “You can't stay in flux forever.”

Terry puts his mug down on the carpet beside him and leans over, wrapping his arms around Marcos. Marcos carefully wraps his mug under Terry's arm, patting Terry's back with his free hand.

They sit there in the floor for a few minutes. Marcos is beginning to feel like the hug has gone on for too long, but doesn't want to break the hug in case Terry needs it. Terry does not appear any closer to relenting, until the moment he does.

“I've got a lot I need to do,” Terry says, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “Can you call your friend and see if I can crash on his couch?”

“Yeah,” Marcos says. “I'll ask and then text you his information.”

“Thank you,” Terry says. “Thanks for the coffee too.”

“Good coffee, right?” Marcos asks.

“Yeah,” Terry says, standing up. “Good coffee.”

Marcos walks Terry out of the house and back to his car.

“You going to be okay, cuz?”

“I think so,” Terry says, tossing his duffel bag in the passenger seat. “I think I just need a change of scenery and some warmer weather.”

“We'll get you hooked up,” Marcos says. “Sure you don't want a beer or a joint?”

“Yeah, yeah, thanks,” Terry says, climbing into the driver seat.

“You want me to talk to Rebecca for you?” Marcos asks. “Maybe I could get her to...”

“Don't,” Terry says.

“Alright,” Marcos says.

Terry starts the car and pulls off down the road, and Marcos watches him go until the tail lights disappear.

I used to do National Novel Writing Month, but then AI/LLMs ruined it, just as they've ruined so many other things since their inception. I remember finding them to be a novelty at first. Now they remind me of microplastics. They pollute everything they come into contact with. They're in peoples' bodies. They're in peoples' brains. Humans in the present day are just full of microplastics and COVID-19.

In 2025, I want to write a novel that an LLM never could. I used to write to be entertaining, clever, evocative. Now I want to write out of a desperate cry of humanity. This will likely be a long work, made up of different drafts I've been mulling over for a couple decades now. Hopefully it will be entertaining, clever, and evocative, as well as something that an AI could never write.

Our story begins about 30 years ago, before a few of our protagonists were even born. It starts in a small town in Maine, where a false preacher once started a church. The church was dedicated to the Veil and the things that lie on the other side of it. Among the parishioners of this church, or what some might call a cult, there was a young woman who heard voices from beyond the Veil. She believed in the false preacher. She believed in the Veil.

But we will not start there. We will start in present day, in a small uncanny valley along Interstate 90 in Montana.

One of our protagonists, Dalvin, leaves his apartment building in the morning. It is a couple days after Daylight Savings has ended, so the sun is out early, but the morning is cold, and Dalvin's breath mists around his face, twisting up and into the air above his head. At Dalvin's side is a large dog, a mastiff named Marty. Mastiff's are a large breed of dog in general, and Marty is large for a mastiff in particular.

Dalvin's apartment building sits in the middle of the street alongside other apartment buildings. Dalvin's building has a red brick facade, but is otherwise unremarkable. It sits five stories tall. Dalvin lives on the second floor. When he first moved in, he worried that Marty's size might make it difficult for the people who lived below him, the clicking of dog nails along the wood, the thump of Marty slumping in the floor. However, he met the woman who lived in the apartment below his coming in one day, a small Asian woman in her mid 20s, who absolutely fawned over Marty, much to Marty's pleasure. Dalvin told her that if she ever wanted, she could come visit Marty, and she said she would, but she never did.

Dalvin and Marty cross the street to the small park across from their building. The park has a walking path that loops around the perimeter. Four and a half loops of the trail comprise one mile. Dalvin finds it odd that it's specifically four and a half loops, but he doesn't see any harm in doing a mile and change. Including Dalvin, there are now five people, one dog, and one observer in the park.

On the side of the park about a quarter of a loop clockwise from Dalvin's apartment is a small bathroom building. Inside, is a young Latino man named Terry. Terry has recently taken up jogging, and has purchased a jogging suit online. He tried it on when it came in, but felt that it was embarrassing to wear. Looking at himself in the mirror he said “I look like I'm trying to be a Tron character.” Deciding that he could not wear it out of his apartment, lest anyone observe him, he decided to shove the jogging suit into a duffel bag and change at the park. However, as he is getting changed, a knocking comes at the door.

“Stop doing coke in there, you homeless junkie freak,” a man cries at the locked door. “I gotta piss.”

“Fuck off,” Terry calls back.

Outside the door, a white middle aged man named Ferdinand lights up a cigarette and tries to put out of his mind how much he needs to urinate. Ferdinand will be the villain of this chapter, but he will not be in our story for very long. He is wearing a flannel jacket to keep the cold away, but has it unbuttoned and unzipped, slightly defeating the purpose of the jacket. At his hip is a gun holster, and inside the holster is a pistol. Ferdinand does not need a pistol, in so much as anyone could ever need a firearm. He has in fact never used it before, but it makes him feel powerful, so he wears it when he goes out. He has been up most of the night doing cocaine with a friend who lives nearby, and was on his way back to his apartment when he decided he needed to relieve himself, which is what has brought him to the park this morning. Ferdinand has not yet realized that his wallet is not in his pocket. It is, in fact, back on the coffee table of the friend he was doing drugs with. Ferdinand will not realize that in time, however.

As Terry takes his duffel bag and exits the bathroom, Ferdinand pushes past him.

“Took you long enough,” he says, flicking his cigarette to the pathway outside the door.

“Prick,” Terry says.

Terry puts his duffel bag down on one of the parks benches, segmented with an iron bar to keep unhoused people from sleeping there. There are many trees along the edges of the park, but only three within the loop, so Terry can see his duffel bag along the entire path of the loop. He is a little worried about somebody taking his bag, but there are so few people, he doubts that anyone will mess with it.

He begins to jog, passing by a red haired woman and her one year old child in a stroller. The woman's name is Blythe, named after a series of dolls from the 1970s. Her one year old child is named Lux. Blythe works at a local factory cutting metal pipes to size using a large chop saw. She has recently begun to feel a pain in the shoulder of her dominant side, and worries about how much longer she will be able to stay in this job. Her sister, Crissy, lives in the same building as Dalvin, and watches Lux while Blythe is at work. Blythe is on her way to drop Lux off at Crissy's before work.

Dalvin and Marty approach Blythe and Lux from the opposite direction that Terry passed her. Lux's eyes light up as they see Marty, and Marty's eyes light up as he sees Blythe and Lux.

“Can I pet your dog?” Blythe asks.

“Absolutely,” Dalvin says with a smile, letting Marty lead him over to the woman and child.

Marty sniffs Lux's face, and Lux giggles with a child's happiness. Blythe bends down on her knees so that she's about eye level with Marty and rubs his ears, and Marty pushes his head into her hands.

“He's so sweet,” she says.

She leans forward to kiss Marty's forehead, and Marty shakes his ears happily.

“What's his name?” Blythe asks.

“Marty,” Dalvin says.

“Nice to meet you, Marty,” Blythe says.

She rises to her feet and looks at Dalvin.

“And what's your name?” she asks.

“Dalvin,” he says.

“Davin?” she asks.

“Dalvin,” he repeats.

“Dolphin?” she asks.

“Dalvin,” he repeats once again. “Do you have a piece of paper?”

“Oh.”

She reaches into her pocket and finds a piece of receipt paper.

Dalvin pulls a pen from his pocket and writes down his name and phone number on the back of the receipt paper.

“Here,” he says, handing the paper back to her.

“Dalvin,” she says with a smile. “And your phone number.”

“Feel free to give me a call if you ever want to see Marty,” Dalvin says with a smile.

They stand there for a moment in the cold, their breaths misting in the air between them, neither one sure of what to say next.

“Um, this is Lux,” Blythe says suddenly.

Dalvin bends down on his knees as Blythe did a minute ago and waves at Lux.

“Nice to meet you, too,” he says.

Lux moves their thickly bundled arm in what might be a wave.

Dalvin is rising from his feet when a yell comes from the direction of the bathroom.

“Hey, you fuckin' Tron looking freak, did you steal my wallet?!” Ferdinand yells across the park.

Terry is across the loop from Dalvin, Blythe, Marty, and Lux, around 150 feet from the bathroom that Ferdinand is exiting.

Terry slows down as he registers what is happening. He is unsure of how to approach the situation.

“I didn't touch your wallet!” Terry yells back.

Ferdinand is walking toward Terry. He seems to have no awareness of Dalvin, Blythe, Marty, or Lux. But as he walks, Ferdinand catches sight of a duffel bag on a park bench, the same duffel bag that Terry had on his shoulder when he left the bathroom building.

“You put my wallet in that bag of yours?” he asks, ending his sentence with an anti-latin slur.

“Don't touch my fucking bag,” Terry says, running toward the bench that holds his bag.

Ferdinand reaches the bag first, tearing open the zipper and reaching in, pulling out handfuls of clothes and tossing them to the ground.

Terry arrives a moment later, grabbing his bag and pushing Ferdinand away as he grabs his clothes and shoves them back in his bag.

“I said don't touch my fucking bag,” Terry repeats. “What the fuck is your problem? You hate the unhoused, you hate latinos, you hate joggers, can you fucking chill out and be a fucking human being for a minute?”

“You want me to be a human being?” Ferdinand asks.

Ferdinand parts his jacket on the side, unbuttons his gun holster, and draws his pistol. Terry drops his bag and steps back.

“You want me to be a fucking human being?” Ferdinand asks.

Terry turns and starts to run away, faster than he has ever run in his life. Dalvin steps in front of Blythe, Lux, and Marty, shielding them with his own body.

“This is humanity,” Ferdinand says to nobody.

Ferdinand pulls the trigger. There is an awful boom that rings out across the park and the nearby buildings.

Blythe screams, and Lux begins to cry. Marty begins to bark, tugging at his leash as he has never done before as he lunges against his owner's pull to try to stop Ferdinand.

Terry's foot hits something on the ground and he trips forward. For a moment, he thinks he has been shot. His hands roam his chest, searching for a bullet wound that isn't there.

“What the fuck?” Ferdinand asks to nobody.

A bullet hangs in the air about twenty feet in front of Ferdinand, a black speck against the light blue of the morning. Slowly, the black begins to spread, blooming in the air like a flower.

There is a strange inhuman noise, something between a gasp and a gurgle, and the black flower falls forward to the ground.

“What is that?” Dalvin asks.

Blythe doesn't hear him. She is in shock. Somehow, Lux is in her arms.

Terry observes the thing that has fallen to the ground. He sees a shape forming from the liquid as it spreads from the bullet, and what he sees unnerves him. He scrambles to his feet, rushes forward to grab his bag and clothes, and flees the park.

Ferdinand stands, still and silent as he stares at the shape on the ground.

Marty has stopped pulling at his leash, but is standing defensively in front of Dalvin.

“We should go,” Dalvin says, first to Marty, then to Blythe.

Blythe looks up at him. She is shaking violently as she clutches Lux to her chest.

“I'll walk you,” Dalvin says. “I live in that building over there.”

Blythe looks from Dalvin to the building, recognizing it as her sister's apartment building.

“Please,” Dalvin says. “We should go.”

Blythe nods. “I'll go with you,” she says.

“Thank you,” he says.

Ferdinand does not move as Dalvin, Marty, Blythe and Lux head back to the apartment building across the street. In front of him is the corpse of something. Something that was invisible until a moment ago. He cannot recognize what it is he's shot. It has too many limbs to be human. The liquid that bleeds from it does not appear to be blood. There is a steam coming off of it in the coolness of the morning air, but it moves in strange waves.

Ferdinand stands there until he hears sirens echoing off the buildings across the street, the telltale sound of the police. And then he bolts from his standing position as fast as he can run.

We travelled to the place where I was born, the place where my family still lived. The O’Doyles welcomed us without question or hesitation. They offered us rooms and bed, clothing, food, all the things the young doctor had lacked growing up. Everything in the farming co-op was old, aged, but well cared for. These people knew how to maintain what they had.

They showed us the farmlands, which had expanded significantly since I was young. They showed us the animals they kept, the crops that they grew and harvested, the living quarters they had built and maintained. One day, they would grow too large, and they would need to send people away, lest their little co-op become unstable, untenable. But for now, it was good. The place was theirs, and nobody owned more than anybody else, and everyone had a space of their own, a place that was just theirs. They worked the land, grew their food, and ate together. And what they couldn’t eat themselves, they sold to the towns and cities nearby, and every coin they brought in they spent to make their little co-op grow.

Kenniwak and Youvanna asked if they could help on the farm, and the O’Doyles put them to work, showing them how to harvest the fruits and vegetables of the fields. Yua and Kaito asked if they could help in the kitchen, and the O’Doyles put them to work, showing them how to bring out the flavor of a stew, how to preserve the nutrients of all their ingredients through baking, or frying, or boiling.

“Would you and Astrid like to help?” one of the O’Doyles asked me.

“What can we do?” I asked.

“Would you mind cleaning up the cabins?” he asked. “Take a dusting towel to every hard surface, and make sure every bed is made, and if you see any stains, just wash them out.”

“We can do that,” I said.

We went from cabin to cabin, dusting the shelves and the seats and desks. We made sure that every surface was clear of dust. We went to every bed and pulled the sheets back and tucked them in until they were as tightly packed as could be. And when we came across a stain in the wood floors, we got some water from the well, and scrubbed until the wood shone.

It was almost evening, and Kaito and Yua helped bring the food out to the mess, and we joined them. Kenniwak and Youvanna came up from the beach, salt-washed by the sea. We sat together at our own side of the table, and broke bread, and ate stew, and pulled apart baked fish and fried turkey, and talked to each other across the table.

“Why did you leave this place?” Kenniwak asked. “There’s everything you could ever need here.”

“I wanted more,” I told him. “This world is too small for me. I could work every day, eat and drink, and sleep comfortably, but I’m not a creature of comfort. I need movement, and change, and the big things of the world. I need adventure, and excitement, and things that make me feel.”

“You certainly got more than you bargained for,” Youvanna said.

“We’re the same,” Kaito said. “Give us a simple village where everything is taken care of and nothing happens, and we’ll fall asleep. Give us a blade against our necks, and that’s when we truly feel alive.”

“Not necessarily a blade,” Yua said. “But a world of multitudes. Places that we can see, mountains that we can climb…”

“Curses that you can break,” Astrid said.

“Exactly,” she said. “But it’s always good to know that places like this exist.”

“Remember the first night in the manor?” Kenniwak asked. “I’d never seen a place like it before. The ostentation displays of wealth, the waste of such a place. It’s too much. To pave over the land, and erect those walls, and to bring about something so monumentally boring as it was. But you look around here and these cabins, and this kitchen, and these fields, and you feel like it’s not enough.”

“Maybe there’s a place that fits us all perfectly,” Astrid said. “Maybe there’s a place that’s not too small, that’s not too big. And we’ll be happy there.”

“Such a happy thought,” Yua said.

“A place that fits us,” Kaito said. “Hard to believe that such a place exists.”

“We can make one,” Youvanna said. “Once we have the power of the moon, we can make a place that fits us. One that’s not too big and not too small. One that offers the comfort of the co-op and the adventure of the manor.”

“Yeah,” said Kenniwak flatly.

“Yeah,” said Yua despondently.

“What do you think it’s like?” Kaito asked. “The power of a demigod.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Youvanna said.

“I don’t think anyone of us could,” I said. “If we could imagine it, we probably would have sought it out, like the doctor did.”

“I think I can,” Yua said. “I just don’t know that I want to. On some level I think I’m afraid of who I’ll be once everything I’ve ever known is gone. I’m afraid that at the moment it becomes real, I’ll want it to stop.”

“There’s still time to turn back,” Astrid said. “There’s still time to say that this is too much for you, to turn away, to go back to that mountain village, back to killing off the monarchs’ soldiers.”

“Not for me,” Yua said. “I made my decision.”

We were all silent for a moment.

“We end this,” Kaito said. “Nobody in our village ever has to worry about running afoul of a monarchy guard again.”

“Nobody in our lands ever has to worry about a monarchy blitz attack again,” Youvanna said.

“We complete the ritual and the monarchy is gone,” I said. “They’ll never hurt anyone ever again.”

“That’s worth it,” Yua said.

“It’s worth it,” Kenniwak said, half to the group and half to himself.

After we ate, we dressed in the robes that the O’Doyles provided for us. They showed us how to tie the cords that held the robes together, showed us how to prepare the hoods that we wore, showed us how to carry our ceremonial daggers beneath the folds.

They left, and I took Astrid in my arms one last time, kissing her, holding her to me. And she kissed me back, and told me she was afraid, and I told her not to be afraid, because I was here, and I would be right beside her the entire way. And we dressed in our robes, and pulled the hoods up over our heads so that we matched.

And the O’Doyles brought us masks and placed them on our faces. The masks fit perfectly, as though they were made to fit our faces, even though we had not been around when they were carved to model our faces for them. Intricately carved moons and stars and nebulae orbited Astrid’s face, and I could tell from the way the mask sat that her mask was a mirror image of mine. When Kenniwak and Youvanna joined us, their masks reflected a deep dark wood which held many secrets and many shadows. And when Yua and Kaito joined us, their masks displayed their mountain village, mountain fog pooling beneath their eyes.

We followed the O’Doyles out to the black sand beach, and stood in front of the waves as they breathed in and out, climbing up the black sand toward us, before retreating back from whence they came. There was a light breeze climbing across the dunes and valleys of sand, cold against an otherwise cool night. There were no clouds, and so we could see the stars up above, shining their light against the darkness of the night. The O’Doyles lit torches, and the light created a bubble around us, and the flames danced on the waves.

They brought out a stone altar exactly like the one from the manor of Dr. Lyman, and placed it in the sand between us. Kaito, Yua and I stood on one side, and Astrid, Kenniwak, and Youvanna stood on the other, reflections of each other.

The moon rose, its silver face rising above the sea, bathing everything silver. We raised our knives into the moonlight, and watched the shimmering in the air above us as the lunaria swarmed around us, attracted to us like moths to a torch. The world around us swelled to a terrible intensity as the universe filled us, power pulsing in our blood, filling our muscles, rising into our minds.

The blood moon began, the moon turning a brilliant crimson, in a way I had seen only once. Like water rushing through a rising floodgate, the lunaria poured into us until we overflowed. Everything was buzzing, the world buzzing, flowing, a brilliant star exploding inside of us and spreading out across the world.

We lifted our ritual daggers, and we turned them on ourselves, and there was blood on the ritual altar.

The thing from the moon crawled down from its perch, and joined us on the black sand beach, and the lunaria coursed through the seven of us like electricity, connecting us to each other, tasting of purple and green, smelling of the sound of midnight, sounding like the way a candle burns at the pads of your fingers. Everything was covered in this otherworldly power, the matter of the universe, the ichor of the gods. A swelling like trumpets reaching a crescendo. The music of the worlds turning. I could feel everything, see everything, know anything. It felt like I was dissolving in the power of the moon.

Slowly our bodies absorbed the lunaria, slowly our world returned to something manageable, conceivable for our minds. We felt the floodgates close as the blood moon passed, and then the ritual was over, complete, and we were transformed.

I opened my eyes, realizing for the first time that I had closed them.

The seven of us stood there, Yua, Kaito and myself on one side, Astrid, Kenniwak, and Youvanna on the other, the doctor in the center. Their wings were beautiful, ivory bone glistening in the silver moonlight, and I knew that my own wings must be beautiful as well. Their faces were perfect, like marble statues split in half, and a cosmos planted inside of them, the colors of the universe shining through from them. Our limbs long and tensile, dexterous and sensitive to a degree I’d never felt before. I felt the joy of creation, of having made this body for myself, of having made myself for this body.

“Hello, old friends,” the doctor said, his voice appearing in our minds. “I was wondering when you would finally join me.”

“Hello, doctor,” I said. “It’s good to see you again.”

“There is work to do,” Kenniwak said.

“There is always work to do,” Yua said.

“There is time now,” Youvanna said.

“There is nothing but time,” Kaito said.

We all met together at the little house in Aelin’s Wall. There was enough room for Astrid and I to live together comfortably, but the six of us were cramped. We didn’t really mind though. Everyone spread out, found a place where they could comfortably stand, or sit, or lay. With their places marked, we fed them, like good hosts, and gave them water and tea. Yua and Kaito sniffed at the strong tea, but drank it graciously enough. Once everyone had settled, we took the paper we had recovered from that little island in the center of the world, and unfurled it along the wall, pinning it in place so we could all see.

“What is it?” Kenniwak asked.

“It’s us,” I said. “That one there is you, and Youvanna there, and Astrid there. And on the other side, that’s Yua, Kaito, and me.”

“And that’s the being that ate the doctor,” Youvanna said, pointing at the center of the picture.

“Appeared to eat the doctor,” Astrid said.

“But we saw it,” Yua said. “The doctor inhabited the manor, and then he was swallowed whole by the creature from the moon, like a bird swallowed by a snake.”

“We saw what the doctor wanted us to see,” I said. “Remember, he is the lie man, the liar, the deceiver. Everything that happened at that manor was according to his plan. He told us what he wanted us to hear, showed us what he wanted us to see. Everything according to his plan.”

“For what purpose?” Kenniwak asked.

“To train us,” Astrid said. “To prepare us for the ritual.”

“What ritual?” Youvanna asked.

“The ritual of ascension,” I said.

“Ascension for the doctor?” Yua asked.

“Ascension for us,” Astrid and I answered in sync.

“On the night of the operation, the doctor infused all six of us with the lunaria.” I said. “We knew that. But what we didn’t know is that the consequences of that infusion would ripple both forward and backward in time. It’s what attracted the kraken to me. It’s what drew the great serpent to Kenniwak. It’s what made the spider woman take up residence in Yua’s village. The monsters were attracted to the lunaria.”

“But it went back even further than that,” Astrid said. “Amelia’s family, the O’Doyles, were part of a specific sect of a global organization dedicated to the cosmic creatures. The doctor was able to contact them in the past, and have them bury a memory in her head. A memory of a black sand beach, and a cult, and a ritual. And while she only recently recovered the memory, it’s been there since she was a teenager.”

“Complete the ritual,” I said.

Simultaneously, Kaito, Kenniwak, Yua, and Youvanna grabbed their heads, gasping in agony as memories returned to them.

“I know those words,” Kenniwak said. “Why do I know those words?”

“We’ve already performed the ritual,” Yua said. “We will always perform the ritual.”

“We are reflections of one another,” Youvanna said. “Not the same, but of the same point, created by the same event.”

“This world is but a dream that we live in,” Kaito said. “What happens when the dreamer wakes?”

We waited for their episodes to pass, as they looked back to us one by one.

“Since the night at the manor, our pasts have been rewritten somehow,” I said. “All the way back to our births on opposite sides of the world. Our pasts lead us to the manor, where the doctor has recursively changed our pasts.”

“So the doctor has stolen not only our futures but our pasts as well?” Kaito asked.

“Yes,” I said. “But it’s not so much a theft as a trade.”

“A trade for what?” Youvanna asked.

“A trade for the power of the moon presence,” Astrid answered. “For the lunaria.”

“The power to rewrite the world,” I said. “The power to destroy the monarchs and their power once and for all.”

Kenniwak sat down against the wall, resting his head back.

“Walk me through it, step by step,” Kenniwak said.

“Once upon a time, there was a poor boy who dreamed of the stars,” I said. “His family barely had clothes, food, shelter, but he was good at two things. Reading and lying. So he convinced people that he was in actuality a young noble, and when people believed him, they offered him good clothes, and nice food, and beds much nicer than he could ever have afforded on his own. And he read everything he could get his hands on, from the penny books at general shops to the obscure tomes of the library. He tore through them, devouring as much as he could, every single one of them, until he found references to an ultimate power, something that no other human had ever achieved. And, being as ambitious as he was, he knew that if any human could achieve such power, he was the one who could do it. So he chased these rumors down to a large island in the center of the world, and he learned of a ritual that could be used to ascend beyond human kind, and become a creature of the cosmos himself.

“But he couldn’t do it alone. He needed others to diffuse the power of the cosmos. And so he started searching the world for those who would join him on his ascension, people who would possess the mental and spiritual fortitude that such a massive influx of power would wreak on the human body and mind. And he found us, through whatever means of divination or pattern recognition he had means to. And he drew us to him through his many eyes and ears, manufacturing each chance meeting, each step of our journeys from our homelands to the manor, until we were all there together. And he infused us with the lunaria.

“Most humans can’t handle such an infusion, so he had to change our histories to allow us to. My family, Astrid’s town, Kenniwak and Youvanna’s tribe, Yua and Kaito’s village, seeding us in the past so that we would one day be ready to complete the ritual for him.

“And finally, he turned us all loose, so that we could go back to our towns and our tribes and our villages. And when we got there, we found that we were restless and unsatisfied with the way the world around us was. We found that we wanted to change the things that were happening, not just to ourselves, but to each other. We found that we had a thirst that water couldn’t sate, a hunger that food couldn’t satiate. So, Astrid and I went looking for answers, and the four of you began to fight.

“What we discovered, when we followed the path all the way to the end, was a weapon. A weapon that only the six of us could ever wield. A power that no other human can possess. Once we complete the ritual, the seven of us will have the power of demigods. The monarchs’ armies will face no chance against us. We will be able to cut them down just by thinking about it.”

“All it will cost us is everything,” Yua said.

“Correct,” I said. “But it’s all of us or none of us. All of us have to agree to perform the ritual together. All of us have to make the decision to give up our humanity, and, in doing so, turn our vengeance upon the monarchs and their armies.”

“Any one of us can block,” Astrid said. “We’re looking for unanimity, consensus.”

“How could any of us possibly say yes to this?” Youvanna asked. “You ask too much of us.”

“Yes,” Kenniwak said.

Youvanna looked at him as though she didn’t recognize him.

“If it means an end to the monarchs and their armies, I have no choice but to accept. They’ll kill our people, they’ll poison our land and water. I’d rather lose myself than to let them go on one more day.”

“Me too,” Yua said.

Kaito closed his eyes.

“The monarchs can’t be allowed to go on,” she said. “They’re a curse on this planet. And I will give up my life to stop them.”

“Kenniwak,” Youvanna said. “Please, think about this. We can keep fighting.”

“I don’t want to fight forever,” Kenniwak said. “The armies will keep coming. They’ll send more and more soldiers until we can’t hold them back. They’ll push us back to the desert, back to the coast. They’ll hunt us until we’re all dead. If there’s a chance to end this now, I say we take it.”

Youvanna looked defeated. She moved to the doorway and knelt down in it, holding her hands in front of her.

“If Kenniwak is in, then I’m in as well,” she said.

Astrid and I looked to Kaito.

“Stop looking at me,” he said, waving a hand in front of his face. “I can feel you looking at me.”

“Are you in?” I asked.

“Of course I am,” he said. “I can’t let you lot have all the fun.”

“Then it’s agreed,” I said. “We will complete the ritual.”

“Agreed,” Astrid said.

“Agreed,” Kaito and Yua said.

“Agreed,” Kenniwak and Youvanna said.

And so we made another covenant.

Astrid went to the new world to collect Kenniwak and Youvanna. The new world was in the midst of a war, and Kenniwak was difficult to track down through the countryside. Her dark skin made traveling undisturbed easier, as the indigenous peoples recognized she was not an enemy. The provided food and shelter for her, and showed her where she needed to go to find the siblings. She traveled farther and farther west, sometimes south toward the bay, sometimes north toward the great forests, sometimes into the vast desert. She was beginning to think that she’d never find them, and then one evening she awoke to find them sitting in her tent.

“Don’t scream,” Youvanna said.

“I won’t,” Astrid said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“We’ve heard,” Kenniwak said. “A dark-skinned woman has been travelling the continent searching for us amidst a war. They say you walk fearlessly across the battlefield and bullets curve to avoid you.”

“They embellish,” Astrid said. “I’ve gotten lucky, is all.”

“Why come here?” Youvanna asked.

“You didn’t answer our recent letters,” Astrid said. “We assumed you hadn’t received them.”

“We had received them,” Kenniwak said. “We’ve just been too busy to write back.”

“Understandably,” Astrid said. “But Amelia and I need your help back in Aelin’s Wall, and I was hoping you would accompany me back.”

“It’s a bad time,” Kenniwak said. “Could we join you after the war?”

“Amelia and I might have a way to end the war,” Astrid told him. “But we would need your help.”

“That is interesting,” Kenniwak said. “Could you elaborate?”

“I’m afraid I can’t at this time,” Astrid said. “We still don’t know how much of what we’ve read is speculation and how much is – real seems like an imprecise word, but I’m sure you know what I mean.”

“We do,” Youvanna said. “We’ve seen similar things since we’ve left the manor of Dr. Lyman. We’ve seen ourselves in cave paintings thousands of years old. We’ve heard our names called by birds migrating overhead. Somewhere out there in the woods, a presence has watched us, called to us using an ancient tongue we should not recognize, but do.”

“What’s really going to boggle your mind later is the question of causality,” Astrid said. “Does the thing in the woods know who you are because of what happened at the manor of Dr. Lyman, or did the thing in the woods always know who you are, and that’s how you ended up at the manor. Did you appear on those cave paintings because the doctor infused us all with lunaria, or did the doctor infuse us with lunaria because you appeared in those cave paintings. How much of our lives was written forward from our own actions, how much was preordained, and how much has been written in retrospectively because of what happened to us that night.”

“You think that something we do in the future could shape our lives in the past?” Kenniwak asked.

“I think it already has,” Astrid told him. “Based on everything that Amelia and I have uncovered so far.”

Kenniwak was silent for several seconds.

“The fact remains that It would be impossible for me to leave our lands right now,” Kenniwak said. “The fighting is too great, the danger to my people too great. If I leave, people will die.”

“Then let us stay until this area is secure,” Astrid said. “We can drive back the forces of the monarchs until it is safe, and then you’ll accompany back to Aelin’s wall.”

Youvanna looked to Kenniwak, and Kenniwak looked to Youvanna.

“That’s agreeable to us,” Youvanna said. “The forces of the monarchs are preparing for a surprise blitz attack against us in a few nights at the pine ridge. They plan to send a faction of their men in under the guise of peace, to attempt to trade with us, and while we are distracted by that faction, to attack us from behind.”

“How do you know this?” Astrid asked.

“I have people inside the armies of the monarchs,” Youvanna said. “They are sympathetic to us and hope to join our tribes if the monarchs are defeated or driven back here. But they are few, and they cannot fight against the monarchs’ armies themselves. Only help us where they can.”

“Can we reverse the surprise attack against the monarchs’ armies?” Astrid asked. “We know where they plan to attack from, so we can get the jump on them.”

“Their numbers are too great,” Kenniwak said. “Even in a head-to-head fight, we would not be able to hold them off for long.”

“The pine ridge then,” Astrid said. “Turn the ridge and the trees into traps.”

“What are you thinking?” Youvanna asked.

“If they attack from beneath the ridge, they’ll have to travel upwards. Cut a ditch into the side of the ridge, fill it with spikes, cover it with hides or cloth. In the dark they’ll fall in.”

“And the trees?” Kenniwak asked.

“Thin rope or wire tied between them, as randomly patterned as possible. They’ll trip over the low ones, be garroted by the high ones, and get caught up in the middle ones. An old trick, but one they won’t be expecting.”

“What of the soldiers they send as distraction?” Kenniwak asked. “Should we turn them away or kill them?”

“Let them in,” Astrid said. “Make sure that they are unarmed, then position them somewhere they can see the ridge. When the fighting starts, they may panic, may even try to attack you. Any of them that are a threat can be put down. The others should be made to watch.”

“That’s quite cruel,” Youvanna said. “I’m not sure our tribe will have the stomach for it.”

“Tell them that it’s a mercy compared to the slaughter,” Astrid said.

“Not everyone will fall to traps,” Kenniwak said. “Some will slip through.”

“That’s where your guardians will have to step in,” I said. “When the pits are full of corpses and the trees bypassed, there will be a fight between your warriors and the monarchs’ armies. But it will be a fight that your people can win.”

On the opposite side of the world, I was in a mountain village searching for Kaito and Yua. It was more difficult for me, as my pale skin reminded the people of the monarchs’ armies. But I was still making slow, measurable progress every day. I knew that the couple were there, fighting against the invaders from the shadows. I could feel their presence in the skirmishes that broke out in the night, the guerrilla resistors that took their victims in the dark. A report of a storeroom set on fire, a quartermaster killed in the night. A rumor of a commander cut down during a walk through the bamboo fields. A meeting of officers interrupted by a poisoned clump of tea.

I did what I could when I saw means to. Lifting a dagger from one of the soldiers and depositing it in the hands of a villager. Leaving a flint near a barrel of gunpowder, just in case someone came by who might see the two things and form a connection in their mind. Unlatching the gate where the armies kept their horses and mules.

One night, I was on my way back to the inn when a soldier stopped me.

“I know you,” he said.

“I’m sure you don’t,” I said.

He approached me as a guard approaches someone they think they can bully, puffing out their chests, staring down their nose.

“You’ve been skulking around this village for weeks. What business do you have here, stranger?”

“I’m a traveler,” I said. “I’m just looking for my friends.”

“And what friends might those be?” he asked. “Are you one of the treacherous terrorists who have been attacking soldiers in the night?”

“Under what suspicion would you ask such a thing?” I asked. “What evidence have you for such a baseless accusation.”

“Evidence?” the guard asked. “What makes you think I would need such a thing?”

I looked to the people in the streets, but they turned away. Nobody wanted to step between us, lest they be made a target themselves.

“Step up against the wall,” the soldier said. “I’m going to search you for contraband.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” I said. “I’m not the kind of person that you can order around.”

He stepped forward and raised his hand, his knuckles almost shining in the moonlight. He brought his hand back, swinging with the weight of his entire body. From beside me, I saw a flash of metal, pushing toward the arc of the man’s swing. His hand disconnected from his wrist, fell to the ground, landed with a rustle of grass. Blood sprayed from his wrist as he screamed in pain, stumbling backwards gripping his stub, falling to the ground and pushing himself against the wall.

“It’s good to see you again, Amelia,” Yua said.

“How long have you been watching me?” I asked.

“Long enough,” Yua said.

She bent down, dragged her dagger across the guard’s neck. His screaming stopped suddenly as the life left him. Doors popped open as more guards rushed to the street to investigate the death of their comrade, while windows slammed shut as bystanders barricaded themselves inside.

“I hope you’re ready for a fight,” Yua said.

“I am always ready now,” I told her.

Our blades danced as the guards ran at us. My saber swept through the air, and there was silence. Yua’s dagger flashed in the night, and there was blood. The guards fell one by one, until the streets ran red. At the end, only one guard remained.

“Go tell your superiors what you saw here,” Yua said.

The guard dropped his sword and ran.

Yua walked me through the streets, showed me where we could cross into the shadows, out of sight from both the guards and the people of the village. We moved from the light of the lanterns to the shadows of the streets until we came upon a secret lean-to hut. In the shadows of the hut, we found Kaito. His chest and shoulder were wrapped with bandages, and his eyes were dull and tired.

“He was injured by an ambush a few weeks back,” Yua said. “I’ve been giving him a strong painkiller made from a plant of the valley at the bottom of the mountain.”

I leaned in to look at him, and he smiled.

“Amelia,” he said, as though from a drunken stupor.

“I came to collect you,” I told them. “I need you back in Aelin’s Wall.”

“You know we can’t do that,” Yua said. “Our place is here, fighting the monarchs.”

“Astrid and I may have a way to defeat the monarchs once and for all,” I said.

“How could that be possible?” Yua asked.

“With the same power that the doctor once tried to harness,” I told them. “The power of the lunaria and the moon presence.”

Yua shook her head and looked down.

“We can’t use that power,” she said. “It’s not meant for humans.”

“We’re not exactly human anymore,” I told her. “Haven’t you noticed?”

“That night changed us,” she said. “But we’re still human. We haven’t crossed that boundary into something else yet.”

“How much longer do you think you’ll be able to hold on?” I asked her.

I nodded my head at Kaito.

“You think he’ll be able to hold on while he’s under the influence?”

Her face was stern.

“I don’t want to cross that boundary,” she said. “I was born a human and I’d like to die one.”

“I’m sorry to say that the chances of that happening are virtually non-existent.”

She looked up at me.

“But we can use the power provided by the lunaria,” I said. “We can at least do something good for the world before we lose ourselves.”

On two sides of the great ocean, Astrid and I began to have a remarkably similar conversation at the same time.

“Can I ask you a question?” Yua asked.

“Do you ever feel like we never really left the manor?” Kenniwak asked.

“Sometimes I feel like those shifting ever expanding hallways kept growing until they swallowed the whole world.”

“Like they just got bigger and bigger until we couldn’t see the walls anymore, but the walls are still there.”

“I feel like we never really made it out.”

“Like this whole outside world is nothing but another one of the doctor’s illusions.”

“Like the curse took us and we never knew.”

“And now we’re here, fighting a battle that can’t be one against an enemy that’s made of smoke.”

“No matter how hard we fight it will never be enough, because it’s just a dream of an enemy superimposed on the manor.”

“We’ve felt that way many times,” Astrid and I said. “But we do know a way to deal with it. A way out of the manor, a way to snuff out our enemies, a way to set the world right.”

“But in order to do so, we need to do use the thing that made the world wrong,” Yua said.

“And in doing so, we’ll cross the line, won’t we. We won’t be able to come back.”

“Yes,” Astrid and I said.

Kenniwak and Youvanna stepped out of Astrid’s tent and whispered to each other for several minutes. Finally, they came back inside and sat down across from her.

“We’re in,” they said.

Yua took Kaito’s hand, and he squeezed her hand in his.

“We’re in,” she said.

The doctor had told us that he was from a scaling city in the middle world, a place called Villeurves, which I had never heard of. I had never heard of it, it seemed, because such a place did not exist on my world, had never existed on my world. I travelled to the middle lands, searched every sprawling city in that country. He had said that he was distantly related to one of the monarchs, so I embedded myself with their families. They did not recognize me as the revolutionary Amelia O’Doyle. It seemed they had never heard of her. They were barons, viscounts, earls and countesses. Astrid and I appeared at their royal balls and weddings, recognized, but never in danger of the nefarious scheming of those who played the games of courts.

Our search through the middle world was not fruitful in finding the doctor himself, but we did find one learned astronomer, who matched the description that the doctor had given us of his uncle and mentor. We ingratiated ourselves to him, inquiring about his studies. He would often call on us to dine with him, to deplete his stock of wine and his stores of rich meat.

One night, while laughing at one of the astronomer’s humorless jokes, I asked him.

“We haven’t been entirely honest with you,” I told him.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“When we were traveling in the new world, we came upon a man who claimed to be your nephew. A Dr. Lyman. He was a very learned individual, though quite…”

I looked to Astrid.

“Stern,” she said. “Evasive.”

“Enigmatic,” I said.

“I know not of any Dr. Lymans,” the astronomer said. “Though I do have many nephews. It’s possible that one of them may be a Dr. Lyman.”

“We don’t think he was ever your nephew,” I told the astronomer. “We think that he may have used you to pay for his education. May have even used your libraries, your research. See, we’ve been searching for the doctor for a couple years now, and we don’t believe he was a royal at all. But he was certainly treated like a royal while he was here. Maybe a distant nephew shows up at your door one day, maybe he has a document showing his royal lineage. He says that he’s studying blood ministrations, but that he and his branch of the family have fallen on hard times. Says that he’s petitioning you for enough money to study the effect of lunaria on humans suffering from what some cultures call blood sickness, others call spirit sickness, but which should more accurately be called Moon or Lunar sickness. And he joins you at your observatory on Ockal, where he endears himself to you. And after all, he’s your nephew. Why shouldn’t you share your resources with him. Get him his credentials, get him set up in his practice, even fund his expedition to the new world.”

The astronomer was silent for a while.

“I know the man you speak of,” he said. “He did indeed present himself as one of my nephews, did indeed petition me for his certification, and I did indeed fund both his thesis and his expedition to the new world. But I didn’t know him as Lyman.”

“It doesn’t matter what he called himself,” I said.

“I don’t know what happened to him after he left to the new world,” the astronomer said.

“We know what happened to him after he left to the new world,” Astrid said.

“What we want to know is who he was before he was the doctor, before he was your nephew.” I explained. “Where did he come from?”

“I’m afraid I can’t recall, or if I ever really knew,” the astronomer said. “Please, drink. I’ll be back in just a moment.”

He stood up from the table and shuffled out of the room, leaving me and Astrid alone together.

“Do you think this might be a step in the right direction?” Astrid asked. “I don’t think I could stand to attend another dance.”

“I can only hope,” I said. “I’m as tired of pretending to enjoy these rich peoples’ company as much as you are.”

“Detestable creatures,” Astrid said. “They deal in death and export the misery of their industry as far across the world as they can, and they can’t even have the decency to be interesting. Dancing and games and talking, always talking about nothing, clinging to the shallowest of artistry and pastimes. I feel like I lose a little bit of myself every time they talk to me. ‘Oh Astrid, what book do you have your face buried in this morning?’ It doesn’t matter because you haven’t read it, none of you have ever read it. Libraries filled with books, and not a one with the spine so much as cracked.”

“I know, my love,” I told her. “I feel the same. I’d draw a dagger across each one of their throats if I could. But we have to play nice, at least for now. We can’t afford to make a move. At least until we have all of the information we need.”

The astronomer returned, and in front of me he placed a large wooden coin, about the size of my palm.

“The man who called himself my nephew gave me this coin when he left my estate for the last time. He said that it was payment for all I’d done for him. He said that one day it would pay for itself.”

He sat back down and looked at my face, waiting for a spark of recognition or sudden insight,

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” he asked.

“Something like it,” I said. “They’re passed around in circles of wyrd and esoteric knowledge to mark a society or cult that a person belongs to.”

“Is that what it is?” he asked. “Can you tell from this coin which society or cult our doctor might have belonged to?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t,” I said. “But I may be able to track it. Would you mind if I take this with me?”

“Please do,” the astronomer said. “You two have given me the gift of your company for so many weeks, it’s the very least that I can do.”

“You’re too kind,” Astrid said. “Were that the rest of your family was as you are.”

“The world would be a better place if more royals were like you,” I said. “Perhaps there’s another world where they’ve chosen not to fight these wars in the east and west.”

“I’ve never seen a world like that in the stars,” the astronomer said. “But I wish for a world such as that myself some days.”

We took the coin and traced it south, from point to point. An antiquities dealer told us about a librarian, who told us about a repairer of reputations. We moved from city to city, town to town, outpost to outpost.

In the city of Carcosa, we met in the dimly lit office of a sin eater. The man looked as though we had just woken him up, his eyes tired, his body shivering though it was not cold. He wore ashes under his eyes and paint on his bottom lip.

“What are you searching for?” he asked.

“The man who once owned this coin,” I told him, offering it to him.

He took the coin and rubbed it beneath his fingers.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of these,” he said. “How much?”

“It’s not for sale,” I said.

“Everything’s for sale,” he said. “The monarchs have made sure of that. How much do you want for it?”

“We aren’t selling it,” Astrid said. “But we might trade it.”

“I do love a good trade,” the sin eater said. “What are you trading it for?”

“If you can tell us where the man who once owned it came from, or which society or cult he might have taken it from.”

The sin eater laughed a strange laugh, a laugh full of malice and vitriol.

“Tell me, what was the name of the man who owned this coin?” the sin eater asked. “Or, I guess I should say, what did he call himself when he was known to you?”

“He called himself Lyman,” I said.

“Dr. Lyman,” Astrid said.

“Ooh, Dr. Lyman, you have been a bad boy, haven’t you?” He held the coin under his nose and inhaled as if it was the sweetest perfume. “Tried to tear open a hole in the firmament of our world, all for a little immortality and a bit of cosmic power. A sin that big will last me quite a while.”

He opened his eyes and looked at us as though we were interrupting him.

“How far back do you want me to go?” he asked.

“Before Ockal,” I said.

“As far back as you can go,” Astrid said.

“We want to know where he came from.”

“Well I can’t tell you where he was born,” the sin eater said. “All babes are innocent, unfortunately.”

He stuck his tongue out and licked the coin, then licked his lips and closed his eyes.

“There’s an island to the south. It’s a large island with a fishing village. And on that island, there’s a house in which a family died. I’m not sure how they died, but the doctor didn’t kill them. I see him there, living in those rooms. He has people who listen to him, people who follow his orders. Why do they follow him? They have no reason to. He does not command their respect, he does not hold a position that makes him worth their listening to him. He has no money. Why do they follow him?”

“Can you tell if they are really people?” I ask. “In the new world, he staffed his manor with beasts.”

“Beasts made men,” the sin eater said. “Ooh, delicious. Old magic, older even than mine. And made to act as servants. But no, these are men, flesh and blood like the three of us. Well, like me at least.”

“Keep going,” I said. “Tell us what you can.”

“The people of this island, they have dedicated themselves to this one man for some reason, and I cannot tell why. But it is important to them that he is cared for. They want him to learn, they want him to be successful in whatever his mission is. Wait, this is strange.”

He put the coin down on his desk.

“The people of this island, they want for the doctor to ascend. They want him to breach the firmament.”

“Why would they possibly want that?” Astrid asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting that.”

“Can you point this island out on a map for us?” I asked. “If you please.”

“Of course,” the sin eater said. “You can take one of mine.”

He placed a map on the desk between us and used a quill to circle the island in question. It sat in the southern sea between the three continents, the center of the known world.

“Thank you,” I said. “Keep the coin. We’ll take our leave.”

“Oh no, thank you,” the sin eater said, almost giddy at his payment.

We moved as far south as we could, then as far east as we could until we ran up against the sea, and there we hired a boat to take us to that island.

“You’re sure you want to go to that island?” the ferryman asked.

“We’re certain,” I said.

He shook his head and turned away from us.

“Why are you so scared of that island?” Astrid asked.

“Used to be a town on that island,” he said. “A port, houses, even a governance. A mayor who paid his taxes, kept the ferry running. Hasn’t been a word from that town in over twenty years. I don’t suppose you two are going to see what remains of the town, what remains of the houses, what remains of the governance.”

“You’ve been out there before, haven’t you?” I asked. “Got curious and went and investigated it yourself.”

“Of course I did,” the ferryman said.

“And what did you find?” Astrid asked.

“Empty houses, empty buildings,” he said. “What do you expect to find out there?”

“Answers,” I said.

The ferryman pulled on his sheepskin jacket and started toward the ferry.

“Toss your coins in the coffers and meet me aboard,” he said. “We’ll leave soon as you’re set.”

It was only a couple of hours, and then we were there on that deserted island. To our surprise, it was a carbon copy of Yarntown. We pulled in at the familiar dock, walked down to the familiar inn. An old carriage stood rotting by the inn, one identical to that which had given me passage to the manor of Dr. Lyman now years ago.

“What does it mean?” Astrid asked. “How can this be?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I think I have an idea of where we should head.”

We told the Ferryman that if we did not return after a couple days, he was free to leave us, as we were probably dead. He said he’d wait as long as he could. Didn’t want us starving out here on account of his impatience.

We hiked the few hours up the path that it would take us to get to the mayor’s estate. There at the top of the hill, we spotted the gate crumbling in disrepair. There, the half-circle road in front of the estate, for greeting visitors. There, the foyer, a great statue of what must have once been a mayor, an abacus in one hand and a looking glass in the other. The familiar halls, the books in the library, the furniture rotting with age, still visibly the beds that we lay in, the chairs that we sat in, the tables we dined at.

“It’s all here,” Astrid said. “He remade it all, every last piece.”

“Just as he remembered it,” I said. “Yarntown. The manor. Was any of it ever real, or was it just a memory? The doctor’s dream of this place?”

“What are we supposed to find here?” Astrid asked.

“Let’s check the important places,” I said. “The doctor’s room, the dining room, the library, the observatory.”

The doctor’s room was exactly as it had been, with the exception of the corpse in the bed. The heavy musk of decay hung over the room like a too fragrant candle. The dining room contained just a table and empty casks of what must have once been the sweetest wine on the island. The library was full of books which had not been touched in two decades. The observatory was empty and quiet.

“Maybe we should come back when the moon is full?” Astrid suggested.

I grunted something in response. It was not a bad idea, but it didn’t feel right.

We swept the house one more time, searching room by room, flashes of memory lighting up with every room. I had been in every room of this house. How was it I could not find what I was looking for, what I was supposed to find there, what I needed to know, needed to remember. How much longer would I have to wait to find the answers I sought?

Finally, I peeked into a room and found myself stuck there, staring through the open door. Across the room from me was a broken mirror, and underneath that broken mirror I could make out the shapes of something drawn with charcoal across the wall.

Astrid walked past me, then, sensing me not moving with her, turned back. She pushed open the door that I was staring through and looked in to see what I had found.

Together, we crossed the room. I drew my old pistol from its holster, where it had lived for years, and used the butt of it to knock loose the remaining pieces of the mirror until the drawing beneath was visible.

“Seven years bad luck,” Astrid commented absently.

“Add it to my tab,” I said.

I used my saber to cut the drawing from the wallpaper, and rolled it into a cylinder, wrapped with some twine, and carried it back to the ferry.

We retraced our steps across the continent, west, north, north and north and north until we reached our little house at Aelin's Wall and hung that drawing upon the wall, where we could study it.

Six figures, three on one side, three on the other, standing robed around a ritual altar. And in the center of them, something that might have been the thing from the moon.

“Is it time?” Astrid asked.

“Almost,” I told her. “Almost.”